The Green Book Part 31

"You will be deprived of your husband's name; and as Count Grudzinski cannot give you back his, you will be made Princess of Lovicz. Can you not now picture to yourself what your future lot will be?"

"Patience and resignation!"

"Did you not notice the cruel smile on Araktseieff's face as, when kissing your hand, he said, 'The sight of this happiness reminds me _of mine_'? By that he intended to put you on a par with the woman called Daimona, who is only his paramour and was a _vivandiere_."

"I do not feel the intended insult."

"No, no; it is impossible! When I heard the scheme, I too thought, 'After all, what will it matter? She, like other women, will receive compensation, and, like them, will--survive it.' But since I have been brought face to face with those clear, pure eyes, which so faithfully mirror the n.o.ble heart within, I ceased to consult my reasoning powers, for they counselled me to take myself a hundred miles away and to make myself believe that I had been dreaming. Since that moment I have been pondering how--at the risk of my own life--I could save you. It must not be that such an angel should fall a victim to such devilish intrigues!

It must not be that a Polish woman be forced to see her father's name and coat of arms tarnished without any one to protect her--without means of revenge!"

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? To tell you how you can revenge yourself! You must antic.i.p.ate those intriguers, and, in answer to their dishonoring proposal, say, 'Keep your princedom of Lovicz for high-born courtesans.

I, a Polish n.o.blewoman, will find a husband ready to give me the protection of his honorable name and whole heart--a true man, who loves and respects me!'"

Face, eyes, the Chevalier's dramatic action, all tended to ill.u.s.trate his words. It was not difficult for Johanna to divine whom he meant as the "true man." Not the shadow of a blush tinted her cheek as, with great composure, she replied:

"Chevalier Galban, do you see those walls surrounding Belvedere and Lazienka? Within those walls you are my guest, and you have the right to do exactly as you please, even to the length of insulting me; but only within these walls, as my guest. As soon, however, as you are without them, your immunity ceases. I will confide to no one what you have just said to me. A Polish woman betrays no one, not even to her husband; she revenges herself! So, once you have pa.s.sed without these walls, for this unpardonable insult I will order my people to give you a sound thrashing! May I offer you a little more sugar in your coffee?"

Chevalier Galban burst into a peal of laughter.

"_Ma foi!_ the fate of war. Out of three a.s.saults, one may come off conqueror twice and yet be beaten the third time. Thank you, I will take another piece of sugar."

Then he strolled out with Johanna into the park, admired her tulip-bed, and, deferentially taking leave of her, went back to his chief, as already related.

"Where did you leave my wife?" the Grand Duke asked, as he rose from table.

"I accompanied her into the park. We parted at the Hermitage."

"Come, Araktseieff, let us go and find her! You take one way; I will take the other. Whoever first finds her brings her back to Belvedere."

The Grand Duke was lucky. He was first to find Johanna. She was kneeling on the gra.s.s feeding his pet rabbits; he let himself down clumsily beside her.

"Take care!" he said; "the gra.s.s is wet with dew; you will take a chill."

"It will not hurt me--I am strong."

"That's a story," he growled, "you are very delicate. I do not know how to wait the season to send you to Ems, that you may take the baths for which you are longing."

"I do not want to go there now."

"Why not?"

"I have been thinking it over. You would be unable to leave your post to go with me; and to be weeks, months, away from you, not ever to see you, is more than I could bear. I would so much rather stay here. Indeed, I am quite well."

"What!" cried the Grand Duke, with a wild outburst of joy. "You love me so much that you cannot live without me? that you would care for nothing if you were away from me? Oh, my own true pearl of women!" And taking up his wife in his strong arms he laughed, caressed, and covered her with a shower of fiery kisses. "And they would separate me from my wife! A fine idea, eh? Shall I throw you into this pond?" And he swung her in his arms like a little child. "Are you afraid that I shall throw you in? Ha, ha, ha! and do you think I would let them make you Princess of Lovicz and be parted from you? That I would repay you for your love and faithfulness with a t.i.tle, and take another to wife? Are you afraid of it? Shall I toss you into the pond? Hush!"

Johanna twined her arms round her husband's neck, kissed him, and murmured, softly:

"Were you to dishonor me and chase me from you, I would come back to you again. Were you to humiliate me from your wife into your mistress or maid-servant, I would still serve and love you. I cannot do otherwise."

"Ha, ha, ha! And from such a woman they would have torn me. Hallo!

Araktseieff! This way, man. I've found her."

When Araktseieff, turning into the winding path, caught sight of the Grand Duke with Johanna in his arms, he knew what had happened.

"Tell them," shouted the Czarevitch when he was still at some distance, and in a voice hoa.r.s.e with emotion--"tell them that _I do not give up a wife who loves me for a whole empire that hates me_! When are you and your Chevalier Galban going back?"

"With your Imperial Highness's permission, I will stay the night. But Chevalier Galban has left the castle already, I see from a note he left for me. He says he was compelled to hasten his departure; the ground was burning under his feet, for d.u.c.h.ess Johanna had threatened him with a horsewhipping for a speech which had displeased her."

"A horsewhipping!" cried the Grand Duke. "What! my Johanna order any one to be horsewhipped? _Come on my right hand, wife!_" And releasing Johanna from the embrace in which he still held her, he offered her his right arm, with face beaming with joy.

"Go back to those who sent you, my good friend, and tell them that I am about to wed Princess Lovicz in right-handed marriage. And as she may not accompany me to St. Petersburg, I will go with her to Ems, with the Czar's permission. And now get ready your trumpery papers that I have to sign."

With these words he turned away, and what he had further to say to Johanna was inaudible from kisses and laughter.

That which Krizsanowski had promised in the sitting of the Szojusz Blagadenztoiga had come about--the incredible fact that a man could voluntarily resign his succession to the throne of the mightiest empire in the world, and in such a manner that, did he ever repent, he might never undo his act. That incredible fact had become not a possibility, but a thing accomplished. The solution to the riddle was, as Zeneida had divined at the time, Johanna. For the present, however, none knew of it save the partic.i.p.ators and the trees of the ancient forest about them.

Ah! what a terrific, world-wide catastrophe was this idyl to bring about!

CHAPTER XXI

THE MOST POWERFUL RULER OF THEM ALL

While the members of "the green book" were at work on their wide-spreading plans, those of the Bear's Paw had made others to their way of thinking. Pa.s.sing over the military, and turning their backs upon the league of the aristocrats, they took up a ground of their own, calling themselves "Napoleonists!" What induced them to choose that extraordinary name for themselves?

Well, it is easy enough to make the poor believe their lot to be a hard one; it was at that time that the Russian Volkslied was written--

"My soul I give to G.o.d; My head I give the Czar; My body beneath my master's feet; The grave is all I call my own!"

Within the last four years especially the iron hand of adversity had pressed heavily on the country. The earth no longer gave back the seed sown upon it; terrific fires had reduced the large cities to ashes; and a pestilence, hitherto unknown in the land, had crept over the frontier and devastated the population. The streams and rivulets had become floods, carrying away whole towns at a moment's notice; locusts, caterpillars of a kind and species never seen before, came down in shoals, tormenting man and beast; great war-ships out at sea sank with all their men and ammunition on board.

And all this was Heaven's retribution because the Czar had not gone to the a.s.sistance of the Greeks fighting for their freedom. Against miracles, counter-miracles alone can be effectual.

And the present century had produced a miracle in the form of a man: his name, Napoleon.

It was all a lie that the English had taken him prisoner at Waterloo!

All a lie that he was being kept in confinement on the island of St.

Helena! He was in hiding, though the whereabouts must not at present be divulged. Where was that place? Only so much might be known, that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of Irkutsk. Thence he would come, as soon as the people's cup of bitterness was filled to the brim, to tread down the mighty, and free every people under the sun.

This rumor was extensively circulated everywhere. Among the conspirators of the Bear's Paw was a plaster-modeller (our "Canova") who, single-handed, sent out of his workshop over two hundred thousand busts of Napoleon. These busts were worshipped by the mujiks as if they were pictures of saints; they took the place of the crucifix to them. He was the deliverer, before whom the mujik and his family bent the knee; he would bring them relief from all their troubles.

Even at the present time these plaster casts are to be seen in many a Russian peasant's hut: the well-known form, c.o.c.ked hat, arms crossed upon the breast, in overcoat or short-waisted military tunic. Forty years after his death they still awaited his coming.

Hence the words "Only wait till Napoleon comes!" were a cry which spread through the land.