University of Virginia Library

12. XII.

Alas! the proud predictions of Prince Alexis, and the
protection of the sacred amulet, were alike unavailing.
The babe sickened, wasted away, and died in less than
two months after its birth. There was great and genuine
sorrow among the serfs of Kinesma. Each had received
a shining ruble of silver at the christening; and, moreover,
they were now beginning to appreciate the milder regime
of their lord, which this blow might suddenly terminate.
Sorrow, in such natures as his, exasperates instead
of chastening: they knew him well enough to recognize
the danger.

At first the old man's grief appeared to be of a stubborn,
harmless nature. As soon as the funeral ceremonies
were over he betook himself to his bed, and there lay for
two days and nights, without eating a morsel of food. The
poor Princess Helena, almost prostrated by the blow,
mourned alone, or with Boris, in her own apartments. Her
influence, no longer kept alive by her constant presence,
as formerly, began to decline. When the old Prince
aroused somewhat from his stupor, it was not meat that
he demanded, but drink; and he drank to angry excess.
Day after day the habit resumed its ancient sway, and the
whip and the wild-beast yell returned with it. The serfs
even began to tremble as they never had done, so long as
his vices were simply those of a strong man; for now a
fiendish element seemed to be slowly creeping in. He
became horribly profane: they shuddered when he cursed
the venerable Metropolitan of Moscow, declaring that the

old sinner had deliberately killed his grandson, by sending
to him, instead of the true cross of the Saviour, a piece
of the tree to which the impenitent thief was nailed.

Boris would have spared his wife the knowledge of
this miserable relapse, in her present sorrow, but the information
soon reached her in other ways. She saw the
necessity of regaining, by a powerful effort, what she had
lost. She therefore took her accustomed place at the table,
and resumed her inspection of household matters.
Prince Alexis, as if determined to cast off the yoke which
her beauty and gentleness had laid upon him, avoided
looking at her face or speaking to her, as much as possible:
when he did so, his manner was cold and unfriendly.
During her few days of sad retirement he had brought
back the bear Razboi and the idiot to his table, and vodki
was habitually poured out to him and his favorite serfs
in such a measure that the nights became hideous with
drunken tumult.

The Princess Helena felt that her beauty no longer
possessed the potency of its first surprise. It must now
be a contest of nature with nature, spiritual with animal
power. The struggle would be perilous, she foresaw, but
she did not shrink; she rather sought the earliest occasion
to provoke it.

That occasion came. Some slight disappointment
brought on one of the old paroxysms of rage, and the ox-like
bellow of Prince Alexis rang through the castle. Boris
was absent, but Helena delayed not a moment to venture
into his father's presence. She found him in a hall overlooking

the court-yard, with his terrible whip in his hand,
giving orders for the brutal punishment of some scores of
serfs. The sight of her, coming thus unexpectedly upon
him, did not seem to produce the least effect.

“Father!” she cried, in an earnest, piteous tone,
“what is it you do?”

“Away, witch!” he yelled. “I am the master in
Kinesma, not thou! Away, or- ”

The fierceness with which he swung and cracked the
whip was more threatening than any words. Perhaps she
grew a shade paler, perhaps her hands were tightly clasped
in order that they might not tremble; but she did not
flinch from the encounter. She moved a step nearer, fixed
her gaze upon his flashing eyes, and said, in a low, firm
voice—

“It is true, father, you are master here. It is easy to
rule over those poor, submissive slaves. But you are not
master over yourself; you are lashed and trampled upon
by evil passions, and as much a slave as any of these. Be
not weak, my father, but strong!”

An expression of bewilderment came into his face. No
such words had ever before been addressed to him, and
he knew not how to reply to them. The Princess Helena
followed up the effect—she was not sure that it was an advantage—by
an appeal to the simple, childish nature
which she believed to exist under his ferocious exterior.
For a minute it seemed as if she were about to re-establish
her ascendancy: then the stubborn resistance of the beast
returned.

Among the portraits in the hall was one of the deceased
Princess Martha. Pointing to this, Helena cried—

“See, my father! here are the features of your sainted
wife! Think that she looks down from her place among
the blessed, sees you, listens to your words, prays that
your hard heart may be softened! Remember her last
farewell to you on earth, her hope of meeting you—”

A cry of savage wrath checked her. Stretching one
huge, bony hand, as if to close her lips, trembling with
rage and pain, livid and convulsed in every feature of his
face, Prince Alexis reversed the whip in his right hand,
and weighed its thick, heavy butt for one crashing, fatal
blow. Life and death were evenly balanced. For an instant
the Princess became deadly pale, and a sickening
fear shot through her heart. She could not understand
the effect of her words: her mind was paralyzed, and
what followed came without her conscious volition.

Not retreating a step, not removing her eyes from the
terrible picture before her, she suddenly opened her lips
and sang. Her voice of exquisite purity, power, and sweetness,
filled the old hall and overflowed it, throbbing in
scarcely weakened vibrations through court-yard and castle.
The melody was a prayer—the cry of a tortured
heart for pardon and repose; and she sang it with almost
supernatural expression. Every sound in the castle was
hushed: the serfs outside knelt and uncovered their
heads.

The Princess could never afterwards describe, or more
than dimly recall, the exaltation of that moment. She

sang in an inspired trance: from the utterance of the first
note the horror of the imminent fate sank out of sight.
Her eyes were fixed upon the convulsed face, but she beheld
it not: all the concentrated forces of her life flowed
into the music. She remembered, however, that Prince
Alexis looked alternately from her face to the portrait of
his wife; that he at last shuddered and grew pale; and
that, when with the closing note her own strength suddenly
dissolved, he groaned and fell upon the floor.

She sat down beside him, and took his head upon her
lap. For a long time he was silent, only shivering as if in
fever.

“Father!” she finally whispered, “let me take you
away!”

He sat up on the floor and looked around; but as his
eyes encountered the portrait, he gave a loud howl and covered
his face with his hands.

“She turns her head!” he cried. “Take her away,—
she follows me with her eyes! Paint her head black, and
cover it up!”

With some difficulty he was borne to his bed, but he
would not rest until assured that his orders had been obeyed,
and the painting covered for the time with a coat of
lamp-black. A low, prolonged attack of fever followed,
during which the presence of Helena was indispensable to
his comfort. She ventured to leave the room only while
he slept. He was like a child in her hands; and when
she commended his patience or his good resolutions, his
face beamed with joy and gratitude. He determined (in

good faith, this time) to enter a monastery and devote the
rest of his life to pious works.

But, even after his recovery, he was still too weak and
dependent on his children's attentions to carry out this resolution.
He banished from the castle all those of his poor
relations who were unable to drink vodki in moderation;
he kept careful watch over his serfs, and those who became
intoxicated (unless they concealed the fact in the stables
and outhouses) were severely punished: all excess disappeared,
and a reign of peace and gentleness descended
upon Kinesma.

In another year another Alexis was born, and lived,
and soon grew strong enough to give his grandfather the
greatest satisfaction he had ever known in his life, by tugging
at his gray locks, and digging the small fingers into
his tamed and merry eyes. Many years after Prince Alexis
was dead the serfs used to relate how they had seen
him, in the bright summer afternoons, asleep in his arm-chair
on the balcony, with the rosy babe asleep on his
bosom, and the slumber-flag waving over both.

Legends of the Prince's hunts, reisaks, and brutal revels
are still current along the Volga; but they are now linked
to fairer and more gracious stories; and the free Russian
farmers (no longer serfs) are never tired of relating incidents
of the beauty, the courage, the benevolence, and the
saintly piety of the Good Lady of Kinesma.