The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 11

The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 11

About two years after his arrival in Moscow, Ivan made an expedition

to Nicolofsky to visit his old friends. Although scarcely sixteen,

he already considered himself, and was considered by others, quite

grown up. The young Russian of that day ripened early into manhood:

fifteen was a usual age for entering the army, and education was then

considered complete. Still, though he thought himself old enough for

any adventure, Ivan might have postponed his journey for another year,

had not the proprietor of a neighbouring estate, who was going to spend

the summer at his country house, obligingly offered him a seat in his

carriage.

 

He had provided himself with gifts for all his friends, and ransacked

the “Silver Row” in the Great Bazaar for the prettiest ear-rings and

bracelets he could procure for Anna Popovna. The welcome he received

was everything that could be desired--affectionate, enthusiastic, and

admiring. There was but one exception. Michael Ivanovitch scowled upon

him with undisguised ill-humour. He would like to know what brought him

there, he was heard to mutter; adding that the less boyars and mujiks

had to say to one another the better for both. Otherwise, his visit was

a complete success. He returned to Moscow fancying himself desperately

in love with Anna Popovna, and the hero of one of his favourite

romances, in which princes sighed for shepherdesses and queens wedded

clowns. An attack of fever, which he had shortly afterwards, and which

kept him for some time confined to the house, gave him leisure to

indulge his dreams and reveries.

 

As he grew older, the works of Voltaire and Diderot began to replace

in his esteem the flimsy, unreal productions of the novelists. M.

Thomassin’s only genuine love was a love of pleasure, his only genuine

hatred a hatred of religion. Consequently he taught his pupils just

enough to make them sensualists and scoffers like himself. He bid fair

to succeed as completely with Ivan as he had done with Adrian and Leon

Wertsch; indeed Ivan would probably go farther than they, because his

nature was stronger and his character more energetic. What has no root

is easily displaced. The religion of Ivan’s early years was a mere

superstition, a matter of outward forms and observances; therefore,

when he ceased to attach importance to these, he lost everything. “From

him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he _seemeth to

have_.” There was no mental conflict, there were no keen and bitter

searchings of heart. From a dead faith he glided almost insensibly into

a dead scepticism, and by neither the faith nor the scepticism had the

profound slumber of his soul been at any time disturbed.

 

He continued to attend the numerous church services because others

did so, and because the exquisite music (in the Greek Church entirely

vocal) and the gorgeous ceremonial gratified his taste. He also

observed, at least as strictly as those around him, the long and severe

fasts of the Church; availing himself, however, of such evasions as

were sanctioned by custom: “name days,” for example, which happened to

fall in Lent were sure to be honoured with a double measure of feasting.

 

Meanwhile his emotional nature craved excitement and his mind needed

occupation. Genuine, earnest study under a competent teacher he

would have thoroughly enjoyed; but the Greek and Latin lessons with

which M. Thomassin supplemented his instructions in French were very

superficial and perfunctory. Fortunately he had another master for

Polish and German; and with these languages he took some pains, because

a knowledge of them was necessary in order to obtain a commission in

the army. But even in these his interest was slight; for at present he

found the attractions of the ballroom and the gaming-table far more

powerful than those of the library.

 

The narrow world of pleasure in which he lived thrilled but faintly to

the shock of those mighty impulses that were moving the great world

around him. Now and then he heard the strife of many tongues which

accused the Czar of blindness for having made peace with Napoleon at

all, and of weakness for keeping that peace in spite of numberless

provocations. In those days, any one who heard the talk of the _salons_

in Moscow and St. Petersburg might have thought it the easiest thing in

the world to measure swords once more with the conqueror of Austerlitz.

Ivan shared the sentiments of those around him, and accordingly he

was overjoyed when at last, in defiance of Napoleon, the ukase was

published which reopened the trade with England under the protection

of neutral flags, and foreign luxuries appeared once more upon the

table of the noble, while foreign gold glided quickly into the purse

of the merchant. He shared, too, the universal indignation at

Napoleon’s atrocious spoliation of the Duke of Oldenburg, the Czar’s

brother-in-law, perhaps the most flagrant of his many violations of the

Treaty of Tilsit. Ivan was breathing an atmosphere highly charged with

electricity, and full of the indications of an approaching storm; but

he knew not the signs of the times. Besides, how was it possible that

he, whom competent judges were calling the best dancer in Moscow, and

who was the acknowledged favourite of fortune at all games of hazard,

could disquiet himself about the designs of Napoleon and the prospect

of a war with France?

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII.

 

“ON THE EDGE OF THE STORM.”

 

“Still the race of hero-spirits

Pass the lamp from hand to hand;

Age from age the words inherits--

‘Wife, and child, and fatherland!’”

 

 

Years came and went, changing the “little lord” of Nicolofsky into

the graceful, handsome young nobleman, the ornament of the ball-rooms

of Moscow. Ivan Ivanovitch--as he was usually called by his numerous

friends, such use of the father’s Christian name being accounted

the best style and the highest courtesy in Russian society--had now

completed his education. He spoke French, the French of the _salons_,

in perfection; he played the violin; he danced with exquisite grace; he

was an adept at cards and loto.

 

This last accomplishment was a dangerous one. Diderot’s famous

saying, “Russia is rotten before she is ripe,” had but too much truth

in its application to the higher classes. A superficial foreign

civilization too often covered without eradicating the barbarism from

which the nation was only emerging, and thus the vices of the one

state of society were added to those of the other. In the brilliant

circles where Ivan moved, no form of vice was rare, except perhaps

intemperance. The noble did not usually misuse his champagne as grossly

as the mujik did his vodka; but this was the only particular in which

he set his poorer brother a good example.

 

The most fashionable vice of the Russian nobility at this period was

the perilous excitement of the gaming-table. In this, as in other

things, the licentious court of Catherine II. had been to the whole

empire a very seed-plot of corruption. It is recorded that on one

occasion the Empress herself had been unable to obtain a glass of

water, so engrossed were pages, equerries, ladies-in-waiting, even

grooms and porters, with their cards and their dice. Things were

altered now. Alexander neither played himself, nor permitted any one to

play for money within the precincts of his palace; but when once evil

seed has been sown, who can eradicate the crop that springs from it?

 

Adrian Wertsch was now a tchinovik; that is to say, he had obtained

a place under government which gave him an official tchin, or rank,

corresponding to a particular grade in the army, the standard of

all honour under the military despotism of the Czars. Leon had a

commission, and had recently joined his regiment. Like every one else,

he was greatly excited by the prospect of the war with France; but,

like nearly every one, he thought the vast army Napoleon had been

collecting was intended to winter in Germany, and that the grand drama

for which all the world was looking with strained eyes and eager hearts

would not be played out until the following summer.

 

About Ivan’s future there was some perplexity, but of a kind which no

one was in a hurry to solve. His education had begun very late, and

his present life of elegant dissipation was very pleasant. Still, when

Count Rostopchine became Governor of Moscow, early in 1812, Ivan’s

friends thought it well to present him, acquainting the count with his

position as the penniless heir of a great though proscribed name. But

Rostopchine was a Russian of the old school, in whom the proverbial

“Tartar” was very near the surface. He surveyed Ivan critically, from

his perfumed hair to his silk stockings and jewelled shoe-buckles, and

muttered contemptuously, as he turned away, “Dandified French coxcomb!”

To Count Rostopchine the French, with all their works and ways, were

anathema.

 

Ivan’s heart was not broken by this repulse, though he took his revenge

for it in a clever lampoon, much applauded in the _salons_. He plunged

the more madly into every form of excitement and dissipation. For a

while fortune continued to smile upon him, and all things went well;

his heart was glad, his laugh light, and his step elastic.

 

But a bitter hour came at last. One night the debts scored against him

upon the gaming-table grew and grew, until the total became absolutely

alarming. Of course he was plied with the usual arguments, “Go on;

your fortune will change,--you will retrieve all;”--and, of course,

he yielded. The fascination of companionship was upon him, and the

yet more potent spell of champagne completed his infatuation. So far

as he was able to reflect at all, the very thoughts that ought to

have checked his madness only stimulated it. He could not bear that

his associates should taunt him with cowardice, but it was still more

intolerable that they should suspect him of poverty. The fear made him

desperate, and he went on wildly and recklessly, lavishly increasing

his stakes, lest any one should surmise the truth--that he was risking

more than he possessed. But at last that very fear arrested him when

on the brink of ruin. Seeing him so heavy a loser, his friends came

forward with offers of assistance, which they urged, nay, even pressed

upon him. But he rejected all. Not to these would he become a debtor;

for what hope could he entertain of repaying them? There was only _one_

in all the world to whom he could turn for real help in the hour of

need.

 

It was not until the next morning that he fully realized his position.

He awoke unrefreshed from a short feverish sleep, and drank the tea

his valet brought him, but could not eat Fortunes ten times larger

than the whole sum of his debts changed hands continually over the

card-tables of Moscow and St. Petersburg. But all things go by

comparison, and what would have been little indeed to the lord of

broad lands and toiling serfs, was much to the “merchant’s pensioner,”