The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 3

The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 3

Ivan answered not a word. As one overpowered, he threw himself face

downwards on the earthen floor, and lay there absorbed in thought.

But at last he raised his wondering, child-like face, full of the

brightness of a new idea. “Bativshka, people sometimes come back from

Siberia, do they not?”

 

The old man shook his head. “They who go are as the sand,” he said;

“they who come back may be reckoned on your fingers.”

 

“But I remember the time of the Czar’s coronation--four--five years

ago, was it? I was quite a little boy then. Many exiles came home from

Siberia; and you went to the Moscow road to see them pass, and the

people wept for joy, you said. I wanted to go, but you would not bring

me, saying I was too young. If these exiles came back, then why not my

father?”

 

“Ah, you cannot understand. That was quite another matter. The late

Czar, Paul Petrovitch, who reigned after the Czarina Catherine, was

somewhat stern and hard. Doubtless God sent him to punish the great

nobles for their sins. He banished many of them to Siberia; but the

Czar that now is, whom God preserve! pardoned them all, and let them

return home. Yet some offences there be that find no pardon ever,

except in the grave;--and to the exile’s resting-place the grave is

always near.”

 

Ivan’s next thought was a more childish one. “Bativshka,” he said,

after another silence, “I should like to tell all this to Anna Popovna

and to Michael Ivanovitch. Still, although I am the son of a boyar

and a prince,” he added presently, “I shall not be quite happy, not

_quite_, until I have taken a longer journey than ever Michael did, and

have had something happen to me much more wonderful than getting frozen

and losing one of my ears.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II.

 

IVAN’S ADVENTURE.

 

“Adventures are to the adventurous.”--CONINGSBY.

 

 

Ivan Barrinka, or Ivan Pojarsky, as he may now be called, was a

genuine child of Russia. His nature was quick, mobile, restless,

passionate. He was capable of strong determination, but capable also of

changefulness and inconstancy, because the mood of the moment always

seized upon and swayed his whole soul. But he was all this only in the

germ, for his was as yet the unawakened, undeveloped mind of a child.

The simple-hearted guardians of his infancy had given him all they

could--food, shelter, and tenderness; and this not only without hope

of reward, but during some years under absolute terror of discovery

and punishment. But they could not give him the instruction to which

his intelligent mind would have so eagerly responded. No one in the

village, except the priest, knew the mysteries of the Russian alphabet;

and Pope Nikita, like most Russian priests, was in no real sense a

pastor or a teacher, but rather a machine for performing the numerous

ceremonies of his Church. All that could be said in his favour was,

that if he did little good, he did little harm. Neither from him nor

from the starost did Ivan learn any religion except a series of outward

acts and postures, of bowings and crossings, and formal repetitions of

“Gospodin pomilvi,”[4] with a respect for sacred pictures, and a vague

reverence for God, for the saints, and for the Czar. He never dreamed

that any of these mysterious, far-away powers should influence his

daily conduct, though he did believe that his patron St. John (Ivan is

the Russian form of John) might help him in a time of need; because,

when he had the measles, a picture of the saint had been blessed by

the pope and laid on his breast, and straightway he began to recover!

It was mournfully significant of the kind of instruction he received,

that he had but one and the same word to designate the divine Being and

the “gods of silver and gods of gold” that too often, in the popular

estimation, usurped His place. If any one had asked him, “Who made

you?” he would have answered, “Bog;” and had the question followed,

“What is that in the corner, before which the candle is burning?” he

would still have replied, without hesitation, “It is Bog.”

 

A few childish legends of the saints, a few stories of “kiki-noras” or

goblins, formed the staple of the “folk lore” that circulated round

the stove during the long winter evenings. The Bible narratives, so

familiar and so fascinating to the English child, were almost unknown

to Ivan; nor did exploits of the heroes of his own country hold the

place they sometimes do on the lips or in the hearts of the people.

Hence, when the starost told him that he was himself the heir of one

of the noblest of Russian names, no answering chord resounded in

his heart. The revelation, that ought to have moved him so deeply,

failed of its due effect, because his ignorance did not supply the

background that was needed to throw it into relief. He had always

known that he was something other, something greater than those around

him; but beyond that he had no power of measuring social distances.

Princes, boyars, all who were not mujiks, were alike to him; just as

it seemed to him nearly the same thing to go to the Moscow road, to

Moscow itself, or even to St. Petersburg. Therefore, after spending a

little vague, half-comprehending wonder upon the starost’s story, his

mind reverted, as days went on, to what was at this period his ruling

idea--the hope of rivalling and surpassing Michael in some deed of

daring, and consequently in the regard of Anna Popovna.

 

It was not for his advantage that his kindly foster-parents never

exacted from him any of the labours that fell to the lot of the little

mujiks, his playfellows. “Prepare to die, mujik, but till the soil,”

says the Russian proverb; and certainly where there is no other

education an early apprenticeship to manual toil is rather a blessing

than otherwise. Ivan’s idle hands and restless feet were left quite at

liberty to obey all the suggestions of his active, untaught mind; while

his naturally brave disposition was rendered still more fearless from

the fact of his never having been, upon any occasion, punished or even

thwarted or reproved.

 

One summer morning, just as the first faint streaks of dawn began to

brighten the cottage window, he rose softly from his sleeping-place on

the shelf above the stove. All the rest had worked hard the day before,

and were slumbering soundly now; so he dressed himself quietly, and

going to the great carved chest lifted the heavy lid with difficulty

and took out and put on his rough sheep-skin coat, or shuba; then he

drew on his warm boots of Russia leather lined with fur; next, he cut

for himself with a hatchet a great piece of sour black bread, and tied

it in a cloth as provision for the way; lastly, he went to a secret

hiding-place of his own and transferred to his pocket his greatest

treasure--a silver rouble mativshka had given him. Having done all

this, he was hurrying forth with quick noiseless footsteps, when he

remembered an omitted duty. Returning a step or two, he took his stand

before the picture in the corner, made a reverence, and repeated a

hasty prayer; then, with a brave heart and a quiet conscience, he went

forth in search of what fate might bring him,--a little knight-errant

going to look for adventures.

 

He passed through the sleeping village, with the familiar brown

cottages on either side of him looking peaceful and homelike in the

morning twilight. The church-bell in the tall elm-tree seemed to beckon

him near; he could scarcely resist the temptation of climbing the tree,

seizing the rope, and astonishing the village with an untimely peal.

Only the reflection that this would inevitably bring his own adventure

to an abrupt conclusion stayed his hand. Leaving the houses behind

him, he passed through fields rich with waving corn, then through

pasture-lands, from which he emerged at length upon a bare, monotonous,

sandy plain. Now, for the first time, he ventured to beguile his way

with a song; and his clear, ringing, childish voice sounded far and

wide, yet failed to reach any human ear. Nor would it have fared

otherwise with a cry for help, however shrill and agonized.

 

Ivan, happily, did not think of this. Fleet of foot and light of

heart, he pursued his course, still singing as he went, until village,

corn-fields, and birch-woods were all left far behind him. And now,

wherever he looked, he saw nothing but a dreary waste of sand, with

here and there a few patches of stunted herbage, and at rare intervals

a solitary pine or a little cluster of birch-trees. The stillness was

absolute: the children of the air eschewed that land of barrenness, and

the beasts of the field seemed also to have abandoned it. None of the

gentler races that man has succeeded in taming found pasture there;

and fortunately wolves were extremely rare, though not quite unknown.

Ivan never dreamed of them; his one concern was to keep the road, for

so he called the track made by the wheels of the rude waggons which

brought the produce of the corn-fields to the river Oka. He knew that

a ferry-boat crossed the river, bringing adventurous travellers to the

great Moscow road on the other side. This road was the goal of his

ambition. As already intimated, no clear distinction existed in his

mind between the Moscow road and Moscow itself, the holy city towards

which the heart of every Russian yearned with reverent love and

passionate longing. It was their Jerusalem, “beautiful for situation,

the joy of the whole earth.” Even ignorant little Ivan had heard of its

wonders and its glories; and he fancied that if once he gained the road

he might see in the distance the gilded spires and domes of the Kremlin

gleaming in the sun. Michael had never seen so much as that, nor been

so far from home!

 

The sun, in Russia such a rare and much-prized guest, was prodigal

of his favours that day, and shone forth from a cloudless sky. Ivan

had equipped himself for a winter journey, and about noon he began to

grow hot and weary. No shelter was near him, so he sat down on the

sand, rested a little, and ate some of his bread; but he longed in

vain for a draught of kvass[5] to finish his repast, nor could he find

a single drop of water anywhere. He rose unrefreshed and pursued his

way; but, in spite of all his childish courage, the utter loneliness of

the dreary waste around him began to tell upon his spirits. He sang,

he shouted, he talked aloud to himself, merely for the comfort of

hearing his own voice; until by-and-by he became too weary for these

exercises--all he could contrive to do was to keep moving on with a

kind of dogged determination. Once and again was he tempted to turn

back and give up the adventure; indeed, he would have done so, only for

the thought, “If I come back having seen nothing, Michael will jeer me, and Anna Popovna will join in the laugh.”