The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 7

The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 7

The starost paused. At length he said firmly, though in a broken

voice--“That we love our little lord too well not to send him with

you--ay, and that thankfully, though it wrings our hearts to part with

him. Ah! here he comes himself.--Ivan Barrinka, this good man will take

you with him to Moscow the holy, and make of you that which it is your

birthright to be.”

 

Petrovitch gazed admiringly on the tall, graceful figure of the

handsome lad, now about fourteen, and looking considerably older.

“Praise be to God!” he said. “That is a goodly shoot from the old stem.”

 

Ivan’s face changed rapidly from pale to red, and from red again to

pale. At last he said, “Bativshka, I will do what _you_ think I ought.”

 

“Then, dear child, you will go from us; for like should ever dwell with

like.”

 

But the old foster-mother lifted up her voice in lamentation, mingling

her tears for her “little dove,” her nursling, her treasure, with

regrets that his shirts were not in order, that the new socks they had

been knitting for him in the winter were not finished, and that his

boots wanted mending.

 

“We will see to all that in the city, good mother,” said Petrovitch,

unable to repress a smile, as he pictured the extraordinary

transformation Ivan’s outer man would have to undergo before he could

take his pleasure in the Kremlin gardens with the _élite_ of Moscow

society.

 

Hospitality is a plant that flourishes luxuriantly in Russian soil,

and seems to find the smoky atmosphere of the izba as congenial as the

clearer air of the palace. It was with great difficulty that Petrovitch

could fix his departure for the next day but one; but a single day of

rest for himself and of preparation for Ivan was all that the starost’s

importunities could obtain from him, since he knew his father’s anxiety

about the result of his mission.

 

That evening, in the starost’s cottage, there was much baking of

wheaten bread, of cakes called kissel, and of greasy, indigestible

pastry called pirogua. There was also a great slaughter,--a sheep, a

couple of sucking pigs, and quite a multitude of fowls were sacrificed

on the altar of hospitality; for the whole of Nicolofsky would no doubt

_assist_ at the festival of the next day, not in the French, but in

the English sense of the word. Huge buckets of kvass were of course

prepared; and it might have been better if this harmless beverage had

not been supplemented by a plentiful supply of vodka.

 

Next day began, not unworthily, with a service in the church, a kind of

farewell to Ivan and compliment to Petrovitch. But its remaining hours

were wholly given up to revelry, and it is to be feared that but few

sober men went to rest that night in Nicolofsky. Meanwhile Ivan bade

farewell to the friends and playfellows of his childhood. With Anna

Popovna his parting was a tearful one. He kissed her again and again,

and vowed that he would come back and marry her as soon as his beard

was grown.

 

“God be praised!” said her mother, who was standing by. “See how St.

Nicholas protects the innocent, and will not let him take the sin of a

false vow upon his soul! He does not dream, poor child, that his beard

will never grow at all, since he is born a boyar, who will have to

shave it off every morning--worse luck for him.”

 

But the saddest and most tender farewells were spoken at daybreak

on the following morning, when Ivan was kissed and wept over by his

foster-parents, and by all their immediate family. His own eyes were

dim as he took his place in the kibitka beside Petrovitch; and when he

turned to look his last upon the brown cottages of Nicolofsky, he could

scarcely see them through his tears.

 

“But the winds of the morn blew away the tear.” By-and-by Ivan cheered

up a little. He roused himself to listen to his companion’s stories of

the great city, and began to be interested, and even to ask questions.

 

There was not much in the incidents of their journey to engage or rivet

his attention. They crossed the Oka upon a raft--horse, kibitka, and

all--but not at the spot so well remembered by Ivan as the scene of

his adventure. After that came the long monotonous Moscow road, where

everything seemed to Ivan always the same. Only that his senses assured

him he was moving, and that rapidly, he would have fancied himself

fixed in the centre of the same horizon, which was revolving around him

eternally and unchangingly. Plains of sand, forests of birch or pine,

went by in endless succession, merely diversified here and there by

some pasture lands, or by a brown village built upon the pattern of

Nicolofsky. On one occasion, however, they passed a company of horsemen

carrying long lances, and clad in gray cloaks, with ample hoods drawn

over their heads.

 

“Who are these?” Ivan asked with interest.

 

“Cossacks. I suppose they are going to join the army. They had better

have stayed at home now that peace is being made with the French. That

unlucky peace!” he grumbled, touching his horse rather unnecessarily

with his long whip.

 

“Why do you say that? I thought peace was always a good thing. We have

a proverb in Nicolofsky, ‘A bad peace is better than a good quarrel.’”

 

“A bad peace with your enemies sometimes means a worse quarrel with

your best friends.--On, my little pope! Now, now, my beauty, my

darling, mind what you are about. Gee up, you barbarian!” This to his

horse, the wheel of the kibitka having stuck fast in a deep rut. A

touch of the whip, this time in earnest, and the horse bounded on,

freeing the wheel with a jolt that brought Ivan to his feet, and

shook peace and war alike out of his thoughts. But Petrovitch, more

accustomed to the ordinary incidents of travel, presently resumed the

thread of his discourse.

 

“What does peace with France mean? War with England, for one thing.

And that--what does that mean? Our ports shut up, our trade destroyed.

No market for our timber, our corn, our tallow, our furs. Ruin, ruin!”

groaned the merchant.

 

“I have heard of France,” said Ivan. “But England--what is that?”

 

“England is a great, rich, beautiful country, with the sea like a wall

of defence built by the hand of God all around it. The King of England

hates Napoleon, and has sworn before the picture of his saint never to

make peace with him.”

 

“I have heard of Napoleon too,” said Ivan. “The recruits who left our

village said they were going to fight against him. Pope Nikita thinks

he is a magician.”

 

“Pope Nikita thinks truly. It is said he has for his wife a beautiful

lady named Josephine, who transforms herself at will into the likeness

of a white dove, flies into the midst of his enemies, hears all they

say, and comes back and tells her lord.[10] No one can resist him; the

Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia are both at his feet, and he

has conquered all the other kings and dukes of the Nyemtzi, except the

King of England.”

 

“But the Czar--why does not the Czar send his soldiers and tell them to

kill him?” queried Ivan.

 

“Not so easy!” Petrovitch answered with a short laugh. “However, there

is little to be said after all. Russia has fought him long and well. If

the devil helps his own, what can good orthodox Christians do? Think of

Austerlitz, Eylau, Friedland--blood and tears have flowed in torrents.

I know a widow who lost her two sons at Austerlitz. Another;--but why

speak of these things? War is always terrible.”

 

“Then why don’t you wish for peace?”

 

“A _good_ peace might be very desirable, but save us from a peace that

will ruin our commerce!” cried Petrovitch with energy. “The Czar has

evil counsellors around him who are persuading him to that sort of

peace. Perhaps, indeed, Napoleon has bewitched him with his sorceries.

Who knows?”

 

Having thus uttered, not merely his own sentiments, but those of Moscow

and her merchants upon the subject of the Treaty of Tilsit, at that

time in progress, Petrovitch relapsed into silence. The only part of

his discourse that greatly impressed Ivan happened also to be the

only part of it which had not at least a considerable substratum of

truth--the story of the beautiful lady who could transform herself into

a white dove. The rest he understood very partially.

 

After a journey of many days, a happy change came over the spirit

of what had almost seemed to Ivan a long and dismal dream. The

dreary expanse of sandy waste was succeeded by a green, fertile,

well-cultivated plain, diversified by the gentle slope of wooded hills

and the gleam of a winding river.

 

At last, one evening, they reached the summit of a lofty eminence.

Petrovitch, who was on foot leading the horse, turned suddenly to Ivan,

and said in a tone of solemnity, “Take off thy cap, Ivan Barrinka, take

off thy cap, and thank God for thy first sight of holy Moscow!”

 

Any traveller might have thanked God for the beauty of that sight.

Dome and cupola, minaret and tower, shone beneath them in the evening

sunshine, giving back its rays with dazzling brightness from their

gilded tops; and some there were which flamed like balls of fire

suspended in the air. The brightest and most varied of colours--green,

purple, crimson, blue--relieved and diversified the gleaming gold of

the cupolas and the burnished lead of the roofs, which looked like

silver. Beyond the bewildering glories of the Kremlin, whose feet

were kissed by the bright waters of the winding Moskva, the great

city stretched away into the distance. To the eye there was no limit:

streets and squares and gardens, gardens and streets and squares;

here a castle, there a blooming terrace; yonder a painted gateway,

everywhere light and colour, and shining metallic surfaces that

reflected the sun. “Forty times forty churches” pointed upwards with

their “silent fingers,” as if to remind the dwellers in that city of

palaces of the yet fairer city which is eternal in the heavens, even

the new Jerusalem, with its streets of gold and gates of pearl.