The Czar: A Tale of the Time of the First Napoleon/Chapter 39
CHAPTER XXXIX.
MORNING SUNSHINE.
"The lonely glory of a throne
May yet this lowly joy deserve;
Kings may make that a stepping-stone,
And change 'I reign' into 'I serve.'"
TWO or three weeks later Clémence sat alone one afternoon. A bright wood fire burned on the hearth, and on a little table near her lay a pile of needlework—garments for the poor. But just then she was occupied with a letter from her mother, written in happy unconsciousness of the sorrow which had fallen upon her dear ones; and she could not help a few tears which dropped quietly upon the page, full of questions and remarks about their little Rosebud.
While she was reading Ivan came in, with more brightness in his face and animation in his step than had been there since Christmas eve. But he saw the tears, and stooping down kissed her tenderly.
"What is it, m'amie?" he whispered.
"These letters, dear," she answered, looking up with the smile of welcome his entrance never failed to win from her. "My mother's is about our Rosebud." After a pause and a little sigh she added, "The only important news she tells us is that our friend M. de Sartines is dead."
"Indeed! I am very sorry."
"So am I, especially for Stéphanie. She has written to me herself, poor child—a long letter, but I have not read it yet."
"Does our mother give any particulars?" asked Ivan.
"Only that his illness was a short one—inflammation on the lungs. She says Stéphanie has behaved admirably, tending her father bravely and carefully, and watching beside him to the very end. She is almost heart-broken."
"Poor little one!—How lonely she must be! I wish we could bring her here. You would comfort her, Clémence."
Ivan paused; then resumed, with a slight touch of uneasiness in his voice, "M'amie, will it trouble you if a friend comes to visit us to-night?"
A look of pain passed swiftly over the face of Clémence. The sorrowing heart is prone to shrink within itself, and to dread the first breath of outer air, the first touch of common life. "Not if it is only an intimate friend," she said at last, "such as M. Tolstoi or M. Adrian Wertsch; but I should not quite care to see a stranger, Ivan."
"It is no stranger; it is one whom we both love." Then he returned rather nervously to the subject of the letters, asking what would become of Stéphanie.
"For the present she is to be sent to the pension where her cousin Coralie is," Clémence answered. "Her uncle, who is now her guardian, appears to wish it, and she herself is indifferent. La Tante has not been very well of late, Ivan; she seems to be in low spirits, but I am thankful to say she is becoming reconciled to Henri's change; and he, for his part, writes very cheerfully. The best judges in the profession he has adopted think highly of his talent. He has just gained some prize for a design;—but I have not yet finished reading his letter."
So they talked on, until at last Ivan suggested preparations for tea, and rather to the surprise of Clémence interested himself in them in a way quite foreign to his usual habits. She only looked at him wonderingly, and with a little amusement, as he arranged and rearranged the tea-table; but when he actually began to make inquiries about the quality of the beverage itself, her eyes, so lately tearful, sparkled into a smile as she asked,—
"When did you become a connoisseur in these things, Ivan? I thought the difference between tea and coffee was the extent of your knowledge on the subject."
Ivan, instead of answering, kissed her; then taking a white camellia from a vase on the table, he fastened it at the throat of her plain black dress. "My Clémence must look her best to receive the Emperor," he said.
"The Emperor!" she cried in dismay. "Oh, Ivan, why did you not tell me?"
Before he could reply a sledge stopped at the door, and Ivan hastened down to welcome his guest.
Clémence had scarcely recovered her composure when the Emperor entered the room, saying pleasantly, "I must make my apologies to Madame la Princesse for inviting myself. Prince Ivan Ivanovitch is responsible: he gave me permission to take you by surprise, and promised me a welcome."
The promised welcome was given by Clémence, very gracefully and cordially, in spite of a little tremulousness in her voice and nervousness in her manner. One gentle, significant word of sympathy for her sorrow was spoken; then, all ceremony being waived, they took their seats together at the table, the Emperor declining the "fauteuil" Ivan placed for him, and choosing an ordinary chair instead.
"You know I am deaf," he said; "let me sit where I can best hear the voice of madame."[1] As, with a hand still trembling, Clémence poured out the tea, she remembered the stories she had heard of such evening visits made by the Emperor, "to talk at his ease," and recalled the words of De Maistre when some one criticised this habit in his presence: "It is a touching thing to me to see the ruler of a great empire, in the age of all the passions, find his recreation in taking a cup of tea with an honest man and his wife."
In the meantime her place behind the "samovar" was no sinecure, for the Emperor drank many cups of tea, while he talked earnestly with Ivan upon the things of which his heart was full—schools, hospitals, and prison reforms. He soon drew Clémence into the conversation. Her interest in the institutions of St. Petersburg was evidently well known to him, and he asked her opinion on various matters of detail, especially about the school for the deaf and dumb. Then they talked of primary schools, and of the Lancastrian system, which he had sent commissioners to England to investigate with a view of adopting it in Russia. This led to the general subject of education, which he remarked ought not to be merely mechanical, but adapted to the development of the intelligence.
"Some teachers would turn their pupils into absolute machines," he said, "by way of levelling their path to knowledge."
Here the soft voice of Clémence broke in. "Ought not religion to be the foundation of all education?" she asked somewhat timidly.
"If education is, properly speaking, the extension of light," said the Emperor, "surely it ought first of all to extend the true light—the light that shineth in darkness."
As a means to this end, he spoke of the translation of the Bible into the vulgar tongue, a work which he was then urging forward with all his influence. He gratefully acknowledged the services of the noble British and Foreign Bible Society, and spoke with enthusiasm of that and other agencies which were promoting the cause of Christ throughout the world. The extent and accuracy of his knowledge of missionary work astonished Clémence and Ivan. They learned afterwards that every Saturday morning Prince Galitzin used to bring him, by his own desire, all the information on the subject he could obtain during the week. It was from the study of the Divine Word that he had himself obtained light and comfort; and therefore, as he said, he "reckoned it his most sacred duty" to disseminate that word.
Clémence, who had been a little disturbed by the warnings of De Maistre and other enemies of the Bible Society about the danger of misinterpreting Scripture, ventured to ask whether it might not be well to associate some simple commentary with the text of the Bible.
"Commentaries have this inconvenience," he said in reply, "that they substitute more or less for the text of Scripture the ideas of some one who interprets it according to his own system. These ideas will not be accepted by all. But it ought to be the aim of every Christian, whatever communion he may belong to, to allow the sacred Code in all its extent to act upon him with perfect freedom. This action cannot be otherwise than beneficent and stimulating, as may be expected from a divine book—from the Book of books."
"Where there is faith to receive it," Ivan threw in, "it produces in all alike certain great results, yet with important differences."
"True," he resumed. "Its action will be different in each individual, and just because of this difference is it grand and extraordinary. It makes of each individual whatever it is possible to make of him with regard to his particular nature. Is not unity in variety the grand point at which we seek to arrive, in order to secure the prosperity of Churches and of States? Everywhere in external nature we see this principle of unity in variety, and we perceive it also in the history of nations: only, we must not take for a measure the short space of our own lives; it is to ages and decades of ages we must look when we seek to judge of the result of a great struggle between opposing forces. Upon all the children of time and of party spirit—such as contradictions, lies, vain interpretations—time itself does justice; they evaporate like foam, and are gone. Truth remains. But the action of truth is slow; often centuries elapse before it is accepted. Still it makes way; the means exist not of sealing it hermetically, as some would do with the Holy Scriptures. Do not the rays of the sun make their way? and those who live in their brightness are the children of light."[2]
No one cared to break the silence that followed these eager, burning words. The same thought was throbbing in the heart of Clémence and of Ivan—that it was a grand and beautiful thing, a precious gift of God, to be allowed to work for that great future victory of truth and light. "But how little a woman can do," Clémence thought sadly. "Still, every word and deed of kindness, every message of divine love passed on to one poor waiting soul, helps the cause as truly as does the Czar himself in throwing wide open before the Bible the gates of his vast empire." Almost before she was aware, she had uttered something of her thought.
"Ah, but you would be wrong indeed to think yourself useless," said the Emperor in his courteous way. "Good women are true benefactors of society, by their example and the influence of their virtues. In their presence one seems to breathe a purer moral atmosphere."
"I think, sire," said Ivan, "that every human soul possesses influence, even the soul of a little child."
His thoughts, and those of Clémence also, turned to an empty cot in the next room. Quiet talk followed, of which their little one was the theme,—sweet converse about "the ransom for that baby paid," and the home to which she had been taken. It was truly "from very heart to very heart" that hour. At last the Emperor rose to take his leave; and not until then did Clémence venture to say something that must be said—something that she might reproach herself all her life if she lost this opportunity of saying.
"Sire, I have one brother, dear to me as my own soul, and he charged me solemnly, if ever I had the privilege of speaking with your Majesty face to face, to tell you that he will bless until his latest hour the aide-de-camp of St. Priest." Then in a few brief words she told the story of Henri's deliverance.
The Czar was much moved. Not so often did the blessings of the many he tried to bless reach his ears. His successor might well say that he "had before his eyes, in his brother, the example of a sovereign whose whole existence was an incessant sacrifice to duty, and who nevertheless had so seldom succeeded in securing even gratitude, at least from his contemporaries." Yet we have evidence that when gratitude came to him he found it very sweet. After a pause, he said gently,—
"Madame, I have only done my duty. What is called the right of reprisal has always seemed terrible to me. The only revenge we ought to take is in doing good."
By this time the Emperor's famous coachman, Ilya, who had spent the evening with the servants of Ivan, a much-honoured and fêted guest, had in readiness the unpretending sledge in which his imperial master drove about his capital.
"Have you forgiven me, dearest?" asked Ivan, when he returned from attending their august visitor to the door. "It is the first time I ever kept a secret from you."
Clémence looked in his radiant face, and her only answer was a smile.
"He is charmed with you," Ivan went on delighted. "I knew it would be so. He admired you even the first day he saw you—the day of the review in the Plaine des Vertus. How well he looks, does he not, Clémence?"
"Yes; well, but worn; and there is a weary look in his eyes. I think he needs rest, Ivan."
Ivan shook his head a little sadly. "Do you know where he is going now?" he asked.
"Home, I suppose; it is midnight."
"Ilya tells our people he is going to visit the hospitals. He goes sometimes at midnight, to ascertain that the patients are as well cared for by night as by day.[3] Yet to-morrow morning at six o'clock he will be in his cabinet or on parade."
"The light that shines must burn, and burn out," said Clémence. "But, Ivan," she added with hesitation, "may I say something?"
"What thing is there which you may not say, my Clémence?"
"There is one thing which you would not hear from any lip on earth—a word of blame for your Czar. But do not think I mean it so if I ask, could not some life less precious be found to spend itself in these ministrations? Would not he do well to remember the warning of Jethro—'Thou wilt surely wear away, thou, and this people that is with thee; for this thing is too heavy for thee'?"
"Clémence, you do not know our Russians. I love them well, yet I see their faults, which are something like those of clever, ill-educated children, but on a gigantic scale. They are, when they choose it, the most accomplished of deceivers. They can elaborate and carry out a fraud with a patient ingenuity, a consummate dexterity, that one is tempted to call quite artistic. When the Czarina Catherine travelled through the empire, her courtiers of course wished her to imagine it in a state of the highest prosperity; so they erected mock villages along her route, and drove to the neighbourhood herds of cattle, and troops of well-dressed peasants to greet her with smiles and acclamations. It takes all the vigilance of my Czar, and all his careful personal inspection, to guard against similar deceptions; and I fear that even he does not always succeed."
"Is not the remedy for this want of truth, as for other evils, to be found in the dissemination of the Word of truth?" asked Clémence.
"Surely it is," said Ivan with a brightening look. "Do you not feel, Clémence, as if the spring were come,—as if every plant were budding with new, glorious life? Amongst the princes of the earth, one says, 'I am the Lord's;' another subscribes with his hand unto the Lord, and surnames himself by the name of the God of Israel. His Word is loved, honoured, scattered broadcast amongst the people. Think of the joy of having it in our common tongue, Clémence—the tongue in which the babe lisps to its mother, and the gray-haired mujik tells his stories of the past as he sits beside his stove! Soon, I hope, in the izbas of every village throughout the length and breadth of our land, the father will be reading to the children the story of their Saviour's love. I learned to-day two things which rejoiced my heart about the home I have never ceased to love—holy Moscow, the city of our solemnities."
"Tell them to me, Ivan."
"One is a joy to me upon grounds purely personal, and I think it will please you also. As an ornament for the restored city, the Czar is about to raise a stately monument to the memory of my patriotic ancestor and his brave associate. 'To Prince Pojarsky and Citizen Minim, from grateful Russia,' so runs the simple and noble inscription. But, what is far better, he has just given to the Bible Society, for its storehouse and head-quarters, that great old building which was formerly the office of the secret police. Think of Bibles being laid up in what used to be the torture-chamber! How quickly and how gloriously the rays of the Sun of Righteousness are rising upon us! They are flooding with light even those dark places of the earth which used to be the habitations of cruelty."
"But is there not something else still to be wished for, Ivan? Those free Bibles you speak of, should you not wish to see them read and loved by free peasants?"
"That is coming too," said Ivan, with rapt look and confident voice. "Every one who knows the Czar knows that his cherished dream—his favourite, his ruling idea—is now, as it has ever been, the emancipation of the serfs.[4] Through the facilities he has afforded and the encouragement he has given, many have been freed already. Count Sergius Romanzoff, for instance, has given liberty to all his serfs."
"And why not Prince Ivan Pojarsky?" asked Clémence in a low voice, as she laid her hand on his arm and looked earnestly into his face.
"You utter the voice of my own heart, Clémence. Often have I thought of this. But—" He broke off his unfinished sentence, and began to pace the room with rapid footsteps.
Clémence took up the last word. "But there are many difficulties," she said.
"One is quite sufficient, for the present," Ivan pursued. "The people of Nicolofsky are not fit for greater freedom than they have now; they would not know how to use it. Let us train them for it," he added as he stopped before her chair.
"Which already we are trying to do, are we not?" asked Clémence.
"Yes," he said. "That is God's work for us. Part of it. There is work here, too—noble, blessed work. How good it is of our Father in heaven to cast our lot in such times as these, Clémence. Surely they are the last times, when 'the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it;' when 'they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know him, from the least to the greatest.—Surely we shall live to see that blessed consummation, you and I."
In the bright enthusiasm of their youth they forgot the words of Alexander, "It is to ages and decades of ages we must look;" nor perhaps did he always remember them himself. But the next thought of Clémence was one very natural to the still aching heart of the bereaved mother. "If only our little Rosebud could have lived to see it too," she said.
"Ay," said Ivan. Then after a pause he added, "But she sees Christ, which is far better."
- ↑ In the following conversation not only the sentiments but the words given are all those of Alexander himself. It was his habit to pay an occasional evening visit in the manner described above to those whom he esteemed. He was not particular as to their rank (some merchants' wives had poured out tea for him not unfrequently), but they were always persons noted for piety and good works.
- ↑ These remarks on the influence of the Bible are taken from the conversations of Alexander with the Lutheran Bishop Eylert.
- ↑ A fact. Visitors to St. Petersburg during the reign of Alexander bore witness to the admirable condition of these institutions.
- ↑ "Emancipation is one of his ruling ideas. A great part of the acts of his government bear the impression of it."—Dupré de St. Maure.