CHAPTER XLVI

"BEATUS ILLE ..."

What, on this earth, is true happiness?

To be able to dissociate one's self from the tussle and tangle of the political arena.

There is no such happy man on this earth as your landed proprietor, who only learns what is going on in the political world from the columns of his daily paper.

In the morning he goes out coursing; starts three hares, two of which are caught by his terriers; this is a real triumph. The third they let run; this is a disgrace. But on the way home his dogs seize and throttle a wildcat; that makes up for the former vexation. His horse stumbles over a stone; that is a great misfortune. But neither man nor horse are any the worse for it; and that is a piece of good-luck.

Within easy distance live some men--jolly fellows--to whom he can detail the morning's doings, and who, in return, give their adventures.

At noon the wife awaits her husband's return to a well-spread board, and she hospitably presses his friends to stay. Cabbage with fried sausages is very acceptable after such an active morning! After dinner they find they are just enough for a game of tarok, and the husband can boast next day how he has conquered against long odds.

The only political allusion made was when Pushkin named the "fox" Araktseieff; but even at that the postmaster shook his head disapprovingly. Why disturb the harmony of the evening by such reference?

Then, as the company is about to separate, the postmaster suddenly remembers that he has forgotten to give Pushkin his newspaper, which he had brought in his coat-pocket.

The paper was opened. Old-fashioned newspapers used to be sent out in envelopes. What news?

"A military review."

No one reads that.

Well, then, France: The French are content. How satisfactory! Turkey: Peace concluded with the Greeks. Evident enough! England: The Channel Fleet returned to Dover. And a good thing too! In Russia nothing of interest has transpired. Heaven be praised!

After which each, lighting his lantern, repairs home. The master of the house seeks his wife's room. The good little woman has had time for her first sleep, and is not angry with his friends for staying so long at cards. Good little wife! Next day they rise late, because the snow has fallen so deep in the night that their windows are blocked and they cannot see out. What matter! One is not merely a Nimrod, but a Tyrtæus as well. If one cannot go forth to Diana, one can toy with the muses at home; they are good friends, too.

A man lights his pipe, paces the room, and poetizes, pausing at every comma and full stop to give his dear little wife a kiss; she, the while, busied in doing her hair in becoming fashion. If a rhyme be hard to find, he takes his wife on his knee and looks into her eyes, and--the rhyme is soon found.

In the afternoon the friends turn up again--the postmaster, a gentleman farmer, and a landed proprietor. They have not been deterred by the heavy snow. Two had driven over; for the third, Bethsaba had sent the sledge, that the party might be complete. She set out the card-table.

"It is paradise--perfect paradise!"

But once the serpent succeeded in wriggling into paradise.

At the end of the game, when the long score had to be reckoned up, in order to see how many copecks had been won, the postmaster was fain to turn out all his pockets to scrape together enough small coin wherewith to pay his debts. In so doing he extracted several letters.

"No news to-day?" the gentleman farmer asks him.

The only newspaper in that part came to Pushkin, so the neighbors always came to him to hear the news.

"What are you twaddling about? Did I not bring a paper yesterday? Do you think a press correspondent can afford to lie every day? Quite enough to have to do it three times a week. Poor devil! he must bless the intermediate days. If you must have a paper, read yesterday's."

"So we have, from beginning to end."

"I bet you've not read about the review."

"Right you are. Hand it over."

And it repaid the trouble of reading. For it stated that each regiment of guards quartered in St. Petersburg had severally taken the oath of allegiance in the chapel of the Winter Palace. And why not, if they liked to do so? It would do the soldiers no harm. Ah, but it was to Czar _Constantine_ that they had sworn allegiance.

"Czar _Constantine_? Who ever heard of a Czar Constantine?"

In the great confusion the press had _entirely forgotten_ to officially announce the death of Czar Alexander.

"It's a slip of the pen," quoth the postmaster. "Perhaps the correspondent was drunk. Why should they not get drunk, poor devils, just once a year?"

So the matter dropped. The writer of the article in question had been celebrating his name-day too freely, had got mixed, and had written, instead of Alexander, Constantine.

In the next number, under _errata_, the mistake would be rectified.

But the next number brought no correction; rather the "error" was repeated twofold, threefold--all edicts being published in the name of "His Majesty Czar Constantine."

The death of Czar Alexander was never officially announced.

The worthy news-reading public only saw from their Sunday papers what was going on. These papers gave full details of the funeral services held in all the churches of St. Petersburg, and the official odes to the dead, which sang the fame of the deceased Czar in Russian, Latin, and Greek.

After that no one wondered that future edicts were promulgated in Constantine's name; he was the Czarevitch, and, according to Russian laws of succession, heir to the throne. That the people did not love him did not affect the question. What had the people to do with it? The soldiers had sworn him allegiance, and the soldiers are the empire.

And what matters all this to those "happy folk" in the country-house? Their home was dear to them in Czar Alexander's time; that Constantine now reigns in his stead only makes that home dearer.

The Winter Palace has got a new inmate more unwelcome than the last. The former, as he wandered silent and melancholy among his courtiers, was hard to serve; how much more the new one, who knouts, kicks, breaks men's bones, and swears! His cheerful moods excite more terror than did the other's depression.

On these accounts the officer of the guards, among whose private papers was a ukase, "by command of the Czar" forbidding him to leave Pleskow beyond a day's journey, might well be called a lucky fellow.