[1] _The Heretic_. Translated from the Russian of Lajétchnikoff. By
T.B. Shaw, B.A. of Cambridge. In three volumes.
It is now about three centuries since Richard Chancellor, pilot-major of
the fleet which, under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, and by the
advice of Sebastian Cabot, set out to discover a north-east passage to
China, carried his ship, the Edward Bonaventura, into Archangel. The rest
of the fleet put into a haven on the coast of Lapland, where all their
crews, with the gallant commander, perished miserably of cold and hunger.
Chancellor, accompanied by Master George Killingworthe, found his way to
Moscow, where he was courteously entertained by the Tsar Iván IV.,
surnamed the Terrible. On his return to England in 1554, he delivered a
friendly letter from the Tsar to King Edward VI., and announced to the
people of England "the discovery of Muscovy." The English adventurers
where mightily astonished by the state and splendour of the Russian
court, and gave a curious account of their intercourse with the tyrant
Iván, who treated them with great familiarity and kindness, though he was
perhaps the most atrocious monster, not excepting the worst of the Roman
emperors, that ever disgraced a throne. The Tsar "called them to his
table to receive each a cup from his hand to drinke, and took into his
hand Master George Killingworthe's beard, which reached over the table,
and pleasantly delivered it to the metropolitan, who seeming to bless it,
said in Russ, 'This is God's gift;' as indeed at that time it was not
only thicke, broad, and yellow coulered, but in length five foot and two
inches of a size."
Chancellor returned the following year to Moscow, and arranged with the
Tsar the commercial privileges and immunities of a new company of
merchant-adventurers who desired to trade with Muscovy; but in 1556, while
on his way home, accompanied by Osep Neped, the first Russian ambassador
to the court of England, their ship was wrecked on our own coast, at
Pitsligo bay, where Chancellor was drowned, with most of the crew; but
Osep Neped, who escaped, was conducted with much pomp to London, and there
established on a firmer basis the commercial relations between the two
countries, to which Chancellor's discovery had led, and of which he had
laid the foundation. The commerce thus begun has continued uninterrupted,
to the mutual advantage of both nations, up to this time, and thousands of
our countrymen have there gained wealth and distinction, in commerce, in
the arts, in science, and in arms.
But of the twenty-seven millions of men, women, and children who people
Great Britain and Ireland, how many may be presumed to know any thing of
Russian literature, or even to have enquired whether it contains any thing
worth knowing? Are there a dozen literary men or women amongst us who
could read a Russian romance, or understand a Russian drama? Dr Bowring
was regarded as a prodigy of polyglot learning, because he gave us some
very imperfect versions of Russian ballads; and we were thankful even for
that contribution, from which, we doubt not, many worthy and well-informed
people learned for the first time that Russia produced poets as well as
potashes. Russia has lately lost a poet of true genius, of whom his
countrymen are proud, and no doubt have a right to be proud, for his
poetry found its way at once to the heart of the nation: but how few there
are amongst us who know any thing of Poushkin, unless it be his untimely
and melancholy end?
The generation that has been so prolific of prose fiction in other parts
of Europe, has not been barren in Russia. She boasts of men to whom she is
grateful for having adorned her young literature with the creations of
their genius, or who have made her history attractive with the allurements
of faithful fiction, giving life, and flesh, and blood to its dry bones;
and yet, gentle reader, learned or fair--or both fair and learned--whether
sombre in small clothes, or brilliant in _bas-bleus_--how many could
you have named a year ago of those names which are the pride and delight
of a great European nation, with which we have had an intimate, friendly,
and beneficial intercourse for three consecutive centuries, and whose
capital has now for some years been easily accessible in ten days from our
own?
Surely it is somewhat strange, that while Russia fills so large a space,
not only on the map, but in the politics of the world--while the influence
of her active mind, and of her powerful muscle, is felt and acknowledged
in Europe, Asia, and America--that we, who come in contact with her
diplomatic skill and her intelligence at every turn and in every quarter,
should never have thought it worth while to take any note of her
literature--of the more attractive movements of her mind.
The history, the ancient mythology, and the early Christian legends of
Russia, are full of interest. We there encounter the same energetic and
warlike people, who, from roving pirates of the Baltic sea, became the
founders of dynasties, and who have furnished much of what is most
romantic in the history of Europe. The Danes, who ravaged our coasts, and
gave a race of princes to England; the Normans, from whom are descended
our line of sovereigns, and many of our noble and ancient families--the
Normans, who established themselves in Sicily and the Warrhag, or
Varangians, who made their leader, Rurik, a sovereign over the ancient
Sclavonic republic of Nóvgorod, and gave their own distinctive appellation
of Russ to the people and to the country they conquered, were all men of
the same race, the same habits, and the same character. The daring spirit
of maritime adventure, the love of war, and the thirst of plunder, which
brought their barks to the coasts of Britain and of France, was displayed
with even greater boldness in Russia. After the death of Rurik, these
pirates of the Baltic, under the regent Oleg, launching their galleys on
the Borysthenes, forced the descent of the river against hostile tribes,
defeated the armies of Byzantium, exercised their ancient craft on the
Black sea and on the Bosphorus, and, entering Constantinople in triumph,
extorted tribute and a treaty from the Keisar in his palace.
Then, after a time, came the introduction of the Christian religion and of
letters; and the contests which terminated in the triumph of Christianity
over the ancient mythology, in which the milder deities of the Pantheon,
with their attendant spirits of the woods, the streams, and the household
hearth, would seem to have mingled with the fiercer gods of the Valhalla.
Then the frequent contests and varying fortunes of the principalities into
which the country was divided--the invasions of the Tartar hordes, under
the successors of Chenjez Khan, destroying every living thing, and
deliberately making a desert of every populous place, that grass might
more abound for their horses and their flocks--the long and weary
domination of these desolating masters; the gradual relaxation of the iron
gripe with which they crushed the country; the pomp and power of the
Russian church, even in the worst times of Tartar oppression; the first
gathering together of the nation's strength as its spirit revived; the
first great effort to cast off the load under which its loins had been
breaking for more than two centuries, and the desperate valour with which
the Russians fought their first great battle for freedom and their faith,
and shook the Tartar supremacy, under the brave and skilful Dimítri, on
the banks of the Don--the cautious wisdom and foresight with which he
created an aristocracy to support the sovereignty he had made
hereditary--the pertinacity with which, in every change of fortune, his
successors worked out slowly, and more by superior intelligence than by
prowess, the deliverance of their country--the final triumph of this wary
policy, under the warlike, but consummately able and dexterous management
of Iván the Great--the rapidity and force with which the Muscovite power
expanded, when it had worn out and cast off the Tartar fetters that had
bound it--the cautious and successful attempts of Iván to take from the
first a high place amongst the sovereigns of Europe--the progress in the
arts of civilized life which was made in his reign--the accession of
weight and authority which the sovereign power received from the prudent
and dignified demeanour of his son and successor--the sanguinary tyranny
with which Iván IV., in the midst of the most revolting atrocities and
debaucheries, broke down the power of the aristocracy, prostrated the
energies of the nation, and paved the way for successive usurpations--the
skilful and crafty policy, and the unscrupulous means by which Boris
raised himself to the throne, after he had destroyed the last
representatives of the direct line of Rurik, which, in all the
vicissitudes of Russian fortune, had hitherto held the chief place in the
nation--the taint of guilt which poisoned and polluted a mind otherwise
powerful, and not without some virtues, and made him at length a
suspicious and cruel tyrant, who, having alienated the good-will of the
nation, was unable to oppose the pretensions of an impostor, and swallowed
poison to escape the tortures of an upbraiding conscience--the successful
imposture of the monk who personated the Prince Dimítri, one of the
victims of Boris' ambition, and who was slaughtered on the day of his
nuptials at the foot of the throne he had so strangely usurped, by an
infuriated mob; not because he was known to be an impostor, but because he
was accused of a leaning to the Latin church--the season of anarchy that
succeeded and led to fresh impostures, and to the Polish domination--the
servile submission of the Russian nobility to Sigismund, king of Poland,
to whom they sold their country; the revival of patriotic feelings, almost
as soon as the sacrifice had been made--the bold and determined opposition
of the Russian church to the usurpation of a Latin prince, the
persecutions, the hardships, the martyrdom it endured; the ultimate rising
of the Muscovite people at its call--the sanguinary conflict in Moscow;
the expulsion of the Poles; the election of Michael Romanoff, the first
sovereign of his family and of the reigning dynasty--the whole history of
the days of Peter, of Catharine, and of Alexander, and even the less
prominent reigns of intermediate sovereigns--are full of the interest and
the incidents which are usually considered most available to the writers
of historical romance.
But such materials abound in the history of every people. Men of genius
for the work find them scattered every where--in the peculiarities of
personal character developed in the contests of petty tribes or turbulent
burghers, as often as in the revolutions of empires. The value of
historical, as well as of other fictions, must be measured by the power
and the skill it displays, rather than by the magnitude of the events it
describes, or the historical importance of the persons it introduces; and
therefore no history can well be exhausted for the higher purposes of
fiction. Of what historical importance are the stories on which Shakspeare
has founded his _Romeo and Juliet_--his _Othello_--his _Hamlet_, or his
_Lear_? Does the chief interest or excellence of _Waverley_, or _Ivanhoe_,
or _Peveril of the Peak_, or _Redgauntlet_, or _Montrose_, depend on the
delineation of historical characters, or the description of historical
events? What space do Balfour of Burleigh, or Rob Roy, or Helen Macgregor,
fill in history? The fact appears to be, that, even in the purest
historical prose fictions, neither the interest nor the excellence
generally depend upon the characters or the incidents most prominent in
history. A man of genius, who calls up princes and heroes from the dust
into which they have crumbled, may delight us with a more admirable
representation than our own minds could have furnished of some one whose
name we have long known, and of whose personal bearing, and habits, and
daily thoughts, we had but a vague and misty idea; and acknowledging the
fidelity of the portrait we may adopt it; and then this historical person
becomes to us what the imagination of genius, not what history, has made
him, and yet the portrait is probably one in which no contemporary could
have recognized any resemblance to the original. But the characters of
which history has preserved the most full and faithful accounts, whose
recorded actions reflect most accurately the frame of their minds, are
precisely those which each man has pictured to himself with most precision,
and therefore those of which he is least likely to appreciate another
man's imaginary portraits. The image in our own minds is disturbed, and we
feel something of the disappointment we experience when we find some one
of whom we have heard much very different from what we had imagined him to
be. The more intimately and generally an historical character is known,
the more unfit must it be for the purposes of fiction.
Then again, in fiction, as in real life, our sympathies are more readily
awakened, and more strongly moved, by the sufferings or the successes of
those with whom we have much in common--of whose life we are, or fancy
that we might have been, a part. The figures that we see in history
elevated above the ordinary attributes of man, are magnified as we see
them through the mist of our own vague perceptions, and dwindle if we
approach too near them. If they are brought down from the lofty pedestal
of rank or fame on which they stood, that they may be within reach of the
warmest sympathies of men who live upon a lower level, the familiarity to
which we are admitted impairs their greatness, on the same principle, that
"no man is a hero to his _valet-de-chambre_."
We are inclined to believe that the great attraction of historical prose
fiction is not any facility which it affords for the construction of a
better story--for we think it affords none--nor any superior interest
that attaches to the known and the prominent characters with which it
deals, or to the events it describes; but rather the occasion it gives for
making us familiar with the everyday life of the age and the country in
which the scene is laid. Independent of the merits of the fiction as a
work of imagination, we find another source of pleasure; and, if it be
written faithfully and with knowledge, of instruction in the vivid light
it casts on the characteristics of man's condition, which history does not
deign to record. This kind of excellence may give value to a work which is
defective in the higher essential qualifications of imaginative writing;
as old ballads and tales, which have no other merit, may be valuable
illustrations of the manners of their time, so by carefully collecting and
concentrating scattered rays, a man possessed of talents for the task may
throw a strong light on states of society that were formerly obscure, and
thus greatly enhance the pleasure we derive from any higher merits we may
find in his story.
M. Lajétchnikoff, in the work before us, appears to have aimed at both
these kinds of excellence; and, in the opinion of his countrymen, to have
attained to that of which they are the best or the only good judges. Mr
Shaw, to whom we are indebted for all we yet know of this department of
Russian literature, tells us in his preface that he selected this romance
for translation because--
"It is the work of an author to whom all the critics have adjudged
the praise of a perfect acquaintance with the epoch which he has
chosen for the scene of his drama. Russian critics, some of whom have
reproached M. Lajétchnikoff with certain faults of style, and in
particular with innovations on orthography, have all united in
conceding to him the merit of great historical accuracy--not only as
regards the events and characters of his story, but even in the less
important matters of costume, language, &c.
"This degree of accuracy was not accidental: he prepared himself for
his work by a careful study of all the ancient documents calculated
to throw light upon the period which he desired to recall--a
conscientious correctness however, which may be pushed too far; for
the original work is disfigured by a great number of obsolete words
and expressions, as unintelligible to the modern Russian reader
(unless he happened to be an antiquarian) as they would be to an
Englishman. These the Translator has, as far as possible, got rid of,
and has endeavoured to reduce the explanatory foot-notes--those
'blunder-marks,' as they have been well styled--to as small a number
as is consistent with clearness in the text."
M. Lajétchnikoff takes occasion, while referring to some anachronisms
which will be found in _The Heretic_, to state, in the following terms,
his opinion of the duties of an historical novelist--
"He must follow rather the poetry of history than its chronology. His
business is not to be the slave of dates; he ought to be faithful to
the character of the epoch, and of the _dramatis personae_ which he
has selected for representation. It is not his business to examine
every trifle, to count over with servile minuteness every link in the
chain of this epoch, or of the life of this character; that is the
department of the historian and the biographer. The mission of the
historical novelist is to select from them the most brilliant, the
most interesting events, which are connected with the chief personage
of his story, and to concentrate them into one poetic moment of his
romance. Is it necessary to say that this moment ought to be pervaded
by a leading idea?... Thus I understand the duties of the historical
novelist. Whether I have fulfilled them, is quite another question."
We are not quite sure what is here meant by "a leading idea." If it be
that some abstract idea is to be developed or illustrated, we can neither
subscribe to the canon nor discover the leading idea of this specimen of
the author's productions; but we rather suppose that he only means to say
that there should be a main stream of interest running through the whole
story, to which the others are tributary--and in this sense he has acted
on the rule; for the _heretic_, from his birth to his burial, is never
lost sight of, and almost the whole action, from the beginning to the end,
is either directly or indirectly connected with his fortunes, which
preserve their interest throughout, amidst sovereigns and ambassadors,
officials and nobles, court intrigues and affairs of state, of love, of
war, and of religion. This machinery, though somewhat complicated, is on
the whole very skilfully constructed, and moves on smoothly enough without
jolting or jarring, without tedious stops or disagreeable interruptions,
and without having to turn back every now and then to pick up the
passengers it has dropped by the way. The author, however, appears to have
assumed--and, writing for Russians, was entitled to assume--that his
readers had some previous acquaintance with the history of the country and
the times to which his story belongs. His prologue, which has no connexion
with the body of the work, but which relates a separate incident that
occurred some years after the conclusion of the principal narrative,
introduces us to the death-bed of Iván III., at whose court the whole of
the subsequent scenes occur; and is calculated from this inversion of time,
and the recurrence of similar names, and even of the same persons, to
create little confusion in the mind of the reader who is ignorant of
Russian history.
"The epoch chosen by Lajétchnikoff," says his translator, "is the
fifteenth century; an age most powerfully interesting in the history
of every country, and not less so in that of Russia. It was then that
the spirit of enquiry, the thirst for new facts and investigations in
religious, political, and physical philosophy, was at once stimulated
and gratified by the most important discoveries that man had as yet
made, and extended itself far beyond the limits of what was then
civilized Europe, and spoke, by the powerful voice of Iván III., even
to Russia, plunged as she then was in ignorance and superstition.
Rude as are the outlines of this great sovereign's historical
portrait, and rough as were the means by which he endeavoured to
ameliorate his country, it is impossible to deny him a place among
those rulers who have won the name of benefactors to their native
land."
When Iván III., then twenty-two years old, mounted the tributary throne of
Muscovy in 1462, the power of the Tartars, who for nearly two centuries
and a half domineered over Russia, had visibly declined. Tamerlane, at the
head of fresh swarms from the deserts of Asia, had stricken the Golden
Horde which still held Russia in subjection; and having pursued its
sovereign, Ioktamish Khan, into the steppes of Kiptchak and Siberia,
turned back almost from the gates of Moscow, to seek a richer plunder in
Hindostan. Before the Golden Horde could recover from this blow, it was
again attacked, defeated, and plundered, by the khan of the Crimea. Still
the supremacy of the Tartar was undisputed at Moscow. The Muscovite prince
advanced to the outer door of his palace to receive the ambassador of his
master; spread costly furs under his horse's feet; kneeled at his stirrup
to hear the khan's orders read; presented a cup of kimmis to the Tartar
representative, and licked off the drops that fell upon the mane of his
horse.
But during nearly a century and a half, the Muscovite princes had laboured
successfully to consolidate their own authority, and to unite the nation
against its oppressors. The principle of hereditary succession to the
dependent throne had been firmly established in the feelings of the people;
the ties of country, kindred, and language, and still more the bonds of
common religion, had united the discordant principalities into which the
country was still divided, by a sentiment of nationality and of hatred
against the Tartars, which made them capable of combining against their
Mahommedan masters.
Iván's first acts were acts of submission. They were perhaps intended to
tranquillize the suspicions with which the first movements of a young
prince are certain to be regarded by a jealous superior; and this purpose
they effectually served. Without courage or talent for war, his powerful
and subtle mind sought to accomplish its objects by intellectual
superiority and by craft, rather than by force. Warned by the errors of
his predecessors, he did not dispute the right of the Tartars to the
tribute, but evaded its payment; and yet contrived to preserve the
confidence of the khan by bribing his ministers and his family, and by a
ready performance of the most humiliating acts of personal submission. His
conduct towards all his enemies--that is, towards all his neighbours--was
dictated by a similar policy; he admitted their rights, but he took every
safe opportunity to disregard them. So far did he carry the semblance of
submission, that the Muscovites were for some years disgusted with the
slavish spirit of their prince. His lofty ambition was concealed by rare
prudence and caution, and sustained by remarkable firmness and pertinacity
of purpose. He never took a step in advance from which he was forced to
recede. He had the art to combine with many of his enemies against one,
and thus overthrew them all in succession. It was by such means that he
cast off the Tartar yoke--curbed the power of Poland--humbled that of
Lithuania, subdued Nóvgorod, Tver, Pskoff, Kazán, and Viatka--reannexed
Veira, Ouglitch, Rezan, and other appanages to the crown, and added nearly
twenty thousand square miles with four millions of subjects to his
dominions. He framed a code of laws--improved the condition of his
army--established a police in every part of his empire--protected and
extended commerce--supported the church, but kept it in subjection to
himself; but was at all times arbitrary, often unjust and cruel, and
throughout his whole life, quite unscrupulous as to the means he employed
to compass his ends.
One of the most successful strokes of his policy, was his marriage with
Sophia, daughter of the Emperor Paleologos, who had been driven from
Constantinople by the Turks. This alliance, which he sought with great
assiduity, not only added to the dignity of his government at home, but
opened the way for an intercourse on equal terms with the greatest princes
of Europe. It was Sophia who dissuaded him from submitting to the
degrading ceremonial which had been observed on receiving the Tartar
ambassadors at Moscow--and to her he probably owed the feelings of
personal dignity which he evinced in the latter part of his reign. It was
this alliance that at once placed the sovereigns of Russia at the head of
the whole Greek church; whose dignitaries, driven from the stately dome of
St Sophia in Byzantium, found shelter in the humbler temple raised by the
piety of their predecessors, some ages before, in the wilds of Muscovy,
and more than repaid the hospitality they received by diffusing a love of
learning amongst a barbarous people. It was by means of the Greeks who
followed Sophia, that Iván was enabled to maintain a diplomatic
intercourse with the other governments of Europe; it was from her that
Russia received her imperial emblem, the double-headed eagle; it was in
her train that science, taste, and refinement penetrated to Moscow; it was
probably at her instigation that Iván embellished his capital with the
beauties of architecture, and encouraged men of science, and amongst
others Antonio, "the heretic," and Fioraventi Aristotle, the architect and
mechanician, to settle at Moscow.
But it is time we should proceed to the story. The greater part of the
first volume is occupied by an account of the family, birth, and youth of
the hero. Born of a noble family in Bohemia, he is educated as a physician.
This was not the voluntary act of his parents; for what haughty German
baron of those times would have permitted his son to degrade himself by
engaging in a profession which was then chiefly occupied by the accursed
Jews? No, this was a degradation prepared for the house of Ehrenstein, by
the undying revenge of a little Italian physician, whom the stalwart baron
had pitched a few yards out of his way during a procession at Rome. This
part of the history, though not devoid of interest, is hardly within the
bounds of a reasonable probability--but it contains some passages of
considerable vigour. The patient lying in wait of the revengeful Italian,
and the eagerness with which he presses his advantage, making an act of
mercy minister to the gratification of his passion, is not without merit,
and will probably have its attractions for those who find pleasure in such
conceptions.
The young Antonio is educated by the physician, Antonio Fioraventi of
Padua, in ignorance of his birth--is disowned by his father, but cherished
by his mother; and grows up an accomplished gentleman, scholar, and leech,
of handsome person, captivating manners, and ardent aspirations to extend
the limits of science, and to promote the advancement of knowledge and of
civilization all over the earth. While these dreams are floating in his
mind, a letter on the architect Fioraventi, who had for some time resided
in Moscow, to his brother, the Italian physician, requesting him to send
some skilful leech to the court of Iván, decides the fate of Antonio.
"Fioraventi began to look out for a physician who would volunteer
into a country so distant and so little known: he never thought of
proposing the journey to his pupil; his youth--the idea of a
separation--of a barbarous country--all terrified the old man. His
imagination was no longer wild--the intellect and the heart alone had
influence on him. And what had Antony to hope for there? His destiny
was assured by the position of his instructor--his tranquillity was
secured by circumstances--he could more readily make a name in Italy.
The place of physician at the court of the Muscovite Great Prince
would suit a poor adventurer; abundance of such men might be found at
that time possessed of talents and learning. But hardly was
Aristotle's letter communicated to Antony, than visions began to
float in his ardent brain.--'To Muscovy!' cried the voice of
destiny--'To Muscovy!' echoed through his soul, like a cry remembered
from infancy. That soul, in its fairest dreams, had long pined for a
new, distant, unknown land and people: Antony wished to be where the
physician's foot had never yet penetrated: perhaps he might discover,
by questioning a nature still rude and fresh, powers by which he
could retain on earth its short-lived inhabitants; perhaps he might
extort from a virgin soil the secret of regeneration, or dig up the
fountain of the water of life and death. But he who desired to
penetrate deeper into the nature of man, might have remarked other
motives in his desire. Did not knightly blood boil in his veins? Did
not the spirit of adventure whisper in his heart its hopes and high
promises? However this might be, he offered, with delight, to go to
Muscovy; and when he received the refusal of his preceptor, he began
to entreat, to implore him incessantly to recall it.--'Science calls
me thither,' he said, 'do not deprive her of new acquisitions,
perhaps of important discoveries. Do not deprive me of glory, my only
hope and happiness.' And these entreaties were followed by a new
refusal.--'Knowest thou not,' cried Fioraventi angrily, 'that the
gates of Muscovy are like the gates of hell--step beyond them, and
thou canst never return.' But suddenly, unexpectedly, from some
secret motive, he ceased to oppose Antony's desire. With tears he
gave him his blessing for the journey.--'Who can tell,' said he,
'that this is not the will of fate? Perhaps, in reality, honour and
fame await thee there?'
"At Padua was soon known Antony Ehrenstein's determination to make
that distant journey; and no one was surprised at it: there were,
indeed, many who envied him.
"In truth, the age in which Antony lived was calculated to attune the
mind to the search after the unknown, and to serve as an excuse for
his visions. The age of deep profligacy, it was also the age of lofty
talents, of bold enterprises, of great discoveries. They dug into the
bowels of the earth; they kept up in the laboratory an unextinguished
fire; they united and separated elements; they buried themselves
living, in the tomb, to discover the philosopher's stone, and they
found it in the innumerable treasures of chemistry which they
bequeathed to posterity. Nicholas Diaz and Vasco de Gama had passed,
with one gigantic stride, from one hemisphere to another, and showed
that millions of their predecessors were but pigmies. The genius of a
third visioned forth a new world, with new oceans--went to it, and
brought it to mankind. Gunpowder, the compass, printing, cheap paper,
regular armies, the concentration of states and powers, ingenious
destruction, and ingenious creation--all were the work of this
wondrous age. At this time, also, there began to spread indistinctly
about, in Germany and many other countries of Europe, those ideas of
reformation, which soon were strengthened, by the persecution of the
Western Church, to array themselves in the logical head of Luther,
and to flame up in that universal crater, whence the fury, lava, and
smoke, were to rush with such tremendous violence on kingdoms and
nations. These ideas were then spreading through the multitude, and
when resisted, they broke through their dikes, and burst onward with
greater violence. The character of Antony, eager, thirsting for
novelty, was the expression of his age: he abandoned himself to the
dreams of an ardent soul, and only sought whither to carry himself
and his accumulations of knowledge.
"Muscovy, wild still, but swelling into vigour, with all her
boundless snows and forests, the mystery of her orientalism, was to
many a newly-discovered land--a rich mine for human genius. Muscovy,
then for the first time beginning to gain mastery over her internal
and external foes, then first felt the necessity for real, material
civilization."
Antony pays a farewell visit to his mother at the humble tower in Bohemia,
where she resided estranged from his father, of whose rank and condition
she left him ignorant.
"If there were a paradise upon earth, Antony would have found it in
the whole month which he passed in the Bohemian castle. Oh! he would
not have exchanged that poor abode, the wild nature on the banks of
the Elbe, the caresses of his mother, whose age he would have
cherished with his care and love--no! he would not have exchanged all
this for magnificent palaces, for the exertions of proud kinsmen to
elevate him at the imperial court, for numberless vassals, whom, if
he chose, he might hunt to death with hounds.
"But true to his vow, full of the hope of being useful to his mother,
to science, and to humanity, the visionary renounced this paradise:
his mother blessed him on his long journey to a distant and unknown
land: she feared for him; yet she saw that Muscovy would be to him a
land of promise--and how could she oppose his wishes?"
Preceding our hero to Moscow, we are presented to the Great Prince before
Antonio's arrival. Ambassadors had come from Tver, and a Lithuanian
ambassador and his interpreter had been truly or falsely convicted of an
attempt to destroy Iván by poison. The Great Prince's enquiry what
punishment is decreed against the felon who reaches at another's life,
leads to the following dialogue:--
"'In the soudébnik it is decreed,' replied Góuseff, 'whoever shall be
accused of larceny, robbery, murder, or false accusation, or other
like evil act, and the same shall be manifestly guilty, the boyárin
shall doom the same unto the pain of death, and the plaintiff shall
have his goods; and if any thing remain, the same shall go to the
boyárin and the deacon.'...
"'Ay, the lawyers remember themselves--never fear that the boyárin
and deacon forget their fees. And what is written in thy book against
royal murderers and conspirators?'
"'In our memory such case hath not arisen.'
"'Even so! you lawyers are ever writing leaf after leaf, and never do
ye write all; and then the upright judges begin to gloze, to
interpret, to take bribes for dark passages. The law ought to be like
an open hand without a glove, (the Prince opened his fist;) every
simple man ought to see what is in it, and it should not be able to
conceal a grain of corn. Short and clear; and, when needful, seizing
firmly!... But as it is, they have put a ragged glove on law; and,
besides, they close the fist. Ye may guess--odd or even! they can
show one or the other, as they like.'
"'Pardon, my Lord Great Prince; lo, what we will add to the
soudébnik--the royal murderer and plotter shall not live.'
"'Be it so. Let not him live, who reached at another's life.' (Here
he turned to Kourítzin, but remembering that he was always disinclined
to severe punishments, he continued, waving his hand,) 'I forgot that
a craven[2] croweth not like a cock.' (At these words the deacon's
eyes sparkled with satisfaction.) 'Mamón, be this thy care. Tell my
judge of Moscow--the court judge--to have the Lithuanian and the
interpreter burned alive on the Moskvá--burn them, dost thou hear?
that others may not think of such deeds.'
[2] A _jeu de mots_ impossible to be rendered in English; _Kourítza_,
in Russian, is a 'hen.'"--T.B.S.
"The dvorétzkoi bowed, and said, stroking his ragged beard--'In a few
days will arrive the strangers to build the palace, and the Almayne
leech: the Holy Virgin only knoweth whether there be not evil men
among them also. Dost thou vouchsafe me to speak what hath come into
my mind?'
"'Speak.'
"'Were it not good to show them an example at once, by punishing the
criminals before them?'
"The Great Prince, after a moment's thought, replied--'Aristotle
answereth for the leech Antony; he is a disciple of his brother's.
The artists of the palace--foreigners--are good men, quiet men ...
but ... who can tell!... Mamón, put off the execution till after the
coming of the Almayne leech; but see that the fetters sleep not on
the evil doers!'
"Here he signed to Mamón to go and fulfill his order."
Here is another scene with the Great Prince.
"He stopped, and turned with an air of stern command to Kourítzin.
"The latter had addressed himself to speak--'The ambassadors from
Tver ... from the'....
"'From the prince, thou wouldst say,' burst in Iván Vassílievitch: 'I
no longer recognize a Prince of Tver. What--I ask thee, what did he
promise in the treaty of conditions which his bishop was to
negotiate?--the bishop who is with us now.'
"'To dissolve his alliance with the Polish king, Kazimír, and never
without thy knowledge to renew his intercourse with him; nor with
thine ill-wishers, nor with Russian deserters: to swear, in his own
and his children's name, never to yield to Lithuania.'
"'Hast thou still the letter to King Kazimír from our good
brother-in-law and ally--him whom thou yet callest the Great Prince
of Tver?'
"'I have it, my lord.'
"'What saith it?'
"'The Prince of Tver urgeth the Polish King against the Lord of All
Russia.'
"'Now, as God shall judge me, I have right on my side. Go and tell
the envoys from Tver, that I will not receive them: I spoke a word of
mercy to them--they mocked at it. What do they take me for?... A
bundle of rags, which to-day they may trample in the mud, and
to-morrow stick up for a scarecrow in their gardens! Or a puppet--to
bow down to it to-day, and to-morrow to cast it into the mire, with
_Vuiduibái, father vuiduibái_![3] No! they have chosen the wrong man.
They may spin their traitorous intrigues with the King of Poland, and
hail him their lord; but I will go myself and tell Tver who is her
real master. Tease me no more with these traitors!'
[3] "When Vladímir, to convert the Russians to Christianity, caused
the image of their idol Peróun to be thrown into the Dniépr, the
people of Kíeff are said to have shouted '_vuiduibái, bátioushka,
vuiduibái_!'--bátioushka signifies 'father;' but the rest of the
exclamation has never been explained, though it has passed into a
proverb."--T.B.S.
"Saying this, the Great Prince grew warmer and warmer, and at length
he struck his staff upon the ground so violently that it broke in two.
"'Hold! here is our declaration of war,' he added--'yet one word more:
had it bent it would have remained whole.'
"Kourítzin, taking the fatal fragments, went out. The philosopher of
those days, looking at them, shook his head and thought--'Even so
breaketh the mighty rival of Moscow!'"
The Almayne physician is lodged by order of the Great Prince in one of the
three stone houses which Moscow could then boast--the habitation of the
voévoda Obrazétz, a fine old warrior, a venerable patriarch, and bigot,
such as all Russians then were. To him the presence of the heretic is
disgusting; his touch would be pollution; and the whole family is thrown
into the utmost consternation by the prospect of having to harbour so foul
a guest--a magician, a man who had sold his soul to Satan--above all, a
heretic. The voévoda had an only daughter, who, with Oriental caution, was
carefully screened from the sight of man, as became a high-born Russian
maiden.
"From her very infancy Providence had stamped her with the seal of
the marvellous; when she was born a star had fallen on the house--on
her bosom she bore a mark resembling a cross within a heart. When ten
years old, she dreamed of palaces and gardens such as eye had never
seen on earth, and faces of unspeakable beauty, and voices that sang,
and self-moving dulcimers that played, as it were within her heart,
so sweetly and so well, that tongue could never describe it; and,
when she awoke from those dreams, she felt a light pressure on her
feet, and she thought she perceived that something was resting on
them with white wings folded; it was very sweet, and yet awful--and
in a moment all was gone. Sometimes she would meditate, sometimes she
would dream, she knew not what. Often, when prostrate before the
image of the Mother of God, she wept; and these tears she hid from
the world, like some holy thing sent down to her from on high. She
loved all that was marvellous; and therefore she loved the tales, the
legends, the popular songs and stories of those days. How greedily
did she listen to her nurse! and what marvels did the eloquent old
woman unfold, to the young, burning imagination of her foster child!
Anastasia, sometimes abandoning herself to poesy, would forget sleep
and food; sometimes her dreams concluded the unfinished tale more
vividly, more eloquently far."
We must give the pendant to this picture--the portrait of Obrazétz himself,
sitting in his easy-chair, listening to a tale of travels in the East.
"How noble was the aged man, free from stormy passions, finishing the
pilgrimage of life! You seemed to behold him in pure white raiment,
ready to appear before his heavenly judge. Obrazétz was the chief of
the party in years, in grave majestic dignity, and patriarchal air.
Crossing his arms upon his staff, he covered them with his beard,
downy as the soft fleece of a lamb; the glow of health, deepened by
the cup of strong mead, blushed through the snow-white hair with
which his cheeks were thickly clothed; he listened with singular
attention and delight to the story-teller. This pleasure was painted
on his face, and shone brightly in his eyes; from time to time a
smile of good-humoured mockery flitted across his lips, but this was
only the innocent offspring of irony which was raised in his good
heart by Aphónia's boasting, (for very few story-tellers, you know,
are free from this sin.) Reclining his shoulders against the back of
his arm-chair, he shut his eyes, and, laying his broad hairy hand
upon Andrióusha's head, he softly, gently dallied with the boy's
flaxen locks. On his countenance the gratification of curiosity was
mingled with affectionate tenderness: he was not dozing, but seemed
to be losing himself in sweet reveries. In the old man's visions
arose the dear never forgotten son, whom he almost fancied he was
caressing. When he opened his eyes, their white lashes still bore
traces of the touching society of his unearthly guest; but when he
remarked that the tear betraying the secret of his heart had
disturbed his companions, and made his daughter anxious, the former
expression of pleasure again dawned on his face, and doubled the
delighted attention of the whole party."
At length the dreaded guest arrived.
"Evil days had fallen on Obrazétz and his family. He seemed himself
as though he had lost his wife and son a second time. Khabár raged
and stormed like a mountain torrent. Anastasia, hearing the horrible
stories--is sometimes trembling like an aspen-leaf, and then weeps
like a fountain. She dares not even look forth out of the sliding
window of her bower. Why did Vassílii Féodorovitch build such a fine
house? Why did he build it so near the Great Prince's palace? 'Tis
clear, this was a temptation of the Evil One. He wanted, forsooth, to
boast of a nonsuch! He had sinned in his pride.... What would become
of him, his son and daughter! Better for them had they never been
born!... And all this affliction arose from the boyárin being about
to receive a German in his house!"
The voévoda gave strict injunctions that none of his family should go to
meet the procession; but M. Lajétchnikoff knows that all such orders are
unavailing.
"Curiosity is so strong in human nature, that it can conquer even
fear: notwithstanding the orders of the boyárin, all his servants
rushed to obtain a glance at the terrible stranger; one at the gate,
another through the crevices of the wooden fence, another over it.
Khabár, with his arms haughtily a-kimbo, gazed with stern pride from
the other gate. Now for the frightful face with mouse's ears, winking
owlish eyes streaming with fiendish fire! now for the beak! They
beheld a young man, tall, graceful, of noble deportment, overflowing
with fresh vigorous life. In his blue eyes shone the light of
goodness and benevolence through the moisture called up by the recent
spectacle of the execution: the lips, surmounted by a slight soft
mustache, bore a good-humoured smile--one of those smiles that it is
impossible to feign, and which can only find their source in a heart
never troubled by impure passions. Health and frost had united to
tinge the cheeks with a light rosy glow; he took off his cap, and his
fair curls streamed forth over his broad shoulders. He addressed
Mamón in a few words of such Russian as he knew, and in his voice
there was something so charming, that even the evil spirit which
wandered through the boyárin's heart, sank down to its abyss. This,
then, was the horrible stranger, who had harmed Obrazétz and his
household! This, then, was he--after all! If this was the devil, the
fiend must again have put on his original heavenly form. All the
attendants, as they looked upon him, became firmly convinced that he
had bewitched their eyes.
"'Haste, Nástia![4] look how handsome he is!' cried Andrióusha to the
voevóda's daughter, in whose room he was, looking through the sliding
window, which he had drawn back. 'After this, believe stupid reports!
My father says that he is my brother: oh, how I shall love him! Look,
my dear!'
[4]_Nástia_--the diminutive of Anastasia; Nástenka, the same.
Russian caressing names generally end in sia, sha, óusha, or
óushka--as Vásia, (for Iván;) Andrióusha, (Andrei;)
Varpholoméoushka, ( Bartholomew.)"--T.B.S.
"And the son of Aristotle, affirming and swearing that he was not
deceiving his godmother, drew her, trembling and pale, to the window.
Making the sign of the cross, with a fluttering heart she ventured to
look out--she could not trust her eyes, again she looked out;
confusion! a kind of delighted disappointment, a kind of sweet thrill
running through her blood, never before experienced, fixed her for
some moments to the spot: but when Anastasia recovered herself from
these impressions, she felt ashamed and grieved that she had given
way to them. She already felt a kind of repentance. The sorcerer has
put on a mask, she thought, remembering her father's words: from this
moment she became more frequently pensive."
We are conducted to the state prisons of Moscow, and introduced to some of
the prisoners whose names have figured in history. We select the following
dialogue as a specimen of the author's power to deal with such matters.
The prisoner is Márpha, the lady of Novogorod, who, by her courage and her
wealth, had laboured to preserve its independence.
"Here the Great Prince rapped with his staff at a grating; at the
knock there looked out an old roman, who was fervently praying on her
knees. She was dressed in a much-worn high cap, and in a short veil,
poor, but white as new-fallen snow; her silver hair streamed over a
threadbare mantle: it was easy to guess that this was no common woman.
Her features were very regular, in her dim eyes was expressed
intellect, and a kind of stern greatness of soul. She looked proudly
and steadily at the Great Prince.
"'For whom wert thou praying, Marphóusha?' asked the sovereign.
"'For whom but for the dead!' she sullenly replied.
"'But for whom in particular, if I may make bold to ask?'
"'Ask concerning that of my child, thou son of a dog--of him who was
called thy brother, whom thou murderedst--of Nóvgorod, which thou
hast drowned in blood, and covered with ashes!'
"'O, ho, ho!... Thou hast not forgotten thy folly, then--Lady of
Nóvgorod the Great.'
"'I was such once, my fair lord!'
"At these words she arose.
"'Wilt thou not think again?'
"'Of what?... I said that I was praying for the dead. Thy Moscow,
with all its hovels, can twice a-year be laid in ashes, and twice
built up again. The Tartar hath held it two ages in slavery.... It
pined, it pined away and yet it remains whole. It hath but changed
one bondage for another. But once destroy the queen--Nóvgorod the
Great--and Nóvgorod the Great will perish for ever.'
"'How canst thou tell that?'
"'Can ye raise up a city of hewn stone in a hundred years?'
"'I will raise one in a dozen.'
"'Ay, but this is not in the fairy tale, where 'tis done as soon as
said. Call together the Hanse traders whom thou hast driven away.'
"'Ha, hucksteress! thou mournest for the traders more than for
Nóvgorod itself.'
"'By my huckstering she grew not poor, but rich.'
"'Let me but jingle a piece of money, and straight will fly the
merchants from all corners of the world, greedy for my grosches.'
"'Recall the chief citizens whom thou hast exiled to thy towns.'
"'Cheats, knaves, rebels! they are not worth this!'
"'When was power in the wrong? Where is the water of life that can
revive those thou hast slain? Even if thou couldst do all this,
liberty, liberty would be no more for Nóvgorod, Iván Vassílievitch;
and Nóvgorod will never rise again! It may live on awhile like
lighted flax, that neither flameth nor goeth out, even as I live in a
dungeon!'
"'It is thine inflexible obstinacy that hath ruined both of ye. I
should like to have seen how thou wouldst have acted in my place.'
"'Thou hast done thy work, Great Prince of Moscow, I--mine. Triumph
not over me, in my dungeon, at my last hour.'
"Márpha Borétzkaia coughed, and her face grew livid; she applied the
end of her veil to her lips, but it was instantly stained with blood,
and Iván remarked this, though she endeavoured to conceal it.
"'I am sorry for thee, Márpha,' said the Great Prince in a
compassionate tone.
"'Sharp is thy glance.... What! doth it delight thee?... Spread this
kerchief over Nóvgorod.... 'Twill be a rich pall!'... she added with
a smile.
"'Let me in! let me in!... I cannot bear it.... Let me go in to her!'
cried Andrióusha, bursting into tears.
"On the Great Prince's countenance was mingled compassion and
vexation. He, however, lifted the latch of the door, and let the son
of Aristotle pass in to Borétzkaia.
"Andrea kissed her hand. Borétzkaia uttered not a word; she
mournfully shook her head, and her warm tears fell upon the boy's
face.
"'Ask him how many years she can live,' said the Great Prince to
Aristotle, in a whisper.
"'It is much, much, if she live three months; but, perhaps, 'twill be
only till spring,' answered Antony. 'No medicine can save her: that
blood is a sure herald of death.'
"This reply was translated to Iván Vassílievitch in as low a tone as
possible, that Borétzkaia might not hear it; but she waved her hand,
and said calmly--'I knew it long ago'....
"'Hearken, Márpha Isákovna, if thou wilt, I will give thee thy
liberty, and send thee into another town.'
"'Another town ... another place ... God hath willed it so, without
thee!'
"'I would send thee to Báyjetzkoi-Verkh.'
"''Tis true, that was our country. If I could but die in my native
land!'
"'Then God be with thee: there thou mayst say thy prayers, give alms
to the churches; I will order thy treasury to be delivered up to
thee--and remember not the Great Prince of Moscow in anger.'
"She smiled. Have you ever seen something resembling a smile on the
jaws of a human skull?
"'Farewell, we shall never meet again,' said the Great Prince.
"'We shall meet at the judgment-seat of God!' was the last reply of
Borétzkaia."
The daughter of Obrazétz loved the heretic, who was long unconscious of
the feelings he had inspired, and himself untouched by the mysterious fire
that was consuming the heart of the young Anastasia. But his turn, too,
had come--he, too, had seen and loved; but she knew not of his love--she
hardly knew the nature of her own feelings; sometimes she feared she was
under the influence of magic, or imagined that the anxiety she felt for
the heretic was a holy desire to turn him from the errors of his faith to
save his immortal soul--or, if she knew the truth, she dared not
acknowledge it even to her own heart--far less to any human being. To love
a heretic was a deadly sin; but to save a soul would be acceptable to
God--a holy offering at the footstool of the throne of grace and mercy.
This hope would justify any sacrifice. The great Prince was about to march
against Tver, and Antonio was to accompany him. Could she permit him to
depart without an effort to redeem him from his heresy, or, alas! without
a token of her love? She determined to send him the crucifix she wore
round her neck--a holy and a sacred thing, which it would have been a
deadly sin to part with unless to rescue a soul from perdition--and she
sent it. Her brother, too, was to accompany the army, and had besides, on
his return, to encounter a judicial combat. The soul of the old warrior
Obrazétz was deeply moved by the near approach of his son's departure. One
son had died by his side--he might never see Iván more, and his heart
yearned to join with him in prayer. "The mercies of God are unaccountable."
"Trusting in them, Obrazétz proceeded to the oratory, whither, by his
command, he was followed by Khabár and Anastasia.
"Silently they go, plunged in feelings of awe: they enter the oratory;
the solitary window is curtained; in the obscurity, feebly dispelled
by the mysterious glimmer of the lamp, through the deep stillness,
fitfully broken by the flaring of the taper, they were gazed down
upon from every side by the dark images of the Saviour, the Holy
Mother of God, and the Holy Saints. From them there seems to breathe
a chilly air as of another world: here thou canst not hide thyself
from their glances; from every side they follow thee in the slightest
movement of thy thoughts and feelings. Their wasted faces, feeble
limbs, and withered frames--their flesh macerated by prayer and
fasting--the cross, the agony--all here speaks of the victory of will
over passions. Themselves an example of purity in body and soul, they
demand the same purity from all who enter the oratory, their holy
shrine.
"To them Anastasia had recourse in the agitation of her heart; from
them she implored aid against the temptations of the Evil One; but
help there was none for her, the weak in will, the devoted to the
passion which she felt for an unearthly tempter.
Thrice, with crossing and with prayer, did Obrazétz bow before the
images; thrice did his son and daughter bow after him. This pious
preface finished, the old man chanted the psalm--'Whoso dwelleth
under the defence of the Most High.' Thus, even in our own times,
among us in Russia, the pious warrior, when going to battle, almost
always arms himself with this shield of faith. With deep feeling,
Khabár repeated the words after his father. All this prepared
Anastasia for something terrible she trembled like a dove which is
caught by the storm in the open plain, where there is no shelter for
her from the tempest that is ready to burst above her. When they
arose from prayer, Obrazétz took from the shrine a small image of St
George the Victorious, cast in silver, with a ring for suspending it
on the bosom. 'In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost!' he said, with a solemn voice, holding the image in his
left hand, and with his right making three signs of the cross--'with
this mercy of God I bless thee, my dear and only son, Iván, and I
pray that the holy martyr, George, may give thee mastery and victory
over thine enemies: keep this treasure even as the apple of thine eye.
Put it not off from thee in any wise, unless the Lord willeth that
the foe shall take it from thee. I know thee, Ivan, they will not
take it from thee living; but they may from thy corse. Keep in mind at
every season thy father's blessing.'
"Anastasia turned as white as snow, and trembled in every limb; her
bosom felt oppressed as with a heavy stone, a sound as of hammering
was in her ears. She seemed to hear all the images, one after another,
sternly repeating her father's words. He continued--'It is a great
thing, this blessing. He who remembereth it not, or lightly esteemeth
it, from him shall the heavenly Father turn away his face, and shall
leave him for ever and ever. He shall be cast out from the kingdom of
heaven, and his portion shall be in hell. Keep well my solemn word.'
"Every accent of Obrazétz fell upon Anastasia's heart like a drop of
molten pitch. She seemed to be summoned before the dreadful
judgment-seat of Christ, to hear her father's curse, and her own
eternal doom. She could restrain herself no longer, and sobbed
bitterly; the light grew dim in her eyes; her feet began to totter.
Obrazétz heard her sobs, and interrupted his exhortation. 'Nástia,
Nástia! what aileth thee?' he enquired, with lively sympathy, of his
daughter, whom he tenderly loved. She had not strength to utter a
word, and fell into her brother's arms. Crossing himself, the boyárin
put back the image into its former place, and then hastened to
sprinkle his child with holy water which always stood ready in the
oratory. Anastasia revived, and when she saw herself surrounded by
her father and brother, in a dark, narrow, sepulchral place, she
uttered a wild cry, and turned her dim eyes around. 'My life, my
darling child, my dove! what aileth thee?' cried the father.
'Recollect thyself: thou art in the oratory. 'Tis plain some evil eye
hath struck thee. Pray to the Holy Virgin: she, the merciful one,
will save thee from danger.'
"The father and son bore her to the image of the Mother of God. Her
brother with difficulty raised her arm, and she, all trembling, made
the sign of the cross. Deeply, heavily she sighed, applied her
ice-cold lips to the image, and then signed to them with her hand
that they should carry her out speedily. She fancied that she saw the
Holy Virgin shake her head with a reproachful air.
"When they had carried Anastasia to her chamber, she felt better."
Hitherto none had shared her secret thoughts; but the experienced eye of
the widow Selínova had detected the nature of her malady, and she longed
to know the object of her affection.
"One day, they were sitting alone together, making lace. A kind of
mischievous spirit whispered her to speak of the heretic. Imagine
yourself thrown by destiny on a foreign land. All around you are
speaking in an unknown tongue; their language appears to you a chaos
of wild, strange sounds. Suddenly, amid the crowd, drops a word in
your native language. Does not then a thrill run over your whole
being? does not your heart leap within you? Or place a Russian
peasant at a concert where is displayed all the creative luxury and
all the brilliant difficulties of foreign music. The child of nature
listens with indifference to the incomprehensible sounds; but
suddenly Voróbieva with her nightingale voice trills out--_The cuckóo
from out the fírs so dánk hath not cúckooed._ Look what a change
comes over the half-asleep listener. Thus it was with Anastasia! Till
this moment Selínova had spoken to her in a strange language, had
only uttered sounds unintelligible to her; but the instant that she
spoke the _native_ word, it touched the heart-string, and all the
chords of her being thrilled as if they were about to burst.
Anastasia trembled, her hands wandered vaguely over her lace cushion,
her face turned deadly pale. She dared not raise her eyes, and
replied at random, absently.
"'Ah!' thought Selínova, 'that is the right key: that is the point
whence cometh the storm!'
"Both remained silent. At length Anastasia ventured to glance at her
visitor, in order to see by the expression of her face, whether she
had remarked her confusion. Selínova's eyes were fixed upon her work,
on her face there was not even a shade of suspicion. The crafty widow
intended little by little, imperceptibly, to win the confidence of
the inexperienced girl.
"'And where then is _he_ gone?' she asked after a short pause,
without naming the person about whom she was enquiring.
"'He is gone with the Great Prince on the campaign,' answered
Anastasia blushing; then, after a moment's thought she added--'I
suppose thou askedst me about my brother?'
"'No, my dear, our conversation was about Antony the leech. What a
pity he is a heretic! You will not easily find such another gallant
among our Muscovites. He hath all, both height and beauty: when he
looketh, 'tis as though he gave you large pearls; his locks lie on
his shoulders like the light of dawn; he is as white and rosy as a
young maiden. I wonder whence he had such beauty--whether by the
permission of God, or, not naturally, by the influence of the Evil
One. I could have looked at him--may it not be a sin to say, I could
have gazed at him for ever without being weary!'
"At these praises Anastasia's pale countenance blushed like the
dawning that heralds the tempest. 'Thou hast then seen him?' asked
the enamoured maiden, in a trembling, dying voice, and breaking off
her work.
"'I have seen him more than once. I have not only seen him, but
wonder now, my dear--I have visited him in his dwelling!'
"'The maiden shook her head, her eyes were dimmed with the shade of
pensiveness; a thrill of jealousy, in spite of herself, darted to
her heart. 'What! and didst thou not fear to go to him?' she
said--'Is he not a heretic?'
"'If thou knewest it, Nástenka, what wouldst thou not do for love?'
"'Love?' ... exclaimed Anastasia, and her heart bounded violently in
her breast.
"'Ah if I were not afraid, I would disclose to thee the secret of my
soul.'
"'Speak, I pray thee, speak! Fear not; see! I call the Mother of God
to witness, thy words shall die with me.'
"And the maiden, with a quivering hand, signed a large cross.
"'If so, I will confide in thee what I have never disclosed but to
God. It is not over one blue sea alone that the mist lieth, and the
darksome cloud: it is not over one fair land descendeth the gloomy
autumn night; there was a time when my bosom was loaded with a heavy
sorrow, my rebellious heart lay drowned in woe and care: I loved thy
brother, Iván Vassílievitch. (The maiden's heart was relieved, she
breathed more freely.) Thou knowest not, my life, my child, what kind
of feeling is that of love, and God grant that thou mayest never know!
The dark night cometh, thou canst not close thine eyes: the bright
dawn breaketh, thou meetest it with tears, and the day is all
weary--O, so weary! There are many men in the fair world, but thou
see'st only one, in thy bower, in the street, in the house of God. A
stone lieth ever on thy breast, and thou canst not shake it off.'
"Then Selínova wept sincere tears. Her companion listened to her with
eager sympathy: the feelings just depicted were her own.
* * * * *
"There was a deep silence. It was broken by the young widow.
"'Nástenka, my life?' she began in a tone of such touching, such
lively interest, as called for her reluctant confidence.
"The daughter of Obrazétz glanced at her with eyes full of tears, and
shook her head.
"'Confide in me, as I have confided in thee,' continued Selínova,
taking her hand and pressing it to her bosom. 'I have lived longer in
the world than thou ... believe me, 'twill give thee ease ... 'tis
clear from every symptom, my love, what thou ailest.'
"And Anastasia, sobbing, exclaimed at last--'O, my love, my dearest
friend, Praskóvia Vladimírovna, take a sharp knife, open my white
breast, look what is the matter there!'
"'And wherefore need we take the sharp knife, and wherefore need we
open the white breast, or look upon the rebellious heart? Surely, by
thy fair face all can tell, my child, how that fair face hath been
darkened, how the fresh bloom hath faded, and bright eyes grown dull.
After all, 'tis clear thou lovest some wandering falcon, some
stranger youth.'
"Anastasia answered not a word; she could not speak for tears; and
hid her face in her hands. At last, softened by Selínova's friendly
sympathy, and her assurances that she would be easier if she would
confide her secret to such a faithful friend, she related her love
for the heretic. The episode of the crucifix was omitted in this tale,
which finished, of course, with assurances that she was enchanted,
bewitched.
"Poor Anastasia!
"Snowdrop! beautiful flower, thou springest up alone in the bosom of
thy native valley! And the bright sun arises every day to glass
himself in thy morning mirror; and the beaming moon, after a sultry
day, hastens to fan thee with her breezy wing, and the angels of God,
lulling thee by night, spread over thee a starry canopy, such as king
never possessed. Who can tell from what quarter the tempest may bring
from afar, from other lands, the seeds of the ivy, and scatter them
by thy side, and the ivy arises and twines lovingly around thee, and
chokes thee, lovely flower! This is not all: the worm has crawled to
thy root, hath fixed its fang therein, and kills ye both, if some
kind hand save ye not."
These extracts will enable our readers to judge for themselves of the
merits of M. Lajétchnikoff's style as it appears in Mr Shaw's translation.
A better selection might have been made, had we not been desirous to avoid
any such anticipation of the development of the story as light diminish
its interest; but we are inclined to believe that most of our readers will
agree with us in thinking, that if M. Lajétchnikoff has succeeded in
faithfully illustrating the manners of the age of Iván the Great, he has
also shown that he possesses brilliancy of fancy, fervour of thought, and
elevation of sentiment, as well as knowledge of the movements of the heart,
revealed only to the few who have been initiated into nature's mysteries.
He does not appear to be largely gifted with the power of graphic
description, of placing the scenes of nature, or the living figures that
people them, vividly before us--he loves rather to indulge, even to excess,
mystical or passionate thoughts that are born in his own breast, and to
adorn them with garlands woven from the flowers of his fancy; but these
flowers are of native growth, the indigenous productions of the Russian
soil. His images often sound to our ears homely, sometimes even familiar
and mean, but they may be dignified in their native dress. He has no
lively perception of the beauties of external nature; his raptures are
reserved for the wonders of art, for what the human mind can create or
achieve; and, curiously enough, it is architecture that seems to excite in
him the greatest enthusiasm. In illustration of this feeling, we must
still extract an eloquent discourse on the life of the artist, which the
author puts into the mouth of Fioraventi Aristotle--a passage of much
feeling, and, we fear, of too much truth:--
"Thou knowest not, Antony, what a life is that of an artist! While
yet a child, he is agitated by heavy incomprehensible thoughts: to
him the sphynx, Genius, hath already proposed its enigmas; in his
bosom the Promethean vulture is already perched, and groweth with his
growth. His comrades are playing and making merry; they are preparing
for their riper years recollections of childhood's days of
paradise--childhood, that never can be but once: the time cometh, and
he remembereth but the tormenting dreams of that age. Youth is at
hand; for others 'tis the time of love, of soft ties, of revelry--the
feast of life; for the artist, none of these. Solitary, flying from
society, he avoideth the maiden, he avoideth joy; plunging into the
loneliness of his soul, he there, with indescribable mourning, with
tears of inspiration, on his knees before his Ideal, imploreth her to
come down upon earth to his frail dwelling. Days and nights he
waiteth, and pineth after unearthly beauty. Woe to him if she doth
not visit him, and yet greater woe to him if she doth! The tender
frame of youth cannot bear her bridal kiss; union with the gods is
fatal to man; and the mortal is annihilated in her embrace. I speak
not of the education, of the mechanic preparation. And here at every
step the Material enchaineth thee, buildeth up barriers before thee:
marketh a formless vein upon thy block of marble, mingling soot with
thy carmine, entangling thy imagination in a net of monstrous rules
and formulas, commandeth thee to be the slave of the house-painter or
of the stone-cutter. And what awaiteth thee, when thou hast come
forth victorious from this mechanic school--when thou hast succeeded
in throwing off the heavy sum of a thousand unnecessary rules, with
which pedantry hath overwhelmed thee--when thou takest as thy guide
only those laws which are so plain and simple?... What awaiteth thee
then? Again the Material! Poverty, need, forced labour, appreciators,
rivals, that ever-hungry flock which flieth upon thee ready to tear
thee in pieces, as soon as it knoweth that thou art a pure possessor
of the gift of God. Thy soul burneth to create, but thy carcass
demandeth a morsel of bread; inspiration veileth her wing, but the
body asketh not only to clothe its nakedness with a decent covering,
but fine cloth, silk, velvet, that it may appear before thy judges in
a proper dress, without which they will not receive thee, thou and
thy productions will die unknown. In order to obtain food, clothes,
thou must _work_: a merchant will order from thee a cellar, a
warehouse; the signore, stables and dog kennels. Now at last thou
hast procured thyself daily bread, a decent habit for thy bones and
flesh: inspiration thirsteth for its nourishment, demanding from thy
soul images and forms. Thou createst, thou art bringing thy Ideal to
fulfilment. How swiftly move the wheels of thy being! Thy existence
is tenfold redoubled, thy pulse is beating as when thou breathest the
atmosphere of high mountains. Thou spendest in one day whole months
of life. How many nights passed without sleep, how many days in
ceaseless chain, all filled with agitation! Or rather, there is nor
day nor night for thee, nor seasons of the year, as for other men.
Thy blood now boileth, then freezeth; the fever of imagination
wasteth thee away. Triumph setteth thee on fire, the fear of failure
maddeneth thee, tearing thee to pieces, tormenting thee with dread of
the judgments of men; then again ariseth the terror of dying with thy
task unfinished. Add, too, the inevitable shade of glory, which
stalketh ever in thy footsteps, and giveth thee not a moment of
repose. This is the period of creation! While creating, thou hast
been dwelling at the footstool of God. Crushed by thy contact with
the hem of his garment, overwhelmed by inspiration from Him whom the
world can scarcely bear, a poor mortal, half alive, half dead, thou
descendest upon earth, and carriest with thee what thou hast created
_there_, in _His_ presence! Mortals surround thy production, judging,
valuing, discussing it in detail; the patron laudeth the ornaments,
the grandeur of the columns, the weight of the work; the distributors
of favour gamble away thy honour, or creep like mice under thy plan,
and nibble at it in the darkness of night. No, my friend, the life of
an artist is the life of a martyr."
We are so much accustomed to see virtue rewarded and vice punished, that
we might perhaps have been better pleased to have seen this kind of
poetical justice more equitably dispensed; but the cause of virtue is
perhaps as effectually served by making it attractive as by making it
triumphant, and vice is as much discouraged by making it odious or
contemptible as by making it unsuccessful.
It only remains to say a few words of the translator's labours; and
although we do not pretend to decide on the fidelity of the version he has
given us, or how much his author may have lost or gained in his hands, we
cannot but think that we perceive internal evidence of efforts to be
faithful, even at the hazard of losing perhaps something of more value in
the attempt. However this may be, it is plain that Mr Shaw is himself a
vigorous and eloquent writer of his own language, as the extracts we have
given may vouch. We feel greatly indebted to him for unlocking to us the
stores of Russian fiction, which, if they contain many such works as _The
Heretic_, will well repay the labour of a careful examination. There is
about every thing Russian an air of orientalism which gives a peculiar
character to their dress, their mansions, their manners, their feelings,
their expressions, and their prejudices, which will probably long continue
to distinguish Russian literature on that of the other nations of Europe,
whose steps she has followed, perhaps too implicitly, in her attempts to
overtake them in the race of civilization and intellectual improvement.
* * * * *