III
THE devouring in a dismal forest of a
luckless Lithuanian dog by my grand-uncle Nicholas B. in company of two
other military and famished scarecrows, symbolized, to my childish imagination, the whole
horror of the retreat from Moscow, and the
immorality of a conqueror's ambition. An extreme distaste for that objectionable episode
has tinged the views I hold as to the character and achievements of Napoleon the
Great. I need not say that these are unfavourable. It was morally reprehensible for
that great captain to induce a simple-minded
Polish gentleman to eat dog by raising in
his breast a false hope of national independence. It has been the fate of that credulous
nation to starve for upward of a hundred
years on a diet of false hopes and—well—
dog. It is, when one thinks of it, a singularly poisonous regimen. Some pride in the
national constitution which has survived a
long course of such dishes is really excusable.
But enough of generalizing. Returning to
particulars, Mr. Nicholas B. confided to his
sister-in-law (my grandmother) in his misanthropically laconic manner that this supper
in the woods had been nearly "the death of
him." This is not surprising. What surprises me is that the story was ever heard
of; for granduncle Nicholas differed in this
from the generality of military men of Napoleon's time (and perhaps of all time) that
he did not like to talk of his campaigns,
which began at Friedland and ended somewhere in the neighbourhood of Bar-le-Duc.
His admiration of the great Emperor was
unreserved in everything but expression. Like
the religion of earnest men, it was too profound a sentiment to be displayed before
a world of little faith. Apart from that he
seemed as completely devoid of military anecdotes as though he had hardly ever seen a
soldier in his life. Proud of his decorations
earned before he was twenty-five, he refused
to wear the ribbons at the buttonhole in the
manner practised to this day in Europe and
even was unwilling to display the insignia
on festive occasions, as though he wished to
conceal them in the fear of appearing boastful.
"It is enough that I have them," he used to
mutter. In the course of thirty years they
were seen on his breast only twice—at an
auspicious marriage in the family and at the
funeral of an old friend. That the wedding
which was thus honoured was not the wedding
of my mother I learned only late in life, too
late to bear a grudge against Mr. Nicholas
B., who made amends at my birth by a long
letter of congratulation containing the following prophecy: "He will see better times."
Even in his embittered heart there lived a
hope. But he was not a true prophet.
He was a man of strange contradictions.
Living for many years in his brother's house,
the home of many children, a house full of
life, of animation, noisy with a constant
coming and going of many guests, he kept
his habits of solitude and silence. Considered as obstinately secretive in all his purposes, he was in reality the victim of a most
painful irresolution in all matters of civil life.
Under his taciturn, phlegmatic behaviour
was hidden a faculty of short-lived passionate
anger. I suspect he had no talent for narrative; but it seemed to afford him sombre
satisfaction to declare that he was the last
man to ride over the bridge of the river
Elster after the battle of Leipsic. Lest some
construction favourable to his valour should be
put on the fact he condescended to explain
how it came to pass. It seems that shortly
after the retreat began he was sent back to
the town where some divisions of the French
army (and among them the Polish corps of
Prince Joseph Poniatowski), jammed hope-lessly in the streets, were being simply exterminated by the troops of the Allied Powers.
When asked what it was like in there, Mr.
Nicholas B. muttered only the word "Shambles." Having delivered his message to the
Prince he hastened away at once to render an
account of his mission to the superior who had
sent him. By that time the advance of the
enemy had enveloped the town, and he was
shot at from houses and chased all the way
to the river-bank by a disorderly mob of
Austrian Dragoons and Prussian Hussars.
The bridge had been mined early in the morning, and his opinion was that the sight of the
horsemen converging from many sides in
the pursuit of his person alarmed the officer
in command of the sappers and caused the
premature firing of the charges. He had not
gone more than two hundred yards on the
other side when he heard the sound of the
fatal explosions. Mr. Nicholas B. concluded
his bald narrative with the word "Imbecile,"
uttered with the utmost deliberation. It
testified to his indignation at the loss of so
many thousands of lives. But his phlegmatic
physiognomy lighted up when he spoke of
his only wound, with something resembling
satisfaction. You will see that there was
some reason for it when you learn that he
was wounded in the heel. "Like his Majesty
the Emperor Napoleon himself," he reminded
his hearers, with assumed indifference. There
can be no doubt that the indifference was
assumed, if one thinks what a very distinguished sort of wound it was. In all the
history of warfare there are, I believe, only
three warriors publicly known to have been
wounded in the heel—Achilles and Napoleon
—demigods indeed—to whom the familial
piety of an unworthy descendant adds the
name of the simple mortal, Nicholas B.
The Hundred Days found Mr. Nicholas B.
staying with a distant relative of ours, owner
of a small estate in Galicia. How he got
there across the breadth of an armed Europe,
and after what adventures, I am afraid will
never be known now. All his papers were
destroyed shortly before his death; but if
there was among them, as he affirmed, a
concise record of his life, then I am pretty
sure it did not take up more than a half-sheet of foolscap or so. This
relative of ours
happened to be an Austrian officer who had
left the service after the battle of Austerlitz.
Unlike Mr. Nicholas B., who concealed his
decorations, he liked to display his honourable
discharge in which he was mentioned as
unschreckbar (fearless) before the enemy. No
conjunction could seem more unpromising,
yet it stands in the family tradition that
these two got on very well together in their
rural solitude.
When asked whether he had not been sorely
tempted during the Hundred Days to make
his way again to France and join the service
of his beloved Emperor, Mr. Nicholas B.
used to mutter: "No money. No horse.
Too far to walk."
The fall of Napoleon and the ruin of
national hopes affected adversely the character of Mr. Nicholas B. He shrank from
returning to his province. But for that
there was also another reason. Mr. Nicholas
B. and his brother—my maternal grand-father—had lost their father early, while
they were quite children. Their mother,
young still and left very well off, married
again a man of great charm and of an amiable
disposition, but without a penny. He turned
out an affectionate and careful stepfather;
it was unfortunate, though, that while directing the boys' education and forming their
character by wise counsel, he did his best
to get hold of the fortune by buying and selling land in his own name and investing capital
in such a manner as to cover up the traces
of the real ownership. It seems that such
practices can be successful if one is charming
enough to dazzle one's own wife permanently,
and brave enough to defy the vain terrors of
public opinion. The critical time came when
the elder of the boys on attaining his majority, in the year 1811, asked for the accounts
and some part at least of the inheritance to
begin life upon. It was then that the step-father declared with calm finality that there
were no accounts to render and no property
to inherit. The whole fortune was his very
own. He was very good-natured about the
young man's misapprehension of the true
state of affairs, but, of course, felt obliged
to maintain his position firmly. Old friends
came and went busily, voluntary mediators
appeared travelling on most horrible roads
from the most distant corners of the three
provinces; and the Marshal of the Nobility
(
ex-officio guardian of all well-born orphans)
called a meeting of landowners to "ascertain in a friendly way how the misunderstanding between X and his stepsons had
arisen and devise proper measures to remove
the same." A deputation to that effect
visited X, who treated them to excellent
wines, but absolutely refused his ear to their
remonstrances. As to the proposals for arbitration he simply laughed at them; yet
the whole province must have been aware
that fourteen years before, when he married
the widow, all his visible fortune consisted
(apart from his social qualities) in a smart
four-horse turnout with two servants, with
whom he went about visiting from house to
house; and as to any funds he might have
possessed at that time their existence could
only be inferred from the fact that he was
very punctual in settling his modest losses
at cards. But by the magic power of stubborn and constant assertion, there were
found presently, here and there, people who
mumbled that surely "there must be something in it." However, on his next name-day
(which he used to celebrate by a great three
days' shooting party), of all the invited
crowd only two guests turned up, distant
neighbours of no importance; one notoriously a fool, and the other a very pious and
honest person, but such a passionate lover
of the gun that on his own confession he
could not have refused an invitation to a
shooting party from the devil himself. X
met this manifestation of public opinion with
the serenity of an unstained conscience. He
refused to be crushed. Yet he must have
been a man of deep feeling, because, when
his wife took openly the part of her children,
he lost his beautiful tranquillity, proclaimed
himself heartbroken, and drove her out of
the house, neglecting in his grief to give her
enough time to pack her trunks.
This was the beginning of a lawsuit, an
abominable marvel of chicane, which by the
use of every legal subterfuge was made to
last for many years. It was also the occasion
for a display of much kindness and sympathy.
All the neighbouring houses flew open for the
reception of the homeless. Neither legal aid
nor material assistance in the prosecution
of the suit was ever wanting. X, on his
side, went about shedding tears publicly
over his stepchildren's ingratitude and his
wife's blind infatuation; but as at the same
time he displayed great cleverness in the art
of concealing material documents (he was
even suspected of having burned a lot of historically interesting family papers) this scandalous litigation had to be ended by a compromise lest worse should befall. It was
settled finally by a surrender, out of the disputed estate, in full satisfaction of all claims,
of two villages with the names of which I
do not intend to trouble my readers. After
this lame and impotent conclusion neither
the wife nor the stepsons had anything to
say to the man who had presented the world
with such a successful example of self-help
based on character, determination, and industry; and my great-grandmother, her health
completely broken down, died a couple of
years later in Carlsbad. Legally secured
by a decree in the possession of his plunder,
X regained his wonted serenity, and went on
living in the neighbourhood in a comfortable
style and in apparent peace of mind. His
big shoots were fairly well attended again.
He was never tired of assuring people that
he bore no grudge for what was past; he
protested loudly of his constant affection for
his wife and stepchildren. It was true, he
said, that they had tried to strip him as
naked as a Turkish saint in the decline of
his days; and because he had defended himself from spoliation, as anybody else in his
place would have done, they had abandoned
him now to the horrors of a solitary old age.
Nevertheless, his love for them survived
these cruel blows. And there might have
been some truth in his protestations. Very
soon he began to make overtures of friendship to his eldest stepson, my maternal
grandfather; and when these were peremptorily rejected he went on renewing them
again and again with characteristic obstinacy.
For years he persisted in his efforts at reconciliation, promising my grandfather to execute a will in his favour if he only would be
friends again to the extent of calling now and
then (it was fairly close neighbourhood for
these parts, forty miles or so), or even of
putting in an appearance for the great shoot
on the name-day. My grandfather was an
ardent lover of every sport. His temperament was as free from hardness and animosity as can be imagined. Pupil of the
liberal-minded Benedictines who directed the
only public school of some standing then in
the south, he had also read deeply the authors
of the eighteenth century. In him Christian
charity was joined to a philosophical indulgence for the failings of human nature.
But the memory of those miserably anxious
early years, his young man's years robbed of
all generous illusions by the cynicism of the
sordid lawsuit, stood in the way of forgiveness. He never succumbed to the fascination of the great shoot; and X, his heart set
to the last on reconciliation, with the draft
of the will ready for signature kept by his
bedside, died intestate. The fortune thus
acquired and augmented by a wise and careful management passed to some distant
relatives whom he had never seen and who
even did not bear his name.
Meantime the blessing of general peace
descended upon Europe. Mr. Nicholas B.,
bidding good-bye to his hospitable relative,
the "fearless" Austrian officer, departed from
Galicia, and without going near his native
place, where the odious lawsuit was still
going on, proceeded straight to Warsaw and
entered the army of the newly constituted
Polish kingdom under the sceptre of Alexander I, Autocrat of all the Russias.
This kingdom, created by the Vienna
Congress as an acknowledgment to a nation
of its former independent existence, included
only the central provinces of the old Polish
patrimony. A brother of the Emperor, the
Grand Duke Constantine (Pavlovitch), its
Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief, married
morganatically to a Polish lady to whom
he was fiercely attached, extended this affection to what he called "My Poles" in a
capricious and savage manner. Sallow in
complexion, with a Tartar physiognomy and
fierce little eyes, he walked with his fists
clenched, his body bent forward, darting
suspicious glances from under an enormous
cocked hat. His intelligence was limited,
and his sanity itself was doubtful. The
hereditary taint expressed itself, in his case,
not by mystic leanings as in his two brothers,
Alexander and Nicholas (in their various
ways, for one was mystically liberal and the
other mystically autocratic), but by the fury
of an uncontrollable temper which generally
broke out in disgusting abuse on the paradeground. He was a passionate militarist and
an amazing drill-master. He treated his Polish army as a spoiled child treats a favourite
toy, except that he did not take it to bed
with him at night. It was not small enough
for that. But he played with it all day
and every day, delighting in the variety of
pretty uniforms and in the fun of incessant
drilling. This childish passion, not for war,
but for mere militarism, achieved a desirable
result. The Polish army, in its equipment,
in its armament, and in its battle-field efficiency, as then understood, became, by the
end of the year 1830, a first-rate tactical
instrument. Polish peasantry (not serfs)
served in the ranks by enlistment, and the
officers belonged mainly to the smaller nobility. Mr. Nicholas B., with his Napoleonic
record, had no difficulty in obtaining a lieutenancy, but the promotion in the Polish
army was slow, because, being a separate
organization, it took no part in the wars of
the Russian Empire against either Persia or
Turkey. Its first campaign, against Russia
itself, was to be its last. In 1831, on the outbreak of the Revolution, Mr. Nicholas B.
was the senior captain of his regiment. Some
time before he had been made head of the
remount establishment quartered outside the
kingdom in our southern provinces, whence
almost all the horses for the Polish cavalry
were drawn. For the first time since he went
away from home at the age of eighteen to
begin his military life by the battle of Friedland, Mr. Nicholas B. breathed the air of
the "Border," his native air. Unkind fate
was lying in wait for him among the scenes
of his youth. At the first news of the rising
in Warsaw all the remount establishment,
officers, "vets.," and the very troopers, were
put promptly under arrest and hurried off
in a body beyond the Dnieper to the nearest
town in Russia proper. From there they
were dispersed to the distant parts of the
empire. On this occasion poor Mr. Nicholas
B. penetrated into Russia much farther than
he ever did in the times of Napoleonic invasion, if much less willingly. Astrakan was
his destination. He remained there three
years, allowed to live at large in the town,
but having to report himself every day at
noon to the military commandant, who used
to detain him frequently for a pipe and a
chat. It is difficult to form a just idea of
what a chat with Mr. Nicholas B. could
have been like. There must have been much
compressed rage under his taciturnity, for
the commandant communicated to him the
news from the theatre of war, and this news
was such as it could be—that is, very bad for
the Poles. Mr. Nicholas B. received these
communications with outward phlegm, but
the Russian showed a warm sympathy for
his prisoner. "As a soldier myself I understand your feelings. You, of course, would
like to be in the thick of it. By heavens!
I am fond of you. If it were not for the terms
of the military oath I would let you go on
my own responsibility. What difference could
it make to us, one more or less of you?"
At other times he wondered with simplicity.
"Tell me, Nicholas Stepanovitch" (my
great-grandfather's name was Stephen, and
the commandant used the Russian form of
polite address)—"tell me why is it that you
Poles are always looking for trouble? What
else could you expect from running up against
Russia?"
He was capable, too, of philosophical reflections.
"Look at your Napoleon now. A great
man. There is no denying it that he was a
great man as long as he was content to thrash
those Germans and Austrians and all those
nations. But no! He must go to Russia
looking for trouble, and what's the consequence? Such as you see me; I have rattled
this sabre of mine on the pavements of
Paris."
After his return to Poland Mr. Nicholas B.
described him as a "worthy man but stupid,"
whenever he could be induced to speak of
the conditions of his exile. Declining the
option offered him to enter the Russian army,
he was retired with only half the pension of
his rank. His nephew (my uncle and guardian) told me that the first lasting impression
on his memory as a child of four was the glad
excitement reigning in his parents' house on
the day when Mr. Nicholas B. arrived home
from his detention in Russia.
Every generation has its memories. The
first memories of Mr. Nicholas B. might
have been shaped by the events of the last
partition of Poland, and he lived long enough
to suffer from the last armed rising in 1863,
an event which affected the future of all my
generation and has coloured my earliest impressions. His brother, in whose house he
had sheltered for some seventeen years his
misanthropical timidity before the commonest problems of life, having died in the early
fifties, Mr. Nicholas B. had to screw his courage up to the sticking-point and come to
some decision as to the future. After a
long and agonizing hesitation he was persuaded at last to become the tenant of some
fifteen hundred acres out of the estate of a
friend in the neighbourhood. The terms of
the lease were very advantageous, but the
retired situation of the village and a plain,
comfortable house in good repair were, I
fancy, the greatest inducements. He lived
there quietly for about ten years, seeing very
few people and taking no part in the public
life of the province, such as it could be under
an arbitrary bureaucratic tyranny. His character and his patriotism were above suspicion;
but the organizers of the rising in their frequent
journeys up and down the province
scrupulously avoided coming near his house.
It was generally felt that the repose of the
old man's last years ought not to be disturbed. Even such intimates as my paternal
grandfather, comrade-in-arms during Napoleon's Moscow campaign, and later on a
fellow officer in the Polish army, refrained
from visiting his crony as the date of the
outbreak approached. My paternal grandfather's two sons and his only daughter were
all deeply involved in the revolutionary work;
he himself was of that type of Polish squire
whose only ideal of patriotic action was to
"get into the saddle and drive them out."
But even he agreed that "dear Nicholas
must not be worried." All this considerate
caution on the part of friends, both conspirators and others, did not prevent Mr.
Nicholas B. being made to feel the misfortunes of that ill-omened year.
Less than forty-eight hours after the beginning of the rebellion in that part of the
country, a squadron of scouting Cossacks
passed through the village and invaded the
homestead. Most of them remained, formed
between the house and the stables, while
several, dismounting, ransacked the various
outbuildings. The officer in command, accompanied by two men, walked up to the
front door. All the blinds on that side were
down. The officer told the servant who
received him that he wanted to see his master.
He was answered that the master was away
from home, which was perfectly true.
I follow here the tale as told afterward by
the servant to my granduncle's friends and
relatives, and as I have heard it repeated.
On receiving this answer the Cossack officer, who had been standing in the porch,
stepped into the house.
"Where is the master gone, then?"
"Our master went to J—" (the government town some fifty miles off) "the day
before yesterday."
"There are only two horses in the stables.
Where are the others?"
"Our master always travels with his own
horses" (meaning: not by post). "He will
be away a week or more. He was pleased
to mention to me that he had to attend to
some business in the Civil Court."
While the servant was speaking the officer
looked about the hall. There was a door
facing him, a door to the right, and a door
to the left. The officer chose to enter the
room on the left, and ordered the blinds to
be pulled up. It was Mr. Nicholas B.'s
study, with a couple of tall bookcases, some
pictures on the walls, and so on. Besides
the big centre-table, with books and papers,
there was a quite small writing-table, with
several drawers, standing between the door
and the window in a good light; and at this
table my granduncle usually sat either to
read or write.
On pulling up the blind the servant was
startled by the discovery that the whole male
population of the village was massed in front,
trampling down the flower-beds. There were
also a few women among them. He was
glad to observe the village priest (of the
Orthodox Church) coming up the drive. The
good man in his haste had tucked up his
cassock as high as the top of his boots.
The officer had been looking at the backs
of the books in the bookcases. Then he
perched himself on the edge of the centre-table and remarked easily:
"Your master did not take you to town
with him, then?"
"I am the head servant, and he leaves me
in charge of the house. It's a strong, young
chap that travels with our master. If—God
forbid—there was some accident on the road,
he would be of much more use than I."
Glancing through the window, he saw the
priest arguing vehemently in the thick of
the crowd, which seemed subdued by his
interference. Three or four men, however,
were talking with the Cossacks at the door.
"And you don't think your master has
gone to join the rebels maybe—eh?" asked
the officer.
"Our master would be too old for that,
surely. He's well over seventy, and he's
getting feeble, too. It's some years now
since he's been on horseback, and he can't
walk much, either, now."
The officer sat there swinging his leg, very
quiet and indifferent. By that time the
peasants who had been talking with the
Cossack troopers at the door had been permitted to get into the hall. One or two more
left the crowd and followed them in. They
were seven in all, and among them the blacksmith, an ex-soldier. The servant appealed
deferentially to the officer.
"Won't your honour be pleased to tell the
people to go back to their homes? What do
they want to push themselves into the house
like this for? It's not proper for them to
behave like this while our master's away
and I am responsible for everything here."
The officer only laughed a little, and after
a while inquired:
"Have you any arms in the house?"
"Yes. We have. Some old things."
"Bring them all here, onto this table."
The servant made another attempt to obtain protection.
"Won't your honour tell these chaps. . . ?"
But the officer looked at him in silence,
in such a way that he gave it up at once
and hurried off to call the pantry-boy to
help him collect the arms. Meantime, the
officer walked slowly through all the rooms
in the house, examining them attentively
but touching nothing. The peasants in the
hall fell back and took off their caps when
he passed through. He said nothing whatever to them. When he came back to the
study all the arms to be found in the house
were lying on the table. There was a pair
of big, flint-lock holster pistols from Napoleonic
times, two cavalry swords, one of the
French, the other of the Polish army pattern,
with a fowling-piece or two.
The officer, opening the window, flung
out pistols, swords, and guns, one after another, and his troopers ran to pick them up.
The peasants in the hall, encouraged by his
manner, had stolen after him into the study.
He gave not the slightest sign of being conscious of their existence, and, his business
being apparently concluded, strode out of
the house without a word. Directly he left,
the peasants in the study put on their caps
and began to smile at each other.
The Cossacks rode away, passing through
the yards of the home farm straight into
the fields. The priest, still arguing with the
peasants, moved gradually down the drive
and his earnest eloquence was drawing the
silent mob after him, away from the house.
This justice must be rendered to the parish
priests of the Greek Church that, strangers
to the country as they were (being all drawn
from the interior of Russia), the majority
of them used such influence as they had over
their flocks in the cause of peace and humanity. True to the spirit of their calling,
they tried to soothe the passions of the excited peasantry, and opposed rapine and
violence, whenever they could, with all their
might. And this conduct they pursued against
the express wishes of the authorities. Later
on some of them were made to suffer for this
disobedience by being removed abruptly to
the far north or sent away to Siberian parishes.
The servant was anxious to get rid of
the few peasants who had got into the house.
What sort of conduct was that, he asked
them, toward a man who was only a tenant,
had been invariably good and considerate
to the villagers for years, and only the other
day had agreed to give up two meadows for
the use of the village herd? He reminded
them, too, of Mr. Nicholas B.'s devotion to
the sick in time of cholera. Every word of
this was true, and so far effective that the
fellows began to scratch their heads and look
irresolute. The speaker then pointed at the
window, exclaiming: "Look! there's all your
crowd going away quietly, and you silly
chaps had better go after them and pray
God to forgive you your evil thoughts."
This appeal was an unlucky inspiration.
In crowding clumsily to the window to see
whether he was speaking the truth, the fellows overturned the little writing-table. As
it fell over a chink of loose coin was heard.
"There's money in that thing," cried the
blacksmith. In a moment the top of the
delicate piece of furniture was smashed and
there lay exposed in a drawer eighty half-imperials. Gold coin was a rare sight in
Russia even at that time; it put the peasants beside themselves. "There must be
more of that in the house, and we shall have
it," yelled the ex-soldier blacksmith. "This
is war-time." The others were already shouting out of the window, urging the crowd
to come back and help. The priest, abandoned suddenly at the gate, flung his arms
up and hurried away so as not to see what
was going to happen.
In their search for money that bucolic mob
smashed everything in the house, ripping
with knives, splitting with hatchets, so that,
as the servant said, there were no two pieces
of wood holding together left in the whole
house. They broke some very fine mirrors,
all the windows, and every piece of glass
and china. They threw the books and papers
out on the lawn and set fire to the heap
for the mere fun of the thing, apparently.
Absolutely the only one solitary thing which
they left whole was a small ivory crucifix,
which remained hanging on the wall in the
wrecked bedroom above a wild heap of rags,
broken mahogany, and splintered boards
which had been Mr. Nicholas B.'s bedstead.
Detecting the servant in the act of stealing
away with a japanned tin box, they tore it
from him, and because he resisted they threw
him out of the dining-room window. The
house was on one floor, but raised well above
the ground, and the fall was so serious that
the man remained lying stunned till the cook
and a stable-boy ventured forth at dusk
from their hiding-places and picked him up.
But by that time the mob had departed,
carrying off the tin box, which they supposed to be full of paper money. Some
distance from the house, in the middle of a
field, they broke it open. They found inside documents engrossed on parchment and
the two crosses of the Legion of Honour and
For Valour. At the sight of these objects,
which, the blacksmith explained, were marks
of honour given only by the Tsar, they became
extremely frightened at what they had done.
They threw the whole lot away into a ditch
and dispersed hastily.
On learning of this particular loss Mr.
Nicholas B. broke down completely. The
mere sacking of his house did not seem to
affect him much. While he was still in bed
from the shock, the two crosses were found
and returned to him. It helped somewhat
his slow convalescence, but the tin box and
the parchments, though searched for in all
the ditches around, never turned up again.
He could not get over the loss of his Legion
of Honour Patent, whose preamble, setting
forth his services, he knew by heart to the
very letter, and after this blow volunteered
sometimes to recite, tears standing in his
eyes the while. Its terms haunted him apparently during the last two years of his
life to such an extent that he used to repeat
them to himself. This is confirmed by the
remark made more than once by his old
servant to the more intimate friends. "What
makes my heart heavy is to hear our master
in his room at night walking up and down
and praying aloud in the French language."
It must have been somewhat over a year
afterward that I saw Mr. Nicholas B.—or,
more correctly, that he saw me—for the last
time. It was, as I have already said, at the
time when my mother had a three months'
leave from exile, which she was spending in
the house of her brother, and friends and relations were coming from far and near to
do her honour. It is inconceivable that Mr.
Nicholas B. should not have been of the number. The little child a few months old he
had taken up in his arms on the day of his
home-coming, after years of war and exile,
was confessing her faith in national salvation by suffering exile in her turn. I do not
know whether he was present on the very
day of our departure. I have already admitted that for me he is more especially the
man who in his youth had eaten roast dog
in the depths of a gloomy forest of snow-loaded pines. My memory cannot place him
in any remembered scene. A hooked nose,
some sleek white hair, an unrelated evanescent impression of a meagre, slight, rigid
figure militarily buttoned up to the throat,
is all that now exists on earth of Mr. Nicholas
B.; only this vague shadow pursued by the
memory of his grandnephew, the last surviving
human being, I suppose, of all those
he had seen in the course of his taciturn life.
But I remember well the day of our departure back to exile. The elongated, bizarre, shabby travelling-carriage with four
post-horses, standing before the long front
of the house with its eight columns, four on
each side of the broad flight of stairs. On
the steps, groups of servants, a few relations,
one or two friends from the nearest neighbourhood, a perfect silence; on all the faces
an air of sober concentration; my grandmother, all in black, gazing stoically; my uncle
giving his arm to my mother down to the
carriage in which I had been placed already;
at the top of the flight my little cousin in a
short skirt of a tartan pattern with a deal
of red in it, and like a small princess attended
by the women of her own household; the
head gouvernante, our dear, corpulent Francesca (who had been for thirty years in the
service of the B. family), the former nurse,
now outdoor attendant, a handsome peasant
face wearing a compassionate expression,
and the good, ugly Mlle. Durand, the governess, with her black eyebrows meeting over
a short, thick nose, and a complexion like
pale-brown paper. Of all the eyes turned
toward the carriage, her good-natured eyes
only were dropping tears, and it was her
sobbing voice alone that broke the silence
with an appeal to me:
"N'oublie pas ton
français, mon chéri." In three months, simply by playing with us, she had taught me
not only to speak French, but to read it as
well. She was indeed an excellent playmate.
In the distance, half-way down to the great
gates, a light, open trap, harnessed with three
horses in Russian fashion, stood drawn up on
one side, with the police captain of the district sitting in it, the vizor of his flat cap
with a red band pulled down over his eyes.
It seems strange that he should have been
there to watch our going so carefully. Without wishing to treat with levity the just
timidites of Imperialists all the world over,
I may allow myself the reflection that a
woman, practically condemned by the doctors,
and a small boy not quite six years old, could
not be regarded as seriously dangerous, even
for the largest of conceivable empires saddled
with the most sacred of responsibilities. And
this good man I believe did not think so, either.
I learned afterward why he was present
on that day. I don't remember any outward
signs; but it seems that, about a month before,
my mother became so unwell that there was
a doubt whether she could be made fit to
travel in the time. In this uncertainty the
Governor-General in Kiev was petitioned to
grant her a fortnight's extension of stay in her
brother's house. No answer whatever was
returned to this prayer, but one day at dusk
the police captain of the district drove up to
the house and told my uncle's valet, who
ran out to meet him, that he wanted to speak
with the master in private, at once. Very
much impressed (he thought it was going to be
an arrest), the servant, "more dead than alive
with fright," as he related afterward, smuggled
him through the big drawing-room, which was
dark (that room was not lighted every evening),
on tiptoe, so as not to attract the attention of
the ladies in the house, and led him by way of
the orangery to my uncle's private apartments.
The policeman, without any preliminaries,
thrust a paper into my uncle's hands.
"There. Pray read this. I have no business to show this paper to you. It is wrong
of me. But I can't either eat or sleep with
such a job hanging over me."
That police captain, a native of Great
Russia, had been for many years serving in
the district.
My uncle unfolded and read the document.
It was a service order issued from the Governor-General's secretariat, dealing with the
matter of the petition and directing the
police captain to disregard all remonstrances
and explanations in regard to that illness
either from medical men or others, "and if
she has not left her brother's house"—it
went on to say—"on the morning of the day
specified on her permit, you are to despatch
her at once under escort, direct" (underlined)
"to the prison-hospital in Kiev, where she
will be treated as her case demands."
"For God's sake, Mr. B., see that your
sister goes away punctually on that day.
Don't give me this work to do with a woman
—and with one of your family, too. I simply
cannot bear to think of it."
He was absolutely wringing his hands.
My uncle looked at him in silence.
"Thank you for this warning. I assure
you that even if she were dying she would
be carried out to the carriage."
"Yes—indeed—and what difference would
it make—travel to Kiev or back to her husband? For she would have to go—death or
no death. And mind, Mr. B., I will be here
on the day, not that I doubt your promise,
but because I must. I have got to. Duty.
All the same my trade is not fit for a dog
since some of you Poles will persist in rebelling, and all of you have got to suffer for
it."
This is the reason why he was there in an
open three-horse trap pulled up between the
house and the great gates. I regret not being
able to give up his name to the scorn of all
believers in the right of conquest, as a reprehensibly sensitive guardian of Imperial great-ness. On the other hand, I am in a position
to state the name of the Governor-General
who signed the order with the marginal note
"to be carried out to the letter" in his own
handwriting. The gentleman's name was Bezak. A high dignitary, an energetic official,
the idol for a time of the Russian patriotic
press.
Each generation has its memories.
