The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 28
“Blown into fragments, did you say?” returned Adrian. “Utterly
impossible! The masonry is as solid as the rocks beneath our feet, and
the walls of the arsenal are three yards in thickness.”
“Those walls are now level with the ground,” said the officer; “and the
palace--the Czar’s ancient palace--is in ruins.”
Ivan uttered a bitter cry, and Adrian asked breathlessly, “What of the
churches?”
“One of them, I have not heard which, is thrown down. The mines were
fired by slow-consuming fusees; and our men, who arrived just before
the messenger left, were beginning a perilous search for powder, to
prevent further mischief, if they could.”
“But,” said Ivan, who had risen now,--“but there must be a mistake
somewhere; for the French kept their own sick and wounded in the
Kremlin, and I happen to know that those unfit to be moved were still
there when I left the city. That Napoleon could have exposed _them_ to
a horrible death is simply inconceivable.”
“Yet too true,” the officer answered. “He has sacrificed his own
helpless followers to his revenge and hatred. For this barbarous deed
can have had no other motive. There was nothing to be gained by it.”
Adrian laid his hand upon Ivan’s shoulder. “Do not go to St
Petersburg,” he said. “Stay with us, and fight. We will pay this
Napoleon double for all his atrocities.”
“I wish his neck were _there_,” said Adrian’s comrade, grinding the
earth with his strong heel. “But I would not kill him,” he added, after
a pause. “No. I would drag him in chains to the feet of the Czar, and
let _him_ kill him with his own hand.”
“I think,” said Ivan slowly and with deliberation,--“I think every
Russian, from the Czar himself down to the lowest mujik, should swear a
solemn oath not to sheathe the sword until we have taken such vengeance
upon Napoleon and his Frenchmen as the world has never yet seen.”
“So be it,” said Michael, who came in while he was speaking. “I, a
mujik, will be the first to swear.--Barrinka, what is the name of
Napoleon’s great city, where he has his palace and all his treasures?
Suppose the Czar were to make a blaze of _that_ some day! It may be.
God is just!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
TWO IMPORTANT INTERVIEWS.
“Nous verrons ce qui réussira le mieux, de se faire aimer ou de se
faire craindre.”
_Words of the Emperor Alexander._
When Ivan waited upon Count Rostopchine that morning, he found his
excellency in a very bad humour. The destruction of the Kremlin was
perhaps enough to account for this; but there may have been in addition
an altercation with Marshal Kutusov--not a very rare occurrence, for
between the general-in-chief of the army and the governor of Moscow
there was no friendship. Ivan found the count surrounded by the members
of his suite, to whom he was giving directions in preparation for an
immediate return to the city.
“Do you come with us, Ivan Ivanovitch?” he asked abruptly, and of
course in Russian, the only language he would tolerate in his presence,
although he himself spoke and wrote French with elegance and precision.
Ivan saluted him with due respect, but answered in the negative.
“Ah! then I shall have the trouble of speaking to the marshal about
you,” returned the count, with an air of annoyance, at which Ivan
was scarcely surprised, for Rostopchine’s manner on the preceding
evening had made him fully aware that he desired to retain him in
his own service. So he answered deferentially, “Instead of imposing
that trouble upon your excellency, I shall avail myself of the third
proposal you did me the honour to make, and very humbly entreat of you
to intrust me with despatches for his Imperial Majesty.”
Ivan was utterly amazed at the count’s reception of this request.
“Then you are as great a fool as I took you for the first day I saw
your face. And,” added Rostopchine, with one of his resounding Russian
oaths, “you could not possibly be a greater!”
Such an address from such a personage, and in the presence of a score
of witnesses, might well have disconcerted an older man than Ivan,
especially as he could not in the least imagine the cause of it. But
to every one’s astonishment he stood his ground, and answered with the
utmost coolness and self-possession, “Your excellency’s opinion may be
correct, but it must have some better foundation than my choosing to
embrace an offer which you yourself condescended to make to me last
night.”
“He sees no difference between last night and this morning,” remarked
Rostopchine, turning to his officers, but speaking in a voice quite
loud enough for Ivan to hear. “He is in a mighty hurry to go and
tell the Czar that the Kremlin is destroyed.” Then addressing Ivan
directly--“I understand you perfectly, young gentleman: you prefer the
air of a court to that of a camp, and had rather dangle your feet in
the Czar’s ante-chamber than use your hands fighting the French.”
If Ivan had not just been performing most hazardous services with
signal intrepidity, he might have been angry. But he knew that no one
present doubted his courage for an instant, Rostopchine perhaps least
of all. So he only bowed, and answered with extreme _sang-froid_, “That
being the case, when shall I have the honour of waiting upon your
excellency to receive your commands for St. Petersburg?”
“I will send them to you in half-an-hour; you need not show your face
here again.”[35]
Ivan returned to the tent of his friend with, strange to say, a more
cheerful air than when he left it. He seemed to be rather exhilarated
than otherwise by his encounter. “Every one knows the count’s temper,”
he said, after detailing the adventure. “I was not going to lose the
reward of all I have passed through during the last six weeks for a
few rough words. Only for the hope of seeing the face of my Czar, and
telling him I tried to serve him faithfully, I should once and again
have lain down to die.”
“It is well known,” answered Adrian, “that Count Rostopchine does not
love the Czar--but he loves Russia.” Then, to Ivan’s surprise, Adrian
told him that he himself hoped to be the companion of his rapid journey
to St. Petersburg. His mother’s death had left the pecuniary affairs
of the Wertsch family in confusion, and of course the intervention
of “government” was necessary for their arrangement. Amongst other
matters, the term of years for which one of their estates had been
granted by the crown was now expired, and a new grant would have to be
solicited. While Ivan was engaged with the count, Adrian had asked for
and obtained a short leave of absence, that he might take advantage of
his friend’s telega; for Ivan, as one travelling upon public business,
would be authorized to require, at every post-house, the swiftest
horses that could be obtained.
This explanation had not long been finished, when a fine young
man, the son of Rostopchine, entered the tent. He brought Ivan his
father’s letter to the Czar, and the other documents necessary for
his journey. Then he offered him a supply of money, which Ivan, under
the circumstances, was glad to be able to decline--the contents of a
purse of ducats, found accidentally in one of the abandoned palaces
of Moscow, sufficing for his present needs. Lastly, young Rostopchine
lingered to say, “My father desires me to tell you that he has
mentioned you to the Czar in very handsome terms, though not more so
than you have fully deserved.”
Ivan was touched by this magnanimity, which was quite in keeping with
the character of the fiery and prejudiced but honest and generous old
Muscovite. He answered gratefully: “I beg of you to present my very
humble thanks to his excellency, and to assure him I shall never forget
the trust he has reposed in me.”
Ivan, Adrian, and Michael were soon seated in a rough, light telega and
dashing across the country, under the guidance of a practised driver,
at a speed that almost anticipated the age of railways. Until they
passed beyond the theatre of war, they had a guard of flying Cossacks;
after that, they were left to their own resources. They travelled day
and night--Ivan anxious and rather melancholy, Adrian enlivening their
way with his conversation. As they were drawing near their journey’s
end, he took occasion, from some remark of Ivan’s, to explain to him
the views of General Kutusov with regard to the war. “Russia, says the
marshal, is making herself the champion and the martyr of Europe; and
scanty thanks will Europe give her for the same when once the common
danger is over. These English, Germans, and Swedes are glad enough to
see us shedding our best blood to overthrow the despotism of Napoleon
and secure the general freedom; but when the work is done, which of
them will have the grace to be grateful to us? Rather will they envy us
the very glory we acquired in fighting their battles. Hence the marshal
would not be at all averse to an honourable peace, if such could be
had; and they say the Czar has had to interfere more than once to
prevent his opening negotiations with the enemy--”
“Of which the enemy would be only too glad,” said Ivan. “Our friend
Yakovlef, who, as you are aware, was detained in Moscow by the illness
of his uncle, was taken before Napoleon, who cajoled and threatened
him by turns to try and induce him to bring a letter from him to the
Czar. But young Yakovlef stood firm; in fact, he told Napoleon he could
not presume so far, if his life depended upon it. The Czar’s refusal
to receive any proposition whatsoever from the French is absolute. But
surely I see buildings in the distance, and smoke.--Isvostchik, can
this be St. Petersburg?”
“Yes, gospodin, this is St. Petersburg.” Then, being himself a native
of Moscow, “But it is _not_ Moscow the holy. Ah! Moscow the holy will
be never more what she was in the old days.”
None of the party, except the driver, had seen the new capital before.
Adrian was full of natural curiosity and interest in all that met their
view as they drove along; while Michael was busy wondering whether the
Nyemtzi would come here also, what sort of defence could be made if
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기