The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 2
“Let her say so, then.--Is that true, Anna Popovna? Didst thou not
promise me yesterday, after church, that I should swing thee to-day--I,
and no one else?”
Thus appealed to, the little girl behaved very like a grown-up daughter
of Eve. She pouted, blushed, stammered, and seemed to hesitate between
her two cavaliers, neither of whom she wished to offend. At length she
said, “If you wanted so much to swing me, why were you not here in
time, Michael Ivanovitch?”
“Easy for those who have naught to do to blame those who work hard. I
had water to fetch and wood to cut for the mother,” said Michael, the
widow’s son.
“Well, it was a pity, since you stayed away so long, that you did not
stay altogether, and leave us in peace,” Anna rejoined in a pettish
tone.
This exasperated Michael, and not without reason, if all were told.
“You did not say that to me, Anna Popovna,” he cried, “when I went to
seek you in the snowstorm, you and your brother the Popovitch, and lost
my left ear to save you.” Then he turned fiercely upon Ivan, as upon a
foe more worthy of his wrath: “It is all your fault, Ivan Barrinka. I
am quite tired of you and of your pride. Lord though you may be, you
shall not lord it over me. And, after all, who knows who and what you
are? I’m sure I don’t. Do you know yourself? Answer me that. Whose son
are you?”
“It is you who are proud, Michael Ivanovitch. Since that wonderful
snowstorm you were out in there has been no bearing with you. One would
think, from the airs you give yourself, that no one ever had an ear
frozen before.”
By this time the loud voices had attracted the attention of the other
boys. Leaving their swings, they came crowding around; and as soon as
they understood the cause of the dispute, they all turned with one
accord upon Michael, threatening him with condign punishment if he did
not forthwith let Barrinka have his way, whatever that way might be.
But Barrinka no longer cared for the pastime. Michael’s taunt, “Who
knows who and what you are?” had struck home. From infancy the pet
and plaything of the village--every wish anticipated, every caprice
borne with, he had been surrounded with an atmosphere of deferential
affection. He could not but know that he differed from all around
him; a mystery hung about his birth, which, through injudicious and
mistaken kindness, had been neither wholly concealed nor yet frankly
revealed to him. All his little playfellows had fathers and mothers.
It is true they were beaten sometimes, while _he_ was never beaten.
Still, it seemed to him a strange thing to have no father or mother.
He called the starost, or elder of the village, in whose house he had
been brought up, “bativshka” (little father), and his wife, “mativshka”
(little mother), but that was not by any means the same as having a
father and mother of his own.
“Take the swing if you like it,” he said to Michael. “I care nothing
about it. I shall do something by-and-by much better than anything you
have ever done in your life.”
Leaving the children behind him in the wood, he bent his steps
homeward, regardless of the regretful looks sent after him by blue-eyed
Anna Popovna, who saw that her little cavalier was sorely vexed, and
would gladly have comforted him. Two longings filled his childish
heart,--to be able to tell Michael and everybody who he was, and to
be the hero of an adventure more wonderful than Michael’s wanderings
through the snow in search of the priest’s children. Michael had been
out in a snowstorm and lost an ear! In comparison with such a hero the
little lord felt himself a very child.
He soon came in sight of the double row of brown wooden cottages that
called itself Nicolofsky. These cottages, or izbas, were built of the
trunks of trees laid one over the other, with the interstices stuffed
with moss. There was a church, also of wood, but larger and better
built, with a bell suspended from a fine elm tree close to it. Two of
the izbas were better than the rest, and belonged, one to the starost,
the other to the pope, or parish priest, Anna’s father. That of the
starost boasted a porch, with ornamental wooden pillars and quaint
carvings. It had a substantial chimney built of good bricks, and secure
well-glazed windows to keep out the intense cold of the Russian winter.
Indeed all the cottages were more comfortable than they looked.
Ivan entered, and dutifully made his bow, as he had been taught to
do, to the holy picture which hung in the corner, with a lamp burning
before it, since this was a feast-day. The contents of the izba were
extremely simple. The most conspicuous object was the stove, with a
wide shelf or platform over it, upon which the family usually slept;
a handsome carved chest contained the clothing used upon festive
occasions, and there were besides a few stools, a table, an arm-chair,
and some wooden cups, platters, and cooking utensils. The vapour-bath,
that indispensable Russian luxury, occupied an outhouse.
An old woman stood over the fire, diligently stirring a capacious
caldron, from which there issued a very savoury steam. The family the
starost had to feed was not a small one,--three grown-up sons, with the
wife and child of one of them, found shelter beneath his roof.
“You are cooking tschi for our supper, mativshka,” said Ivan.
“And what better dish could I be cooking, my little dove? ‘For tschi,
folk wed,’ says the proverb.”
“When I am old enough I will wed Anna Popovna.”
“Hush! hush! My darling must not talk so. He is worth a thousand
Popovnas.”
“One-eared Michael does not think that.”
“Who cares for one-eared Michael?”
“But, mativshka, to-day he asked me who I was, and I--I had no answer.”
“No answer! Why, every one knows who you are. You are our dear little
lord.”
“But whose son am I, mativshka? That was what he wanted to know.”
“Ask the father, boy, ask the father. As for me, why, ‘A word is not a
bird: if it flies out, you’ll never catch it again.’”
Old Feodora would not have thought it any harm to put her nursling off
with a string of falsehoods, if they had occurred to her at the moment,
or if she had thought them necessary; for these poor, “dimly-lighted
souls” had little idea of the value of truth. But Ivan’s history was
now so much an “open secret” in the village, that she saw no reason why
the boy should not know it himself, since he was twelve years old, and
very intelligent. Still, she was afraid to tell him anything without
her husband’s knowledge and concurrence.
Soon afterwards the starost came in--an imposing and venerable figure,
his long, gray beard nearly covering the breast of his caftan. He would
have parted with his head quite as readily as with that beard.
As soon as he had made his reverence to the sacred picture, seated
himself in his chair by the stove, and exchanged his formidable
(and fragrant) boots of Russia leather for a pair of lapti, or bark
slippers, Ivan stood up before him, and put the question directly,
“Bativshka, whose son am I?”
“Great St. Nicholas! what has come to the boy?” the starost exclaimed;
then he looked perplexed, and hesitated for an answer. His wife leaned
over the back of his chair and said a few words in a low voice, and
a whispered discussion followed, during which Ivan waited patiently.
Presently Feodora returned to her cooking; and the starost solemnly
crossed his breast with the thumb and two fingers of his right hand,
then taking from his pocket a medal with the effigy of his patron saint
upon it, he brightened it with a rub against his sleeve, and said a
prayer to it, or to the personage it represented. Having thus prepared
himself, he told Ivan to sit down at his feet.
“My child,” he said, “since you wish to know, I will tell you to-day
what name you have a right to bear; but pray to your saint day and
night that the knowledge may work you no harm.”
“Why should it work me harm, bativshka? Is it that I am the son of a
bad man?”
“God only knows that. What I know is that you are the son of our lord
and master.”
“Not of Zoubof! no, no!” cried Ivan, wondering.
The old man replied by a gesture of supreme contempt: “_Zoubof!_ He
is of yesterday. Such as he come and go and are forgotten, like last
year’s snow. But you, Ivan Barrinka, you are the son of our true lord,
our master in God’s sight--a great boyar,[1] a prince who can trace his
lineage back to the days of Rurik. Yes; you are the son of”--here he
paused and bowed his gray head reverently--“of Prince Pojarsky.”
Ivan was impressed by the solemn tone in which these words were spoken.
He waited in silence for a few moments, then he questioned in a low
voice, “And who is Prince Pojarsky?”
“He and his have been the lords of Nicolofsky and the lands around
it for generations and generations, even before the old times when
the Poles conquered Muscovy. But in the days of the great Czarina
Catherine, who rests with God, our lord and your father, being a
young man, full of pride and loving pleasure, must needs go forth
to travel in strange lands. For you must know, Ivan Barrinka, that
there are other lands in God’s world besides holy Russia, and that
the peoples thereof do not obey our lord the Czar, but have kings
and rulers of their own. This is hard to believe; but Pope Nikita
says so, and, moreover, the soldiers tell us of them when they come
back from the wars. Besides, I have seen Nyemtzi[2] myself--Frenchmen
and Frenchwomen, who had not a word of good Russian, but spoke an
outlandish tongue of their own. What is sad to think, our lord and your
father not only went amongst these foreigners, but gave his hand in
marriage to one of them. Not that I have anything to say against the
beautiful, gracious lady, your mother. The good saints rest her soul!
Mativshka loved her well, and God knows she served her faithfully. But
amongst her kinsfolk must have been some who were the devil’s children;
for they rose against their own king, and, horrible to tell! they slew
him. Moreover, they did not do it secretly and in darkness, but openly,
in the face of day, on a scaffold, as if he had been a thief or a
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