Tales From Jokai Part 18

"What was in the beginning of 1825? At that very time my son was enjoying his honeymoon in Italy. He wrote to me there, from the summit of Vesuvius--he and his consort."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Governor. "Your son's consort wrote to you!

The daughter of a Samoyede chief wrote to you from the summit of Vesuvius! Ha, ha, ha!"

"Don't enrage me, my son! Do you mean the Kamtschatka to which that mad Vulko alluded?"

"I don't know the name of your son's consort; but I do know that she is the daughter of a Samoyede chief. The Governor of Siberia has sent me regular reports about your son Casimir every year. I expressly asked him to do so. One year your son spent in the gold-mines of the Urals, and then, because of his good conduct, and also out of regard to his father, he was permitted to devote himself to agriculture on the banks of the Jenisei. There he fell in with a Samoyede stock, good, honest, hospitable people. The chief's daughter fell in love with him, and they gave her to him. Casimir built himself a _jurta_, as they call their huts, reared reindeer, ploughed up a bit of land, and settled down there with his Siberian rose, and in the mean time two children have been born to them."

"I know--I know it right well," said the Starosta, whose long-repressed laughter now burst forth, "and he has sent his father their portraits."

"His father? Their portraits?"

"And two pretty little fair-haired chaps, too!"

"Fair-haired! Has _he_ got fair-haired children, too?"

"One of them has been christened Maximilian, after his maternal grandfather; the other is called Stanislaus."

"I had no idea there were ancestral Maximilians and Stanislauses among the Samoyedes."

But now the Starosta began to grow really angry. He struck the table viciously with his fist.

"In the name of St. Procopius, what do you mean? We have had about enough of this Siberian joke and these Samoyede princes. You must not jest so with me. D'ye hear?"

"And I protest by St. Michael that I am not jesting at all, but that you are jesting with me; and your jesting is very much out of place, and out of season, too. D'ye hear?"

"Very well. I'll fetch this instant the letter of the Lord High Steward at Vienna, and that will open your eyes a bit."

"And I'll produce letters from the Governors of Tobolsk, Irkutsk, and Jeniseisk, and that will make you p.r.i.c.k up your ears."

The two distinguished gentlemen were on the point of coming to fisticuffs when, fortunately, the pastor, always sober-minded, intervened between them.

"Pray be calm, your honours," said Gottlieb Klausner. "Why all this barren strife? Have we not here the very portrait painted for his honour the Starosta by a famous Viennese painter--the portrait, I mean, of Squire Casimir in the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel of the Imperial and Royal Uhlans? That picture will be the best means of deciding which of you is right."

Two heydukes thereupon brought the huge picture in its bronzed frame into the room, and they leaned it up against the wall.

And as they all three gazed at the picture--and, remember, they were all of them strong-minded men--they bounced back in amazement, as if they had seen a spectre.

"Lord have mercy upon us!"

And yet it was an extremely handsome picture, too, painted in a most masterly manner--true to the life. An officer of Uhlans, a manly and picturesque figure. Tawny, lion-like locks flowed over both shoulders; his ruddy face, blue eyes, and light eyebrows went very well together.

At the corner of his smiling mouth there was a little mole.

"That is my son," gasped the clergyman, and he fell senseless to the ground.

CHAPTER VI

THE EXCHANGE

"'Tis the way of the world," Heinrich Klausner had said to himself when he had locked himself into his attic after that memorable ball. "I am n.o.body. I am not recognized among living beings. I am empty air; people look through me without seeing me. In society I am alone with the servants. At table I sit beside a big dog. I am the sport of the court fool. If they think of me at all it is only to laugh at me. They promise me the daughter of a Samoyede chief to wife. Pretty girls put out their tongues at me when I ask them for a dance. And why? Because my name is Heinrich Klausner, and by profession I am only a doctor. Casimir every one kisses and embraces and exalts. Casimir's health is drunk. Casimir carries the national standard. The dignity of Starosta will one day be Casimir's. Casimir opens the ball. Casimir may do anything. All the girls adore Casimir. Casimir gives his right hand to the daughter of a prince at Vienna, and his left hand is good enough for my former sweetheart. Why? Because his name is Casimir Moskowski, and he has a n.o.ble t.i.tle before his name. What if we were to change places? Then who would have the daughter of the Samoyede chief to wife, the Kamskatka lady?"

It was thus that the demoniacal idea was first hatched in his breast.

First of all, he induced the Starosta to send his son to St.

Petersburg. In the foreign Universities they had frequently come across young democratic Russians belonging to the great league whose object it was to depose Tsar Alexander and put in his place the Grand Duke Constantine, and then to form from the provinces of Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Wallachia a confederation of const.i.tutional states. The pillars of this project were the leading members of the Russian aristocracy.

Heinrich felt certain that if Casimir could be got to St. Petersburg he could easily be inveigled into this league. His enthusiastic spirit, responsive to every n.o.ble idea of liberty, would be unable to resist the temptation which would be all the stronger as it sprang from its most natural source, the love of the ardent and fanatical Poles for their country. Such a grand part would satisfy all his desires. He would be the Voivode of liberated Volhynia. His hands would hold the banner emblazoned with the Ureox of Grodno. His birth, his rank, his riches--everything would ent.i.tle him to the _role_ of leader. It was impossible to conceive that he would refuse the offer.

When, then, the plans of the conspirators had so far matured that the day for the outbreak of the insurrection was already fixed upon, the revolutionary committee authorized Casimir to begin the rising in the Province of Volhynia, and, with this object, Casimir and Heinrich proceeded to Bialystok.

The St. Petersburg rising meanwhile was crushed as soon as it broke out.

In vain they made the Russian soldiers believe that the "Const.i.tutsyd"

(the const.i.tution) was the name of the consort of the Grand Duke Constantine--they preferred the Tsar to any such lady.

Thus all those who had been sent to provoke a popular rising in the provinces were obliged to fly for their lives so long as the frontier still remained open, and it was then that Heinrich betrayed his friend to Eskimov, the Governor of Grodno.

The pursuing Cossacks overtook them on the frontier. But the Cossacks only had orders to seize Casimir, so they let the doctor go.

Casimir, however, had taken the precaution to hand over all his papers to Heinrich, not only those on account of which they might prosecute him, such as the credentials of the revolutionary committee, but also the letters of introduction from his father to the Vienna magnates, the Sonnenburg princes. Nothing whatever was found upon him.

But Heinrich sent the compromising doc.u.ments to Eskimov by the first post, together with Casimir's academical certificates.

He himself continued his journey to Vienna without interruption. On arriving at the imperial metropolis he announced himself wherever Casimir's letters of introduction gained him an entry as Count Casimir Moskowski. His refined, distinguished appearance, social charm, and brilliant accomplishments made the fraud easy. The acquaintance with the Starosta and his whole environment, but especially his intimacy with Casimir, had placed him in possession of the deepest family secrets which justified the false part he was playing. His chivalrous bearing, moreover, completely won the heart of the young princess. The engagement between them contracted from afar through other hands, became a veritable love-match, and it soon won powerful supporters in Court circles. He took part in all the court festivities, for he had no lack of money wherewith to maintain a splendour corresponding with his dignity. He quickly mounted the rungs of the ladder of rank. He was free-handed with his money or rather with the Starosta's. In a very short time the false Count Moskowski was one of the most feted, one of the most envied personages at the Imperial Court.

He had nothing to fear from anyone. In the whole empire none knew anything of Heinrich Klausner. Who was he? Nothing at all! Empty air.

Those who looked at him did not see him. The deception could not be unmasked. The old Starosta could not come from Bialystok to Vienna on any account. Gout and corpulence would not let him. He himself could not cross the Russian border with his consort to visit his father, for he was proscribed and an exile, and even if he could get an amnesty, a Polish refugee prefers to hate the Russian at a distance and avoid his territory.

But how about the genuine Casimir Moskowski? Well, he has very good reasons not to come to Vienna. Even if he has not already died beneath the blows of the knout, he may calculate upon lifelong imprisonment in the mines of Siberia or on the endless snowfields, and while his good comrade is making his fine charger caracole to the delight of the lovers of sport at the Imperial Court, or guiding countesses through the mazes of the minuet at Court b.a.l.l.s, or receiving the congratulations of foreign envoys, or responding to the toasts of his n.o.ble colleagues on his name-day, and living out his days in an earthly paradise in the arms of the loveliest woman in the world and choosing aristocratic names for his children--in the mean time, the nameless man from whom he has filched his family name, is known by no name at all, but simply by a number fastened to or painted on the jacket which he wears on his back--No. 13579. Why on earth should convict No. 13579 think of visiting Vienna? All that _he_ sees before him is a huge piece of rock which he has to break up in order to get at the vein of gold within. And even if they release him from that, it will only be to conduct him still further into the depths of Siberia, to the colonies of the skin-hunters. There he will have to collect sufficient sable and ermine skins to enable him to get permission to settle down somewhere by the banks of the river where he may plough the land and wring bread from the earth by the labour of his own hands, and in winter time tan leather and carve little human figures out of walrus tusks for the Samoyedes. Perhaps also he may get a consort from the chief of one of the tribes of these nomadic tent-dwellers, a short-legged, tubby, seal-like beauty, with whom he may taste the joys of family life. Find out the name of this new princess if you can, but don't look for it in the Almanach de Gotha. Yes, the true Casimir Moskowski has been very well disposed of.

But suppose the White Tsar were one day to utter words of mercy and grant an amnesty to the rebels deported to Siberia? Well, even then, there will be no cause for anxiety. To those who receive permission to return from Siberia to Russia is always a.s.signed a particular town in which they have to dwell, a good distance from the capital as well as from their own homes. And this town they must never leave, nor are they permitted to go abroad.

Then, too, the Starosta cannot live for ever; he is bound to have a stroke some day. Heinrich felt quite secure. He need fear n.o.body. Yet stay; there was one man he _did_ fear. He did not feel sure of his own dear father. It might occur to the clergyman one day to take a journey to Vienna to _see his own son_.

But this eventuality was also provided for. The false Moskowski had provided on purpose for it a modest little lodging in the suburbs poorly furnished, where the doctor might be able to receive his old father in an austere environment. A special costume was held in reserve for that occasion--should it ever occur.

And if, perhaps, which was more than probable, Gottlieb Klausner wished to see his distinguished patron in the Sonnenburg Castle, against that danger also Heinrich had provided an antidote. In the later letters to his father he had tried to make the old man believe that for some little time he had good cause to be angry with his dear friend, Casimir, and, in fact, things had come to such a pa.s.s between them that he had been forbidden the Prince's door. If, on the other hand, the clergyman went by himself to see the Princess, he knew very well that his consort would not receive him. He had already explained to her pretty clearly that Heinrich Klausner was the traitor whose treachery was the cause of his exile, and consequently he was quite sure that the Princess would tell her servants to show the father of the treacherous comrade the door.

Meanwhile he kept up his correspondence with the Starosta, having learnt to imitate Casimir's handwriting most exactly, and in all these letters he was constantly complaining of Heinrich. So skilfully did he enwrap himself in a spider's web of lies that it was impossible to catch a clear glimpse of him through it.

There was only one thing he had never thought of--that his picture might be painted for the Starosta without his knowledge. And this was the very idea which had occurred to his father.

CHAPTER VII