Moscow: A Story of the French Invasion of 1812. Whishaw Frederick

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ glided perilously for a moment on one runner, then righted itself. The frightened horses started away at full gallop.

      Olga, in spite of having clutched her seat with both hands, was thrown sidelong against Ivan, who grabbed her with his left arm, while with his right leg he touched and shoved off from the ground; this it was that righted the sledge. As the horses dashed forward both Ivan and Olga jolted back into their places, Olga shrieking with terror, but gripping the board upon which she sat so tightly as to be perfectly secure. Ivan sat still, looking neither to right nor left. He seemed to employ all his energies in getting the horses once more under control. They had travelled thus, at lightning speed, for two hundred yards, a distance which was covered in a quarter of a minute, before a shriek from behind caused Olga to cease, suddenly, her own screaming and look round.

      "The Barin—the Barin!" she cried. "He has fallen out, Ivan!—stop the horses—we must save him!"

      "Stop them who can—do not speak foolishness, Olga; you see that I am pulling with all my strength!"

      Olga kept silence. There followed a second scream from behind; then a cry that seemed to be broken off in the middle.

      Ivan took off his boots and threw them in the road. "Do the same, Olga," he said.

      Olga obeyed, but half understanding. A few wolves were still following the sledge, but most had remained behind.

      "Throw your coat also," said Ivan, "and your head kerchief!"

      All these garments were afterwards found by the horrified persons who went out to look for the Barin, together with the heels of the Count's boots, and a few shreds of his clothes. Olga's boots and Ivan's were in pieces and partly eaten, and her coat and red cotton headkerchief were in shreds.

      "This is where the Barin fell out," said the searchers; "the two others clung to the sledge a little longer, it appears, before being thrown out and pulled to pieces. It is horrible!"

      But many of the peasants in Maximof's villages were of opinion that the Barin's fate was well deserved. He had been a tyrant and oppressor of the poor. "It is the finger of God!" they said. Why two innocent peasants should have been sacrificed at the same time was a puzzling factor in the matter. As for the sledge it was duly brought back by the three hungry horses next day.

      "Dear Lord, look at them!" said the peasants at Toxova; "they have run half a hundred miles—chased by wolves throughout the night, only think of it! And the sledge empty behind them—bah! it is horrible!"

      The new master at Ostrof asked no questions. He registered Ivan and Olga by the names they chose to give him. Two new serfs were a godsend not to be despised. It was as though some one had paid in an unexpected sum to his credit at the banker's!

      And the reputation of the old hag at Maximof's manor-village increased wonderfully from this day. Her blessing upon crops, marriages and so forth doubled at once in value; while as for her curses, why, from this time onward until she died, if she but launched a malediction, the victim might as well go and hang himself for all the pleasure life would afford him until the wise woman was pleased to withdraw it.

      CHAPTER IV

      For many a year after the tragic death of his father the new manor-lord, little Sasha Maximof, would not be induced to live at the estate. He was afraid of the woods, wherein for ever lurked, according to his morbid fancy, hoardes of ravening wolves intent upon his destruction; he was afraid of his serfs, a feeling originated and fostered by his mother, who was herself afraid of them, well knowing the hatred they had borne towards her husband and fearing lest their malice should be extended towards his child. She desired no more than Sasha to live in the country. The property was placed in the hands of a steward—somewhat more merciful than deposed Kakin—who contrived to extract a fat living for the widow and her son by exploiting their unfortunate serfs to the utmost limit permitted by the law. The Countess lived with Sasha in St. Petersburg where he saw little or nothing of his "betrothed" for two or three years, after which little Vera Demidof was sent to Paris to be educated in a French school. Vera's aunt, Demidof's sister, had been married to the French Minister at the Court of the Emperor Paul, after whose tragic end he had left the country and returned to Paris, taking with him his Russian wife. Demidof was proud of his French relations and was glad enough to allow his child to receive her education under such promising auspices.

      At the age of sixteen Vera returned to St. Petersburg quite prepared to find her countrymen and women little better than barbarians as she had been taught by the elegant Parisian folk to believe them.

      "Bears, chérie, you will find them, every one," her French relations assured her; "they have no manners and no education, how should they? and your fiancé, he will be a bear like the rest, you will run from him, run back to France; we shall find you a fiancé who is not a bear!"

      "Bear or no bear, we are pledged to one another and there will be no running away from him!" said Vera. Whereat her French relatives shrugged their shoulders and said, "This betrothal of babes, what does it signify? It was a very pretty game for children, but a thing to be forgotten when the doll is put away and the skirts are lengthened."

      "In Russia they think differently," Vera replied. "My mother looks upon the betrothal as binding, I know. The law and the Church both would have something to say before the contract could be broken."

      "Well, let us see first what he is like; if he should be an impossible, without doubt both the Church and the law will listen to reason. What, are two people to be bound to one another for life if they desire it not? God forbid!"

      "Maybe we shall both desire it when we meet, who knows?" Vera laughed. "We are talking in the dark, since Sasha and I have not met for many years. But if each is repulsive to the other the contract may perhaps be set aside, by mutual agreement."

      "That is sensible," said Vera's aunt; "the danger is lest he shall be attracted by you, while you feel no counter-attraction for him, or vice versâ."

      "I will keep a guard upon my heart, aunt," laughed Vera.

      The first meeting, after many years, between the young people took place soon after this conversation at the annual reception of the corps of cadets in St. Petersburg. This corps consisted of members of the petite noblesse—the boyarin families of Russia, destined for military service in the more aristocratic regiments. The Emperor Paul, shocked by the methods of his mother, Catherine the Great, in the matter of distribution of commissions to the sons of her boyars, had instituted this corps of cadets as a much-needed measure of reform, and indeed the step was taken not a moment too soon for the good of the country.

      As the great Catherine's system of distributing commissions to the members of that class of her subjects which seems to have been her enfant gâté, the petite noblesse, is somewhat unique, I will ask permission to digress for a moment in order to give the reader some idea of her method and of the abuses to which it gradually led.

      The thing developed gradually and attained the height of absurdity only when the Empress was an old woman.

      Commissions in the Guards were at this time regarded as gifts from the sovereign to her faithful boyars and claimable by every boyar, if he so desired, for the benefit of his children. They were issued on demand, and were not, at first, applied for until the youth destined to enjoy the privilege had reached a time of life when a commission in the army might fairly be given to him; but since the officers of the Guards received liberal pay and were treated with marked kindness and indulgence by the sovereign, it occurred to certain boyars that it would be a pity to waste several years of the best part of the lives of their sons, years which might be spent so profitably in drawing pay and accumulating seniority in the Guards. Therefore certain aspiring parents СКАЧАТЬ