CHAPTER V

EVERY ROAD LEADS TO ST. PETERSBURG--BUT WHITHER DOES ST. PETERSBURG LEAD?

And now it suddenly dawned upon Heinrich why Tatiana's papa, Nicholas Eskimov, was placed next to the Bishop. Truly he was a great potentate!

A far-seeing idea popped into Heinrich's brain. He went to the credenz-table, where refreshments were being distributed, and where also the Governor was delighting his eyes with the spectacle of the pretty girls dancing, and at the same time sipping a glass of iced sherbet.

He bowed deeply before him, and saluted him in Russian--

"Zdorovuyte!"[21] he said.

[Footnote 21: "Your health!"]

The Governor tapped the doctor on the shoulder.

"So you have come home! And got an appointment too, I hear?" said he.

"But I don't want to keep it."

"Then what _do_ you want?" asked Eskimov, regarding the youth through his glass.

"A wider career. Here at Bialystok there is no scope for a doctor, especially if he be a homoeopathist. Here, if anybody is ill he wants the doctor to drink the medicine with him in whacking tumblers, and won't accept a recipe unless it covers a whole sheet of foolscap. True there will be no end of bleedings and cataplasms, but the whole of modern medical science is absolutely thrown away upon them. There is no getting on here. The Pole lives in his traditions. I want to go to St. Petersburg. There there is a fine open career for an enterprising doctor. St. Petersburg is the new Rome. Every road leads to it. I beg your Excellency to give me letters of introduction to your acquaintances in the Tsar's capital, that beneath their protection I may go on to prosper."

"Well, I should like to pack you off myself and I'll give you the letters of introduction at once. When do you want to go? To-morrow! Immediately! So much the better. But hold! my son! We never give anything gratis in our part of the world, we always like something in exchange. Apparently you are the good comrade of young Squire Casimir, eh?"

"That depends."

"But I noticed just now that when Squire Casimir finished dancing with my daughter just now you had a private chat with him. At least answer me this question: if a Pole gives his word to any one, does he keep it?"

"Well, I can tell your Excellency so much: if a Pole gives his word to a comrade, he will go through fire and water for him; if he gives his word to an enemy, he will return to his prison; if he gives his word to a tyrant, he will bear that tyrant's yoke;--but if he gives his word to a pretty girl he will forget it as soon as he turns upon his heel."

"It is not only the Poles who do the last thing. But just one more question, and accordingly as you answer it truthfully I shall know what to think of you. You heard the congratulations made to the Starosta when he announced the betrothal of his son to a Viennese Princess; you saw her portrait, for the Starosta let you have it. Tell me truly, on your honour, which is the lovelier of the two, my Tatiana or the Viennese Princess?"

"Your Excellency! Paris never had so much difficulty in pronouncing judgment when called upon to award the golden apple to one of three goddesses, as I should have to decide which of the two girls is the lovelier in my eyes. But one thing I _can_ tell you. In the background of that portrait are painted two splendid castles. Those castles, with all the appurtenances thereof, will be part of the bride's dowry. And those two castles are very fine castles."

"Good. I know everything. To-morrow, after dinner, come to me at the fortress for your letters of introduction."

After that Heinrich vanished from the dancing-room, he returned to his own room to devise artful plans for the future.

Every evil inclination was now aroused in his bosom: envy, shame, anger, and slighted love--those four monsters who never close an eye and are alert even when they are asleep.

At dawn of day he was summoned by the Starosta. The old fellow was sitting in an armchair with a mottled purple face and breathing heavily.

"What ails your Excellency?"

"I am waiting for a stroke or for a surgeon to open a vein, and the question is which will be the quicker," replied the Starosta, pleasantly.

"Well, I've come first, you see."

And then he performed the little surgical operation on the Starosta which his constitution demanded after every banquet.

"Well done, my son. You understand your business, I see. What a pity you can't remain at my court here."

"What does your Excellency mean?"

"The Governor has been talking to me. He says you want to go to St. Petersburg. You are right. But he also advised me to send my own Casimir to the Russian court. There's a great career open there for such youths as he who can read and even philosophize a bit. The Muscovites love philosophy. Well, with us a little of it goes a long way. _We_ always do what the warmth of our hearts suggests to our brains, and don't waste much time in deliberation. Well, go together. I'll send after you the salary I promised you for your official services here, and in return I will only ask you to keep watch over my son, lest any evil befall him."

Heinrich pressed the hand of his benefactor. He understood the allusion.

It was the usual pretext: to advance a person in order to remove him.

The Governor had observed that Casimir had brought the girl back to her mother _by her left hand_. Let the young squire go to St. Petersburg!

After dinner, Heinrich went to town, to the Governor's. He gave him the promised letters of introduction and two passports, one for himself and one for Casimir.

"So Squire Casimir goes with you? Well, my son, I lay it upon your soul to let me know everything that he does or intends to do during his stay at St. Petersburg. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly, your Excellency."

Scarce a year had passed since the two young men had departed for St. Petersburg, when one night they returned home together to the Castle of Bialystok.

It was a dark night when they arrived, and they came to the gate of the park, which they opened with the assistance of their keys and got into the Castle without the knowledge of the family. They sought the Starosta.

The old man was sitting all alone in his bedroom, in a large armchair. He was betwixt three tables, one in front of and one on each side of him. On the table in front of him was a large book printed on vellum, containing the history of Lithuania (each chapter beginning with beautiful big illuminated letters), from the days of the first pagan Grand Duke. On the other two tables were placed flasks of all shapes and sizes, and of a religious character, coming as they did from Chartreuse or Benedictine monasteries, not to mention other similar elixirs worthy of equal praise. He was astonished when he saw the two young men enter.

"Has the magic bird griffin brought you hither?" he cried.

"Yes, the bird griffin has indeed brought us hither," said Casimir to the Count. "I mean that griffin who clutches hold of the mightinesses of this world and carries them to the mountains of Kaf."

And then he told his father how a world-illuminating idea had come to birth in the capital of the great Russian empire, which aimed at nothing less than freeing all the nations of the earth from tyranny. A powerful league had arisen, with the Grand Duke Constantine at its head, for the annihilation of tyrants. The members of this league were all the nations of the Russian Empire, and the fifth of these nations was Poland. The sixth and seventh, who did not yet belong to the Russian world-empire, were the Wallachians and the Magyars; but these also were going to join on. Every member of this holy league carried by way of a symbol a copper ring, whose sevenfold monogram contained the initial letters of the seven nations.

Old Moskowski welcomed the idea with great delight.

Everything was ripe for a rupture. The army had been won over to the cause of the Revolution. In the various provinces, administrative details had already been arranged, and to every one his part had been distributed. To Casimir Moskowski was assigned the insurrectionary province of Volhynia. The signal was awaited from St. Petersburg. As soon as the Revolution had broken out and gained ground there, the signal would be given to all the other chief towns, to the South Russians in Kiev, to the Tartars at Kazan, to the Crimean peoples in Bogchiserai, to the Finns in Helsingfors, to the Poles at Warsaw--the Revolution would raise its head simultaneously in all these places. And before long the concerted outbreak would spread from Bialystok to Perm, Odessa, and even to distant Tobolsk.

The Starosta was ravished at the prospect.

"But how about the Governor?" he said.

"Nicholas Eskimov will be seized in the citadel, together with the garrison."

"And then he shall sweep the courtyard of the Palace of Bialystok," cried the Starosta, "and that stuck-up little daughter of his, Tatiana, shall wash the crockery in my scullery."

"But all this must be kept secret till the signal arrives from St. Petersburg for a general rising."

There was only one thing which nettled the old Starosta. As the Holy League had included Volhynia among its provinces, why did they not confide the leadership of the insurrection to the man best entitled to it; in other words, to himself, the father? Why give it to his son?

"Well, you know, you are very old, and drink a great deal."

At last the old man accommodated himself to the new order of things. After all, if his son became the chief man in Volhynia, the glory of it could not fail to rebound upon him.

From that day forth the two young men remained hidden in the Castle; none knew of their whereabouts.

They were to receive the stipulated signal from St. Petersburg by pigeon-post.

And one day the post-pigeon really did arrive at the Castle.

They found among its tail feathers a thin membrous letter, to whose cipher Heinrich possessed the key.

Heinrich took the letter and unhusked its contents. "Bad news--the very worst," he cried; "the Revolution broke out at St. Petersburg, but was instantly suppressed. All the leaders of the league have been seized. _Sauve qui peut!_"

"There you are," said the Starosta. "I'm old, and drink too much, eh? But if I want to do anything, nobody shall stand in my way but myself. You are young and wise; that is why you can talk so much and do nothing."

"Our sole safety is now in flight," said Heinrich. "The pigeon-post has just brought us the bad news, but as yet the Governor knows nothing about it. He will only be informed of it officially to-morrow afternoon. We have the start of him by two days. We ought to take refuge at once."

"Where?" inquired the Starosta.

"Our way is plain. Austria is quite close to us. Vienna will not deliver up political refugees. There, too, is Casimir's future father-in-law, and he is a man of great political influence. We must take shelter under his wings. Only let the first fury pass away over our heads; the rest will be a matter of high diplomacy."

So the two young men resolved to fly towards the Austrian frontier. The Russian Government would know nothing of their flight thither and their stay there.

A week later the Starosta received a letter written by Heinrich, in which he was informed that the two young men had safely crossed the border and arrived in the Austrian capital, proceeding at once to the Prince's family mansion, where they had been very heartily welcomed. There was no danger. They had simply denied any participation in the revolution. The ambassadors would make all the rest easy.

Moskowski hastened to communicate this joyful intelligence to the Rev. Mr. Klausner, who, in the mean time, had again become the daily guest of the Starosta's.

Still greater satisfaction did it afford Moskowski when he read all about the St. Petersburg rising in the newspapers and those implicated therein; and at the same time he frequently met Governor Eskimov, who continued to treat him most affably, and never once inquired about his son or ever alluded to the conspiracy at St. Petersburg, treating it as an affair which did not concern either of them the least bit in the world. Naturally, Moskowski himself took good care to let the matter alone.

After a very short delay a letter arrived for the Starosta from the Prince von Sonnenburg, in which he informed his dear friend that his only daughter Ingola had that very day before the altar been united by the insoluble bonds of holy matrimony to Squire Casimir, the Starosta's son. Simultaneously, Heinrich sent a letter to his father, circumstantially describing the pomp and splendour of the wedding, after which the happy pair had retired to the ancestral Castle of Sonnenburg. Thence they were to proceed to Italy for the honeymoon, and they proposed to take him, as doctor, along with them.

On hearing this joyful intelligence, old Moskowski attended a plain Mass from mere thankfulness.

Another year had elapsed, when Squire Casimir himself informed his father by letter of a joyful family event. A little son had been born to him, and both mother and child were doing excellently well. He was to be named Maximilian, after his maternal grandfather.

"There you are," cried old Moskowski in triumph to the Rev. Mr. Klausner, "a grandson with the name of Maximilian, a grandson of an Austrian prince! _He_ never _can_ become a boor. Was there ever a Maximilian in the world who came down to that? Never! A fig for all your Jewish prophesies!"

After that there arrived frequent letters from the bride, letters written in a fine, elegant hand, with a soft flowing pen. And in these letters the highly cultured _grand dame_ drew, without end, idyllic pictures of the bliss she shared with her Casimir.

Presently there came an agreeable communication subscribed by the Chancellor of the Imperial Court officially informing the Starosta that his son Casimir had been promoted to the rank of major in the First Imperial Uhlan regiment.

A year later a second joyful family event was announced. "A second, eh?" His name was Stanislaus. To him, at any rate, they gave a good old Polish name.

"Ah, how I should like to see them all!" sighed the old Starosta.

But his old bones did not like the idea of a long carriage journey. The City of Vienna is, alas! a terrible distance from Bialystok.

Never mind, what one cannot see face to face can be presented fairly well in a picture; and the loving daughter-in-law painted the two little descendants in the act of embracing each other, with their two little curly polls all mixed up together. The tears regularly flowed from the eyes of the old Starosta as he gazed upon this pretty picture.

"These never can become serfs; no, never!"

And fresh presents arrived.

They sent from Vienna the twofold family tree of the Moskowskis and the Sonnenburgs, blended together in a harmonious whole. It was wrought in copper-plate with masterly engravings. Not a fault could be found in it.

Then the old Starosta wrote a letter with his own hand to his children, to his son and daughter-in-law. He called them "my children" expressly in this letter. He assured them he was longing for the time when he should see them all in the ancient Castle of Bialystok. The Tsar would certainly grant an amnesty to those who had been compromised in the rising of 1824, and had taken refuge abroad. He trusted the Almighty would permit him to see that time. He also thanked Heinrich for cleaving so faithfully to Casimir. He was a worthy young man, who deserved all respect.

And a worthy young man he was indeed. He wrote his father a letter every week, and every now and then he sent a little money home, although his earnings were very small.

And once more the Starosta received an official letter from Vienna, in which the Lord High Steward informed him, in the most obliging manner, that his Majesty, the Emperor and King, had advanced Casimir Moskowski to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and at the same time decorated him with the golden key of a Kammerherr.

"What, my son a lieutenant-colonel!--in the mighty Imperial army! Ah, how I should like to see him in his fur-bedizened red uniform! And I wonder where he'll hang his Kammerherr key--on his breast or in his girdle? If only I could see his face! My dear pastor, do write once more to Heinrich, and urge him to say to my son, 'Have your portrait painted for your father's sake, at full length, life size, sitting on horseback, commanding your regiment, and send it on to him. It would be the very best Christmas gift you could give him.'"

So the Rev. Gottlieb Klausner wrote to his son, declaring the wish of the affectionate father, and duly got an answer from him.

But this answer greatly angered the two old gentlemen.

"Casimir will not let himself be painted; he is tormented by the suspicion that those who are painted in their youth will die young."

"Did ever any one hear such rubbish?" growled the Starosta. "_My_ son superstitious! And a superstition, too, the like of which I never heard of! What was the good, then, of his learning philosophy, metaphysics, and chemistry? _I_ never took my degree at Utrecht, yet even I don't believe such nonsense. That comes of settling down in Vienna, you see. He's got mumpish and stupid."

"I'll soon find a remedy for all that," said Gottlieb Klausner. "I know a famous painter at Vienna who has a peculiar talent. If once he has had a good look at any one, he can go home and paint that person's portrait to the life without the person so painted knowing anything about it. I can certainly trust him with this commission."

"Do it for me, by all means. I'll send him a thousand dollars in advance on account, and if when the picture arrives I recognize my son, I'll give the painter whatever he likes to ask for it."

A few months afterwards Klausner got his answer from the painter. The picture was already on its way, well packed up, frame and all. A four-horse waggon would bring it from Vienna to Bialystok. Let them only keep an eye on the frontier custom-house officers, lest they injured it.

The bringing of the picture to the house was a veritable triumphal progress. It was packed in a gigantic case, and it required four master carpenters to open it and disentangle it from all its swathing bands and wrappings.

On the same day on which the picture arrived, the Governor intimated to the Starosta that he was inviting himself to dinner at the latter's house.

"So much the better," said the Starosta. "I should like him to be present when they bring in the picture. Don't tell him anything about it. Let it be a great surprise for him. How the chinovnik will stare when he sees Casimir in the imperial uniform! I wonder if the painter has painted his golden key?"

"He cannot paint that," said Klausner, "because these Kammerherr gentlemen wear it behind their backs."

"What, wear a mark of distinction behind! Who ever heard of such a thing?"

Mr. Eskimov arrived punctually to dinner. There were only three at table--the Starosta, the clergyman, and the Governor--and they very pleasantly drank a few glasses of Tokai together. When the pipes were produced, by way of winding up the repast, the Governor observed--

"Well, my good sir, we can now talk together about a very serious business. I didn't want to put you out in any way during the meal. I want to speak to you about your _poor_ son."

"Oh, that won't put me out in the least; though I don't know why you should call him _poor_. I, for one, don't consider my son's fate at all a sorry one."

"Come, now, that's very noble of you to be so content with the Tsar's exalted measures, and not consider your son's fate so terrible, especially as I may at once give you the assurance that his fate has now come to an end; the Tsar has just issued a general amnesty for the leaders of the rebellion of 1824."

Moskowski shrugged his shoulders. "My son held no leading part in that rebellion."

"Come, come, my dear Starosta, don't tell me that. I am acquainted with all the details of the process. I know exactly what part Casimir took in it. I took a lot of trouble to get the capital sentence commuted to lifelong transportation to Siberia."

"My son in Siberia?"

"Yes. The Tsar's clemency delivered him from it not so very long ago."

"My friend, that little drop of Tokai has got into your head. You shouldn't play with your glass; take bigger gulps, and cure yourself that way. My son was never in Siberia."

"Indeed! Why, I sent him there myself. I have about me my letter on the subject to the Governor of Tobolsk, which I sent to him seven years ago."

"And I have a letter of congratulation from the Lord High Steward of the Imperial Court, in which he informs me of the promotion of my son to the rank of a major of Lancers."

"Your son a major of Lancers! Why, he's a raskolnik."

"A raskolnik? They would not be likely, I think, to give a Princess of Sonnenburg in marriage to a raskolnik."

"A Princess of Sonnenburg to your son! You're mad! Why, I seized him myself when he was attempting to escape across the border. He could not deny that he had taken part in the rebellion, for we found on his person full powers from the revolutionary committee. It was a good job for him that he also had about him his academic diploma, which certified that he understood chemistry and mining. Those delinquents who understand the science of mining are treated with particular favour: they do not get the knout, and are not put in chains. But, on the other hand, they are obliged to utilize their knowledge in the gold mines of the Urals."

"My son in the gold mines of the Urals! You are beside yourself, comrade."

"On the contrary, I am a good deal in advance of you. This was in the beginning of 1825."

"What was in the beginning of 1825? At that very time my son was enjoying his honeymoon in Italy. He wrote to me there, from the summit of Vesuvius--he and his consort."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Governor. "Your son's consort wrote to you! The daughter of a Samoyede chief wrote to you from the summit of Vesuvius! Ha, ha, ha!"

"Don't enrage me, my son! Do you mean the Kamtschatka to which that mad Vulko alluded?"

"I don't know the name of your son's consort; but I do know that she is the daughter of a Samoyede chief. The Governor of Siberia has sent me regular reports about your son Casimir every year. I expressly asked him to do so. One year your son spent in the gold-mines of the Urals, and then, because of his good conduct, and also out of regard to his father, he was permitted to devote himself to agriculture on the banks of the Jenisei. There he fell in with a Samoyede stock, good, honest, hospitable people. The chief's daughter fell in love with him, and they gave her to him. Casimir built himself a _jurta_, as they call their huts, reared reindeer, ploughed up a bit of land, and settled down there with his Siberian rose, and in the mean time two children have been born to them."

"I know--I know it right well," said the Starosta, whose long-repressed laughter now burst forth, "and he has sent his father their portraits."

"His father? Their portraits?"

"And two pretty little fair-haired chaps, too!"

"Fair-haired! Has _he_ got fair-haired children, too?"

"One of them has been christened Maximilian, after his maternal grandfather; the other is called Stanislaus."

"I had no idea there were ancestral Maximilians and Stanislauses among the Samoyedes."

But now the Starosta began to grow really angry. He struck the table viciously with his fist.

"In the name of St. Procopius, what do you mean? We have had about enough of this Siberian joke and these Samoyede princes. You must not jest so with me. D'ye hear?"

"And I protest by St. Michael that I am not jesting at all, but that you are jesting with me; and your jesting is very much out of place, and out of season, too. D'ye hear?"

"Very well. I'll fetch this instant the letter of the Lord High Steward at Vienna, and that will open your eyes a bit."

"And I'll produce letters from the Governors of Tobolsk, Irkutsk, and Jeniseisk, and that will make you prick up your ears."

The two distinguished gentlemen were on the point of coming to fisticuffs when, fortunately, the pastor, always sober-minded, intervened between them.

"Pray be calm, your honours," said Gottlieb Klausner. "Why all this barren strife? Have we not here the very portrait painted for his honour the Starosta by a famous Viennese painter--the portrait, I mean, of Squire Casimir in the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel of the Imperial and Royal Uhlans? That picture will be the best means of deciding which of you is right."

Two heydukes thereupon brought the huge picture in its bronzed frame into the room, and they leaned it up against the wall.

And as they all three gazed at the picture--and, remember, they were all of them strong-minded men--they bounced back in amazement, as if they had seen a spectre.

"Lord have mercy upon us!"

And yet it was an extremely handsome picture, too, painted in a most masterly manner--true to the life. An officer of Uhlans, a manly and picturesque figure. Tawny, lion-like locks flowed over both shoulders; his ruddy face, blue eyes, and light eyebrows went very well together. At the corner of his smiling mouth there was a little mole.

"That is my son," gasped the clergyman, and he fell senseless to the ground.