CHAPTER X

FROM SCENT OF MUSK TO REEKING TAR

When those assembled were assured of Galban's departure, Pestel began:

"My lords and gentlemen, that was very fine--I mean the romance; but it seems to me we have met to discuss other matters. Is it not so, Cousin Krizsanowski?"

The Polish noble shrugged his shoulders.

"I have nothing more to say." At the same time, drawing from his pocket the inevitable meerschaum and tobacco-pouch, he slowly filled and lighted his pipe, which in the Eastern "language of tobacco" implies, "I should have plenty to say, if I could only smoke out from here certain folk who seem suspicious to me."

Zeneida, understanding his meaning, whispered something in Ryleieff's ear.

"All right," returned Ryleieff, "let us hear our Pushkin's song of liberty. True, the fine romance you read us entitles us to name you our Tyrtæus. Never, since Byron--"

Pushkin did not allow him to finish the sentence. His praises excited him to fury. A schoolboy may win with pride the prize for the best verses, and carry it home in triumph to his parents, but your true poet cannot brook being praised to his face. He feels that he has constrained your praises. Thus, if you be a woman, throw him a flower; if a man, give him a shake of the hand; but never tell him face to face that he has composed a fine poem; by so doing you repel him. And worse than all is it for another poet to praise his work. "_Genus irritabile vatum._"

"No, no, gentlemen," he cried, in wrathful voice. "My poem is not for your ears. It is not meant for musk-scented atmospheres, but for such as reek with tar and tobacco. Come, Jakuskin, let us go off to some beer-shop; that's the right place for it."

Springing up, Jakuskin held out his hand to him.

"All right, let us go to the Bear's Paw."

"Very well."

No one attempted to detain them. Between the two doors the rest of their conversation was heard.

"Shall we take Diabolka with us?" said Jakuskin.

"All right. Let's look for her."

"She must have fallen asleep somewhere. I will soon wake her to life again."

In this unceremonious fashion did the guests take their leave of their hostess. Zeneida, however, following them, left the room.

"Now you can talk out," exclaimed Pestel, hurriedly, to Krizsanowski. "Perhaps Zeneida's presence has hampered you. Have you anything to make known to us?"

"Yes," replied the Pole. "But it was not her presence which deterred me. Far from it. Women, when they are in a conspiracy, know well how to keep secrets. Laena bit out her tongue on the wheel of torture that she might not betray her colleagues. Ever since then the tongueless lioness has been the emblem of silence. Oh, I reckon greatly upon our women. I would even rather await Zeneida's return before speaking, were I assured that she would not bring back the other two with her."

"You mistrust them?"

"No, but I do not like them. In conspiracies it is not the absolute traitors who are the most to be feared. There are three classes I dread more--cowards, self-willed and fantastic persons. The last is the most dangerous of all, for he deceives himself, and reports falsely. If he hear a drunken peasant swear, he reports the existence of a revolutionary spirit; if he see a solitary deserter, he distorts him into a whole regiment. He believes just what his fancy paints. If he has filled his head with revolutionary writings he conceives himself to be a Robespierre, and every St. Petersburg mujik is a Paris _sans culotte_ to him. To the working out of a conspiracy we want no fantastic notions; but, on the contrary, common-sense and judgment. With those two men I prefer not to discuss matters; the one is a fool, the other a poet."

Pestel hastily pulled the Pole's long hanging sleeve.

"Do not affront Ryleieff," he said.

"Oh, Ryleieff is different. He can write any number of correct verses--faultless as to rhyme; he measures his thoughts into iambics and trochees, like a corn merchant does his wheat into bushels and sacks. He is master of his imagination--imagination does not master him."

Ryleieff was manager of the American Corn Company, and being, in truth, more business man than poet, received this doubtful compliment with an acquiescent smile.

The party, meanwhile, had risen from the table, and was standing about in little groups, awaiting Zeneida's return.

Ryleieff and Krizsanowski retired together into a corner. The Pole, smoking furiously, blew thick clouds of smoke about him, as though considering his rigid features a too transparent mask, likely to betray him. And in order not to be questioned, he began to question.

"There are one or two points I should be glad to have cleared up. The first spring of every great aim proceeds from selfish motives. Freedom--well, yes, is the sun; private aims are earth. We are upon the earth. From mere abstract motives a new era has never been started. My private motives require no explanation; they are expressed in two words--I am a Pole. That is sufficient ground for me to stand upon. Fräulein Ilmarinen is a Finn. I take it that is sufficient reason for her action. I have no fear that she will be dazzled by the pinnacle she stands on, encircled with wreaths and diamonds. I can also understand your moving spring. You love your own race; you see how it has remained behind other nations, and would raise it to their level. Pestel's motives also I can grasp. He has immense ambition. He would fain be the head of a newly formed state. The basis is broad enough; his foot rests on a sure pedestal. The rest are shifting, unstable, attracted to the movement by the hope of playing some brilliant part in it. Then we have Apostol Muravieff. He, too, is constrained to it by a paternal heritage, from which he cannot free himself. Pushkin is in love with Zeneida; that, too, is sure ground enough. That madman Jakuskin is actuated by revenge; another safe passion on which one may rely. His sense of puritanical integrity binds that fine fellow Turgenieff to us. From earliest youth he has ever been in the advance guard of freedom, first in the first rank. Such iron rectitude can be recast in no other form, rather it would break than yield. Now there is but one man here whose presence I cannot understand: that is Duke Ghedimin. A member of one of the twelve old Russian dynastic families, his possessions so immense that he is simply unable to expend his yearly income on Russian soil, holding the highest grade at Court, himself an accomplished, brilliant, sought-after aristocrat, who by any changes you may effect has everything to lose, nothing to gain--what does he seek here? What is his interest in making himself one of this conspiracy?"

"He is the very one, among us all, who has the weightiest reason: the recollection of an irreconcilable affront, for it was a personal one. You know the Czar. You know that, as a man, no one is his enemy. Even Jakuskin merely hates in him the Czar, not the man. Duke Ghedimin is the sole one who stands opposed to him, as man to man. The Czar was married very young, to a delicate wife; his children died early. He grew cold towards his wife, and sought compensation in a new passion. The only daughter of one of our first families, renowned far and wide for her great beauty, was willing to console him. The illicit connection had consequences--a daughter. The affair was kept strictly secret. The young duchess journeyed to Italy as an unmarried girl, and returned from there the same. Soon after she married Duke Ghedimin. Meanwhile a young girl was growing up in Italy who went by the name of Princess Sophie Narishkin, and who, in her fourteenth year, was brought to St. Petersburg. It was her father, not her mother, who brought her here. The girl resides in a house surrounded by a garden in the outskirts of the capital, where her father visits her constantly, her mother never. The father worships the child, who, moreover, is terribly delicate. The mother simply hates her. Her father is the Czar, her mother, Princess Ghedimin. Now do you see what brings Prince Ghedimin among us?"

"Yes, yes. But does he know the secret of the girl's birth?"

"Know it? We all do."

"Still, no reason why the husband should. Think a moment. What human being is there who could go to a man like Prince Ghedimin and breathe to him such a foul statement about his own wife? At the least whisper of such a slander an inferior would receive the knout, an equal be shot. A shopkeeper may denounce his wife; no gentleman does such a thing. Who could have made this known to Ghedimin?"

"Who other than his sweetheart! Is not Zeneida Prince Ghedimin's sweetheart, and has she not a thousand reasons to enlighten him upon his wife's shame?"

"Do not believe a word of it! She has not done it. You do not know Fräulein Zeneida; I do. First of all, I do not believe she is Ghedimin's sweetheart; or, if she love him, it is with a real love, not that of a _Ninon de l'Enclos_. But my belief is that she is in love with some one else; and I believe, moreover, that she controls that love. She is a woman capable of defying the scorn of the whole world, but not of doing anything to merit her own self-contempt. And for a woman who loves a man to denounce his own wife to him is a piece of vileness only fit for the lowest of the low. You do not know with whom you have to deal. Zeneida is playing some far-seeing game with you. You are mere chessmen in her hands; one may be a castle, another a bishop, the third a knight. Possibly Ghedimin may be your king of chess, but she is not the queen. She is playing the game."

"And you have confidence enough in her to consent to this?"

"Yes; because I am her partner."

The roulette ball spun round. Some one was coming. All hurriedly returned to their places. Krizsanowski did not deserve the scornful smile with which Ryleieff had silently received his great utterance--for, indeed, it was a great utterance--"You others are only the chessmen; we two are the players." But so it was. The others only saw single moves; these two saw the whole game.

Krizsanowski had also plainly observed--although he made as if he saw nothing--with what painful anxiety Zeneida was moved to keep Pushkin away from the dangerous chess-board. Such a head is too costly for a "pawn"; perhaps too precious to be staked for a whole nation--the whole world--certainly in her estimation.

She had chased him away as if he were the evil one; now she had hastened after him to prevent his coming back. She knew that the heads of all those taking part in the conspiracy would fall prey to the executioner did it not succeed, and Pushkin's must not be among them. And yet poets have their whims. Should Jakuskin on the way reveal anything of the fateful conference which had taken place round Zeneida's roulette-table, the very charm of danger would bring Pushkin back. If he learned that it was no mere academical discussion, but a council of war, which was being held, he would break open her doors to take his share in it.

Pushkin was still in the sulks. While Jakuskin hastened from one cabinet to another in search of Diabolka, he had thrown himself upon a sofa in the palm-grove, replying to all the blandishments of passing fair ones.

"Leave me alone. I don't want you."

"Nor me either?" asked a well-known voice, at sound of which another, fairer, world seemed to open to him. And Zeneida, seating herself beside him on the couch, asked, "Are you angry with me?"

"Confess. It was you who put Ryleieff up to insulting me?"

"In what way, dear friend?"

"I will not submit to be called Byron! I am Pushkin, or no one. Men may say that my verses are common Russian brandy which gets into the head, but no one shall presume to call them the dregs of an English teapot. I may be only a hillock, but I will not pose as a miniature Chimborazo. And it was your whisper to Ryleieff that did it."

"Yes; so it was."

"To drive me away?"

"To drive you away."

"I am not worthy, then, to join the society of the Bojars!"

"What care I for the Bojars and the whole Szojusz Blagadenztoiga? I give them shelter--and _basta_!"

"And am I not worthy to singe my wings in the fire of your eyes?"

"It would convert you to ice."

"Are you so cold, then?"

"Cold as the northern light."

"Have you no heart?"

"According to anatomy I have such a thing; but it has other functions than those ascribed to it by poets. That of which you speak has, Gall tells us, its seat in the skull, in No. 27 portion of the brain, and is not developed in my organization."

"Do not kill me with your phrenology. You know what love is--"

"I know. The compact of a tyrant with a slave."

"Be you the tyrant; I will be the slave."

"With these words as many women have been deceived as there are grains of sand on the sea-shore."

"I swear to you, my life, my very soul, are yours."

"By whom do you swear? By Venus, so inconstant; by Allah, who denies that women have souls, and divides the heart of man in four parts; by Brahma, who burns the widow on the funereal pyre; or by the great Cosmos?"

"There is nothing so formidable as a woman who takes to philosophizing!"

"That is why I do so."

"You kill every iota of poetry with it."

"Then speak prose."

"Well, then, I ask nothing of you--I give. I give you my soul, my hand, my name!"

"Ah, your name! That is a gift. A woman like me has diamonds, horses, houses, given her; but he who would offer her his name is indeed rare to meet with. And yet a name is the most precious ornament. Without such a name, I am nobody. Were I to marry my groom of the chambers to-morrow, I should be a woman of respectability. My poor good Bogumil never dreams that in his fur-lined gloves, besides his own red hands, lies my reputation! So you would give me your name?--a name which, so far, has been written on nothing else than overdue bills and ale-house doors. You silly boy! Why, people would not call me 'Frau Pushkin,' but you 'Herr Ilmarinen.' But once let your name be written in the fiery letters of fame, instead of chalked on innkeepers' slates, would you then unite it to another whose every letter is besmeared with--"

"With calumny!" broke in Pushkin, vehemently.

"It is but just. There is nothing so bad that can be said of me that I cannot fill in. I am selfish, unfeeling; I have no faith in religion, nor in honor. Both are sophistries, contradicting each other, according as the ethnographical relations change about. The only good is, what benefits mankind. Virtue is folly. The sole use of good men is to be the tools of their more clever fellows."

"Do not say such things," cried Pushkin. "When I hear you speak so, you seem to me as if you had smeared your face with hideous colors."

Was it not her calling to do so?

Zeneida drew her wrap about her shoulders.

"You will not see me such as I am. I am sorry for it; but I cannot deceive. Have you no eyes for the magnificence which surrounds me? Do you know whence it all comes? Would you have me forsake it all--for what?"

"For another world before whose splendor all you see around you must fall into dust. The world into which I would lead you is filled with more magnificent palaces than even yours, Zeneida. It is Paradise!"

"Find yourself another Eve. Did I love you, I should kill you with _my_ jealousy; did I not love you, with _yours_. To-day with one, to-morrow with another, for my caprices are boundless. I know no law, no oath, no shame. Go; save yourself from me! Now you are but ice, do not wait until you are aflame. I can be his only who loves me not!"

"Your words are mere falsehoods from beginning to end. You wish to drive me from you that I may not take part in the conspiracy! I am not worthy, in your eyes, to share the dangers my more distinguished friends are running. Let me go back to them!"

"What conspiracy?" exclaimed Zeneida, feigning astonishment. "Our friends are now debating how to introduce the American form of 'Temperance Associations' into Russia in order to put an end to the enormous consumption of brandy now going on. There is no talk of upsetting dynasties in my house. Do you suppose that the 'court singer' of the Czar, the court favorite, did she hear of any conspiracy against his Majesty, would not at once hasten to smooth her own way to a coronet by its disclosure?"

"A way marked out by the skulls of her best friends?"

"Well, yes."

"No. You would not do it."

"Who knows? I have no soul, and do not believe in the souls of others. I have no faith in a future world, therefore I use this world so that things may go well with me in it."

"And supposing it were to happen for a change that things did not go well with you?"

"Then I would give back to earth what is earth's. The fable of the Phoenix has a deep-set meaning. When he feels that his plumage is worn out, he changes into ashes. Of all creatures man has the greatest right to decide the term of his life."

Pushkin sought in the face which knew so well how to keep its secrets what there was of truth in all this.

A sound of laughter and oaths behind the jasmine bush betokened the approach of some noisy revellers. Zeneida sprang up from Pushkin's side. Laying her hand upon his shoulder, she whispered to him, in a voice made tender by deep feeling:

"Avoid me, and seek her who is worthy of you and truly loves you, your Muse, and be faithful to her!"

And, like a phantom, she disappeared.

Jakuskin came forcing his way through the jasmine bower, Diabolka with him.

"Come, let's be off to the Bear's Paw."

Pushkin sprang defiantly to his feet, and said, with a laugh.

"By Jove! here is my Muse! Come along; we'll go where we are understood."

And the three made their noisy way through the still thronged ballroom.

It was Zeneida whose reappearance the whirling roulette-ball had announced. A look from her told that the two had taken their departure.

Krizsanowski, removing the pipe from his mouth, put it in his pocket.

"Now we are among ourselves. Let us continue."

Pestel asked permission to speak.

"In order to disperse friend Krizsanowski's fears, let me first of all state that we look upon Jakuskin as a fool; and that not a man of us endorses his mad views of a _Cæsaricidium_; in fact, there is not a man among us who would not prevent it. Our plan is this: In the coming spring there is to be a great concentration of troops in the Government of Minsk. The Ninth Army Corps will march to the fortress of Bobrinszk on the Beresina; the Czar and the Grand Dukes will themselves lead the manoeuvres, returning at night to the fortress, which fortress will be guarded by the Saratoff regiment of infantry, the colonel of which, Bojar Sveikofsky, is a member of the 'Szojusz Blagadenztoiga.' All the officers of the Saratoff regiment belong to our Union. At night a patrol of officers, disguised as privates, commanded by Apostol Muravieff and Corporal Bestuseff, will relieve the guard outside the Czar's pavilion. They will promptly take the Czar, the Grand Dukes, and Commandant Diebitsch prisoners, proclaim a constitution, institute a provisionary government, and proceed straightway, at the head of the whole army corps, on the road to Moscow. On their way they will gain over all the troops they come across. At news of their success Moscow will yield; and from thence St. Petersburg can be compelled to surrender. The men and officers of the fleet, anchored off Cronstadt, are fully informed of our plan. A man-of-war is in waiting to convey the entire imperial family to England. The revolution will be accomplished without the shedding of one drop of blood. What do you say to it, friend Krizsanowski?"

"That your plan is too complicated; has too much romance about it; and that the miscarriage of any minor detail would throw your whole reckoning into confusion. However, I do not look upon a successful issue as wholly impossible. The thing has already been achieved in Russia. Now, I will tell you what I bring, and which will serve to perfect your plan. Do you not agree with me that its success were highly problematical if, after the kidnapping of the Czar, a Czarevitch were remaining, who, by right of succession to the throne, could at the head of a whole army enter Russia to test the power of a republican government by the loyalty of the people to throne and army?"

"That, in truth, is the rock on which we may be wrecked."

"Then, you may set yourselves at ease in that particular. I can promise you my head in pledge of my words that the Czarevitch will very shortly resign his rights of succession; and resign after a fashion which will make it impossible for him to recall the step, even did he himself desire to do so. Ay, even were he the sole remaining member of the Romanoff dynasty; and were the whole nation, senate, and peerage to press him to ascend the throne, it would be an impossibility to him."

"And is this no romancing?" cried Ryleieff.

"No. Positive knowledge; psychological necessity; logical sequence."

"Devil take me! If that is not a greater riddle than the Sphinx!" growled Pestel.

"I have said what I know. Whether you like to believe it or not, is your affair."

So saying the Polish magnate rose, and thrust his pipe between his teeth, which was as much as to say that he had said his say, and was intent on seeing that his pipe drew well.

But Zeneida, approaching him, whispered:

"Is not the key to this riddle called 'Johanna'?"

A nervous contraction passed over his set face at the mention of the name.

"If you have guessed it, tell it no further," he muttered under his mustache.

"I?"

"True. You are the 'tongueless lioness!'" returned the Pole, with a smile.

* * * * *

At that period lanterns were a luxury known but in few streets of the imperial city; and where a lantern did exist was posted a guard to watch that it was not stolen. Therefore, in the courtyards of great palaces huge fires were blazing, in order to give light to the guests' sledges, and that the jemsiks might protect themselves against the bitter night cold. These fires gave out warmth and light at one and the same time.

With some difficulty Jakuskin found his sledge among the lines of others. Placing Diabolka between them, the two men wrapped her in their furs. She was too heedless ever to think of bringing her own. The jemsik, made loquacious by oft recurrence to his brandy bottle, told them that the distinguished gentleman who had driven the eight-in-hand into the courtyard had but just gone off in his sledge, and had given his man orders to drive to Araktseieff Palace.

That was a piece of intelligence worth having.

Jakuskin told his jemsik to drive to the Bear's Paw.

"Never fear, children," returned the man; "I'll drive you safely through side streets, that you may not be robbed."

"None of your side streets," said Jakuskin, "but just you drive along the Prospect and over the Fontanka Ringstrasse, where the patrols are. Don't be afraid about us, my man; we have our pistols."

"Ah, there's no use in that, children. The robbers might let you pass scot-free when they saw your pistols; but the guards have no fear of firearms, and they would plunder you."

And the jemsik was by no means joking. Under the police presidency not only the soldiers managed to slip out of barracks to act the light-fingered gentry, but the patrols shared in the spoil, and commissioners of police were the most reliable of accomplices. Great folk only ventured out at night with mounted escorts; their palace-doors were strengthened with iron bars.

As they drove along the two men began scolding Diabolka for letting Chevalier Galban escape her, telling her how they had had to get rid of him at the cost of some thousands of rubles.

Just as the sledge turned off from the broad Prospect into Fontanka Ringstrasse, five armed men suddenly sprang out upon it. Two seized the horses' bridles, one levelled his weapon at the coachman's head, the two others fell upon the occupants of the sledge. All were armed with swords and pistols, their faces concealed by masks; long sheep-skins covered their persons from head to foot; their tall, pointed fur caps alone betraying them to be not only soldiers but grenadiers. One of them, speaking in French (consequently an officer), ejaculated:

"La bourse ou la vie, messieurs!"

On which Diabolka, suddenly springing up, jerked the pistol directed at Pushkin's head out of the assailant's hand, and, throwing both arms round his neck, began, coaxingly:

"Ei, ei, sweetheart, cousin! would you plunder poor folk like us? Don't you know us, then? Look! this is the brave Jakuskin, a captain on half-pay; this, Pushkin, who has more creditors on his heels than kopecs in his pocket. I am Diabolka, who pays, and is paid, in kisses. Here are a few--on your cheeks, eyes, lips. There, take as many as there is room for. But if you are wise, and want to make money, there's a rich gentleman just now on his way home from Araktseieff Palace, who has just pocketed thirteen thousand rubles at roulette. If you are quick you'll catch him up on the ice, crossing the Fontanka. He is wearing a red fox coat, trimmed with white bear-skin."

Her words were as magic. With one accord the four thieves, deserting sledge and their leader, took to their heels in the direction of the Fontanka, as if they were possessed. The officer, too, seeing himself thus left alone, endeavored to free himself from Diabolka's embrace. But that was not so easy.

"Stop! just one kiss on the tip of your nose."

Then he, too, was suffered to follow his companions. Diabolka laughed unrestrainedly.

"Ha, ha, ha! what good the consciousness of a meritorious action does one! They are safe to clear out Chevalier Galban."

"But you might have let the fellow off the last kiss," growled Jakuskin. "On the tip of his nose, too! As though he could feel it through his mask!"

"But those kisses were useful," returned the girl, with a sly wink. "While kissing him, I was spying what the dear youth was wearing upon his breast, and this is what I found." And she held up a star set with diamonds.

"Eh, the devil! Why, it is a Vladimir order of the first class," exclaimed Jakuskin.

"Our Rinaldo is high up in the army."

"A Vladimir order set with brilliants! Eh, jemsik, hold hard, and strike a light. The names of owners, as a rule, are usually written in gold inside the ribbons of the orders."

The jemsik, taking out his flint and steel, struck a light, and while Diabolka puffed at it with distended cheeks, the two men simultaneously read out the name engraven on the ribbon--"Jevgen Araktseieff."

"By Jove! The son of our trusty Araktseieff, too, plies the trade," cried Jakuskin.

"He is a known _mauvais sujet_."

"Well, Diabolka, this is a fine catch. For this you may claim to-morrow every penny Jevgen has robbed overnight."

"And next day I should be as poor as ever," laughed the girl.

"If you chose, this order might make you Jevgen's wife--a real countess," put in Pushkin.

"What would be the good of that? In a week after I should be going back to the gypsies."

"Do you mean to expose him--to have him hanged?"

"I am not such a fool; they would hang me beside him. Leave it to me. I know what to do with my prize."

Jakuskin said to Pushkin, in German, that Diabolka might not understand:

"That man wrecked my whole life; and I had him at my pistol's mouth but now! But the ball is destined for another now. You see, I did not even break out into fury when I read his name. When we are on the watch for bears we can afford to let foxes go. The huntsman's spear is on his neck. He is in Diabolka's clutches. Come, let us go to the Bear's Paw, and hear Germain's new effusion, _The Song of the Knife_."