The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 6
He crossed the river without delay--the ferry-boat and the penitent
ferryman being this time both in readiness--and then he resumed his
journey on foot. As he walked, he ate the remainder of his bread; for
he had tasted nothing that day, and it was now long past noon. With a
happy heart he pursued his way until about sunset, when fatigue obliged
him to stop and rest. He lay down under a solitary fir-tree, intending
only to indulge in a short--a _very_ short slumber. But nature
proved too strong for him: when he awoke again the sky was flushed
with the light of early dawn. The remainder of his task was quickly
accomplished: he walked into the starost’s cottage as the family were
sitting down to their morning meal of kasha, or stewed grain.
Warm was the welcome and great were the rejoicings that greeted his
appearance. The poor people had been sorely terrified by the mysterious
absence of their nursling, and they had sought him far and near,
through the birch-wood and the corn-fields, and even for some distance
in the waste. They were preparing to renew the search that day with
anxious and foreboding hearts.
Almost all Nicolofsky crowded to the starost’s cottage to congratulate
Ivan and to hear his wonderful story. Certainly, he had attained his
object, if that object was to make himself the hero of the village, and
totally and for ever to eclipse the exploits of Michael Ivanovitch!
But Ivan was no more the thoughtless little lad who set out two days
ago in search of adventures. His young heart had awakened from the
sleep of childhood; new feelings, vague and dimly comprehended, were
beginning to stir it. As he trod his homeward way, full of all the
wonders he had witnessed, a voice seemed to murmur within him, “And I,
too, am a boyar.” What did it mean to be a boyar? He had no words in
which to express his thought; but the dawning light of a grand truth,
faint and far off, shone upon him from the face of the first boyar
he had ever seen, as it bent anxiously and tenderly over the mujik’s
senseless form--that to be greater than all the rest meant to do good
to all the rest.
He told his adventures modestly and truthfully. What he had done with
his silver rouble he told no one, but he showed the gold piece that
had been given him with proud pleasure, and asked the starost to make
a hole in it, as he wished to keep it always, and to wear it on the
ribbon round his neck with the little iron cross put there at his
baptism.
He told what the priest had said to him, adding, however, “But of
course he was mocking me; no one could believe such a foolish story as
that.”
Every one present agreed with him, except Pope Nikita, who pondered
awhile, and then said thoughtfully, “Who knows? it may have been. After
all, One greater than the Czar put his hands upon the poor sick folk
and healed them.”[8]
CHAPTER IV.
IVAN’S HORIZON WIDENS.
“Behind the orphan, God himself bears a purse.”--_Russian Proverb._
No child ever dreams of being grateful for food and shelter, unless
taught by the sad experience of destitution. The little guest expects
to be welcomed to the feast of life, and even assumes that the board
has been spread on purpose for him. Ivan was no exception to the
rule: hitherto he had received the devotion and tenderness of those
around him as a matter of course; perhaps indeed he was in danger of
exacting them as a right, and of becoming, as he grew older, proud and
overbearing. But now a change had come. If he knew that he was noble,
he had also gained a glimpse of the great truth that “Noblesse oblige.”
He had begun to reflect, and to some purpose.
“Bativshka,” he said one day to the starost, “why was it you were
afraid to let the lord Zoubof or the steward Dmitri know who I was?”
“Because they might have killed you, Barrinka, out of spite and
jealousy, knowing that your father was our lord before Zoubof came.”
“But would they have done anything to _you_, bativshka, for taking care
of me?”
“Oh! as to _that_ I don’t know. Perhaps I might have had the knout.”
Ivan bent down and kissed the old man’s hand.
The next morning, when the family rose early to begin the toils of the
harvest, Ivan rose with them. “I am going to the field,” he quietly
observed, putting on his oldest garments.
All protested, especially mativshka, whose love for her foster-child
amounted to weakness.
“Dmitri and Vasil and little Peter are going, and they are all younger
than I am,” said Ivan.
“But _they_ are only little mujiks,” she answered. “They must work hard
for their bit of rye bread and their bowl of kasha. It was for that God
made them.”
“Boyars work too;--I am a boyar,” said Ivan, raising his fair head
proudly; and he went with the rest.
To do him justice, he bore himself bravely in the field, although
the unaccustomed toil wearied him quickly, and it was tantalizing to
find himself so easily outdone by Michael’s stronger limbs and more
practised hands. Yet, after all, it was no great hardship to bind the
sheaves along with Anna Popovna all the morning, and at noon to share
with her his dinner of okroshka.[9]
But harvest-time does not last for ever. At length all the sheaves were
gathered in: the wheat to be sold for the profit of the lord of the
soil; the rye to be transformed into the black bread, the kvass, the
kasha, which were the staple of the mujik’s diet;--for, as they said
themselves in one of their terse though homely proverbs, “Wheat picks
and chooses, but Mother Rye feeds all fools alike.” Then the long blank
winter settled down over Nicolofsky, which, like the rest of Russia,
“lay numb beneath the snow” for many a month in the year.
During this silent, dreary season the industrious fingers of the girls
and women found occupation in spinning and weaving. The lads too made
lapti, wove rude baskets, and prepared firewood; and these occupations
were often pursued in social gatherings, and lightened with jest and
song and story. Still there was abundant leisure, in which the young
people amused themselves with games of babshky--little pieces of mutton
bone, which they used as English children use nine-pins--while their
elders sat beside the stoves, and too often enlivened their gossip with
much vodka. In this respect, however, Nicolofsky contrasted rather
favourably with other villages, since the starost and the pope were
both temperate men and set a good example.
They were great friends, and during their long confidential talks one
question often came uppermost, What was to be done with Ivan when
he grew up? In a country like Russia, where sons almost invariably
followed the calling of their fathers, and every man’s position was
assigned him by the fact of his birth, it was peculiarly difficult to
find a niche for a waif like Ivan. A mujik, of course, he could never
be; nor a priest, since he was not a popovitch, or priest’s son; nor
a merchant, that would have been a terrible degradation for one who
was born a boyar; nor a soldier, for his village friends had not the
influence necessary to procure him a commission, while had he been
drawn for a recruit they would at once have provided a substitute. But
Ivan was not old enough to share these perplexities. The knowledge that
he was by birth a boyar, with the desire, sincere though ignorant and
wavering, to be worthy of his destiny, sufficed him for the present.
Thus two long winters passed away. A second spring had come, heralded
by the eight days of drinking and carousing which the Russians call the
Mässlanitza, or “Butter-week.” Then the long fast went slowly by. At
last came the crown of the Russian year, with Easter eggs, and joyous
greetings, and manifold festivities.
One fine evening, a few weeks after, a kibitka, or rude one-horse
vehicle, drove up to the starost’s door. Its occupant, a well-dressed
man, whose hair and beard of iron gray showed him past the prime
of life, flung the rope that served him for a rein on the horse’s
neck, and entered the izba. He first made his reverence to the sacred
picture in the corner, then courteously saluted the starost and his
wife, who, without speaking, placed some bread and salt on a carved
wooden trencher and offered them to him. He tasted both; and this
indispensable ceremony performed, he began at once to make known his
errand.
“God save you, Alexis Vasilovitch!” he said to the starost. “Do you
chance to remember in your early youth one Feodor Petrovitch, who was
born here?”
“Feodor Petrovitch?” repeated the starost, stroking his beard
meditatively.
“Feodor Petrovitch?” cried his wife. “Yes, I think _I_ remember him.
Had he coal-black hair, and eyes like an eagle’s?”
“That he had; but the hair is now snow-white, and the eagle eyes--well,
no marvel, they served him fourscore years.--I am his eldest son, Ivan
Petrovitch.”
“Ah, I too remember him now!” said the starost, “though, like my wife,
I was but a child when he went away. Many a time our old folk have told
us how our good lord, Prince Pojarsky, the last but one, took such
notice of him on account of his bright face and clever ways--how he had
him taught to read and write and to count up money. At last he took him
away somewhere, so that after he came to man’s estate Nicolofsky knew
him no more.”
“All quite true. The prince sent him to Moscow, and when his education
was finished he gave him a sum of money to trade with. My father
quickly doubled it; and, unlike most men, he brought every kopeck
honestly to his lord. ‘Go on and prosper,’ said the prince. ‘Take
that money with thee and double it again.’ He did so. Then said the
prince, ‘Feodor Petrovitch, thou hast paid me thy last obrok. From this
day thou art free.’ He divided the money into two parts, declaring
himself well satisfied with half, and leaving the other half to my
father to start with on his own account. Large hearts had the Princes
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