The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 9

The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 9

“How angry the Czar must have been!” said Ivan. “He ought to have sent

him to Siberia, to repent of his insolence.”

 

“He did not send him to Siberia, nor have I heard that he was angry. It

is the guilty who are angry, and from that stain the soul of Alexander

Paulovitch is white as the snow from heaven.--Of the necessity of

removing the Czar Paul from the government, and placing him under

restraint, there was no shadow of doubt; and to that he had given his

consent--_only to that_. When he knew what had been done, his horror

and anguish were unbounded. At last he was not so much persuaded as

compelled to take up the blood-stained sceptre which the conspirators

laid at his feet. I saw him myself, on the day of his coronation,

yonder in the Cathedral of the Assumption, and sadder face have I never

seen upon living man than that young handsome face of his. Often yet I

seem to see it, and to hear the very tones of his voice, as, kneeling

before the altar, he recited the solemn coronation prayer: ‘May I be

in a condition to answer thee without fear in the day of thy dreaded

judgment, by the merits and grace of Jesus Christ thy Son, whose

name is glorified for ever with thine, and with that of thy holy and

life-giving Spirit.’ God fulfil that prayer! Amen.”

 

A brief silence succeeded the sublime words, uttered so reverently; but

presently the old man resumed:--

 

“Six short years only have passed since then; but I charge you two, who

are children now, to lay up in your hearts the things that have been

done in them, and to tell them to your children and your children’s

children. The Czar Alexander Paulovitch has freed the Press, has

abolished the secret police, has refused to make use of spies. He has

utterly forbidden every kind of torture as a blot upon humanity. He has

also forbidden the confiscation of hereditary property.”[11]

 

“Dädushka”--it was Ivan who spoke now--“I do not understand what

you are talking about. What are those things which you say he has

forbidden?”

 

“Ah, child, I forgot. So little do you know as yet of wrong and

cruelty, that the story of the efforts to redress them falls without

meaning on your ear. But the young do well to remember much they

cannot understand. As for me, I was born a serf, like my father and my

father’s father; and these lips of mine shall be silent in the grave

ere they forget to praise Alexander Paulovitch. Before his time we were

bought and sold like the beasts of the field. You might read a notice

in the window of a shop, ‘To be sold:--An active and capable servant,

and a good milch cow. Inquire within.’ This he forbade; forbidding also

the removal of peasants from the land. He permits and encourages the

nobles to set their serfs at liberty whenever they will; and if they

are without land, he himself advances them money to purchase their

homesteads. He has deprived their lords of the dangerous privilege of

sending them to Siberia without a trial; nor dare any one, however

rich or great, use his serfs with harshness or cruelty. Amongst many

stories of his interference on behalf of the oppressed, I remember one

concerning a great lady, whose name I will not tell you, as she lives

in this city. From that love of money which the priests tell us is a

root of all evil, she neglected her sick and aged serfs, and allowed

them to suffer from want. The Czar heard of it, and he sent his own

physician to minister to these poor suffering peasants, whom no man

cared for. Dr. Wylie--so they call him--a shrewd, clever Scotchman,

took care to order his patients so many expensive remedies and comforts

that the princess, by the time she had paid for wine and wheaten flour,

and I know not what besides, had also learned the useful lesson that

nothing costs so dear in the long run as a duty neglected. Nor has

the Czar given the mujik that which costs him nothing. He refuses

absolutely to grant men as serfs to his courtiers; and thus he has

dried up the unfailing stream of wealth wherewith all the Czars that

went before him have enriched and rewarded their servants without

impoverishing themselves. God give it back to him in the prayers

of the poor! Moreover, I have heard that every year, out of his own

treasure, he lays by one million of roubles to aid in the fulfilment of

his beloved and cherished dream--to make the body of every mujik on the

soil of holy Russia as free as his soul is already in the sight of God.”

 

The rapt, kindling __EXPRESSION__ of his face as he spoke thus impressed

the children deeply. He seemed to be gazing far away into some “white

starry distance” where he could see the fruition of that glorious

dream. But gradually the light faded, and the shadow passed once more

over the aged face.

 

“Who shall see that day?” he murmured sadly. “Not the old; their work

is quickly over, while God’s work goes on but slowly. No, not the old;

they are content to lie down in hope, waiting for what God will let

them see in the resurrection morning. But the young.--He is young yet,

this Czar God has given us, whose youthful dreams are not of pleasure,

or conquest, or glory, but of loosing the heavy burdens, letting the

oppressed go free, and breaking every yoke. Shall it be given to him to

see the desire of his heart? It may be--before his hairs are white as

mine. But it may not. I have heard the priests say that, after all, it

was not Moses who led the children of Israel into the Promised Land.”

 

Ivan and Feodor waited in respectful silence until his reverie was

over. Then Ivan began to question him upon a subject about which he was

interested, and indeed perplexed.

 

“Dädushka, why do you seem to think the Czar ought not to have made

this peace with Napoleon for which all the bells in the city have been

ringing?”

 

“There be many reasons, boy--good reasons and bad, noble reasons and

selfish. Of the selfish reasons I need not tell you. You are now

surrounded by merchants; you will soon be surrounded by nobles. No

doubt you will hear lamentations enough from both--for the luxuries

wherewith English commerce supplied the tables of the one, and the

gold with which it filled the purses of the other. But what, perhaps,

you will never hear, is the truth that lies buried beneath that

stream of idle talk. Have you ever, in Nicolofsky, listened on winter

nights to the low howling of the wolves amidst the snow? There is a

horrible story I remember hearing in my childhood about a woman--a

mother--who was making a winter journey in her sledge with her five

little ones. Perhaps you too know the tale? The famished pack with

their demon voices howled around her sledge. To save all the rest, as

she fondly dreamed, she sacrificed one child, her youngest. Then a

moment of respite, a verst or two gained upon the savage pursuers--a

wild, fleeting gleam of hope. Then--_then_;--but I need not go on. She

reached her journey’s end alone, to die the next day, accursed and

broken-hearted.[12] Forget the story if you can, but remember the awful

lesson. The taste for blood grows with what it feeds on, and the doom

of the coward only comes the more quickly from his guilty efforts to

avert it. The French are wolves, and Napoleon is a demon. Already has

he devoured the nations of Germany, and it has but whetted his appetite

for fresh victims. He deceives the Czar--who is young, and likes to

think others as true and generous as himself--with his offers of peace.

But the peace he offers is only from the lip out; for he hates us, and

he will never cease to hate us. Why not? We stand upright, while the

other nations--all except the English--bow down and kiss his feet. But

they are all infidels, those Frenchmen. They believe neither in God,

nor saint, nor devil. Therefore I think that if we had put our trust

in God, and gone to war with them again, he would have protected holy

Russia, the land of his people and of his orthodox Church.”

 

Old Petrovitch, in speaking thus, expressed the thoughts and feelings

of the mass of his countrymen. They were ignorant and superstitious,

but they were devout. They believed in “the God of Russia,” and in the

Czar as the first of his servants. A time was drawing near when this

belief of theirs should be tried in the furnace heated seven times. The

trial proved beyond a doubt that metal was there, genuine and enduring;

but how much was the pure gold of faith, and how much the iron of a

fierce fanaticism? There is one test potent to divide between the gold

and the iron. The fanatic may endure like a martyr and fight like a

hero; but when the battle is past, and the victory won, he will trample

on the fallen like a tyrant;--for his God is the God of vengeance. But

while the man of faith can suffer and fight, and that with a heroism

as undaunted, he can also pardon;--for his God is the God of mercy,

and He whose “right hand holds him up” makes him “great” with “His

gentleness.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI.

 

IVAN’S EDUCATION.

 

“Our young people think they know everything when they have

learned to dance and to speak French.”--_Words of the Emperor

Alexander, quoted by Madame de Choiseul-Gouffier._

 

 

Petrovitch the merchant would have thought himself greatly lacking

in his duty towards Ivan the boyar if he had suffered him to remain

beneath his roof. As soon as he had provided him with a fashionable

outfit--that is to say, an outfit composed of garments fashionable in

Paris three seasons previously--he transferred him to the palace of a

widowed lady of rank who had promised to act as his guardian. He was to

associate with her sons, and to share with them the instructions of the

French tutor whose services were then considered indispensable to every

young Russian of noble birth. For these advantages Petrovitch paid very

liberally: in many families, even of the highest position, good silver

roubles were not as plentiful as they were desirable, and were not

likely to be rejected when they presented themselves for acceptance.

 

Feodor was deputed to accompany Ivan to his new home, since the elder

members of the family did not care to present themselves. It must be

owned that the little Russian, in his glossy blue caftan of the finest

cloth and his bright silken sash, had the advantage of his companion,

who looked as awkward as a naturally graceful boy could contrive to do

with his limbs confined in the tightest of French garments.

 

Having reached the stately painted gateway of the Wertsch family

mansion or palace, the two boys were admitted by the porter and led

across an ample courtyard into a large saloon furnished in a manner

utterly strange to Ivan. As no one was there, he had time to indulge

his wonder and curiosity. Chairs and tables, divans and ottomans, with

many other objects, of the uses of which he had not the slightest

conception, were scattered about in profusion; the woodwork was painted

rose-colour or lilac, and lavishly adorned with gilding, while the

numerous cushions were covered with a kind of tapestry of a shining

gray. At one side of the room a row of slender shafts, rose-coloured