The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 21

The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 21

It was evening. Ivan Pojarsky sat alone in the saloon of the Wertsch

family mansion. The costly furniture with which it was strewn had that

indescribable air of neglect and forlornness which household goods

assume when death, or sorrow deep as death, broods over their owners.

There was disorder too: chairs had been dragged carelessly about,

and their rich and delicate coverings soiled and crumpled; while a

beautiful climbing plant, laden with rare flowers, lay unheeded on the

floor beside the broken shaft that had been its support. A costly buhl

table near Ivan’s chair had the remains of his last meal upon it.

 

Within the apartment all was still,--Ivan sat motionless and silent,

his head resting on his hands,--but without there was a hoarse,

continuous, never-ending murmur, made up of many sounds. There was

the tramp of armed men, heavy and monotonous. There was the roll and

rumble of ten thousand wheels--wheels of every sort and description,

from those of the ponderous waggon laden with the goods of an entire

household to those of the light telega, from which every now and

then a scout was imparting to the breathless crowd his tidings that

the standards of Napoleon had been seen at such or such a point

of the Smolensko road. Mingling with and following the stately

rhythmic march of the disciplined hosts was the tread of innumerable

footsteps--footsteps of women and little children, of boys and aged

men, who were leaving with breaking hearts the only home they had

ever known. And if the weeping and wailing, the sighs and groans and

cries, which filled the clear September air did not rise above all

other sounds, it was only because the things most deep and real are

ofttimes the last to meet the eye or reach the ear--except, indeed, the

ever-present eye and the ever-listening ear of Him who notes “the sob

in the dark and the falling of tears.”

 

Suddenly Ivan raised his head and looked around him. The last few weeks

had changed him wonderfully. He appeared several years older--no longer

a stripling, but a man, with a man’s responsibilities, thoughts, and

duties. There was in his young face a look of sternness, as of one who

had to do hard things and to bid others do them; there was the high,

courageous, half-defiant air of one who dares death cheerfully, even

joyfully, and also an __EXPRESSION__ of proud though mournful satisfaction.

For had not he, a youth scarcely twenty, been intrusted with a terrible

secret, been charged with a desperate but honourable mission?

 

“Beg pardon, gospodin,” said a servant, entering. Ivan was now

virtually the master of the household, for both the Wertsches were

with the army--Adrian serving as a volunteer, Leon as a lieutenant of

hussars. “Here is a mujik,” continued the servant, “who wishes to speak

with your excellency.”

 

“Send him in,” said Ivan quickly. “And--stay a moment, Joseph. What

does your wife say of her mistress?”

 

“The countess, gospodin, will not hear reason from my wife, though

she has been waiting upon her these twenty years, any more than from

your excellency. ‘The French,’ says my lady, ‘will never enter holy

Moscow. They dare not.’ I must own, Lord Ivan, that Maria thinks this

very hard; because if our lady the countess will not be persuaded to

go away, as all other folk are doing who have brains in their heads,

she--my wife I mean--must stay, too, of course, and be murdered by the

Nyemtzi.”

 

“Murdered by the Nyemtzi shall _our_ women never be, Joseph,” said

Ivan, with a flash in his eyes. “At the worst, we know what to do.

Tell thy wife the countess must be induced to quit this house before

to-morrow night. If she will not leave the city, like a sensible woman,

at least she must go to the Devitshei Convent, and Maria must go with

her. I suppose even the infidel French will scarcely outrage _that_

asylum. Meanwhile, send in this mujik; perhaps he brings tidings.”

 

A tall figure entered, with a bandaged arm, and wearing a rough, soiled

caftan, and heavy Russia leather boots that left their traces on the

inlaid floor.

 

Ivan looked up, started, hesitated, then exclaimed in great surprise,

“Michael Ivanovitch! One-eared Michael!”

 

“One-handed Michael now, at your service, Ivan Barrinka; and well if

_that_ were the only loss I had to tell of.”

 

“Have you come from Nicolofsky?” asked Ivan.

 

“Yes, I come from Nicolofsky. Barrinka, the Nyemtzi have been there.”

 

“Ah!” cried Ivan. “Curse them!”

 

“I have done with cursing them, Ivan Barrinka--I cannot find words--so

I leave them to God. He knows what wages they have earned, and he will

pay them one day. But as for me, my heart is hot and dry, and unless I

can go and fight and kill some of them I shall die.”

 

“What has happened, Michael? what have they done to you?”

 

“At Christmas I was to be married to Anna Popovna. You remember her,

Ivan Barrinka?”

 

“_Remember_ her!” cried Ivan angrily. “Of what are you dreaming,

Michael? Do you not know that I--I--”

 

“Oh, I forgot--it seems a thousand years ago,” said Michael, in a sad,

dreamy voice. “Besides, it was never anything but child’s play with

you. Ivan Barrinka, we quarrelled in the old days, you and I. She used

to like you better than me, because you were handsome and a boyar. But

that is all over now. We shall quarrel no more, for Anna Popovna is

with the saints. The Nyemtzi have killed her.”

 

Ivan’s agitation was extreme. He still fancied he loved the village

girl, no real passion having as yet taken possession of his heart to

“put the old cheap joy in the scorned dust.” In wild excitement he

strode up and down the room, uttering incoherent lamentations and

cursing the French; but at last he stopped before Michael and asked

briefly, in a choking voice, “How?”

 

Michael’s grief had been his companion for weary days and nights--he

was used to it now, so he answered very quietly, “One evening we saw

the blue-coats coming, and some of us went out to show fight and keep

them off a little, while the rest convoyed our women safely into

the wood. But the scoundrels saw them, and fired. The distance was

long, and they did not take good aim. Only two shots told: one of

them wounded the lad we used to call little Peter rather badly in the

shoulder; the other--killed her--”

 

“At once!”

 

“She lived some hours. She did not suffer much. She died--in peace.”

Michael spoke with difficulty, and in a low voice. There was a pause;

then he resumed, taking a picture from beneath his caftan and showing

it to Ivan, “Her last look was fixed on this. Her father gave it to me,

because I brought it to her from his house, where the Nyemtzi were.”

 

“Did the French stay there for the night?”

 

Michael nodded.

 

“Then what were you about, Michael Ivanovitch,” cried Ivan with sudden

energy--“what were you about that you did not set the village on fire

and burn it over their heads?”

 

Michael’s remaining hand fell by his side with a gesture of mingled

admiration and regret. “Great St. Nicholas!” he exclaimed.

 

“Well?” said Ivan.

 

“We never thought of it,” cried Michael. “Would to God we had! What a

sight it would have been!”

 

“You may yet see a greater, Michael Ivanovitch.”

 

There was silence, and the tumult outside became audible once more to

both.

 

At last Michael resumed. “I am forgetting what I came for. Since that

night my head is confused. I live those last hours over and over

again. I hear nothing, I see nothing except that bed of leaves in the

forest, and the torches flickering upon those sad faces all around, and

that one sweet white face--except when I sleep and dream of killing

Frenchmen. Ay, killing Frenchmen, that is it! Ivan Barrinka, I come

here to beg of you--if you like it, on my bended knees--to speak one

word for me to our lord the Czar,--only one word.”

 

“My good friend--for my friend you are, in the love we both have for

the dead--I would speak a hundred if I could; but the Czar is in St.

Petersburg, and I am here. I scarce hope ever to see again the face

that is to us all as the sun in the heavens.”

 

“Then give me a written word for him. You are a boyar, and can do it.”

 

“Nay, I should not presume so far. He does not even know of my

existence--_yet_.” The last word was spoken proudly, with an evident

under-current of meaning. “But what is it you want, Michael?”

 

“See, I have lost my left hand.”

 

“Another French outrage?”

 

“Yes, and no. When I went to fetch that picture, they caught me,

and put their Emperor’s mark on my hand. Was I to carry _that_ with

me all my life, and after my life in the resurrection, before the

judgment-seat of God? I had a good hand still, and a good axe in it,

and with these I struck off what they had defiled. Now there is not an

inch of me that does not belong to the Czar.”

 

“Nobly done, brother!” cried Ivan, embracing him. “I am proud of my old

Nicolofsky playfellow. Michael, will you cast in your lot with me, and

let us serve the Czar together?”

 

“Ay, Barrinka; but there is the difficulty. No use in _my_ offering

myself for a recruit. No officer would take me, because I want my hand.

That is why I pray you to ask the Czar to let me fight for him in spite

of that loss. You could tell him I would serve him so faithfully.”