FOR THE SAKE OF THE CZAR
When one is sentenced to death by the nihilists in Russia it sends a
cold shiver down the back, no matter how brave and self-reliant one may
be, for those fanatics have an uncomfortable way of carrying out such
decrees to the bitter end. However, I smiled and assured the princess
that I thought I could find a way to avoid the consequences of my
eavesdropping, and then awaited the moment when she would say more. For
a long time she was silent, and during it I studied her carefully, for
she was the most complex puzzle that I had ever encountered in the
shape of a woman. I had heard enough to know that she was not only a
conspirator against the life of the emperor, but that she was
ostensibly if not really, the leader among her fellow conspirators; or
if not _the_ leader, then a leader. I had heard her talk glibly of
assassination and death, and I had heard her deplore in mental anguish
the part she was forced to play in the game of Russian politics. In one
moment I had believed her to be a heartless schemer, a murderess, and
one who was devoid of compassion; and in the next I was forced to the
conjecture that she was a victim of circumstances, and that she had no
love for or sympathy with the cause she advocated. Now, as I watched
her, the same emotions succeeded each other in my judgment of her
character, and finally I summed them all up in the decision that she
was a being who was swayed by impulses. There are seeming paradoxes
which will explain just what my conclusions were concerning Zara de
Echeveria. She was deliberately impulsive; calculatingly reckless;
systematically chaotic. The warm, Southern blood in her veins impelled
her to deeds which were rendered thrice effective by reason of the fact
that she applied to them the calculating coolness and method of her
Russian ancestors. Hence the paradox.
Presently she raised her eyes to mine.
"Dubravnik," she said slowly, "there is one way of escape for you; and
there is only one."
"What is that?" I asked.
"You must become a nihilist."
"I had thought of that," I returned coolly. For, indeed, I had thought
of it, although not at all from the motive she understood me to mean.
"You had thought of it?" she cried. "Do you say that earnestly, or only
to lead me on?"
"Was it not this very point that you were discussing with your brother
when you entered the garden last night, princess?" I asked, recalling
the mention of my name between them at that time.
"Yes; I had said to him that you were the kind of a man who should be
added to our ranks. I think you must have heard his reply."
"Yes."
"Do you know what nihilism is, Mr. Dubravnik?"
"No. I have always regarded it as a dangerous organization; morally
dangerous, I mean. You must not think that I have considered joining it
for any other reason than to place myself in a position where I will
feel that it is my duty to respect the confidence that I stole from
you, rather than to betray it."
"Then you never had such a thought until you knew I was a nihilist?"
"Never."
"And you would join us for my sake?"
"No."
"For whose, then?"
"For the sake of the czar."
"Ah! You would join only to betray them all into the hands of the
police! That is what you mean."
Zara leaped to her feet. Her whole manner underwent a change and for
the instant she was completely dominated by a furious scorn which found
its expression in every single pose of the attitude she assumed. Her
eyes blazed with the sudden anger she felt at me, brought about more by
the thought which came to her that I, whom she had stooped to admire,
was nothing but a spy. A torrent of words rushed to her lips, at least
her appearance was that she was on the point of denouncing me most
bitterly; but I raised a hand and interrupted her, bending slightly
forward, and speaking with sharp decision, although coolly, and with
studied conciseness of expression.
"No," I said. "If I should become a nihilist, it would be to protect
the emperor, not to betray your friends."
Again her entire manner underwent a change. As if she thoroughly
believed me, the fury of scorn left her eyes, the angry glitter of them
ceased, the rigidity of her attitude relaxed, and I saw that she was
regarding me with an expression of wondering amazement, in which pity,
and longing, not unmixed with admiration, were dominant. She was silent
for the moment, but she kept her eyes fixed upon mine, and gradually
they began to glow with that fire of enthusiasm which no argument can
ever hope to overcome. Looking upon her I realized that if she were not
a nihilist at heart, she had become one by reason of some great mental
cataclysm through which she had passed. I believed then, and I was to
know later, that I was correct, and that nothing at present apparent
could swerve her from her set purpose, or could influence her against
the cause she had undertaken, and was now upholding, so valiantly. The
spasms of remorse that rushed upon her at times, and such feelings of
repugnance as I had heard her express in the garden, were only _oases_
in the desert of her perverted judgment, engendered in her very soul by
some terrible calamity through which she had personally passed, or
regarding which she had been a close observer. When she spoke again, it
was with low-toned softness, and she glided a step or two nearer to me,
raising her beautiful eyes, now softened to an appealing quality, and
clasping her hands in front of her with a gesture of suppliant
helplessness that was almost overwhelming.
"Do you think that we have no wrongs to right?" she demanded.
"I think you have many, princess, judging from your standpoint; but you
cannot right them by committing greater ones. Nothing can dignify or
ennoble deliberate assassination, or wanton, cruel, secret murder. The
nihilists are assassins, murderers, cutthroats."
"You do not know! You do not know!"
"Perhaps not."
"Having heard what you did--knowing, as you do, my secret--unwilling as
I know you are, to betray me, what do you propose, Mr. Dubravnik?"
I replied deliberately.
"I have thought of joining the nihilists, but I have reconsidered the
question as impracticable. Therefore, I have decided that you must
leave Russia."
"I? Leave Russia? Ordered away by you?"
"Yes, princess."
She laughed wildly, and again this creature of impulse underwent one of
her lightning changes of which I had seen so many evidences. She was
indignant now, made so by offended pride, because of the affront my
words had put upon her social status. She, a princess, high in place,
to be ordered out of her own country by a man who was a stranger to
her, was unprecedented.
"Do you think that I am a weak thing to be ordered about like that by a
man whom I never met until last night? Beware, sir, lest you make me
regret that the bullet did not do its work more effectively. I am a
princess; I have wealth, power, influential friends; do not think that
the czar would believe what you would say, when he heard the story that
I could tell him."
I shrugged my shoulders carelessly. It was part of my purpose to anger
her even to the point of madness, for in that way alone could I hope to
draw her out to the point of revealing herself to me truly. And
besides, I was again falling under that fascination which exerted such
strange and compelling power over me.
"If I believed you to be sincere in what you say now, it would make my
unfortunate duty much more simple," I said.
"Your duty! What is your duty? To betray a woman?"
"Precisely that."
"And you would do that? _You?_"
"If the alternative fails, yes."
Again she rose from the couch upon which she had relaxed. She came and
stood quite near to me, and with infinite scorn, impossible to
describe, she said slowly:
"I think our interview is at an end, Mr. Dubravnik, for there is
evidently nothing to be gained by it. I much prefer to choose my
friends among those whom you call assassins, than from frequenters of
the palace--if the others are like you."
I rose also, and bowed coldly.
"As you will, princess," I said. "I promised to keep your secret
twenty-four hours. You have still ten hours in which to do one of three
things to obviate the necessity that is now upon me, of betraying you."
"Indeed!" haughtily.
"The easiest one will be for you to notify me of your intention to
depart from the country. The second, quite as effective, was suggested
by yourself last night when we talked of suicide. The third will
perhaps prove more congenial than either of the others; you can have me
murdered." I bowed, and started towards the door, but she barred the
way before I could reach it.
"You shall not go!" she cried, extending her arms as if to bar the way
against my exit, and again her speaking countenance betrayed the
impulse within her. This time it was terror.
"No? Is your brother Ivan here to complete the work so badly begun,
princess?" I purposely rendered my question insolently offensive.
For a moment she gazed at me in horror; then, with a sob in her throat,
she stepped aside and pointed towards the door.
"Go," she said. "I should not have detained you." But as I was about to
take her at her word she burst into a passion of tears. At the same
instant she leaped towards me, and seizing me with both hands, drew me
back again to the middle of the floor.
"No--no--no--no!" she cried. "You shall not go! Don't you know that you
would be shot down at the door of my house, or at best before you had
gone a hundred feet away from it? Have you forgotten that your
appointment with me to-day was known by those who have decided upon
your death? Will you force me to acquiesce in your murder, even though
you believe me capable of committing it?"
I knew that what she said was undoubtedly true, for I had neglected my
usual caution in not providing for an emergency of this kind; but I
pretended to be incredulous.
"Yet I cannot remain here indefinitely, princess," I said.
"It is the only way to save your life. If you leave here before I have
seen those who would kill you, you will not live fifteen minutes after
my door closes behind you. Oh, I beseech you, take the oath; promise me
that you will take the oath, and let me go and tell my friends that you
will do so."
She was pleading with me now, with her hands supplicatingly extended,
and with an expression of such utter terror in her face because of the
calamity which threatened me, that my soul was for a moment moved to
pity for this woman, who could pass through so many phases of emotion
in so short a period of time. But nevertheless it was not my purpose to
betray that pity, then. I had still to draw her out, more and more;
there was still much to learn of this complex woman, so beautiful and
so noble, who yet could find a sufficient excuse to engage in such
nefarious practices.
I have thought since that I was playing with myself, as well as with
her, at that time; that I was making a study of Zara's soul, rather
than of her character; I have believed, and I now believe, that even at
that moment I was madly in love with this half wild creature, outwardly
so tamed, and yet inwardly more than half a barbarian, with the blood
of her Tartar ancestors on the one side coursing hotly in her veins. I
wanted to know her. I wanted to bring her out of herself. My own
intuition recognized, and was making the most of a boundless and
limitless sympathy that existed between us two, although I was not at
the time conscious of the fact; a sympathy that found voice in Zara's
heart as well as in mine, and which needed but a touch, as of the spark
to grains of powder, to fire it into a blaze of love so absolute as to
sweep every other consideration from its path. My heart recognized
hers, and I was subconsciously aware that hers recognized mine. It may
be that I was playing two parts with her at that moment, the one being
that of my ostensible character, as an agent of the czar; the other
asserting itself as plain Dan Derrington, an American gentleman who was
very much in love.
"Do you suppose, even then, that they would believe you, and spare me?"
I asked, with unconcealed irony, forcing myself even against my will,
to render my question bitterly offensive.
"Yes, oh, yes! I would give myself as hostage for your honor. My life
would be forfeited, too, if you should not keep the oath."
I hesitated. The opportunity was an alluring one in a way, for it would
render the entire organization like an open book to me. But more than
all else was the communion of interest that would thus be created
between this peerless woman and me. Still, there were other things to
be considered. The danger I would thus incur might render impotent the
entire fabric that I had constructed with so much care; and truth to
tell I could not bring myself to the point of utilizing a woman's
confidence in order ultimately to betray her and her friends.
"I cannot take the oath, princess," I said, calmly.
"Think! think!" she exclaimed.
"I have thought. I cannot do it."
"Sit down again, Mr. Dubravnik. There is no danger as long as you
remain here. I wish to tell you something. I want you to know why I am
a nihilist; then, perhaps, you may be of a different opinion."
I obeyed her and she resumed her position on the couch, but her entire
manner had undergone another change. The contempt, the scorn, the anger
had all died out of her face which now assumed a retrospective
expression and when she next addressed me her eyes had in them a
dreamy, far away light, as though she were living in the past while she
recited the strange tale that thrilled me as nothing else ever had, or
ever has done.
"I have heard," she began, "that you yourself have seen some of the
horrors of Siberia, but I doubt it. I do not even believe that you are
a Russian, and to be perfectly frank I do not believe that your name is
Dubravnik. I am of the opinion--and I did not think of it until since
the commencement of this interview--that you are not what you seem to
be, and that your mission in Russia is in some way connected with the
Government police; that you are more than a passive enemy of
nihilism--that you are, in short, an active one. If I am right there
exists all the more reason why I must appeal to your manhood, your
honor, your sense of justice, to your bravery and chivalry. Who are
you, Mr. Dubravnik?"
"I am Daniel Derrington, an American, in the service of the czar."
"And therefore connected with the police."
"No. The police do not know me, save as you know me; not even the
terrible Third Section."
She scarcely noticed my confession, so absorbed was she by the mere
thought of the story she was about to relate.
Her eyes were turned towards the window, her hands clasped tightly
together in her lap, her chin was raised, and she seemed to be looking
into the past as one might look upon a picture hanging against the
wall, observing every detail of it minutely, and yet conscious only of
the whole.
"Fancy yourself, a Russian of noble birth, an officer in the army, a
favorite at court, the possessor of almost unlimited wealth and happy
beyond the dreams of heaven," she said, dreamily. "Search your memory
for the picture of a beautiful girl--she was only a girl, not yet
twenty, when my story begins--and make this one of whom I speak thrice
more beautiful than the picture you delineate. She was your sister. She
_is_ your sister. You are her brother in the story I shall relate to
you. You two are fatherless and motherless; you are all that is left of
your family, once famous, and seemingly destined through you to become
so again. You are a favorite with the czar, and your sister is the pet
of the royal family. Your influence at court is unlimited. You are on
the summit of the wave of favor and popularity. Have you drawn the
picture?"
"I endeavor to do so, princess."
"You and Yvonne--she had a French name--reside in the same palace where
your fathers lived before you. Your sister is the idol of your heart.
You worship her with such devotion that it becomes a maxim quoted by
mothers to their sons. You idealize her, and are proud of her; and she
is worthy of it all. Ah, sir, follow me with care, for the story will
touch you, I believe, as nothing else could do."
Zara left the couch and crossed to the window, where she stood staring
through it for a long period of time, so silent, so still, so like a
statue in her attitude, that I beheld her with something like awe,
while I trembled with eagerness for her to speak again. I must admit
that the story she had begun to relate had thus far made no impression
upon me, and that it was only the voice of the woman I loved, and the
changing expressions of its tone, and her beautiful countenance, which
attracted me then. She was so wholly lovable in every attribute of her
being; and now, absorbed as she was by the retrospective consideration
of the tale she had begun to relate, and because her manner was
entirely impersonal, she became even more compelling in her
fascinations for me. I forgot, for the moment, that she was a Russian
princess and a nihilist, and remembered only the one absorbing fact
that she was a woman. My duties in St. Petersburg and the character I
had assumed in fulfilling them, the city itself and all my
surroundings, the environment of the moment and all that went with it,
faded from my mental view, and left us two there, utterly alone in a
world of our own, self created by my own conceit of the moment.
I do not know what impulse it was that brought me to my feet with a
sudden start of resolve, but I had taken three or four strides toward
her, with arms outstretched to seize her lithe form in my embrace, and
to crush her against me in a burst of passion which I found myself no
longer able to control, when I was startled into motionlessness and
silence by a sudden cry from Zara, who turned about and faced me for an
instant, and who then seized me by the arm and drew me to the window,
pointing into the street as she did so.