THIS MORNING, early, I received a visit from the individual whose conversation is recounted in the last chapter. He brought me a French manuscript, written by the young prince, the son of his patron. It is the relation of an occurrence, only too true, that forms one of the numerous episodes of the yet recent event with which all feeling and thoughtful minds are still silently and secretly occupied. Is it possible to enjoy, without any feelings of uneasiness, the luxury of a magnificent abode, when one thinks that, at a few hundred leagues from the palace, murder is rampant, and society would fall to pieces, were it not for the terrific means employed to uphold it?
The young Prince ———, who has written this story, would be ruined if it could be discovered that he was the author. It is on this account that he has confided his manuscript to me, and entrusted me with its publication. He permits me to insert the account of the death of Thelenef in the text of my travels, where I shall faithfully give it, without, however, compromising the safety of anyone. I am assured of the accuracy of the principal facts; the reader can put as much or as little faith in them as he pleases; for my own part, I always believe what people whom I do not know say to me. The suspicion of falsehold never enters my mind until after the proof.
The young Russian, who is the author of the fragment, wishing to justify, by the memory of the horrors of our revolution, the ferocity of his own countrymen, has cited an act of French cruelty, the massacre of M. de Belzunce at Caen. He might have increased his list: Mademoiselle de Sombreuil forced to drink a glass of blood to redeem the life of her father; the heroic death of the archbishop of Arles, and of his glorious companions in martyrdom, within the cloisters of the Carmelite convent at Paris; the massacres of Lyons; the executions, by drowning, at Nantes, surnamed by Carrier, the republican marriages; and many other atrocities which historians have not even recorded, might serve to prove that human ferocity only sleeps among nations even the most civilized. Nevertheless, there is a difference between the cold, methodical, and abiding cruelty of the Muzhiks, and the passing frenzy of the French. These latter, during the war which they carried on against God and humanity, were not in their natural state; the mood of blood had changed their character; and the extravagances of passion ruled over all their acts; for never were they less free than at the epoch when everything that was done among them was done in the name of liberty. We are, on the contrary, going to see the Russians murder each other without belying their characters; it is still a duty which they are performing.
Among this obedient people, the influence of social institutions is so great in every class—ideas and habits so rule over characters, that the fiercest excesses of vengeance still appear ruled by a certain degree of discipline. Murder is designed and executed in an orderly manner; no rage, no emotion, no words: a calm is preserved more terrible than the delirium of hate. They struggle with, overthrow, trample, and destroy each other, with the steady regularity of machines turning upon their pivots. This physical impassability in the midst of scenes the most violent, this monstrous audacity in the conception and calmness in the execution, this silent passion and speechless fanaticism seem, if one might so express it, the innocence of crime. A certain order, contrary to nature, presides in this strange country over the most monstrous excesses; tyranny and revolt march in step, and perform their movements in unison.
As everything is alike, the immense extent of the territory does not prevent things being executed from one end of Russia to the other, with a punctuality, and a simultaneous correspondence, which is magical. If ever they should succeed in creating a REAL revolution among the Russian people, massacre would be performed with the regularity that marks the evolutions of a regiment. Villages would change into barracks, and organized murder would stalk forth armed from the cottages, form in line, and advance in order; in short, the Russians would prepare for pillage from Smolensk to Irkutsk, as they march to the parade in Petersburg. From so much uniformity, there results between the natural dispositions and the social habits of the people, a harmony, the effects of which might become prodigious in good as in evil.
Everything is obscure in the future prospects of the world; but, assuredly, it will see strange scenes enacted before the nations by this predestined people.
It is almost always under the influence of a blind respect for power, that the Russians disturb public order. Thus, if we are to believe what is repeated in secret, had it not been for the emperor’s speech to the deputies of the peasants, the latter would not have taken up arms.
I trust that this fact, and those that I have elsewhere cited, will show the danger of inculcating liberal opinions among a population so ill prepared to receive them. As regards political liberty, the more we love it, the greater care should we take to avoid pronouncing its name before those who would only compromise a holy cause by their manner of defending it. It is this which induces me to doubt of the truth of the imprudent reply attributed to the emperor. That prince knows, better than anyone, the character of his people, and I cannot believe that he could have provoked the revolt of the peasants, even unwittingly.
The horrors of the insurrection are described by the author of Thelenef, with an accuracy the more scrupulous, as the principal incident occurred in the family of the narrator.
If he has allowed himself to ennoble the character and the passion of his hero and heroine, it is because he has a poetical imagination; but while embellishing the sentiments, he has preserved the picture of national manners: in short, neither in the facts, the sentiments, nor the descriptions, does this little romance appear to me misplaced in the midst of a work, all the merit of which consists in the verisimilitude of its delineations.
I may add that the bloody scenes are yet being daily renewed in various parts of the same country where public order has been disturbed, and re-established in so terrific a manner. The Russians have no right to reproach France for her political disorders, and to draw from them consequences favorable to despotism. Let but the liberty of the press be accorded to Russia for twenty-four hours, and we should learn things that would make us recoil with horror. Silence is indispensable to oppression. Under an absolute government every indiscretion of speech is equivalent to a crime of high treason.
If there are found among the Russians, better diplomatists than among nations the most advanced in civilization, it is because our journals inform them of everything which is done or projected among ourselves, and because, instead of prudently disguising our weaknesses, we display them, with passion, every morning; whilst, on the contrary, the Byzantine policy of the Russians, working in the dark, carefully conceals from us everything that is thought, done, or feared among them. We march exposed on all sides, they advance under cover. The ignorance in which they leave us blinds our view; our sincerity enlightens theirs; we suffer from all the evils of idle talking, they have all the advantages of secrecy; and herein lies all their skill and ability.
THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.[1]
The estates of Prince ——— had been for several years managed by a steward, named Thelenef. The prince, occupied with other matters, seldom thought of his domains. Disappointed in his ambitious views, he had traveled for a long time, in the hope of dissipating his chagrin as a disgraced courtier. At length, weary of seeking from the arts and from nature, consolation for his failure in politics, he returned to his own country, in order again to approach the court, and to endeavor by dint of care and diligence to recover the favor of the sovereign.
But while fruitlessly wasting his life and fortune in playing by turns the courtier at Petersburg, and the amateur of antiquities in southern Europe, he lost the attachment of his peasants, exasperated by the ill-usage of Thelenef. This man ruled as a king in the extensive estates of Vologda, where his manner of exercising the lordly authority made him generally execrated.
Thelenef had, however, a charming daughter, called Xenie.† The amiability of this young person was an inborn virtue; for, having early lost her mother, she had received no other education than that which her father could give her. He taught her French, and she learned, as it were by heart, some of the classics of the age of Louis XIV; which had been left in the castle of Vologda by the father of the prince. The Bible, Pascal’s Pensées, and Telemachus were her favorite books. When but a small number of authors are read, when those authors are well chosen, and when their works are often reperused, reading becomes very profitable. One of the causes of the frivolity of modern minds is the number of books badly read, rather than badly written, with which the world is inundated.
It would be rendering a service to the rising generation to teach them how to read, an acquirement which has become more rare since everyone has learned how to write.
Thanks to her reputation for learning, Xenie, at the age of nineteen, enjoyed a well-merited influence throughout the whole government of ———. People came to consult her from all the neighboring villages. In sickness, in disputes, in all the grievances of the poor peasants, Xenie was their guide and their support.
Her conciliating temper often brought upon her the rebukes of her father; but the knowledge of having done some good, or prevented some evil, compensated for everything. In a country where, in general, women have little influence, she exercised a power which no man in the district could dispute with her, the power of reason over brutish minds.
Even her father, violent as he was both by disposition and habit, felt the influence of her benevolent nature, and too often blushed to find himself checking the violence of his wrath through fear of giving pain to Xenie. Like a tyrannical prince, he blamed himself for his clemency, and accused himself of being too easy. He gloried in his angry passions, to which he gave the title of justice: the serfs of Prince ——— called them by another name.
The father and daughter resided in the castle of Vologda, which was situated in a widely extended plain, whose scenery, for Russia, is very pastoral.
Numerous herds and flocks, whose diminutive size and feeble frames evince the severity of the climate, feed on the banks of the lake of Vologda, and form the only enlivening objects in the scene. Such landscapes are destitute of real beauty; nevertheless they have a tranquil, indistinct, and dreamy kind of grandeur, whose deep repose lacks neither sublimity nor poetry: it is the east without the sun.
One morning, Xenie went out with her father to assist in numbering the cattle, an operation which he himself performed every day. The herds, picturesquely grouped at different distances before the castle, animated the green banks of the lake, which were brightened by the rays of the rising sun, whilst the bell of a neighboring chapel was summoning to morning prayer some infirm, and therefore unemployed women, and several decayed old men, who enjoyed with resignation the repose of age.
The noble form of these hoary heads, the still fresh complexion of faces, whose brows were silvered with age, demonstrate the salubrity of the atmosphere, and evidence the beauty of the human race in this frozen zone. It is not to youthful countenances we must look, when we would know if beauty exists in a country.
“Look, my father,” said Xenie, as she crossed the causeway which formed the isthmus that united the peninsula of the castle to the plain; “look at the flag floating over the cabin of my fosterbrother.”
The Russian peasants are frequently permitted to leave home, in order to exercise their industry in the neighboring towns, and sometimes even as far off as St. Petersburg. On such occasions they pay to their masters a fee, and only what they gain beyond this is their own. When one of these traveling serfs returns home to his wife, a pine, like a mast, is raised above the cabin, and a flag flutters on the top as a signal to the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, in order that when they see the joyful sign, they may sympathize with the happiness of the wife.
It was in accordance with this ancient custom that they had raised the streamer upon the pinnacle of the Pacome’s cottage. The aged Elizabeth, the mother of Fedor, had been Xenie’s wet nurse.
“He has returned then, this good-for-nothing foster-brother of thine,” replied Thelenef.
“Oh! I am so glad he has,” said Xenie.
“One knave more in the district,” muttered Thelenef, “we have already enough of them”; and the face of the steward, always gloomy, assumed a yet more forbidding expression.
“It would be easy to make him good,” replied Xenie; “but you will not exert your power.”
“It is you who prevent me: you interfere with the duties of a master, by your soft ways and counsels of false prudence. Ah! it was not in this manner that my father and grandfather ruled the serfs of our lord’s father.”
“But you forget,” replied Xenie, with a trembling voice, “that Fedor was from his childhood more gently brought up than other peasants; how can he be like them? His education was from the first as much cared for as mine.”
“He ought to be so much the better, and he is all the worse; such are the effects of education; but it is your fault, you and your nurse would constantly bring him to the castle, and I in my kind wish to please you, forgot, and allowed him to forget, that he was not born to live with us.”
“You cruelly reminded him of it afterwards,” answered Xenie, with a sigh.
“Your ideas are not Russian: sooner or later, you will learn to your cost, to know how peasants must be governed.” He then continued, muttering between his teeth, “What is this devil of a Fedor doing, to come back here, after my letters to the prince. The prince cannot have read them, and the steward down there is jealous of me!”
Xenie heard the self-communings of Thelenef, and anxiously watched the progress of the resentful feelings of the steward, who considered that he had been braved in his own house by an intractable serf. She hoped to appease him by these reasonable words:—
“It is now two years since you had my poor foster-brother almost beaten to death. What have you gained by your severity? Nothing; his lips did not utter one word of excuse, he would have expired under the torture, rather than have humbled himself before you: for he knew that his punishment was too severe for his fault. I confess he had disobeyed you, but he was in love with Catherine. The cause of the offense lessened its importance; this you would not take into consideration. Since that scene, and the marriage and departure which followed it, the hatred of all our peasants has become so intense, that I fear for you, my father.”
“And therefore you rejoice at the return of one of my most formidable enemies,” replied the exasperated Thelenef.
“Ah! I do not fear him: we have both sucked the same breast; he would die rather than make me unhappy.”
“He has given good proof of this truly; he would be the first to murder me if he dared.”
“You judge him too harshly. Fedor would, I am sure, defend you against them all, even though you have deeply offended him: you remember your severity too well yourself, for him to forget it. Is not this the truth, Father? He is now married, and his wife has already a little one; this domestic happiness will soften his character. The birth of children often changes the hearts of husbands.”
“Silence! You will deprive me of all sense with your romantic notions. Go and read in your books about affectionate peasants and generous slaves. I know better than you do, the men I have to deal with: they are idle and vindictive like their fathers, and you will never change them.”
“If you would permit me to act, and would give me your aid, we might, together, reform them; but here comes my good Elizabeth, returning from mass.”
Thus speaking, Xenie ran to throw her arms around her nurse. “Now then you are happy!”
“Perhaps,” replied the old woman, in a low voice.
“He is come back.”
“Not for long, I fear.”
“What do you mean?”
“They have all lost their senses; but, hush!”
“Well, Mother Pacome,” said Thelenef, casting a sinister glance upon the old woman, “your good-for-nothing son has returned to you; his wife, I suppose, is satisfied; his return will prove to you and all, that I do not wish him ill.”
“I am glad of it, sir, we need your protection; the prince is coming, and we do not know him.”
“How! What!—the prince our master?” then checking himself, “doubtless,” exclaimed Thelenef, much surprised, but not wishing to seem ignorant of what a peasant appeared to know, “doubtless I will protect you; but he will not be here so soon as you think: the report of his coming is current every year at this season.”
“Pardon me, sir, he will be here shortly.”
The steward longed to question the nurse more closely, but his dignity restrained him. Xenie saw his embarrassment, and came to his help.
“Tell me, nurse, how have you become so well acquainted with the intentions and movements of our lord the prince?”
“I learned it from Fedor. Oh, my son knows many other things besides. He is now a man—he is twenty-one years old, just a year older than you, my pretty lady. I would say, if I dare, for he is so handsome—I would say you are like each other.”
“Hold thy tongue! old doter; how should my daughter resemble thy son?”
“They have sucked the same milk, and even—but, no— when you are no longer our master I will tell you what I think of them.”
“When I am no longer your master!”
“Certainly. My son has seen the father.”
“The emperor?”
“Yes; and the emperor himself has sent us word that we are going to be made free. It is his will; and if it depended only on him it would be done.”
Thelenef shrugged his shoulders, and asked—“How has Fedor been able to speak to the emperor?”
“How? He was one of those who were sent by all the people of the district and of the neighboring villages, to go and ask our father”—here Mother Pacome suddenly stopped short.
“To ask what?”
The old woman, who began, a little too late, to perceive her indiscretion, took refuge in obstinate silence, notwithstanding the hasty questions of the steward. This abrupt silence had something about it that was unusual, and at the same time significative.
“Once for all, what is it that you are plotting here against us?” cried the furious Thelenef, seizing the old woman by her shoulders.
“It is easy to guess,” said Xenie, advancing between her father and her nurse. “You know that the emperor bought, last year, the domain of ———, which adjoins ours. Since then our peasants dream of nothing but the happiness of belonging to the crown. They envy their neighbors, whose condition, as they believe, has become much improved, though, before, it was similar to theirs. Do not you remember that many of the old men of our district have, under various pretexts, asked your permission to travel. I was told, after their departure, that they had been chosen as deputies by the other serfs to go and entreat the emperor to purchase them, as he had done their neighbors. Various of the surrounding districts united with Vologda to present a similar request to His Majesty. They say that they offered him all the money necessary to buy the domain of the prince—both the men and the land.”
“It is all true,” said the old woman; “and my son, Fedor, who met them at Petersburg, went with them to speak to our father; they all came back together yesterday.”
“If I did not tell you of this attempt,” said Xenie, looking at her amazed father, “it was because I knew that it would end in nothing.”
“You have deceived yourself, if they have seen the father.”
“The father himself could not do what they wished; he cannot buy all Russia.”
“Do you perceive their cunning!” continued Thelenef. “The knaves are rich enough to offer large presents to the emperor, and yet, with us, they are beggars. They are not ashamed to say that we spoil them of everything; whereas, if we had more sense and less mildness, we should strip them even to the very girdle with which they would strangle us.”
“You will not have the time to do that, Mister Steward,” said, in a very low and gentle voice, a young man who had approached unperceived, and who stood with his hat in his hand, before a bush of willows, from the midst of which he seemed to come as if by enchantment. “Ah! is it you, you villain?” cried Thelenef.
“Fedor, you say nothing to your foster-sister,” interrupted Xenie, “you had so often promised not to forget me. I have kept my word better than you, for I have not omitted a single day to mention your name in my prayer there, in that chapel, before the image of St. Vladimir, which reminded me of your departure. Do you remember it? It was there that you bade me adieu, now nearly a year ago.”
In concluding these words, she cast on her brother a look of tenderness and reproach, the mingled softness and severity of which made a great impression.
“I forget you!” cried the young man, lifting his eyes to heaven. Xenie was silent, awed by the religious, yet somewhat fierce expression of an eye that was generally cast down.
Xenie was one of those beauties of the North that are never seen in other lands. Scarcely did she appear to belong to earth. The purity of her features, which reminded one of the pictures of Raphael, might have appeared cold had not a most delicate expression of sensibility softly shadowed her countenance, which, as yet, no passion had ever ruffled. Xenie had the beauty of a queen and the freshness of a village maiden. Her hair was parted in bands on a high and ivory forehead; her blue eyes, fringed with long black lashes, which cast a shadow on her fresh yet scarcely colored cheeks, were transparent as a fountain of limpid water. She needed only the silver glory to form one of the most lovely of those Byzantine Madonnas, with which it is not permitted to adorn the churches.[2]
Her foster-brother was one of the handsomest men of a part of the empire renowned for the tall and elegant forms, the healthful appearance, and the carelessly graceful air of its inhabitants. The serfs of this portion of the empire are, unquestionably, the men who least need pity in Russia.
The elegant costume of the peasants became him admirably. His light hair, gracefully parted, fell in silky ringlets on either side of the face, the form of which was a perfect oval. His large and powerful neck remained bare, owing to the locks being cut off close behind; whilst a band, in the form of a diadem, was fastened across the white forehead of the young laborer, keeping his hair close and smooth on the crown of his head, which shone, in the sun, like a Christ of Guido.
Fedor, humbled by an education superior to the rank he occupied in his country, and perhaps also by the instinct of his natural dignity, which contrasted with his abject condition, maintained almost always the posture of a condemned man, about to receive sentence.
He had adopted this doleful attitude when nineteen years old, on the day that he underwent the punishment commanded by Thelenef, under the pretext that the young man— the foster-brother of his daughter, and hitherto his favorite, his spoiled child—had neglected to obey I know not what unimportant order. The real and serious motive for the barbarity, which was not the effect of a simple caprice, will be seen hereafter. Xenie imagined she had guessed the nature of the fault which had become so fatal to her brother. She imagined that Fedor was in love with Catherine, a young and handsome peasant girl who lived in the neighborhood; and, as soon as the unfortunate young man had been cured of his wounds, which was not until after some weeks, for the punishment had been cruelly severe, she busied herself with repairing the evil, so far as lay in her power. She thought that the only means to achieve this would be to marry him to the young girl with whom she believed him smitten. No sooner had the project been announced by Xenie, than the hatred of Thelenef appeared to diminish. The marriage was brought about and celebrated in all haste, to the great satisfaction of Xenie, who believed that Fedor would lose in the happiness of the heart, his feelings of profound grief and resentment. She deceived herself; nothing could console her brother. She alone was aware of the bitter sense of shame with which he was overwhelmed; she was his confidante, although he had confided nothing to her, for he never once complained. Indeed, the treatment of which he had been the victim was a matter of such ordinary occurrence, that no one attached any importance to it: except himself and Xenie no one thought anything about it.
He avoided, with an admirable instinct of pride, everything that could remind him of the degradation he had suffered; but he fled, involuntarily and with a shudder, whenever any of his comrades were about to be beaten; and he grew pale at the sight of a reed or a wand in a man’s hand.
His sister Xenie believed she should render him again happy by procuring his marriage: he obeyed, but this compliance only served to increase his wretchedness; for the man who seeks to become virtuous by taking upon himself additional duties, does but lay open new sources of remorse.
The unhappy Fedor felt when it was too late, that, notwithstanding her friendship, Xenie had done nothing for him. Unable to bear life in the scenes that had witnessed his degradation, he abandoned his native village, his wife, and his guardian angel.
His wife felt herself humbled, but from another cause. A wife blushes for shame when her husband is not happy. Under this feeling she forebore telling him that she was enceinte. She did not wish to employ such a means for retaining near her, a husband to whose happiness she could not minister.
At length, after a year’s absence, he returned. He again beheld his mother and his wife, and found also an infant in the cradle, a little angel who resembled him, but who could not cure the sorrow which preyed upon his heart. He remained motionless and silent even before his sister Xenie, whom now he only dared to call mademoiselle.
Their noble forms, which, according to the saying of the nurse, had, as well as their characters, some traits of resemblance, shone in the morning sun among the scattered groups of animals, of whom they seemed the sovereigns. One might have imagined the picture, an Adam and Eve, painted by Albrecht Dürer. Xenie was calm, though joyful; but the countenance of the young man betrayed violent emotions, ill disguised under an affected impassability.
Xenie, in spite of her unerring womanly instinct, was deceived this time by the silence of Fedor. She attributed the chagrin of her brother to painful recollections, and fancied that the sight of the scenes where he had suffered, tended to revive his grief; but she still depended on love and friendship to complete the cure of his wound.
On parting with her brother she promised often to come and see him in the cabin of her nurse.
Nevertheless, the last look of Fedor terrified the young maiden; there was something more than grief in this glance; there was the expression of a ferocious joy, blended with some unaccountable solicitude. A fear crossed her mind that he had become mad.
Madness had always inspired her with a terror which appeared to her supernatural, and as she attributed this fear to a presentiment, her superstition augmented her inquietude. When fears assume the shape of prophetic intimations, their influence becomes indomitable, a vague and fugitive presentiment takes the aspect of an impending destiny, and imagination, thus acted upon, creates what it fears, and by its influence upon intermediate events, realizes its own chimeras.
Several days passed on, during which Thelenef frequently absented himself. Xenie, entirely absorbed in the grief which was caused by the incurable melancholy of Fedor, thought only of him, and saw only her nurse.
One evening, she was sitting reading in the castle, which her father had left in the morning, saying that she was not to expect his return before the morrow: Xenie was accustomed to these journeyings; for the extent of the domains which her father superintended often obliged him to be absent for a considerable time. While thus alone, the nurse of the young girl suddenly appeared before her.
“What can you want with me so late?” asked Xenie.
“Come and take your tea with us; I have made it ready for you,” replied the nurse.
“I am not accustomed to go out at such an hour.”
“You must, however, today. Come, what should you fear with me?”
Xenie, used to the taciturnity of the Russian peasants, imagined that her nurse had prepared some surprise for her. She therefore rose and followed the old woman.
The village was deserted. At first Xenie believed that it only slept. The night was perfectly calm, and not dark: not a breath of wind disturbed the willows of the marsh, nor bent the long grass of the meadows; not a cloud veiled the stars of heaven. Neither the distant barking of the dog, nor the bleating of the sheep was to be heard; the cattle had ceased to low in the stall; the herdsman was no longer heard to chant his melancholy song, similar to the low trill which precedes the cadence of the nightingale; a silence more profound than the usual silence of the night, brooded over the plain, and weighed upon the heart of Xenie, who began to experience indefinable sensations of terror, though she did not dare to hazard a question. Has the angel of death passed over Vologda? Such was the silent thought of the trembling girl.
Suddenly a blaze of light appeared on the horizon.
“What is that?” cried Xenie, struck with terror.
“I cannot tell,” replied the nurse, “it is perhaps the last beams of day.”
“No,” replied Xenie, “it is a burning village!”
“A castle,” responded Elizabeth, in a hollow voice; “it is the nobles’ turn now.”
“What do you mean?” cried Xenie, seizing in her terror, her nurse’s arm, “are the dreadful predictions of my father going to be fulfilled?”
“Let us make haste; I have to conduct you farther than our cabin.”
“Where are you going to take me?”
“To a place of safety; there is no longer one for you in Vologda.”
“But my father!—what has become of him? I have nothing to fear for myself; but where is my father?”
“He is saved.”
“Saved! From what danger? By whom? What is it that you know? You are trying to soothe me to make me comply with your wishes!”
“I swear to you by the light of the Holy Spirit, my son has concealed him, and he has done it for your sake, at the peril of his own life; for all the traitors will perish this night.”
“Fedor has saved my father! What generous conduct!”
“I am not generous, mademoiselle,” said the young man, approaching to support Xenie, who seemed about to faint.
Fedor had accompanied his mother to the castle gate, which he had not ventured to enter: on the two women coming forth, he had followed them at a little distance in order to protect the flight of Xenie. The weakness that came over his sister obliged him to show himself. But she soon recovered the energy which danger arouses in strong minds.
“Fedor, explain to me all this mystery. What is going to be done?”
“The Russians are free, and they are going to avenge themselves; but make haste, and follow me,” he continued, leading her on.
“Going to avenge themselves! But on whom? I have never done evil to any one!”
“’Tis true, you are an angel; yet I fear that in the first moment there will be no mercy for anybody. The madmen! they see only enemies, not alone in our former masters but in all their kindred. The hour of carnage is arrived: let us make haste. If you do not hear the tocsin, it is because they avoid sounding the bells for fear of forewarning our enemies; besides, they could not be heard far enough: it was agreed that the last glimmer of the evening sun should be the signal for the burning of the castles, and the massacre of all their inhabitants.”
“Oh! you make me shudder!”
Fedor continued, still urging her forwards, “I was appointed to march with the youngest and bravest of our people on the town of ———, where we are to surprise the garrison, which consists only of a few veterans. We are the strongest, and I therefore thought they might dispense with me in the first expedition; thus I have wittingly failed in my duty, I have betrayed the sacred cause, and deserted my battalion to repair to the spot where I knew that I should find your father; he has been timely warned, and is concealed in a cabin dependent on the domains of the crown. But now I tremble lest it should be too late to save you,” he continued, still hurrying her forward towards the retreat he had chosen for her. “The desire of protecting your father has lost time precious to yourself; but I thought to fulfill your wishes, and believed that you would not reproach me for the delay, when you knew the cause; besides, you are less exposed than Thelenef: we shall, I trust, yet save you.”
“Yes; but you—you are lost,” said the mother in a tone of anguish, which her endeavor to keep silent rendered the more impressive.
“Lost!” interrupted Xenie, “my brother lost for my sake!”
“Has he not deserted his ranks in the hour of danger?” replied the old woman, “he is guilty, and they will kill him.”
“I have deserved death!”
“And I shall be the cause,” cried Xenie; “no, no, you must fly—we will fly together.”
“Never!”
During the precipitate retreat of the fugitives, the light of the conflagration silently spread in the horizon: not one cry, no sound of firearms, no ringing of bells, betrayed the insurrection. It was dumb massacre. The calm accord of nature, the beauty of the night smiling on so many murders, filled the soul with horror. It seemed as though Providence, in order to punish men, had removed even her frown, and was suffering them to act as they pleased.
“You will not abandon your sister?” Xenie ejaculated, trembling with terror.
“No, mademoiselle: but once assured of your safety, I will go and surrender myself.”
“I will go with you,” replied the young girl, pressing his arm convulsively: “I will not leave you! You think, then, that I would sacrifice anything for life!”
At this moment the fugitives saw, by the light of the stars, defiling before them, at the distance of about a hundred paces, a line of silent shadows. Fedor stopped.
“Who are they?” asked Xenie, in a low voice.
“Hush!” said Fedor, gently retreating beneath the shadow cast by some palings; then, when the last phantom had crossed the route, he continued—
“It is a detachment of our people marching in silence to surprise the castle of Count ———. We are in danger here; let us hasten.”
“Whither then will you conduct me?”
“In the first place, to my mother’s brother, four versts from Vologda. My old uncle is in his second childhood, he will not betray us. There you must change your dress, for that which you wear would cause you to be recognized; here is another. My mother will remain with her brother, and I hope before the close of the night to bring you to the retreat where I left Thelenef. No place is safe in our unfortunate district, but that is, at least, the safest.”
“You will restore me to my father! Thank you, Fedor: but what will you yourself do then?”
“I will bid you adieu.”
“Never!”
“Nay, nay, Xenie is right; you must remain with them,” cried the poor mother.
“Thelenef would not suffer me,” replied the young man, bitterly.
Xenie felt that it was not the moment to answer. The three fugitives pursuing their way in silence, and without accident, at length reached the door of the aged peasant.
It was fastened only with a latch. The old man slept, wrapped in a black sheepskin, and stretched on one of the rustic benches, which were ranged, like a divan, around the room. Over his head burnt a little lamp, suspended before a Greek Madonna, almost entirely concealed by the silver ornaments of her head and garments. A kettle full of hot water, a teapot, and several cups, remained on the table. A short time before the arrival of the party, the wife of Fedor had left the cottage, to seek, with her child, shelter at her father’s. Fedor appeared neither surprised nor vexed at her departure; for he had not told her to wait for him, and he wished the retreat of Xenie to be unknown to the whole world.
After lighting a lamp at that of the Virgin’s, he led his mother and foster-sister to a small dark closet, which formed a loft over the room before mentioned. All the houses of the Russian peasants are similar in construction.
Left alone, Fedor seated himself on the first step of the frail staircase which his sister had ascended, resting his head upon his hands, in pensive thought.
Scarcely had Xenie, whom he had urged to use all haste, opened the packet that contained her new clothes, than the young man, rising with an expression of intense anxiety, whistled softly to summon his mother.
“What is the matter?” she asked in a low voice.
“Extinguish your lamp—I hear steps; and the light will be seen through the chinks. Above all, avoid making the least noise.”
The light was put out, and everything remained in silence.
A few moments passed in an agonizing suspense; at length the door opened (Xenie scarcely breathed for terror), and a man entered covered with sweat and blood. “Is it you, brother Basil?” said Fedor, advancing towards the stranger: “are you alone?”
“No; a detachment of our men wait for me before the door. No light?”
“I will get you one,” replied Fedor, mounting the steps of the loft, whence he descended in an instant to rekindle the lamp, which he had taken from the hands of the trembling women, at that which glimmered before the Madonna. “Would you like some tea, brother?”
“Yes.”
“Here is some.”
The newcomer began to empty, by small draughts, the cup which Fedor presented. This man bore a token of command upon his breast. He was dressed as the other peasants, and armed with a naked and bloody saber; his thick and reddish beard imparted a roughness to his face that by no means tempered the glance of his eye, which resembled that of a wild animal. This glance, which cannot remain fixed on anything, is frequent among the Russians, except when they are utterly brutalized by slavery, and then the eye is vacant, and has no expression at all. His figure was not tall, his frame was thickset, his nose flat, his forehead full but low, his cheeks projecting, and red with the effect of strong liquors; his mouth, when he opened it, displayed a row of white teeth, but sharp and wide apart; it was, in fact, the mouth of a panther. His matted beard was soiled with foam, and his hands were stained with blood.
“Where did you get this saber?” said Fedor.
“I tore it from the hands of an officer, whom I killed with his own weapon. We are conquerors—the town of ——— is ours! O, we have had a glorious night! All who would not join our troop are dead—women, children, old men—all! They boiled some of the soldiers in a cauldron in the marketplace. We warmed ourselves at the same fire on which our enemies were being cooked. It was glorious!”
Fedor did not answer.
“You say nothing?”
“I think though.”
“And what is it that you think?”
“I think that we are playing a desperate game. In a town without defenses, fifteen hundred inhabitants and fifty infirm veterans are easily put to the sword by two thousand peasants, falling on them suddenly; but at no very great distance there are considerable forces: we shall be crushed finally.”
“Very likely! And what then is to become of the justice of God, and the will of the emperor? Coward! do you not see that the time for hesitation has passed? After what has been already done, we must conquer or die. Listen to me then, instead of turning away your head. We have spread everywhere fire and blood: do you understand me? After such a carnage, pardon is impossible. The whole town is dead. When we set to work, we do our business thoroughly. You seem to be displeased with our triumph?”
“I do not like the murder of the women.”
“It is necessary to destroy an evil race, root and branch.”
Fedor was silent. Basil tranquilly continued his discourse, which he only interrupted to swallow his tea. “You appear sad and melancholy, my son?”
Fedor continued silent.
“It is your foolish love for the daughter of Thelenef our mortal enemy, which has been your ruin.”
“I!—a love for my foster-sister! I have a friendship for her, if you like: but—”
“Pshaw! pshaw!—a curious kind of friendship yours!” The young man rose, and tried to place his hand on the other’s mouth.
“What do you mean, boy? One would suppose you feared being overheard,” continued Basil, without changing his manner.
Fedor remained motionless: the peasant continued—
“It is not I who will be your dupe; her father Thelenef was not so either, when he maltreated you.”
Fedor again strove to interrupt him.
“What! you will not allow me to speak! You have not forgotten any more than I, that he once beat you. It was to punish you, not for the trifling fault invented by himself, but for your secret love of his daughter. He wanted to drive you from the country before the evil was past remedy.”
Fedor, in the most violent agitation, walked up and down the room, unable to utter any reply. He bit his hands in impotent rage, till he at length found words to say:
“You remind me of a hateful day, comrade; let us talk of something else.”
“I always talk of what I please: if you do not choose to answer me, I can talk alone; but, once for all, I will not be interrupted. I am your senior, and the godfather of your newborn babe; your captain also. Do you see this sign on my breast? It is that of my rank in our army. I have therefore a right to speak before you; and if you pretend to object, I have my men bivouacking outside; with a single whistle I could bring them around me, and in a few moments the house would be in a blaze. Patience, then, and we shall understand each other better.”
The young man reseated himself, affecting the most indifferent air that he could assume.
“What was I talking about?” continued Basil, grumbling between his teeth. “Oh, I was reminding you of an unpleasant recollection. Is it not true? But you have sadly forgotten it, my son, and I must bring back to your mind your own history. You will see at least that I know how to read your thoughts, and to discover whether there beats within you the heart of a traitor.”
Here Basil again interrupted himself, opened a casement, and spoke in the ear of a man who presented himself at the aperture, through which were seen five other armed peasants in the background.
Fedor had seized his poniard, but he replaced it in his girdle; the life of Xenie was at stake, and the least imprudence might cause the hut to be set on fire, and all that was in it to perish! He therefore restrained himself; he wished once more to see his sister. Who can analyze all the mysteries of love? The secret of his life was being revealed to Xenie, without any contrivance or concurrence on his part. At this moment, terrible as it was, he experienced only excess of joy! What signifies the short duration of supreme felicity,—is it not eternal while it is felt? But these powerful illusions of the heart can never be known to men who are incapable of love. True love is not dependent upon time—its measure is supernatural—its movements are not to be calculated by cold human reason.
After a brief silence, the loud voice of Basil put an end to the sweet yet painful ecstasy of Fedor.
“But since you did not love your wife, why did you marry her? You acted there very foolishly.”
This question again frenzied the mind of the young man.
To say that he loved his wife, was to lose all that he was about to gain. “I thought I loved her,” he replied: “they told me it was necessary for me to marry. Could I know what was in my heart? I wished to please the daughter of Thelenef. I obeyed without reflection. Is it not our habit as peasants to act in this manner?”
“It is. You pretend you were ignorant of what you wished. I will tell you: you wished simply to reconcile yourself with Thelenef.”
“You little know me!”
“I know you better than you know yourself. You thought our tyrants were still needful to us; and you therefore yielded, to obtain the pardon of Thelenef. In truth, we should all have done as much in your place; but what I reproach you with, is your wish to deceive me, who see through all. There was no other way of regaining the favor of the father, than by setting him at rest as to the consequences of your love for the daughter; and with this view you married, without thinking of the grief of your poor wife, whom you have condemned to eternal misery, and whom you did not scruple to abandon at the moment when she was hoping to give you a son.”
“I was ignorant of that when I left her: she concealed from me her situation. Once for all, I have acted without design or premeditation. I have been ever accustomed to the guidance of my foster-sister, who has so much wisdom.”
“More’s the pity.”
“How?”
“I say it is a pity: she will be the greater loss to the country.”
“Are you capable—”
“We are capable of destroying her as we have done the others . . . . Do you suppose we shall be so foolish as not to shed the last drop of the blood of Thelenef,—the blood of our most hateful enemy?”
“But she has done you only good!”
“She is his daughter,—that is enough! We shall send the father to hell, and the daughter to paradise,—this will be the only difference.”
“You will not commit so horrible a deed?”
“Who shall hinder us?”
“I!”
“Thou, Fedor! thou, traitor! thou, who art my prisoner! thou, who hast deserted the army of thy brethren in the day of combat, for—” He could not finish; for, during his last few words, Fedor, who, as the only means of safety left, had resolved to stab him, darted upon him like a tiger, and striking between the ribs, buried the poniard in his heart, stifling at the same time his scarcely commenced cry with a pelisse which he held in his hand. The last groans of the dying man did not alarm Fedor; they were too weak to be heard without. After encouraging his mother with a few words, he was about to bring her the lamp, in order to commence anew the preparations for the flight of Xenie; when, at the moment of passing by the sleeping old man, the latter started and awoke.
“Who art thou?” he said to his nephew, whom he did not recognize, and whose arm he forcibly seized. “What steam of blood!” Then, casting his eyes round the chamber, they at length fell, horror-struck, on the dead man.
Fedor had extinguished his lamp, but that of the Madonna was still burning. “Murder! murder! help!” cried the old man, in a voice of thunder. Fedor could not stop these cries, which were uttered more rapidly than they can be repeated, for the terror of the aged man was at its height, and his strength was still very great. The unfortunate Fedor knew not how to act. Heaven did not aid him.
The troops of Basil, who were lying in wait, heard the cries. Before Fedor could disengage himself from the powerful grasp of the poor senseless being, for whom he felt a respect which induced him to spare his life, though at the risk of his own, six men, furnished with cords and armed with pitchforks, stakes, and scythes, rushed into the cabin. To lay hold of Fedor, to disarm, and to bind him, was the work of a moment.
“Where are you going to take me?”
“To the castle of Vologda, to burn you there with Thelenef. You will see that your treason has not saved him.”
These words were spoken by the oldest man of the troop. Fedor not replying, the man quietly continued:—“You did not think that our victory would be so complete and prompt: our army has sprung up on all sides; it is an inundation of divine justice. No one escapes us; our enemies are taken in their own snares; God is with us. We suspected you, and watched you narrowly. Thelenef was followed to the hiding place where you conducted him, and has been there seized; you shall die together; the castle is already on fire.”
Fedor, without uttering a word, cast down his head, and followed his executioners. He trusted that their rapid flight from the fatal cabin might yet be the means of saving Xenie.
Six men carried before him the body of Basil, six others escorted them with torches; the rest followed without uttering a word. The funeral cortege traversed in silence the country, lit up with conflagrations in every direction. The horizon appeared each moment to lessen in circumference. A circle of fire bounded the plain. Vologda was burning; the town of ——— was on fire, together with all the castles and farms of the prince, and several of the surrounding villages. The woods themselves did not escape. The carnage was universal. The conflagration illuminated the secret depths of the forest. Solitude existed no longer. Who can conceal himself on a plain when the forests are on fire? There can be no safe asylum against a flood of light pouring on all sides equally. Terror was at its height; night had fled, and yet the sun had not risen.
The escort of Fedor was increased by the marauders who were everywhere scouring the country. The crowd had become great by the time they reached the castle.
What a spectacle there awaited the prisoners!
The castle of Vologda, built entirely of wood, appeared like an immense funeral pyre, the flames of which reached to the heavens! The peasants, who had plundered this ancient mansion before setting it on fire, imagined they had burned Xenie in the habitation of her father.
A line of boats on the water, placed closely together, completed the blockade that had been established. In the midst of the semicircle formed by the army of the insurgents before the castle, the unfortunate Thelenef, torn from his retreat, and brought by force to the place destined for his execution, stood chained to a post; while the crowd of conquerors, eager to behold the spectacle, flocked from all parts to this place of rendezvous.
The troop who guarded him formed a circle around their prey, and displayed in the light of the conflagration their loathsome banners. Great God! what colors! They were the mangled remains of the first victims, carried upon pikes and sabers. Heads of women with flowing hair, pieces of human bodies stuck upon pitchforks, mutilated infants, gory bones. The scene seemed peopled with hideous phantoms, which it might have been supposed had escaped from hell, to assist in the orgies of the last inhabitants of earth.
This pretended triumph of liberty was like the aspect of some great convulsion of nature. The flames and crash of the timbers of the castle resembled the eruption of a volcano. The revengeful passions of the people were like the lava, which, long boiling silently in the womb of the earth, had at length found vent, and spread in torrents on every side. Confused murmurs might be heard among the crowd, but no voice could be distinguished, unless it was that of the victim whose curses and imprecations rejoiced the hearts of the executioners. These monsters were, for the most part, men of remarkable beauty; all had a manner and bearing that was naturally noble and gentle; they seemed more like evil angels, whose faces yet retained their pristine glory, than human beings. Fedor himself much resembled his persecutors. All the Russians of pure Slavic race show by their faces that they are of the same family; even when engaged in exterminating each other it can be seen that they are brothers,—a circumstance which renders the carnage more horrible.
But then, these are no longer the children of nature; they are men perverted by a cruel and unfeeling social system. The natural man exists only in books; where he forms a theme for philosophic declamation, an ideal type, from which moralists draw their deductions just as mathematicians, in certain calculations, proceed upon given quantities. Nature, for the primitive man, as for the degenerated man, is still a state of society; and, whatever may be said, the most civilized society is the best.
The fatal circle opened for a moment, to allow of the entrance of Fedor and his execrable escort. Thelenef was so placed as not, at first, to perceive his youthful liberator. His execution was about to begin, when a murmur of terror spread among the crowd.
“A specter! a specter! It is she!” was the cry heard on all sides. The ring broke and dispersed,—the executioners fled before a phantom! Cruelty readily unites with superstition.
The flight was, however, arrested by several of the more determined ruffians, who shouted that it was Xenie herself, living, and in their power.
“Stay! stay!” cried a female voice, the agonizing accents of which went to all hearts, but above all to the heart of Fedor. “Let me pass, I will see them! They are my father and my brother! You will not forbid me to die with them?” Ere she had concluded these words, Xenie had reached the spot where Fedor stood incapable of motion, and fell insensible at his feet.
We here feel the necessity of abridging the description of this horrible scene. It was long, but we will describe it in few words. We must, however, first ask pardon for what we do relate.
Xenie, in the cabin where we left her, had forced herself to maintain silence, for fear of increasing the danger of Fedor; but, as soon as the two women were alone, she escaped, and hastened to share the fate of her father.
The execution of Thelenef commenced. Just heavens! what a death! To render it the more terrible to this unhappy being, they placed Xenie and Fedor before his eyes, seated and bound on a rude species of platform raised in haste at a short distance from him; they then cut off one by one, his feet and hands; and when at length the mutilated trunk was almost drained of blood, they stifled his death cry by stuffing into his mouth one of his own feet.
The women of the faubourg of Caen eating the heart of M. de Belzunce on the bridge of Vauxelles were models of humanity compared with the tranquil spectators of the death of Thelenef.
And this took place but a few months ago, and within a few days’ journey of one of the most admired cities of Europe! After the father had ceased to suffer, one of the executioners advanced to seize the daughter; but he found her stiff and cold. During the torture of her father she had not made a single movement nor uttered a single word.
Fedor, at this sight, recovered, as though by some supernatural influence working within him, all his energy and presence of mind. By a miraculous exertion of strength he broke the cords that bound him, burst from the hands of his keepers, rushed towards his beloved sister, raised her from the earth, and pressed her for a long time to his heart; then replacing her gently and respectfully on the grass, he addressed his tormentors with that calm, composed air that appears natural to the Orientals, even in the most tragical moments of life.
“You must not touch her. God has laid his hand upon her: she is mad.”
“Mad!” responded the superstitious crowd: “God is with her!”
“It is he, it is the traitor, her lover, who has told her to counterfeit madness! No, no! we must make a finish with all the enemies of God and of men,” cried the most ferocious of the savages; “besides, our oath binds us: let us do our duty! Our father (the emperor) has willed it, and he will recompense us.”
“Approach her, then, if you dare!” once more cried Fedor, in the delirium of despair; “she has suffered me to press her in my arms without resistance; you see she must be mad. But she speaks! Listen!”
They approached, and heard these words: “It was I, then, whom he loved!”
Fedor, who alone understood the meaning of this sentence, fell on his knees, and thanking God, burst into tears.
The executioners drew back from Xenie with involuntary respect. “She is mad!” they repeated to each other, in an under tone.
Since that day she has never passed an hour without repeating the same words—“It was I, then, whom he loved!”
Many, in seeing her so calm, would question her insanity. It is supposed that the love of Fedor, thus accidentally revealed, awoke in the heart of his foster-sister, the innocent, though passionate tenderness, which the unhappy girl had, unknown either to herself or her lover, so long felt for him; and that the suddenness of the untimely discovery broke her heart.
No exhortation or advice has hitherto been able to prevent her repeating these words, which proceed from her lips mechanically, and with an incessant volubility which is frightful.
Her mind, her whole existence, has stopped, and gathered itself around the involuntary avowal of the love of Fedor, and the organs of intelligence continue their functions, as it were, by the operation of a spring, obeying that remainder of the will which bids them forever repeat the mysterious and sacred words which suffice for her mental life.
If Fedor did not perish after Thelenef, it was not to the weariness of the executioners that he owed his safety, but to that of the spectators; for the passive party tires of crime more quickly than he who is actively engaged in its perpetration. The crowd, satiated with blood, desired that the execution of the young man should be deferred until the following night. In the interval, considerable forces arrived from several sides. On the morrow, the canton in which the revolt had sprung up was surrounded, the villages were decimated, the most culpable—condemned, not to death, but to a hundred and twenty strokes of the knout—miserably perished. The remainder were banished to Siberia. Nevertheless, the populations in the neighborhood of Vologda are not yet restored to quiet and order; each day witnesses the departure of hundreds of peasants, exiled in a mass to Siberia. The lords of these deserted villages are ruined; for in estates of this kind, it is the men who constitute the wealth of the proprietor. The rich domains of the Prince ——— have become a dreary solitude. Fedor, with his mother and his wife, have been compelled to follow the inhabitants of their desolate village.
Xenie was present at the departure of the exiles, but she did not say adieu, for this new misfortune had not restored to her the light of reason.
At the moment of departing, an unexpected event cruelly aggravated the grief of Fedor and his family. His wife and mother were already in the cart, and he was about to follow them, to leave Vologda forever; but he saw only Xenie, he suffered only for his sister, an orphan, deprived of reason, or at least of memory, and whom he was going to abandon among the still warm ashes of their native hamlet. Now that she had need of the kindest aid, strangers were going to be her only protectors. The bitter feeling of despair which this thought produced, stopped his tears. A piercing cry, proceeding from the cart, recalled him to the side of his wife, whom he found fainting;—one of the soldiers was taking away his child.
“What are you going to do?” cried the distracted father.
“To place it there by the wayside that they may bury it; do you not see that it is dead?” replied the Cossack.
“I will carry it myself!”
“You shall not touch it.”
At this moment, other soldiers attracted by the noise, seized Fedor, who, yielding to irresistible force, could only weep and supplicate. “He is not dead, he has fainted; let me embrace him. I promise you,” he said, convulsively sobbing, “to give him up to you if his heart no longer beats. You, perhaps, have a son; have pity on me, then,” said the unfortunate man, overcome with grief. The Cossack was moved; he restored to him his child. Scarcely had the father touched the icy body, than his hair stood upon his forehead,—he cast his eyes around him, they encountered the inspired look of Xenie. Neither misfortune, nor injustice, nor death, nor insanity,— nothing upon earth could destroy the sympathy of these two hearts, born to understand each other.
The young man made a sign to Xenie; the soldiers respected the poor maniac, who advanced, and received the body of the babe from the hands of its father, but without a word being uttered. The daughter of Thelenef, still without speaking, next took off her veil and gave it to Fedor; she then pressed the little corpse in her arms, and, charged with her sacred burden, remained in the same place, immovable, until she had seen her beloved brother, supported between a weeping mother and a dying wife, leave forever the village which had given him birth. She long followed with her eye the convoy of the exiled peasants: at length, when the last cart had disappeared on the road to Siberia, and she was left alone, she took away the infant, and began to play with the cold remains, bestowing upon them the most tender and endearing caresses.
“He is not dead, then!” said the lookers-on, “he will revive; she will restore him!”
Power of love! who can assign thy limits?
The mother of Fedor reproached herself without ceasing, for not having detained Xenie in the cottage of the old man; “at least she would not then have been forced to witness the punishment of her father,” said the good Elizabeth.
“You would have preserved her reason, only to have increased her sufferings,” replied Fedor; and again there was a dead silence.
The poor old woman had for a time been very resigned. Neither the massacres nor the fire had extorted from her a single complaint; but when it was necessary to submit with the other Vologdians to the pain of exile—to leave the cabin where her son was born, where the father of her son had died, when she was obliged to abandon her brother in helpless dotage, courage forsook her, her fortitude suddenly failed, she clung to the planks of her cottage, and at length had to be torn away, and placed by force in the telega, where we have seen her weeping for the newborn infant of her beloved son.
It will perhaps scarcely be believed that the tender cares, the vivifying breath, or perhaps the prayers of Xenie, restored at length the life of the child whom Fedor had believed to be dead. This miracle of tenderness, or of piety, causes her to be venerated as a saint by the strangers sent from the North to repeople the deserted ruins of Vologda.
Those men who believe her mad would not dare to take from her the child of her brother: no one thinks of disputing with her this precious prey, rescued thus wonderfully from the jaws of death. Such a miracle of love will console even the exiled father, whose heart will again feel a thrill of pleasure, when he knows that his son has been saved, and saved by Xenie!
A goat follows her to nourish the infant. The virgin mother may sometimes be seen, a living picture, seated in the sun among the dark ruins of the castle in which she was born, and smiling fondly on the child of her soul, the son of the hapless exile.
She cradles the little one upon her knees with a virgin grace, and his awaking brings a smile of angelic delight upon her countenance. Without knowing or hating the world, she has passed from charity to love, from love to madness, from madness to maternity. God watches over her!
Sometimes she appears struck with some sweet and sad remembrance: then her lips, the senseless echoes of the past, murmur mechanically these mysterious words—the last and only expression of her intellectual life, and of which not one of the inhabitants of Vologda can divine the meaning,—“It is I, then, whom he loved!”
Neither the Russian poet nor myself have shrunk from the expression of virgin mother as applied to Xenie, and neither of us think that we have been wanting in respect for the sublime verse of the Catholic poet—“O Vergine Madre, figlio del tuo figlio,”[3] or profaned the profound mystery that is indicated in those few words.
[1]I have purposely changed the names of the persons and places, with the especial object of disguising the true ones; and I have also taken the liberty of correcting, in the style, a few expressions foreign to the genius of our language. †This pretty name is that of a Russian saint.
[2]The use of images is always forbidden to a certain point in the Greek church, in which, the true believers admit only those of a particular conventional style, covered with various gold and silver ornaments, under which the merit of the work is entirely lost.
[3]Dante, Paradiso, cant. 33. i. v.