III
The devouring in a dismal forest of a luckless Lithuanian dog by
my granduncle Nicholas B. in company of two other military and
famished scarecrows, symbolized, to my childish imagination, the
whole horror of the retreat from Moscow, and the immorality of a
conqueror's ambition. An extreme distaste for that objectionable
episode has tinged the views I hold as to the character and
achievements of Napoleon the Great. I need not say that these
are unfavourable. It was morally reprehensible for that great
captain to induce a simple-minded Polish gentleman to eat dog by
raising in his breast a false hope of national independence. It
has been the fate of that credulous nation to starve for upward
of a hundred years on a diet of false hopes and--well--dog. It
is, when one thinks of it, a singularly poisonous regimen. Some
pride in the national constitution which has survived a long
course of such dishes is really excusable.
But enough of generalizing. Returning to particulars, Mr.
Nicholas B. confided to his sister-in-law (my grandmother) in his
misanthropically laconic manner that this supper in the woods had
been nearly "the death of him." This is not surprising. What
surprises me is that the story was ever heard of; for granduncle
Nicholas differed in this from the generality of military men of
Napoleon's time (and perhaps of all time) that he did not like to
talk of his campaigns, which began at Friedland and ended some
where in the neighbourhood of Bar-le-Duc. His admiration of the
great Emperor was unreserved in everything but expression. Like
the religion of earnest men, it was too profound a sentiment to
be displayed before a world of little faith. Apart from that he
seemed as completely devoid of military anecdotes as though he
had hardly ever seen a soldier in his life. Proud of his
decorations earned before he was twenty-five, he refused to wear
the ribbons at the buttonhole in the manner practised to this day
in Europe and even was unwilling to display the insignia on
festive occasions, as though he wished to conceal them in the
fear of appearing boastful.
"It is enough that I have them," he used to mutter. In the
course of thirty years they were seen on his breast only
twice--at an auspicious marriage in the family and at the funeral
of an old friend. That the wedding which was thus honoured was
not the wedding of my mother I learned only late in life, too
late to bear a grudge against Mr. Nicholas B., who made amends at
my birth by a long letter of congratulation containing the
following prophecy: "He will see better times." Even in his
embittered heart there lived a hope. But he was not a true
prophet.
He was a man of strange contradictions. Living for many years in
his brother's house, the home of many children, a house full of
life, of animation, noisy with a constant coming and going of
many guests, he kept his habits of solitude and silence.
Considered as obstinately secretive in all his purposes, he was
in reality the victim of a most painful irresolution in all
matters of civil life. Under his taciturn, phlegmatic behaviour
was hidden a faculty of short-lived passionate anger. I suspect
he had no talent for narrative; but it seemed to afford him
sombre satisfaction to declare that he was the last man to ride
over the bridge of the river Elster after the battle of Leipsic.
Lest some construction favourable to his valour should be put on
the fact he condescended to explain how it came to pass. It
seems that shortly after the retreat began he was sent back to
the town where some divisions of the French army (and among them
the Polish corps of Prince Joseph Poniatowski), jammed hopelessly
in the streets, were being simply exterminated by the troops of
the Allied Powers. When asked what it was like in there, Mr.
Nicholas B. muttered only the word "Shambles." Having delivered
his message to the Prince he hastened away at once to render an
account of his mission to the superior who had sent him. By that
time the advance of the enemy had enveloped the town, and he was
shot at from houses and chased all the way to the river-bank by a
disorderly mob of Austrian Dragoons and Prussian Hussars. The
bridge had been mined early in the morning, and his opinion was
that the sight of the horsemen converging from many sides in the
pursuit of his person alarmed the officer in command of the
sappers and caused the premature firing of the charges. He had
not gone more than two hundred yards on the other side when he
heard the sound of the fatal explosions. Mr. Nicholas B.
concluded his bald narrative with the word "Imbecile," uttered
with the utmost deliberation. It testified to his indignation at
the loss of so many thousands of lives. But his phlegmatic
physiognomy lighted up when he spoke of his only wound, with
something resembling satisfaction. You will see that there was
some reason for it when you learn that he was wounded in the
heel. "Like his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon himself," he
reminded his hearers, with assumed indifference. There can be no
doubt that the indifference was assumed, if one thinks what a
very distinguished sort of wound it was. In all the history of
warfare there are, I believe, only three warriors publicly known
to have been wounded in the heel--Achilles and Napoleon--demigods
indeed--to whom the familial piety of an unworthy descendant adds
the name of the simple mortal, Nicholas B.
The Hundred Days found Mr. Nicholas B. staying with a distant
relative of ours, owner of a small estate in Galicia. How he got
there across the breadth of an armed Europe, and after what
adventures, I am afraid will never be known now. All his papers
were destroyed shortly before his death; but if there was among
them, as he affirmed, a concise record of his life, then I am
pretty sure it did not take up more than a half sheet of foolscap
or so. This relative of ours happened to be an Austrian officer
who had left the service after the battle of Austerlitz. Unlike
Mr. Nicholas B., who concealed his decorations, he liked to
display his honourable discharge in which he was mentioned as un
schreckbar (fearless) before the enemy. No conjunction could
seem more unpromising, yet it stands in the family tradition that
these two got on very well together in their rural solitude.
When asked whether he had not been sorely tempted during the
Hundred Days to make his way again to France and join the service
of his beloved Emperor, Mr. Nicholas B. used to mutter: "No
money. No horse. Too far to walk."
The fall of Napoleon and the ruin of national hopes affected
adversely the character of Mr. Nicholas B. He shrank from
returning to his province. But for that there was also another
reason. Mr. Nicholas B. and his brother--my maternal grand
father--had lost their father early, while they were quite
children. Their mother, young still and left very well off,
married again a man of great charm and of an amiable disposition,
but without a penny. He turned out an affectionate and careful
stepfather; it was unfortunate, though, that while directing the
boys' education and forming their character by wise counsel, he
did his best to get hold of the fortune by buying and selling
land in his own name and investing capital in such a manner as to
cover up the traces of the real ownership. It seems that such
practices can be successful if one is charming enough to dazzle
one's own wife permanently, and brave enough to defy the vain
terrors of public opinion. The critical time came when the elder
of the boys on attaining his majority, in the year 1811, asked
for the accounts and some part at least of the inheritance to
begin life upon. It was then that the stepfather declared with
calm finality that there were no accounts to render and no
property to inherit. The whole fortune was his very own. He was
very good-natured about the young man's misapprehension of the
true state of affairs, but, of course, felt obliged to maintain
his position firmly. Old friends came and went busily, voluntary
mediators appeared travelling on most horrible roads from the
most distant corners of the three provinces; and the Marshal of
the Nobility (ex-officio guardian of all well-born orphans)
called a meeting of landowners to "ascertain in a friendly way
how the misunderstanding between X and his stepsons had arisen
and devise proper measures to remove the same." A deputation to
that effect visited X, who treated them to excellent wines, but
absolutely refused his ear to their remonstrances. As to the
proposals for arbitration he simply laughed at them; yet the
whole province must have been aware that fourteen years before,
when he married the widow, all his visible fortune consisted
(apart from his social qualities) in a smart four-horse turnout
with two servants, with whom he went about visiting from house to
house; and as to any funds he might have possessed at that time
their existence could only be inferred from the fact that he was
very punctual in settling his modest losses at cards. But by the
magic power of stubborn and constant assertion, there were found
presently, here and there, people who mumbled that surely "there
must be some thing in it." However, on his next name-day (which
he used to celebrate by a great three days' shooting party), of
all the invited crowd only two guests turned up, distant
neighbours of no importance; one notoriously a fool, and the
other a very pious and honest person, but such a passionate lover
of the gun that on his own confession he could not have refused
an invitation to a shooting party from the devil himself. X met
this manifestation of public opinion with the serenity of an
unstained conscience. He refused to be crushed. Yet he must
have been a man of deep feeling, because, when his wife took
openly the part of her children, he lost his beautiful
tranquillity, proclaimed himself heartbroken, and drove her out
of the house, neglecting in his grief to give her enough time to
pack her trunks.
This was the beginning of a lawsuit, an abominable marvel of
chicane, which by the use of every legal subterfuge was made to
last for many years. It was also the occasion for a display of
much kindness and sympathy. All the neighbouring houses flew
open for the reception of the homeless. Neither legal aid nor
material assistance in the prosecution of the suit was ever
wanting. X, on his side, went about shedding tears publicly over
his stepchildren's ingratitude and his wife's blind infatuation;
but as at the same time he displayed great cleverness in the art
of concealing material documents (he was even suspected of having
burned a lot of historically interesting family papers) this
scandalous litigation had to be ended by a compromise lest worse
should befall. It was settled finally by a surrender, out of the
disputed estate, in full satisfaction of all claims, of two
villages with the names of which I do not intend to trouble my
readers. After this lame and impotent conclusion neither the
wife nor the stepsons had anything to say to the man who had
presented the world with such a successful example of self-help
based on character, determination, and industry; and my
great-grandmother, her health completely broken down, died a
couple of years later in Carlsbad. Legally secured by a decree
in the possession of his plunder, X regained his wonted serenity,
and went on living in the neighbourhood in a comfortable style
and in apparent peace of mind. His big shoots were fairly well
attended again. He was never tired of assuring people that he
bore no grudge for what was past; he protested loudly of his
constant affection for his wife and stepchildren. It was true,
he said, that they had tried to strip him as naked as a Turkish
saint in the decline of his days; and because he had defended
himself from spoliation, as anybody else in his place would have
done, they had abandoned him now to the horrors of a solitary old
age. Nevertheless, his love for them survived these cruel blows.
And there might have been some truth in his protestations. Very
soon he began to make overtures of friendship to his eldest
stepson, my maternal grandfather; and when these were
peremptorily rejected he went on renewing them again and again
with characteristic obstinacy. For years he persisted in his
efforts at reconciliation, promising my grandfather to execute a
will in his favour if he only would be friends again to the
extent of calling now and then (it was fairly close neighbourhood
for these parts, forty miles or so), or even of putting in an
appearance for the great shoot on the name-day. My grandfather
was an ardent lover of every sport. His temperament was as free
from hardness and animosity as can be imagined. Pupil of the
liberal-minded Benedictines who directed the only public school
of some standing then in the south, he had also read deeply the
authors of the eighteenth century. In him Christian charity was
joined to a philosophical indulgence for the failings of human
nature. But the memory of those miserably anxious early years,
his young man's years robbed of all generous illusions by the
cynicism of the sordid lawsuit, stood in the way of forgiveness.
He never succumbed to the fascination of the great shoot; and X,
his heart set to the last on reconciliation, with the draft of
the will ready for signature kept by his bedside, died intestate.
The fortune thus acquired and augmented by a wise and careful
management passed to some distant relatives whom he had never
seen and who even did not bear his name.
Meantime the blessing of general peace descended upon Europe.
Mr. Nicholas B., bidding good-bye to his hospitable relative,
the "fearless" Austrian officer, departed from Galicia, and
without going near his native place, where the odious lawsuit was
still going on, proceeded straight to Warsaw and entered the army
of the newly constituted Polish kingdom under the sceptre of
Alexander I, Autocrat of all the Russias.
This kingdom, created by the Vienna Congress as an acknowledgment
to a nation of its former independent existence, included only
the central provinces of the old Polish patrimony. A brother of
the Emperor, the Grand Duke Constantine (Pavlovitch), its Viceroy
and Commander-in-Chief, married morganatically to a Polish lady
to whom he was fiercely attached, extended this affection to what
he called "My Poles" in a capricious and savage manner. Sallow
in complexion, with a Tartar physiognomy and fierce little eyes,
he walked with his fists clenched, his body bent forward, darting
suspicious glances from under an enormous cocked hat. His
intelligence was limited, and his sanity itself was doubtful.
The hereditary taint expressed itself, in his case, not by mystic
leanings as in his two brothers, Alexander and Nicholas (in their
various ways, for one was mystically liberal and the other
mystically autocratic), but by the fury of an uncontrollable
temper which generally broke out in disgusting abuse on the
parade ground. He was a passionate militarist and an amazing
drill-master. He treated his Polish army as a spoiled child
treats a favourite toy, except that he did not take it to bed
with him at night. It was not small enough for that. But he
played with it all day and every day, delighting in the variety
of pretty uniforms and in the fun of incessant drilling. This
childish passion, not for war, but for mere militarism, achieved
a desirable result. The Polish army, in its equipment, in its
armament, and in its battle-field efficiency, as then understood,
became, by the end of the year 1830, a first-rate tactical
instrument. Polish peasantry (not serfs) served in the ranks by
enlistment, and the officers belonged mainly to the smaller
nobility. Mr. Nicholas B., with his Napoleonic record, had no
difficulty in obtaining a lieutenancy, but the promotion in the
Polish army was slow, because, being a separate organization, it
took no part in the wars of the Russian Empire against either
Persia or Turkey. Its first campaign, against Russia itself, was
to be its last. In 1831, on the outbreak of the Revolution, Mr.
Nicholas B. was the senior captain of his regiment. Some time
before he had been made head of the remount establishment
quartered outside the kingdom in our southern provinces, whence
almost all the horses for the Polish cavalry were drawn. For the
first time since he went away from home at the age of eighteen to
begin his military life by the battle of Friedland, Mr. Nicholas
B. breathed the air of the "Border," his native air. Unkind fate
was lying in wait for him among the scenes of his youth. At the
first news of the rising in Warsaw all the remount establishment,
officers, "vets.," and the very troopers, were put promptly under
arrest and hurried off in a body beyond the Dnieper to the
nearest town in Russia proper. From there they were dispersed to
the distant parts of the empire. On this occasion poor Mr.
Nicholas B. penetrated into Russia much farther than he ever did
in the times of Napoleonic invasion, if much less willingly.
Astrakan was his destination. He remained there three years,
allowed to live at large in the town, but having to report
himself every day at noon to the military commandant, who used to
detain him frequently for a pipe and a chat. It is difficult to
form a just idea of what a chat with Mr. Nicholas B. could have
been like. There must have been much compressed rage under his
taciturnity, for the commandant communicated to him the news from
the theatre of war, and this news was such as it could be--that
is, very bad for the Poles. Mr. Nicholas B. received these
communications with outward phlegm, but the Russian showed a warm
sympathy for his prisoner. "As a soldier myself I understand
your feelings. You, of course, would like to be in the thick of
it. By heavens! I am fond of you. If it were not for the terms
of the military oath I would let you go on my own responsibility.
What difference could it make to us, one more or less of you?"
At other times he wondered with simplicity.
"Tell me, Nicholas Stepanovitch" (my great-grandfather's name was
Stephen, and the commandant used the Russian form of polite
address)--"tell me why is it that you Poles are always looking
for trouble? What else could you expect from running up against
Russia?"
He was capable, too, of philosophical reflections.
"Look at your Napoleon now. A great man. There is no denying it
that he was a great man as long as he was content to thrash those
Germans and Austrians and all those nations. But no! He must go
to Russia looking for trouble, and what's the consequence? Such
as you see me; I have rattled this sabre of mine on the pavements
of Paris."
After his return to Poland Mr. Nicholas B. described him as a
"worthy man but stupid," whenever he could be induced to speak of
the conditions of his exile. Declining the option offered him to
enter the Russian army, he was retired with only half the pension
of his rank. His nephew (my uncle and guardian) told me that the
first lasting impression on his memory as a child of four was the
glad excitement reigning in his parents' house on the day when
Mr. Nicholas B. arrived home from his detention in Russia.
Every generation has its memories. The first memories of Mr.
Nicholas B. might have been shaped by the events of the last
partition of Poland, and he lived long enough to suffer from the
last armed rising in 1863, an event which affected the future of
all my generation and has coloured my earliest impressions. His
brother, in whose house he had sheltered for some seventeen years
his misanthropical timidity before the commonest problems of
life, having died in the early fifties, Mr. Nicholas B. had to
screw his courage up to the sticking-point and come to some
decision as to the future. After a long and agonizing hesitation
he was persuaded at last to become the tenant of some fifteen
hundred acres out of the estate of a friend in the neighbourhood.
The terms of the lease were very advantageous, but the retired
situation of the village and a plain, comfortable house in good
repair were, I fancy, the greatest inducements. He lived there
quietly for about ten years, seeing very few people and taking no
part in the public life of the province, such as it could be
under an arbitrary bureaucratic tyranny. His character and his
patriotism were above suspicion; but the organizers of the rising
in their frequent journeys up and down the province scrupulously
avoided coming near his house. It was generally felt that the
repose of the old man's last years ought not to be disturbed.
Even such intimates as my paternal grandfather, comrade-in-arms
during Napoleon's Moscow campaign, and later on a fellow officer
in the Polish army, refrained from visiting his crony as the date
of the outbreak approached. My paternal grandfather's two sons
and his only daughter were all deeply involved in the
revolutionary work; he himself was of that type of Polish squire
whose only ideal of patriotic action was to "get into the saddle
and drive them out." But even he agreed that "dear Nicholas must
not be worried." All this considerate caution on the part of
friends, both conspirators and others, did not prevent Mr.
Nicholas B. being made to feel the misfortunes of that ill-omened
year.
Less than forty-eight hours after the beginning of the rebellion
in that part of the country, a squadron of scouting Cossacks
passed through the village and invaded the homestead. Most of
them remained, formed between the house and the stables, while
several, dismounting, ransacked the various outbuildings. The
officer in command, accompanied by two men, walked up to the
front door. All the blinds on that side were down. The officer
told the servant who received him that he wanted to see his
master. He was answered that the master was away from home, which
was perfectly true.
I follow here the tale as told afterward by the servant to my
granduncle's friends and relatives, and as I have heard it
repeated.
On receiving this answer the Cossack officer, who had been
standing in the porch, stepped into the house.
"Where is the master gone, then?"
"Our master went to J----" (the government town some fifty miles
off) "the day before yesterday."
"There are only two horses in the stables. Where are the
others?"
"Our master always travels with his own horses" (meaning: not by
post). "He will be away a week or more. He was pleased to
mention to me that he had to attend to some business in the Civil
Court."
While the servant was speaking the officer looked about the hall.
There was a door facing him, a door to the right, and a door to
the left. The officer chose to enter the room on the left, and
ordered the blinds to be pulled up. It was Mr. Nicholas B.'s
study, with a couple of tall bookcases, some pictures on the
walls, and so on. Besides the big centre-table, with books and
papers, there was a quite small writing-table, with several
drawers, standing between the door and the window in a good
light; and at this table my granduncle usually sat either to read
or write.
On pulling up the blind the servant was startled by the discovery
that the whole male population of the village was massed in
front, trampling down the flower-beds. There were also a few
women among them. He was glad to observe the village priest (of
the Orthodox Church) coming up the drive. The good man in his
haste had tucked up his cassock as high as the top of his boots.
The officer had been looking at the backs of the books in the
bookcases. Then he perched himself on the edge of the centre
table and remarked easily:
"Your master did not take you to town with him, then?"
"I am the head servant, and he leaves me in charge of the house.
It's a strong, young chap that travels with our master. If--God
forbid--there was some accident on the road, he would be of much
more use than I."
Glancing through the window, he saw the priest arguing vehemently
in the thick of the crowd, which seemed subdued by his
interference. Three or four men, however, were talking with the
Cossacks at the door.
"And you don't think your master has gone to join the rebels
maybe--eh?" asked the officer.
"Our master would be too old for that, surely. He's well over
seventy, and he's getting feeble, too. It's some years now since
he's been on horseback, and he can't walk much, either, now."
The officer sat there swinging his leg, very quiet and
indifferent. By that time the peasants who had been talking with
the Cossack troopers at the door had been permitted to get into
the hall. One or two more left the crowd and followed them in.
They were seven in all, and among them the blacksmith, an
ex-soldier. The servant appealed deferentially to the officer.
"Won't your honour be pleased to tell the people to go back to
their homes? What do they want to push themselves into the house
like this for? It's not proper for them to behave like this
while our master's away and I am responsible for everything
here."
The officer only laughed a little, and after a while inquired:
"Have you any arms in the house?"
"Yes. We have. Some old things."
"Bring them all here, onto this table."
The servant made another attempt to obtain protection.
"Won't your honour tell these chaps. . . ?"
But the officer looked at him in silence, in such a way that he
gave it up at once and hurried off to call the pantry-boy to help
him collect the arms. Meantime, the officer walked slowly
through all the rooms in the house, examining them attentively
but touching nothing. The peasants in the hall fell back and
took off their caps when he passed through. He said nothing
whatever to them. When he came back to the study all the arms to
be found in the house were lying on the table. There was a pair
of big, flint-lock holster pistols from Napoleonic times, two
cavalry swords, one of the French, the other of the Polish army
pattern, with a fowling-piece or two.
The officer, opening the window, flung out pistols, swords, and
guns, one after another, and his troopers ran to pick them up.
The peasants in the hall, encouraged by his manner, had stolen
after him into the study. He gave not the slightest sign of
being conscious of their existence, and, his business being
apparently concluded, strode out of the house without a word.
Directly he left, the peasants in the study put on their caps and
began to smile at each other.
The Cossacks rode away, passing through the yards of the home
farm straight into the fields. The priest, still arguing with
the peasants, moved gradually down the drive and his earnest
eloquence was drawing the silent mob after him, away from the
house. This justice must be rendered to the parish priests of
the Greek Church that, strangers to the country as they were
(being all drawn from the interior of Russia), the majority of
them used such influence as they had over their flocks in the
cause of peace and humanity. True to the spirit of their
calling, they tried to soothe the passions of the excited
peasantry, and opposed rapine and violence, whenever they could,
with all their might. And this conduct they pursued against the
express wishes of the authorities. Later on some of them were
made to suffer for this disobedience by being removed abruptly to
the far north or sent away to Siberian parishes.
The servant was anxious to get rid of the few peasants who had
got into the house. What sort of conduct was that, he asked
them, toward a man who was only a tenant, had been invariably
good and considerate to the villagers for years, and only the
other day had agreed to give up two meadows for the use of the
village herd? He reminded them, too, of Mr. Nicholas B.'s
devotion to the sick in time of cholera. Every word of this was
true, and so far effective that the fellows began to scratch
their heads and look irresolute. The speaker then pointed at the
window, exclaiming: "Look! there's all your crowd going away
quietly, and you silly chaps had better go after them and pray
God to forgive you your evil thoughts."
This appeal was an unlucky inspiration.
In crowding clumsily to the window to see whether he was speaking
the truth, the fellows overturned the little writing-table. As
it fell over a chink of loose coin was heard. "There's money in
that thing," cried the blacksmith. In a moment the top of the
delicate piece of furniture was smashed and there lay exposed in
a drawer eighty half imperials. Gold coin was a rare sight in
Russia even at that time; it put the peasants beside themselves.
"There must be more of that in the house, and we shall have it,"
yelled the ex-soldier blacksmith. "This is war-time." The
others were already shouting out of the window, urging the crowd
to come back and help. The priest, abandoned suddenly at the
gate, flung his arms up and hurried away so as not to see what
was going to happen.
In their search for money that bucolic mob smashed everything in
the house, ripping with knives, splitting with hatchets, so that,
as the servant said, there were no two pieces of wood holding
together left in the whole house. They broke some very fine
mirrors, all the windows, and every piece of glass and china.
They threw the books and papers out on the lawn and set fire to
the heap for the mere fun of the thing, apparently. Absolutely
the only one solitary thing which they left whole was a small
ivory crucifix, which remained hanging on the wall in the wrecked
bedroom above a wild heap of rags, broken mahogany, and
splintered boards which had been Mr. Nicholas B.'s bedstead.
Detecting the servant in the act of stealing away with a japanned
tin box, they tore it from him, and because he resisted they
threw him out of the dining-room window. The house was on one
floor, but raised well above the ground, and the fall was so
serious that the man remained lying stunned till the cook and a
stable-boy ventured forth at dusk from their hiding-places and
picked him up. But by that time the mob had departed, carrying
off the tin box, which they supposed to be full of paper money.
Some distance from the house, in the middle of a field, they
broke it open. They found in side documents engrossed on
parchment and the two crosses of the Legion of Honour and For
Valour. At the sight of these objects, which, the blacksmith
explained, were marks of honour given only by the Tsar, they
became extremely frightened at what they had done. They threw the
whole lot away into a ditch and dispersed hastily.
On learning of this particular loss Mr. Nicholas B. broke down
completely. The mere sacking of his house did not seem to affect
him much. While he was still in bed from the shock, the two
crosses were found and returned to him. It helped somewhat his
slow convalescence, but the tin box and the parchments, though
searched for in all the ditches around, never turned up again.
He could not get over the loss of his Legion of Honour Patent,
whose preamble, setting forth his services, he knew by heart to
the very letter, and after this blow volunteered sometimes to
recite, tears standing in his eyes the while. Its terms haunted
him apparently during the last two years of his life to such an
extent that he used to repeat them to himself. This is confirmed
by the remark made more than once by his old servant to the more
intimate friends. "What makes my heart heavy is to hear our
master in his room at night walking up and down and praying aloud
in the French language."
It must have been somewhat over a year afterward that I saw Mr.
Nicholas B.--or, more correctly, that he saw me--for the last
time. It was, as I have already said, at the time when my mother
had a three months' leave from exile, which she was spending in
the house of her brother, and friends and relations were coming
from far and near to do her honour. It is inconceivable that Mr.
Nicholas B. should not have been of the number. The little child
a few months old he had taken up in his arms on the day of his
home-coming, after years of war and exile, was confessing her
faith in national salvation by suffering exile in her turn. I do
not know whether he was present on the very day of our departure.
I have already admitted that for me he is more especially the man
who in his youth had eaten roast dog in the depths of a gloomy
forest of snow-loaded pines. My memory cannot place him in any
remembered scene. A hooked nose, some sleek white hair, an
unrelated evanescent impression of a meagre, slight, rigid figure
militarily buttoned up to the throat, is all that now exists on
earth of Mr. Nicholas B.; only this vague shadow pursued by the
memory of his grandnephew, the last surviving human being, I
suppose, of all those he had seen in the course of his taciturn
life.
But I remember well the day of our departure back to exile. The
elongated, bizarre, shabby travelling-carriage with four
post-horses, standing before the long front of the house with its
eight columns, four on each side of the broad flight of stairs.
On the steps, groups of servants, a few relations, one or two
friends from the nearest neighbourhood, a perfect silence; on all
the faces an air of sober concentration; my grandmother, all in
black, gazing stoically; my uncle giving his arm to my mother
down to the carriage in which I had been placed already; at the
top of the flight my little cousin in a short skirt of a tartan
pattern with a deal of red in it, and like a small princess
attended by the women of her own household; the head gouvernante,
our dear, corpulent Francesca (who had been for thirty years in
the service of the B. family), the former nurse, now outdoor
attendant, a handsome peasant face wearing a compassionate
expression, and the good, ugly Mlle. Durand, the governess, with
her black eyebrows meeting over a short, thick nose, and a
complexion like pale-brown paper. Of all the eyes turned toward
the carriage, her good-natured eyes only were dropping tears, and
it was her sobbing voice alone that broke the silence with an
appeal to me: "N'oublie pas ton francais, mon cheri." In three
months, simply by playing with us, she had taught me not only to
speak French, but to read it as well. She was indeed an
excellent playmate. In the distance, half-way down to the great
gates, a light, open trap, harnessed with three horses in Russian
fashion, stood drawn up on one side, with the police captain of
the district sitting in it, the vizor of his flat cap with a red
band pulled down over his eyes.
It seems strange that he should have been there to watch our
going so carefully. Without wishing to treat with levity the
just timidites of Imperialists all the world over, I may allow
myself the reflection that a woman, practically condemned by the
doctors, and a small boy not quite six years old, could not be
regarded as seriously dangerous, even for the largest of
conceivable empires saddled with the most sacred of
responsibilities. And this good man I believe did not think so,
either.
I learned afterward why he was present on that day. I don't
remember any outward signs; but it seems that, about a month
before, my mother became so unwell that there was a doubt whether
she could be made fit to travel in the time. In this uncertainty
the Governor-General in Kiev was petitioned to grant her a
fortnight's extension of stay in her brother's house. No answer
whatever was returned to this prayer, but one day at dusk the
police captain of the district drove up to the house and told my
uncle's valet, who ran out to meet him, that he wanted to speak
with the master in private, at once. Very much impressed (he
thought it was going to be an arrest), the servant, "more dead
than alive with fright," as he related afterward, smuggled him
through the big drawing-room, which was dark (that room was not
lighted every evening), on tiptoe, so as not to attract the
attention of the ladies in the house, and led him by way of the
orangery to my uncle's private apartments.
The policeman, without any preliminaries, thrust a paper into my
uncle's hands.
"There. Pray read this. I have no business to show this paper
to you. It is wrong of me. But I can't either eat or sleep with
such a job hanging over me."
That police captain, a native of Great Russia, had been for many
years serving in the district.
My uncle unfolded and read the document. It was a service order
issued from the Governor-General's secretariat, dealing with the
matter of the petition and directing the police captain to
disregard all remonstrances and explanations in regard to that
illness either from medical men or others, "and if she has not
left her brother's house"--it went on to say--"on the morning of
the day specified on her permit, you are to despatch her at once
under escort, direct" (underlined) "to the prison-hospital in
Kiev, where she will be treated as her case demands."
"For God's sake, Mr. B., see that your sister goes away
punctually on that day. Don't give me this work to do with a
woman--and with one of your family, too. I simply cannot bear to
think of it."
He was absolutely wringing his hands. My uncle looked at him in
silence.
"Thank you for this warning. I assure you that even if she were
dying she would be carried out to the carriage."
"Yes--indeed--and what difference would it make--travel to Kiev
or back to her husband? For she would have to go--death or no
death. And mind, Mr. B., I will be here on the day, not that I
doubt your promise, but because I must. I have got to. Duty.
All the same my trade is not fit for a dog since some of you
Poles will persist in rebelling, and all of you have got to
suffer for it."
This is the reason why he was there in an open three-horse trap
pulled up between the house and the great gates. I regret not
being able to give up his name to the scorn of all believers in
the right of conquest, as a reprehensibly sensitive guardian of
Imperial greatness. On the other hand, I am in a position to
state the name of the Governor-General who signed the order with
the marginal note "to be carried out to the letter" in his own
handwriting. The gentleman's name was Bezak. A high dignitary,
an energetic official, the idol for a time of the Russian
patriotic press.
Each generation has its memories.
