The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 27

The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 27

Rostopchine’s aide-de-camp offered his hospitality, and Ivan thanked

him courteously, but inquired whether Captain Adrian Wertsch, of the

Moscow militia, was not then in the camp. The aide-de-camp answered

in the affirmative, and agreed to bring Ivan to his tent, though very

reluctantly; for he was sorry to lose the honour and pleasure of

entertaining one who could give him so many interesting details about

the French occupation of Moscow.

 

Adrian was standing outside his tent when Ivan approached, and he

greeted him with joyful astonishment, as one risen from the dead.

 

“I did not think to see your face again,” he said.

 

“Life is still left me,” returned Ivan in a broken voice; for, after so

many horrors, the sight of a familiar face proved at the moment almost

more than he could bear.

 

“Come in,” said Adrian, drawing his arm affectionately within his own.

“A good draught of champagne is what you want now.”

 

“Will you tell your orderly to take care of my friend Michael

Ivanovitch? He has behaved like a hero.”

 

“Certainly.”

 

Adrian gave a few rapid directions, then led Ivan into his tent, and

before he would listen to a word, poured for him a sparkling goblet of

the beverage which he considered a panacea for all the ills, mental and

bodily, of the noble, as vodka was for those of the mujik.

 

Ivan needed the stimulant, for he was worn out with fatigue and

excitement. He said, as he finished the draught, “You got my letter,

Adrian?”

 

“Yes. My poor mother!”

 

“No one was to blame. We did all we could, but nothing would induce her

to leave the old home; and when the French entered Moscow, the shock

was more than she could bear. We buried her honourably, by the side of

her husband, in the Church of St. Eustacius. Pope Yefim performed the

funeral services.”

 

“That was nobly done, Ivan, and I thank you most heartily.--By the way,

your friend Pope Yefim has made himself famous.”

 

“How? By remaining in the city?”

 

“By daring to celebrate, with a solemn service, the Czar’s coronation

day, under the very beard of Napoleon.[33] We have all heard of it.”

 

“He never supposed he was doing anything extraordinary. The Prior of

the Dominican Monastery, whom he consulted, agreed that he was right.

I can tell you, Adrian, that good man himself was by no means in love

with his countrymen. Though his religion is their own, and he kept his

church open the whole time of the Occupation, scarcely a Frenchman

darkened its doors, except a few officers of noble birth belonging to

the old _régime_. As a rule, the soldiers of Napoleon are infidels.

Sometimes, out of curiosity, they would stray into our churches. On

the coronation day, a poor young fellow, a mere lad, stole into Pope

Yefim’s church, and was near paying dearly for his rashness; for a

party of mujiks set upon him after the service, taking him for a spy.

They might have killed him; but--strangest chance of all--my friend

Michael, whose thoughts by day and dreams by night are only of slaying

Nyemtzi, interposed to save this one, saying he knew him, and had

received a kindness at his hands. I spoke to the youth, and he told

me he had been religiously brought up, and said the very sound of a

church-bell, and the sight of men kneeling in prayer, seemed to do him

good, though he could not understand a word of the service.”

 

“A queer taste,” said Adrian, shrugging his shoulders. Then to his

orderly, who had just entered the tent, “Bring us the best supper you

can get, and more champagne.”

 

“Adrian,” asked Ivan, “where is Leon?”

 

Adrian’s face assumed a sorrowful __EXPRESSION__. “Gone to our mother,” he

answered. “He was wounded at Borodino, though not severely. He insisted

upon going out again, and met his death in a skirmish ten days ago.”

 

Ivan felt and showed real sorrow. Of the two companions of his youth,

Leon had been his favourite, and he could not hear unmoved the tidings

of his death. “Death--death everywhere,” he murmured sadly.

 

“Come, my friend,” said Adrian kindly, “you must not give way. It is

only the fate of war. You have been so long in that horrible den of a

city that your nerves are shattered. Take some more wine.”

 

“That horrible den!” Ivan repeated. “A lair of wild beasts! Such it

has been indeed. The count, who is as hard as _this_,” laying his hand

upon Adrian’s iron camp-bedstead, “has been asking me for reports and

descriptions. I cannot describe, I can scarcely even report facts.

Picture to yourself nine-tenths of the town in ashes--or in charred

blackened ruins--with thousands of the wretched inhabitants, who could

not, or did not, make good their escape, wandering about homeless and

starving, filling the air with their lamentations. Then think of the

French, like a host of demons turned loose upon their prey, ransacking

the smoking ruins in search of plunder. I have seen the gold-laced

uniform of the general and the woollen jacket of the private side by

side, contending for the spoils of our desolated homes; while all the

dangerous classes, all the thieves and ruffians who are to be found

amongst the scum of the populace in every great city, joined them in

the horrible work and added to the confusion and misery.”

 

“Did not Napoleon shoot or hang a great number of our people?”

 

“If you call three hundred a great number; so many at least he executed

as incendiaries--and indeed most of them were taken in the act. They

died in silence, without asking for mercy, and without accusing any

one as having instigated them to the deed.”

 

“How did _you_ escape?” asked Adrian.

 

“There was little difficulty in escaping. It was easy enough to hide in

the ruins or in the cellars, many of which had been left well stocked

with provisions when the city was abandoned. But have you heard about

our wounded men?” he asked, with a return of animation, and even of

something like cheerfulness.

 

“No; I have heard nothing.”

 

“The count was obliged to leave two thousand men, who were too

desperately wounded to bear removal, concealed in the cellars of the

city. Here they managed to drag on their lives, though in a state of

extreme wretchedness. We found them out, and used to bring them food

and other comforts. That work was even more hazardous than setting the

city on fire; for discovery would have cost, not our lives alone, but

theirs. Napoleon’s last act before he left the city was to order ten

sick men, found in a cellar, to be shot.”

 

“Wretch!” cried Adrian, clenching his hand.

 

“The half has not been told you, or you would find no name to call him

by,” returned Ivan fiercely. “He has defiled our holiest sanctuaries;

he has torn open our imperial tombs; he has stabled his horses in the

church where our Czar was crowned; he has carried everything away upon

which he could lay his sacrilegious hands, even to the cross upon the

tower of Ivan Veliki, and the Tartar banners which hung as trophies in

the Arsenal. Well may Count Rostopchine curse him, as only he knows how

to curse. But those wounded--we contrived somehow to keep them alive;

and I think a goodly number may be saved yet. I asked the count not to

lose an hour in sending them succour.”

 

“I hope he has had the grace to do justice to your courage and your

exertions.”

 

“He has condescended to approve my conduct,” said Ivan with modest

satisfaction. “And now he offers me three things, by way of recompense,

as he is pleased to say. If I choose to return with him to the city,

he will give me an appointment in the civil service, with the rank

of titular counsellor, which, as you know, answers to that of senior

captain in the army.”[34]

 

“Surely you will not do that! You could not sheathe your sword _now_,”

Adrian exclaimed.

 

“So much I said to the count; and he answered that, if I pleased, he

would request the marshal to put me on his staff.”

 

“Capital! What more could you desire?”

 

“He made another proposal--to send me to the Czar with the report of

what I had seen and done.”

 

“And which did you accept?”

 

“_The last_,” said Ivan. At that moment a sound, dull, prolonged, and

loud, like distant thunder, smote upon their ears. Again it came, and

yet again, making the air tremble around them and the earth shake

beneath their feet. “What is that?” cried Ivan.

 

“Not musketry or cannon,” said Adrian, with a look of alarm and

perplexity. “We are tolerably familiar with those sounds. _This_ is

different.”

 

“More like an explosion--if so, a terrible one. Perhaps a great powder

magazine. But where?” mused Ivan.

 

Adrian hurried out in search of information, and soon returned to tell

his friend that the noise evidently came from the direction of Moscow.

More than that no one knew.

 

Morning brought the explanation. Ivan was still enjoying the profound

slumber of youth and weariness, when a brother officer of Adrian’s

rushed into the tent. “The Kremlin is destroyed!” he cried. “That demon

Napoleon had it undermined before he left, and last night it was blown

into fragments!”

 

“The Kremlin?--Impossible!” cried Adrian, who was dressing for parade.

 

“Too possible, and too true,” said his informant. “A messenger from

the city has just arrived to bring the tidings to the marshal and the

count.”Meanwhile Ivan, who had been suddenly awakened, started up in horror, exclaiming, “The Czar! oh, what will it be to _him_?”