Chapter 17
Königsmark went forward alone, and, hidden behind a young fir-tree, he beheld a spectacle.... He had seen such sights before, but not under such circumstances. In an iron scoop on the oven some game was being roasted; it might have been an enormous hare, but was not. Like a hare, it was very spindle-shanked and lean over back and breast; only the hinder-parts seemed well developed; the head was placed, between the two fore-paws.... No! they were not fore-paws, but two five-fingered hands, and round the neck a charred rope was knotted. It was a man who had been hung, and whom they had cut down in order to eat him.
The General was not squeamish by nature, and had in his life passed through many experiences, but this went beyond all bounds. He was at first angry, and wished to interrupt the cannibals’ meal, but when he saw the little children sitting on their mothers’ knees with tufts of grass in their mouths, he was seized with compassion. The cannibals themselves looked like corpses or madmen, and the eyes and expectations of all were fastened on the oven. At the same time they sang “Lord, have mercy,” and prayed for pardon for the grievous sin which they were obliged to commit. “What does it really matter to me?” said the General to himself; “I only wish I had not seen it.” He returned to his men, and they marched on.
The wood became thinner, and they came to an open place where was something resembling a heap of stones, out of which there arose a single pillar. In the half-twilight which reigned they could not see distinctly, but on the pillar something seemed to be moving. The “something” resembled a man, but had only one arm.
“It is not a man, for he would have two arms,” said one of the soldiers.
“It would be strange, if a man could not have an arm missing.”
“Strange indeed! Perhaps it is a pillar-saint.”
“Give him a charge of powder, and we shall soon see.”
At the rattle of arms which was now heard there, rose a howl so terrible and multitudinous, that no one thought it came from the pillar-saint. At the same time the apparent heap of stones moved and became a living mass.
“They are wolves! Aim! Fire!”
A volley was fired, and the wolves fled. Königsmarck rode through the smoke, and now saw a one-armed Imperialist standing on the chimney, which was all that was left of a burnt cottage. “Come down, and let us look at you,” he said.
The maimed man clambered down with his single arm, showing incredible agility. “We ought to have him to scale the wall with a storming-party,” said the General to himself.
Then the examination commenced.
“Are you alone?”
“Alone _now_--thanks to your grace, for the wolves have been round me for six hours.”
“What is your name? Where do you come from? Whither do you wish to go?”
“My name is Odowalsky; I come from Vienna; and I shall go to hell, if I don’t get help.”
“Will you go with us?”
“Yes, as sure as I live! With anybody, if only I can live. I have lost my arm; I was given a house; they burnt it, and threw me out on the highway--with wife and child, of course!”
“Listen; do you know the way to Prague?”
“I can find the way to Prague, to the Hradschin and the Imperial treasure-house, Wallenstein’s palace, the royal castle, Wallenstein’s dancing-hall, and the Loretto Convent. There there is _multum plus Plurimum_.”
“What is your rank in the army?”
“First Lieutenant.”
“That is something different. Come with me, and you shall have a horse, Mr. First Lieutenant, and then let us see what you are good for.”
Odowalsky received a horse, and the General bade him ride beside him. He talked confidentially with him the whole night till they again rejoined the main body of the army.
* * * * *
Some days later Königsmarck stood with his little troop on the White Mountain left of Prague--“Golden Prague,” as it was called. It was late in the evening of the fifteenth of June. He had Odowalsky at his side, and seemed to be particularly good friends with him. But the troop knew nothing of the General’s designs, and, as they saw that he went towards Prague, his officers were astounded, for the town was well fortified, and defended by a strong body of armed citizens.
“One can at any rate look at the show,” Königsmarck answered to all objections; “that costs nothing.”
They halted on the White Mountain, without, however, pitching a camp. They saw nothing of the beautiful town, for it was dark, but they heard the church and convent bells.
“This, then, is the White Mountain, where the war broke out just thirty years ago,” said Königsmarck to Odowalsky.
“Yes,” answered the Austrian. “It was then the Bohemian revolt broke out, your King Frederick V of the Palatinate was slain here, and there was great rejoicing at his death.”
“If you forget who you are, forget not who I am.”
“We will not quarrel about something that happened so long ago! But, as a matter of fact, the revolt was crushed, and the Protestants had to withdraw. What did they get by their trouble--the poor Bohemians? Hussites, Taborites, Utraquists sacrificed their lives, but Bohemia is still Catholic! It was all folly!”
“Do you belong to the Roman Church, First Lieutenant?”
“I don’t belong to any Church at all; I belong to the army. And now we will take Prague with a _coup de main_.”
So it fell out. At midnight the foot-soldiers clambered over the wall, threw the sentinels into the moat, cut down the guards at the gates, and took that side of the town.
For three days the part of the city which lay on the left bank of the Moldau was plundered, and Königsmarck is said to have sent five waggons laden with gold and silver to the north-west through Germany, as his own share of the spoil. Odowalsky received six thousand thalers for his trouble, and later on was raised to the Swedish House of Peers with the title of “Von Streitberg.”
But the right bank had not been captured. It was defended by ten thousand citizens, assisted by students, monks, and Jews. From ancient times there had been a large Jewish colony in Prague; the Jews were said to have escaped thither direct from Jerusalem during the last German crusade, and for that reason the island in the Moldau is still called Jerusalem. On this occasion the Jews so distinguished themselves that they received as a token of honour from the Emperor Ferdinand III a great flag, which can be still seen in their synagogue. Königsmarck could not take the Old Town, but had to send for help to Wittenberg. The latter actually plundered Tabor and Budweis, but Prague, which had been plundered, did not attract him. Then the Count Palatine Karl Gustav had to come, and formally besieged the eastern portion of the town.
Königsmarck dwelt in the Castle, where he could see the old hall of the States-General, from the window of which Count Thurn had thrown the Imperial governors Martiniz and Slavata; the Protestants say that they fell on a dungheap, but the Catholics maintain that it was an elder-bush.
Meanwhile Count Karl Gustav, who was a cousin of Frederick V, had as little success before Prague as the former. He became ill, and was sure that he had been poisoned. But he recovered, and was about to be reinforced by Wrangel, when news arrived that the Peace of Westphalia had been concluded.
With that the Thirty Years’ War was at an end. Sweden received two million thalers and some places of importance; these were enfeoffed to Germany, and in exchange Sweden had three votes in the German Reichstag.
But Germany’s population was only a quarter of what it had been, and, while it had formerly been one State under the Emperor, it was now split up into three hundred little States. However, the liberty of faith affirmed in the Confession of Augsburg, 1555, was recovered, and extended to the reformed districts. It was dearly bought, but with it North Germany had also obtained freedom from Rome, and that could not be too dearly purchased.
Out of chaos comes creation and new creation. From the Germanic chaos emerged North Germany, the seed of which was Brandenberg, later on developing into Prussia, and finally the German Empire, which received the imperial crown at Versailles, but not from the hands of Rome.
THE GREAT CZAR
On the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland lay the little village Strelna, halfway between Petersburg and the half-completed Peterhof. At the end of the village, on the edge of the Strelka stream, stood a simple country-house under oaks and pines. It was painted green and red, and the window-shutters were still fastened, for it was only four o’clock on a summer morning.
The Gulf of Finland lay smooth under the rays of the rising sun. A Dutch trading vessel, which had wished to enter the harbour and reach the Admiralty House, now furled its sails and dropped anchor. It carried a flag at its main-top which hung down idly.
Near the red and green country-house stood an ancient lime-tree with a split trunk; in the cleft a wooden platform with a railing had been fitted, and a flight of steps led up to this arbour. In this early morning hour there sat a man in the tree at an unpainted, unsteady table, writing letters. The table was covered with papers, but there was still room for a clock without a glass, a compass, a case of drawing instruments, and a large bell of bronze.
The man sat in his shirt-sleeves; he wore darned stockings which were turned down, and large shoes; his head seemed incredibly large, but was not so in reality; his neck was like that of an ox, and his body that of a giant; the hand which was now writing was coarse, and stained with tar; he wrote carelessly, with lines somewhat slanting, but quickly. The letters were short and to the point, with no introductions and no conclusions, merely signed “Pe ter,” the name divided in two, as though it had been split by the heavy hand which wrote it.
There were probably about a million men bearing that name in Russia; but this Peter was the only one of importance, and everyone recognised the signature.
The lime-tree was alive with bees, the little Strelka brook bubbled and fretted like a tea-kettle, and the sun rose gloriously; its rays fell between the leaves of the lime-tree, and threw patches of light on the strange face of one of the strangest and most incomprehensible men who have ever lived.
Just now this handsome head, with its short hair, looked like that of a wild boar; and when the writer licked his goose-quill like a school-boy, he showed teeth and a tongue like those of a memorial lion. Sometimes his features were convulsed with pain, as though he were being tortured or crucified. But then he took a new sheet, and began a new letter; his pen ran on; his mouth smiled till his eyes disappeared, and the terrible man looked roguish. Still another sheet, and a little note which was certainly directed to a lady; now the face changed to that of a satyr, melted so to speak, into harmonious lines, and finally exploded in a loud laugh which was simply cynical.
His morning correspondence was now ended. The Czar had written fifty letters. He left them unsealed. Kathia, his wife, would collect and fasten them.
The giant stretched himself, rose with difficulty, and cast a glance over the bay. With his spy-glass he saw Petersburg and his fleet, the Fort of Kronstadt, which had been commenced, and finally discovered the trading-vessel. “How did that come in without saluting?” he thought, “and dare to anchor immediately before my house!”
He rang, and a valet-de-chambre came at once, running from the row of tents which stood concealed behind the pines-trees, and where both soldiers and servants lodged.
“Take five men in a boat,” he ordered, “and hail that brig! Can you see what country it belongs to?”
“It is Dutch, your Majesty!”
“Dutch! Bring the captain here, dead or alive. At once! On the spot! But first my tea!”
“The household is asleep, most gracious lord.”
“Then wake it up, you ass! Knock at the shutters! Break the door in! Asleep in broad daylight!”
He rang again. A second servant appeared. “Tea! and brandy--plenty of brandy!”
The servants ran, the household was aroused, and the Czar occupied the interval by making notes on slate tablets. When he became impatient, he got down, and knocked at all the shutters with his stick. Then a voice was heard from within: “Wait a moment.”
“No! that I won’t; I am not born to wait. Hurry! or I will set the house on fire!”
He went into his gardens, cast a glance at his medicinal plants, plucked up some weeds, and watered here and there. He went into the cattle-sheds, and looked at some merino sheep which he himself had introduced. Here he found a trave which had been broken; he took a saw and plane, and mended it. He threw some oats in the manger of his favourite trotting-horse. He drove for the most part, when he did not go on foot; riding seemed to him unworthy of a seaman, and it was as a seaman that the Czar chiefly wished to be regarded. Then he went into the lathe-shop, sat for a while on the turning-bench, and worked. At the window stood a table with a copper-engraver’s tools; with the graving-tool he drew some lines which were wanting in the map plate. He was about to proceed to the smithy, when a woman’s voice called him under the lime-tree.
On the platform stood his wife the Czarina, in her morning dress. She had massive limbs and large feet; her face was stout and plain, her eyes were not level, but had a steady expression.
“How early you are up this morning, Little Father?” she said.
“Is it early? It is six at any rate!”
“It is only just five.”
“Five? Then it shall be six.”
He pushed the hand of the clock an hour forward. His wife smiled a little superciliously, but took care not to irritate him, for she knew how dangerous it was to do so. Then she gave him his tea.
“There is some occupation for you,” said Peter, pointing to his letters.
“But how many there are!”
“If there are too many I can get help.”
The Czarina, did not answer, but began to look through the letters. The Czar liked that, for then there would be occasion for quarrelling; and he always wished for a quarrel in order to keep his energies active.
“Pardon me, Peter,” said his wife, “but is it right that you should apply to the Swedish Government about the Dutch ships?”
“Yes, it is! All that I do is right!”
“I don’t understand it. Our Russians fired by mistake at friendly Dutch vessels, and you demand indemnity from the Swedes because the mischance occurred in Swedish waters.”
“Yes, according to Roman law, the injury must be made good in the land where it happened....”
“Yes, but....”
“It is all the same anyhow: he who can pay, pays; I cannot, and the Dutch will not, therefore the Swedes must! Do you understand?”
“No.”
“The Swedes have incited the Turks against me; they must pay for that.”
“May be! But why do you write so harshly to the Dutch Government since you like the Dutch?”
“Why! Because since the Peace of Utrecht, Holland is on the decline. It is all over with Holland; on to the rubbish-heap with it! I hold on to England, since France is also declining.”
“Should one abandon one’s old friends?...”
“Certainly, when they are no more good. Moreover, there is no friendship in love and in politics. Do you think I like this wretched August of Poland? No! I am sure you don’t. But I must go with him through thick and thin, for my country, for Russia. He who cannot sacrifice his little humours and passions for his country is a Don Quixote, like Charles the Twelfth. This fool, with his mad hatred against August and myself, has worked for Sweden’s overthrow and Russia’s future. But that this Christian dog should incite the Turks against us was a crime against Europe, for Europe needs Russia as a bulwark against Asia. Did not the Mongol sit for two hundred years on our frontier and threaten us? And when our ancestors had at last driven him away, there comes a fellow like this and brings the heathen from Constantinople upon us. The Mongols were once in Silesia, and would have destroyed Western Europe if we Russians had not saved it. Charles XII is dead, but I curse his memory, and I curse everyone who seeks to hinder me in my laudable endeavour to raise Russia from a Western Asiatic power to an Eastern European one. I shall beat everyone down, whoever he may be, who interferes with my work, even though it were my own son.”
There was silence for some moments. The last words referred to the Delicate topic of Alexis, Peter’s son by his first marriage, who was now a prisoner awaiting his death-sentence in the Peter-Paul Fortress. He was accused of having endeavoured to hinder his father’s work in the civilisation of Russia, and was suspected of having taken part in plots of rebellion. The Czar’s first divorced wife Eudoxia was confined in the convent of Suzdal.
Katharina naturally did not love Alexis, since he stood in the way of her children, and she would have been glad of his death, but did not wish to incur the guilt of it. Since Peter also did not wish to take the responsibility for it, he had appointed a court of a hundred and twenty-seven persons to try his son.
The topic therefore was an unwelcome one, and, with his extraordinary facility for quick changes of thought and feeling, Peter broke the silence with the prosaic question, “Where is the brandy?”
“You will get no brandy so early, my boy.”
“Kathrina!” said Peter in a peculiar tone, while his face began to twitch.
“Be quiet, Lion!” answered his wife, and stroked his black mane, which had begun to bristle. She took a bottle and a glass out of a basket.
The Lion cheered up, swallowed the strong drink, smiled, and stroked his spouse’s expansive bust.
“Will you see the children?” asked Katherine, in order to bring him into a milder mood.
“No, not to-day! Yesterday I beat them, and they would think I was running after them. Keep them at a distance. Keep them under, or they will get the better of you!”
Katherine had taken the last letter, as though absent-mindedly, and began to read it. Then she coloured, and tore it in two. “You must not write to actresses. That is too great an honour for them, and can only disgrace us.”
The Czar smiled, and was not angry. He had not intended to send the letter, but only scribbled it in order to excite his wife, perhaps also to show off.
There was a sound of approaching footsteps underneath.
“See! there is my friend, the scoundrel!”
“Hush!” said Katherine, “Menshikoff is your friend.”
“A fine friend! Already once I have condemned him to death as a thief and deceiver; but he lives still, thanks to your friendship.”
“Hush!”
Menshikoff (he was a great soldier, an able statesman, an indispensable favourite, enormously rich) came hurrying up the wooden stairs. It was in his house that the Czar had found his Katherine. He was handsome, looked like a Frenchman, dressed well, and had polished manners. He greeted the Czar ceremoniously, and kissed Katherine’s hand.
“Now they are there again,” he commenced.
“The Strelitzil? [Footnote: a Russian body-guard first established by Ivan the Terrible.] Have I not rooted them out?”
“They grow like the dragon’s seed, and now they want to deliver Alexis.”
“Have you any more exact information?”
“The conspirators meet this evening at five o’clock.”
“Where?”
“Number fourteen the Strandlinje, at an apparently harmless meal.”
“Strand--14,” wrote the Czar on his tablets. “Any more?”
“To-night at two o’clock they fire the city.”
“At two o’clock?” The Czar shook his head, and his face twitched.
“I build up, and they pull down. But now I will extirpate them root and branch. What do they say?”
“They look back to Holy Moscow, and regard the building of Petersburg as a piece of godlessness or malice. The workmen die, like flies, of marsh fever, and they regard your Majesty’s building in the midst of a marsh as an act of bravado a la Louis Quatorze, who built Versailles on the site of a swamp.”
“Asses! My town is to command the mouth of the river, and to be the Key to the sea, therefore it must be there. The marsh shall be drained off into canals, which will carry boats like those of Amsterdam. But so it is when monkeys judge!”
He rang; a servant appeared; “Put the horses to the cabriolet”; he called down, “and now, goodbye, Katherine; I shall not be home till to-morrow. It will be a hot day. But don’t forget the letters. Alexander can help you.”
“Will you not dress, little son?” answered Katherine.
“Dress? I have my sabre.”
“Put at least your coat on.”
The Czar put on his coat, drew the belt which held the sabre some holes tighter, and sprang at one bound from the platform.
“Now it will come off,” whispered Menshikoff to Katherine.
“You have not been lying, Alexander?”
“A few lies adorn one’s speech. The chief point is gained. To-morrow, Katherine, you can sleep quietly in the nursery with the heirs to the throne.”
“Can any misfortune happen to him?”
“No! he never has misfortune.”
* * * * *
The Czar ran down to the seashore; he never walked, but always ran. “Life goes fast,” he was wont to say, “and there is much to do.”
When he reached the gravel bank he found a boat landing, with five men and the Dutch prisoner. The latter sat stolidly by the rudder, and smoked his pipe. But when he saw the Czar, he took off his cap, threw it in the air, and cried, “Hurrah!”
Czar Peter shaded his eyes, and, when he recognised his old teacher and friend, Jaen Scheerborck from Amsterdam, he jumped into the boat over the rowers’ shoulders and knees, rushed into Jaen’s arms and kissed him, so that his pipe broke and the seaman’s great grey beard was full of smoke and nearly took fire. Then the Czar lifted the old man up, and carried him in his arms like a child to the shore.
“At last, you old rascal! I have you here with me! Now you shall see my city and my fleet, which I have built myself, for you have taught me. Bring the cabriolet here, boy! and a grapnel from the boat; we will go, and tack about. Quickly!”
“Dear heart alive!” said the old man, picking the tobacco-ashes out of his beard, “to think that I have seen the Carpenter-Czar before I die; that is....”
“Into the cabriolet, old fellow! Boy, hang the grapnel behind. Where are you to sit? On my knees, of course!”
The cabriolet had only room for one person, and the captain actually had to sit on the Czar’s lap. Three horses were yoked to it tandem-fashion, and a fourth ran beside the leader. The whip cracked, and the Czar played being at sea. “A good wind, isn’t it? Twelve knots! Furl the sheet! so!”
A toll-gate appeared, and the captain, who knew the Czar’s wild tricks but also his skill, began to cry “There is a toll-gate! Stop!”
But the Czar, who had found again his youth with his old friend of former times, and with his indestructible boyishness, liked practical jokes and dangers, whipped on the horses, whistled and shouted, “Let her go! Clear for action! Jump!”
The toll-gate was burst clean open, and the old man laughed so that he swayed on the Czar’s knees. And so they drove along the shore. At the town gate the sentinels presented arms and saluted; on the streets people cried “Hurrah!” and when they reached the Admiralty, cannon were fired and the yards manned. But the Czar seriously or in play, as though he were on the sea, shouted “Anchor!”
So saying, he so threw the grapnel towards the wall, that it caught in a torch-holder, which bent but did not break. But the horses, which were still running, were suddenly forced back, and sank on their knees. The first of the three rose no more; it had been fatally injured by bursting in the toll-gate.