then. Love for my native land was the first which spoke powerfully in my
soul--an elemental, inexplicable love, like one’s love towards one’s
mother. I felt that I was a Russian, that in front of me were enemies,
that here I stood for all Russia. At the same moment, I perceived and
acknowledged with bitterness that the happiness of which Matilda and I
had dreamed had for ever departed from me, that my love for a woman must
be sacrificed to my love for my native land....
But scarcely had these feelings filled my soul, when in the very depths
of my consciousness there suddenly flamed an unexpected light. I
understood that I was sleeping, that everything--the castle, Hugo,
Matilda, and my love for her, everything was but a dream. And I suddenly
wanted to laugh in the faces of this stern knight and his
monk-assistant, for I knew already that I should wake and there would be
nothing--no danger, no grief. I felt an inconquerable courage in my
soul, because I could go away from my enemies into that world whither
they were unable to follow me.
Holding my head high, I replied to Hugo:
“You know yourself that this is not true. Who called you to these lands?
This sea is Russian from time immemorial, it belonged to the Varyagi.
You came here to convert the people, and instead of that you have built
castles on the hills, you oppress the people and you threaten our towns
even as far as to Ladoga itself. Alexander Nevsky undertook a holy work.
I rejoice that the people of Pskov had no pity on their hostages. I will
not write what you wish, but I will encourage them to fight against you.
God will defend the right!”
I said this as if I were declaiming upon a stage, and I purposely chose
ancient expressions so that my language might fit the period, but my
words threw Hugo into a frenzy.
“Dog!” cried he to me. “Tartar slave! I will order you to be broken on
the wheel!”
Then there came swiftly to my remembrance, as if it had been a
revelation, given to a seer from on high, the whole course of Russian
history, and I spoke to the German triumphantly and sternly, as a
prophet:
“Know this, that Alexander will overcome you on the ice of the Chudsky
Lake. Knights without number will there be hewn down. And our
descendants will take all this land under their domination and have your
descendants in subjection to them.”
“Take him away!” cried Hugo, the veins of his neck swelling and purpling
with anger.
The servants led me away, not to my tower, but to a noisome underground
place, a dungeon.
The days dragged away in the damp and darkness. I lay on rotting straw,
mouldy bread was thrown into me for food, for whole days I heard no
sound of a human voice. My garments were soon in rags, my hair was
matted, my body was covered with sores. Only in unattainable dreams did
I picture to myself the sea and the sunlight, the spring, the fresh air,
and Matilda. And in the near future the wheel and whipping-post awaited
me.
As the joy of my meetings with Matilda had been real to me, so were my
sufferings in her father’s dungeon. But the consciousness in myself that
I was sleeping and having a bad dream did not become dim. Knowing that
the moment of awakening was at hand and that the walls of my prison
would disperse as a mist, I found in myself the strength to bear all my
tortures unrepiningly. When the Germans proposed that I should buy my
freedom with the price of treachery to my native land, I answered with a
defiant refusal. And my enemies themselves esteemed my firmness, which
cost me less than they thought.
Here my dream breaks off.... I may have perished by the hand of the
executioner, or have been delivered from bondage by the victory of the
Battle of Ice on April 5th, 1241, as were other hostages from Pskov. But
I simply awakened. And here I am, sitting at my writing-table,
surrounded by familiar and beloved books, and I am recording this long
dream, intending to begin the ordinary life of this day. Here, in this
world, among these people who are in the next room I am at home, I am
actually....
But a strange and dreadful thought quietly arises from the dark depths
of my consciousness. What if now I am sleeping and dreaming--and I shall
suddenly awake on the straw, in the underground dungeon of the castle of
Hugo von Rizen?
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD
PLYMOUTH
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
with its magnicent=> with its magnificent {pg 120}