CHAPTER XXXII

NOT ONLY A BULLET STRIKES HOME

The Czar was holding an extraordinary review.

The usual parades took place on the 21st of May, the day of the patron saint, Nicholas, and on the 20th of September; but this time it was a special review of the household troops alone. They are distinct from the rest of the army; each regiment has a different uniform. The Life Guards wear white uniforms, with shining gilt breastplates; the Cuirassiers, light-blue tunics, with white, plated cuirass; the uniform of the Jerusalem Regiment is crimson-red, with gilt breastplate. The ranks, from officer down to corporal, are all knights of the Order of St. John, and even the common soldiers are all of the nobility.

And every regiment boasts its past, its history, which passes on to the successors as a tradition, and keeps up the glory of its name.

The regiment of St. John of Jerusalem was so cut to pieces in two battles that in one battalion only eighteen men were left.

The Preobrazsenski Regiment has the proud distinction of having deposed Czar Ivan and set Elisabeth in his place. Every man in the regiment received his patent of nobility.

The Ismailoffski Regiment bears on its colors the trophies of seven conclusive battles. At Borodino half the troops remained on the battle-field, and not a single man came home without a wound. These regiments compose the aristocracy of the Life Guards. The rest of the household troops, too, are characterized by a brilliant variety of dress. Hussars in uniforms of the most varied colors, cuirassiers, mounted grenadiers, pontoniers, Cossacks, Asiatic hordes with their fantastic arms, Kirgisians, Kalmucks with their slender spears, their arrow-laden quivers on their backs; Circassians in their scale-armor, with their pointed helmets; and then the long row of cannon, the ammunition wagons (painted green), the pontoons, the flotilla on wheels--and the whole mass drawn up on a boundless plain in squares, in geometrical lines, and advancing, charging, halting motionless as a wall, at the word of command, like a machine.

May he not rightly deem himself a god who with a gesture can set all this in motion or make it stand? And they only need a second gesture to charge and dye the ground beneath them with their blood.

When the household troops advance from St. Petersburg it means that the army is on a war footing and is taking the field. Then let every man concerned summon all his strength.

In the centre of the Field of Mars are pitched the sumptuous tents of the Czar, the foreign ambassadors, and the members of the government; but the Czar himself rides at the head of his suite, and passes the assembled troops in review. As he thus rides past the separate regiments they salute him with welcoming stanzas, in time like the chorus of a giant theatre, with rifle, sword, and lance held rigid at present arms. The Czar's face beams like a day in summer; every one sees again in him the hero of Leipsic. The inspiration of the army has communicated itself to him too.

And in the ranks of these men presenting at the word of command are all those who have been conspiring against him. In the sabretache of the officers is to be found the _Catechism of the Free Man_.

But the single word "Forward!" suffices to change the whole temper of these men; the conspiring regiments will charge down on the foe with shouts of "Long live the Czar!" When he shows them the battle-field they forget all their complaints and grievances--forget that they are seeking to kill him--and rush into the fight to give up their lives for him.

So it is with the Russian people. Their striving after freedom is silenced when there is hope of war. The private, freely shedding his blood on foreign soil, believes that therewith he will fertilize his native meadows. The priests have indoctrinated him with the belief that he who falls in a strange land to the enemy's bayonet will live again in his own country, where he will find parents, wife, and children once more; and, if he was a serf before, will rise again a free man.

After the review of the troops the Czar himself takes the command, and a series of brilliant manoeuvres begins, thought out by himself. According to the then science of war, they were intended to be a masterpiece of the system of attack in close order. His aides-de-camp are dashing from battalion to battalion with orders, their spirited horses flying off in all directions. The orders are given by the Czar himself, who watches their fulfilment through a field-glass. Suddenly an adjutant dashes up to him.

"Sire!"

"What is it? Make short work of it!"

The enemy's cannon are already thundering upon the attacking column.

"Sire," says the officer, "Duchess Sophie Narishkin has just delivered up her noble soul to Eternity."

The Czar instinctively put his hand to his heart. It was there that he was struck! And yet the cannon were only firing blank ammunition.

The sword he was wielding sank in one hand--the Czar covered his face with the other.

"_It is the punishment for my faults!_" he uttered, in a faltering voice.

What a change had come over the brilliant hero--the semi-god! In his place sat a bowed figure; a man bowed down to the earth by fate.

However deafening the hurrahs--however much the earth may vibrate under the tramp of warlike horses and horsemen--their leader's soul is fettered by the words "Sophie is dead."

Miloradovics, the general in command, sent to ask instructions from the Imperial Commander-in-Chief for the next movement.

"Call them back!" was the answer. "Send the troops back to barracks. The review is over."

And, turning his horse, the Czar rode back to his tent with bowed head. They who saw him return hardly recognized his white face. The generals of division had great work to disentangle their troops and get them into position again. A murmuring arose among the men, as though a battle had been lost.

The Czar, not even awaiting the march past of the regiments, who were wont to defile past him with pipe and drum, left the whole command to the Grand Duke, and, throwing himself into his troika, drove back to the Winter Palace.

There he hastened to his study. On it were spread important, weighty documents, containing epoch-making decisions for people and nations, only awaiting his signature. The Czar's eyes rested sadly upon them, reading in them, not what was written upon them in ordinary characters, but the _Palimpsest_ with which fate ever crosses the carefully thought-out plans of mankind.

Then, seizing all the documents--painstaking labors of many a night--he made them into a roll, and, throwing them on to the fire, watched them, a prey to the flames. They were all to have been Sophie Narishkin's dowry.

Soon they were a heap of ashes.

Then, sitting down, he wrote a letter. It contained but two words--"Come back."

The envelope was addressed to Araktseieff.