NOT ONLY A BULLET STRIKES HOME
The Czar was holding an extraordinary review.
The usual parades took place on the 21st of May, the day of the patron
saint, Nicholas, and on the 20th of September; but this time it was a
special review of the household troops alone. They are distinct from the
rest of the army; each regiment has a different uniform. The Life Guards
wear white uniforms, with shining gilt breastplates; the Cuirassiers,
light-blue tunics, with white, plated cuirass; the uniform of the
Jerusalem Regiment is crimson-red, with gilt breastplate. The ranks,
from officer down to corporal, are all knights of the Order of St. John,
and even the common soldiers are all of the nobility.
And every regiment boasts its past, its history, which passes on to the
successors as a tradition, and keeps up the glory of its name.
The regiment of St. John of Jerusalem was so cut to pieces in two
battles that in one battalion only eighteen men were left.
The Preobrazsenski Regiment has the proud distinction of having deposed
Czar Ivan and set Elisabeth in his place. Every man in the regiment
received his patent of nobility.
The Ismailoffski Regiment bears on its colors the trophies of seven
conclusive battles. At Borodino half the troops remained on the
battle-field, and not a single man came home without a wound. These
regiments compose the aristocracy of the Life Guards. The rest of the
household troops, too, are characterized by a brilliant variety of
dress. Hussars in uniforms of the most varied colors, cuirassiers,
mounted grenadiers, pontoniers, Cossacks, Asiatic hordes with their
fantastic arms, Kirgisians, Kalmucks with their slender spears, their
arrow-laden quivers on their backs; Circassians in their scale-armor,
with their pointed helmets; and then the long row of cannon, the
ammunition wagons (painted green), the pontoons, the flotilla on
wheels--and the whole mass drawn up on a boundless plain in squares, in
geometrical lines, and advancing, charging, halting motionless as a
wall, at the word of command, like a machine.
May he not rightly deem himself a god who with a gesture can set all
this in motion or make it stand? And they only need a second gesture to
charge and dye the ground beneath them with their blood.
When the household troops advance from St. Petersburg it means that the
army is on a war footing and is taking the field. Then let every man
concerned summon all his strength.
In the centre of the Field of Mars are pitched the sumptuous tents of
the Czar, the foreign ambassadors, and the members of the government;
but the Czar himself rides at the head of his suite, and passes the
assembled troops in review. As he thus rides past the separate regiments
they salute him with welcoming stanzas, in time like the chorus of a
giant theatre, with rifle, sword, and lance held rigid at present arms.
The Czar's face beams like a day in summer; every one sees again in him
the hero of Leipsic. The inspiration of the army has communicated itself
to him too.
And in the ranks of these men presenting at the word of command are all
those who have been conspiring against him. In the sabretache of the
officers is to be found the _Catechism of the Free Man_.
But the single word "Forward!" suffices to change the whole temper of
these men; the conspiring regiments will charge down on the foe with
shouts of "Long live the Czar!" When he shows them the battle-field they
forget all their complaints and grievances--forget that they are seeking
to kill him--and rush into the fight to give up their lives for him.
So it is with the Russian people. Their striving after freedom is
silenced when there is hope of war. The private, freely shedding his
blood on foreign soil, believes that therewith he will fertilize his
native meadows. The priests have indoctrinated him with the belief that
he who falls in a strange land to the enemy's bayonet will live again in
his own country, where he will find parents, wife, and children once
more; and, if he was a serf before, will rise again a free man.
After the review of the troops the Czar himself takes the command, and a
series of brilliant manoeuvres begins, thought out by himself. According
to the then science of war, they were intended to be a masterpiece of
the system of attack in close order. His aides-de-camp are dashing from
battalion to battalion with orders, their spirited horses flying off in
all directions. The orders are given by the Czar himself, who watches
their fulfilment through a field-glass. Suddenly an adjutant dashes up
to him.
"Sire!"
"What is it? Make short work of it!"
The enemy's cannon are already thundering upon the attacking column.
"Sire," says the officer, "Duchess Sophie Narishkin has just delivered
up her noble soul to Eternity."
The Czar instinctively put his hand to his heart. It was there that he
was struck! And yet the cannon were only firing blank ammunition.
The sword he was wielding sank in one hand--the Czar covered his face
with the other.
"_It is the punishment for my faults!_" he uttered, in a faltering
voice.
What a change had come over the brilliant hero--the semi-god! In his
place sat a bowed figure; a man bowed down to the earth by fate.
However deafening the hurrahs--however much the earth may vibrate under
the tramp of warlike horses and horsemen--their leader's soul is
fettered by the words "Sophie is dead."
Miloradovics, the general in command, sent to ask instructions from the
Imperial Commander-in-Chief for the next movement.
"Call them back!" was the answer. "Send the troops back to barracks. The
review is over."
And, turning his horse, the Czar rode back to his tent with bowed head.
They who saw him return hardly recognized his white face. The generals
of division had great work to disentangle their troops and get them
into position again. A murmuring arose among the men, as though a
battle had been lost.
The Czar, not even awaiting the march past of the regiments, who were
wont to defile past him with pipe and drum, left the whole command to
the Grand Duke, and, throwing himself into his troika, drove back to the
Winter Palace.
There he hastened to his study. On it were spread important, weighty
documents, containing epoch-making decisions for people and nations,
only awaiting his signature. The Czar's eyes rested sadly upon them,
reading in them, not what was written upon them in ordinary characters,
but the _Palimpsest_ with which fate ever crosses the carefully
thought-out plans of mankind.
Then, seizing all the documents--painstaking labors of many a night--he
made them into a roll, and, throwing them on to the fire, watched them,
a prey to the flames. They were all to have been Sophie Narishkin's
dowry.
Soon they were a heap of ashes.
Then, sitting down, he wrote a letter. It contained but two words--"Come
back."
The envelope was addressed to Araktseieff.