The Green Book Part 10

"I will not withdraw it! You are cowards, all! He shall fire!" he shouted back, roughly pushing them away.

"Gentlemen!" exclaimed Krizsanowski, the Pole, rising.

"Shoot me down!" roared Jakuskin, continuing to wave his dagger.

Then it was that Zeneida, drawing a hyacinth from out her bouquet, aimed it at the raging man's forehead. And the seasoned man, who had never known what it was to shrink from a bullet, was so confused by this playful projectile that, letting fall the dagger from his hand, he put his hand to his brow.

A quiet smile pa.s.sed over the faces of those present, and before the Caucasian could recover his dagger, Zeneida was beside him, had picked it up from the ground, restored it to him, and was stroking his beard with caressing action.

"Dear friend, be courteous. Our guest Krizsanowski, the delegate of the Polish 'Kosynyery,' wishes to speak. Let us listen to him, and put this shaving apparatus away!"

Jakuskin calmed down. This delicate woman had more than once stepped in to spread oil on the waves of the most impa.s.sioned debates when, dagger or pistol in hand, the disputants seemed bent on doing one another a violence.

And now Krizsanowski, hat in hand, began:

"Gentlemen, I wish to bid farewell to you. I will not enter upon the subject under discussion with you, nor have I any desire to await the resolution arrived at. I will not listen to the question of murdering the Czar, still less will I submit to be bound by your decisions. There is not one among you who has endured such wrongs; not one among you who carries such grief in his heart as I. What did your sovereign, as its king, do with your country? He freed it from foreign conquest, made it great and powerful, added new territory to it. What did he do with your people? He gave them prosperity and knowledge, and erected a school in every one of your villages. What is your ruler? A n.o.ble mind in a n.o.ble body--'the handsomest man in all Europe,' as Napoleon said of him--and with heart as good as he looks. And the most remarkable thing about him is that, in every fault, in every feeling, he is a Russian to the backbone. His only crime in your eyes is that he is the Czar. And to you that is crime enough to make him die. And what is my ruler, the Czar's brother, Constantine? A monster, in whose very face nature has curiously wedded the hideous with the ridiculous; and his hideous features are a true mirror of the hideous promptings of his soul. He is what he seems to be--cruel and contemptible. In the whole extent of my poor, unhappy nation there is not one feeling heart which he has not trampled upon; no article of value, no relic, no Church money, he has not appropriated to himself. But a Pole would see in that no cause to treacherously murder his king. A Pole's hand is accustomed to the sword; it knows not the use of a dagger. Let me take leave of you; I would go back to my people. I came hither in the belief that I should find here brave men ready for battle; who, at the appointed hour, would range themselves in fighting order, and declare war upon their oppressors as do we, who fight in open battle--as do we who, in open and honorable warfare, settle on whose side is the right. Such I thought to find here. On my journey hither, on the way from Warsaw to the Niemen, my predecessor, glorious Valerian Lukasinski, was being conveyed before me--he whom treachery had given over to the authorities. He was my relative, friend, and leader--trebly dear to me. He had been subjected to every species of physical and mental torture in order to make him reveal the aims of and partic.i.p.ators in the conspiracy. They had not succeeded in drawing a word out of him.

Constantine himself took the knout from the executioner's hands, and taught him how to use the agonizing implement. When Lukasinski was wellnigh flayed to death, no sign of humanity left in him, only one ma.s.s of bleeding flesh and bones and gaping wounds, the viceroy had him laid bound on a gun-carriage, and had this still breathing, bleeding ma.s.s dragged to his captivity through the rigor of mid-winter. I followed his track guided by the drops of blood which fell on the snow. Those frozen drops I gathered up one by one on the way, and placed them in a reliquary. Heaven had compa.s.sion on the sufferer; he died on the road.

They made a hole in the ice of the river Niemen, and threw the body in; the current carried it off to the sea. I know that I shall follow him, and that my end will be like his. Still that knowledge neither moves me from fear or revengeful feeling to lie in ambush and murderously strike my ruler in the back at any time, when he may be sleeping, or kneeling in prayer! Our G.o.d was never a G.o.d of murder. The dagger which struck down Caesar but opened the door to Caligula and Heliogabalus. While William Tell told Gessler to his face, 'With this arrow I will kill you.

Defend yourself as best you can!' I do likewise. When the time comes I will declare war upon my enemies, and if G.o.d is with me, I shall destroy them; but as long as I do not feel myself strong enough to engage in open warfare, no oppression, no cruelty, and no fantastic ravings shall lead me, by any untimely revolt, to draw the cord tighter, which I fain would loose. Your plans are untimely, unripe, without sufficient basis; they destroy, but do not build up again. I know them, and will not unite our cause to yours. Let me go."

Pestel, seizing the Pole by the hand, held him back.

"You cannot go yet; you have learned nothing of our intentions. What you have heard hitherto was only a weak, academical discussion. The words this madman said were only the ravings of his mad pa.s.sion. I, too, do not inscribe upon my shield, 'Strew their ashes to the winds'; not because my soul would shrink from it, but because such a dictum would scatter our several societies like shots among a flock of birds. The people themselves would turn against us. To the ma.s.ses the prayer for Czar and Grand Dukes is a necessity, and were the priest ever to leave it out, they would hang him for a heretic. If I were to ask my soldiers, 'Do you want a republic?' they would straightway answer, 'Yes, if the Czar commands.' We must begin at the beginning; we must not startle any one. The first step is the difficulty; the others will follow of themselves. Thus let us go back to the point where Jakuskin interrupted us. And you, Krizsanowski, resume your seat. The question is the removal of the Czar and Grand Dukes--their removal only. Let them go to America, by all means. There Russia has n.o.ble possessions; there they can reign.

But to this end you Poles must lend us a helping hand. For what use would it be to us to ship off the three brothers, when the fourth, Constantine, who by fundamental law is next after Alexander in succession to the throne, remains at large in Warsaw?"

"Let us clearly understand one another, Pestel," replied Krizsanowski.

"We Poles have ever been, since our first existence as a nation, ready to shed our blood for the benefit of others. Tell me, what is to become of us if we succeed in freeing ourselves from the Romanoffs?"

"Form Poland into a republic."

"But your Polish republic will still be a part of the vast Russian dominions, just as Livland and Little Russia will be; and over us there will be some one--a chief, who is lord over the nine republics, although I know not what t.i.tle or what amount of power he will possess. And I swear to you I do not wish for a freedom that shall be the downfall of my country."

The deep silence which ensued proved that the Pole had hit the right nail upon the head. There was an expression of uneasy conviction on all faces.

Then Nicholas Turgenieff, the president, rose to speak.

"Take comfort, Krizsanowski. The chief of the republic, he who will be head of the nine republics, will be no autocrat, no tyrant under any other name."

"What, then?"

"That which he must of necessity be--_un president sans phrases_."

The conversation had taken place in French. These four words had nearly cost Turgenieff his estates and his head.

The words were scarce spoken, when the roulette-board suddenly slipped back into its place, effectually concealing "the green book," and the door opened. Copper-plate and door were an ingeniously constructed piece of machinery. If "the green book" were exposed to view, and any one opened the outer door, the roulette slid back instantly into its place.

Chevalier Galban, entering, only heard Nicholas Turgenieff's four last words, and saw nothing but a gambling-table.

The banker repeated--

"Je suis un president sans phrases. Messieurs, faites vos jeux!"

One of the men playing--the Pole--rose from his seat with a disturbed look--

"Merci, monsieurs, c'en etait a.s.sez!"

Another, Jakuskin, drying the sweat from his brow, struck his hand on the table--

"J'ai tout perdu!"

All as if it were a real roulette-table.

The others continued cold-bloodedly to lay their parcels of gold on the numbers, seeming unaware of the new-comer's arrival.

The hostess only advanced quickly to greet him.

"I was certain that you would find out our den; I kept this seat for you."

"You honor me too much, _diva_. I ought to have good luck in play to-night, as I have just had the opposite fate in love."

"How is that? Did the pretty Gitanitza escape you?"

"_Au contraire_, she fell asleep. A checkmate such as never happened to me before!"

Zeneida gave a merry laugh. No one could have divined under its mask the agitation she was feeling. She knew that a sleeping-draught had been given to Diabolka.

"Come along! let us be partners for gain or loss."

Chevalier Galban, accepting, took the seat allotted to him; Zeneida seated herself on the arm of his chair.

So it is a roulette-table pure and simple, and the party a.s.sembled gamblers. There is no "green book." A thickness of half an inch lay between him and it--his arm rested on it.

Merely contravention of a police regulation--a thing winked at by the authorities. Suppressed inclinations will find a vent--far better it should be on moral than political domains. Nor is it any matter for wonder that Nicholas Turgenieff should be the roulette banker. A man may be a _bel esprit_, a great author, philosopher, philanthropist, and yet have a pa.s.sion for play. Even Napoleon was a gambler.

As the game was in full swing, Pushkin suddenly entered to them from a side room with flushed cheeks, crying, in a tone of triumph:

"The song is ready."

The gamblers looked askance at him.

Now he would betray all.

Lucky for them all that his eyes had mechanically sought Zeneida's.

She, still sitting on the arm of Galban's chair, glanced significantly at the Chevalier.

Pushkin saw him.

"Let us hear it," said Galban, toying with his pile of gold pieces.