by Mór Jókai
CHAPTER XXXII
NOT ONLY A BULLET STRIKES HOME
The Czar was holding an extraordinary review.
The usual parades took place on the 21st of May, the day of the patronsaint, Nicholas, and on the 20th of September; but this time it was aspecial review of the household troops alone. They are distinct from therest of the army; each regiment has a different uniform. The Life Guardswear white uniforms, with shining gilt breastplates; the Cuirassiers,light-blue tunics, with white, plated cuirass; the uniform of theJerusalem Regiment is crimson-red, with gilt breastplate. The ranks,from officer down to corporal, are all knights of the Order of St. John,and even the common soldiers are all of the nobility.
And every regiment boasts its past, its history, which passes on to thesuccessors as a tradition, and keeps up the glory of its name.
The regiment of St. John of Jerusalem was so cut to pieces in twobattles that in one battalion only eighteen men were left.
The Preobrazsenski Regiment has the proud distinction of having deposedCzar Ivan and set Elisabeth in his place. Every man in the regimentreceived his patent of nobility.
The Ismailoffski Regiment bears on its colors the trophies of sevenconclusive battles. At Borodino half the troops remained on thebattle-field, and not a single man came home without a wound. Theseregiments compose the aristocracy of the Life Guards. The rest of thehousehold troops, too, are characterized by a brilliant variety ofdress. Hussars in uniforms of the most varied colors, cuirassiers,mounted grenadiers, pontoniers, Cossacks, Asiatic hordes with theirfantastic arms, Kirgisians, Kalmucks with their slender spears, theirarrow-laden quivers on their backs; Circassians in their scale-armor,with their pointed helmets; and then the long row of cannon, theammunition wagons (painted green), the pontoons, the flotilla onwheels--and the whole mass drawn up on a boundless plain in squares, ingeometrical lines, and advancing, charging, halting motionless as awall, at the word of command, like a machine.
May he not rightly deem himself a god who with a gesture can set allthis in motion or make it stand? And they only need a second gesture tocharge and dye the ground beneath them with their blood.
When the household troops advance from St. Petersburg it means that thearmy is on a war footing and is taking the field. Then let every manconcerned summon all his strength.
In the centre of the Field of Mars are pitched the sumptuous tents ofthe Czar, the foreign ambassadors, and the members of the government;but the Czar himself rides at the head of his suite, and passes theassembled troops in review. As he thus rides past the separate regimentsthey salute him with welcoming stanzas, in time like the chorus of agiant theatre, with rifle, sword, and lance held rigid at present arms.The Czar's face beams like a day in summer; every one sees again in himthe hero of Leipsic. The inspiration of the army has communicated itselfto him too.
And in the ranks of these men presenting at the word of command are allthose who have been conspiring against him. In the sabretache of theofficers is to be found the _Catechism of the Free Man_.
But the single word "Forward!" suffices to change the whole temper ofthese men; the conspiring regiments will charge down on the foe withshouts of "Long live the Czar!" When he shows them the battle-field theyforget all their complaints and grievances--forget that they are seekingto kill him--and rush into the fight to give up their lives for him.
So it is with the Russian people. Their striving after freedom issilenced when there is hope of war. The private, freely shedding hisblood on foreign soil, believes that therewith he will fertilize hisnative meadows. The priests have indoctrinated him with the belief thathe who falls in a strange land to the enemy's bayonet will live again inhis own country, where he will find parents, wife, and children oncemore; and, if he was a serf before, will rise again a free man.
After the review of the troops the Czar himself takes the command, and aseries of brilliant manoeuvres begins, thought out by himself. Accordingto the then science of war, they were intended to be a masterpiece ofthe system of attack in close order. His aides-de-camp are dashing frombattalion to battalion with orders, their spirited horses flying off inall directions. The orders are given by the Czar himself, who watchestheir fulfilment through a field-glass. Suddenly an adjutant dashes upto him.
"Sire!"
"What is it? Make short work of it!"
The enemy's cannon are already thundering upon the attacking column.
"Sire," says the officer, "Duchess Sophie Narishkin has just deliveredup her noble soul to Eternity."
The Czar instinctively put his hand to his heart. It was there that hewas struck! And yet the cannon were only firing blank ammunition.
The sword he was wielding sank in one hand--the Czar covered his facewith the other.
"_It is the punishment for my faults!_" he uttered, in a falteringvoice.
What a change had come over the brilliant hero--the semi-god! In hisplace sat a bowed figure; a man bowed down to the earth by fate.
However deafening the hurrahs--however much the earth may vibrate underthe tramp of warlike horses and horsemen--their leader's soul isfettered by the words "Sophie is dead."
Miloradovics, the general in command, sent to ask instructions from theImperial Commander-in-Chief for the next movement.
"Call them back!" was the answer. "Send the troops back to barracks. Thereview is over."
And, turning his horse, the Czar rode back to his tent with bowed head.They who saw him return hardly recognized his white face. The generalsof division had great work to disentangle their troops and get theminto position again. A murmuring arose among the men, as though abattle had been lost.
The Czar, not even awaiting the march past of the regiments, who werewont to defile past him with pipe and drum, left the whole command tothe Grand Duke, and, throwing himself into his troika, drove back to theWinter Palace.
There he hastened to his study. On it were spread important, weightydocuments, containing epoch-making decisions for people and nations,only awaiting his signature. The Czar's eyes rested sadly upon them,reading in them, not what was written upon them in ordinary characters,but the _Palimpsest_ with which fate ever crosses the carefullythought-out plans of mankind.
Then, seizing all the documents--painstaking labors of many a night--hemade them into a roll, and, throwing them on to the fire, watched them,a prey to the flames. They were all to have been Sophie Narishkin'sdowry.
Soon they were a heap of ashes.
Then, sitting down, he wrote a letter. It contained but two words--"Comeback."
The envelope was addressed to Araktseieff.