"BEATUS ILLE ..."
What, on this earth, is true happiness?
To be able to dissociate one's self from the tussle and tangle of the
political arena.
There is no such happy man on this earth as your landed proprietor, who
only learns what is going on in the political world from the columns of
his daily paper.
In the morning he goes out coursing; starts three hares, two of which
are caught by his terriers; this is a real triumph. The third they let
run; this is a disgrace. But on the way home his dogs seize and throttle
a wildcat; that makes up for the former vexation. His horse stumbles
over a stone; that is a great misfortune. But neither man nor horse are
any the worse for it; and that is a piece of good-luck.
Within easy distance live some men--jolly fellows--to whom he can detail
the morning's doings, and who, in return, give their adventures.
At noon the wife awaits her husband's return to a well-spread board, and
she hospitably presses his friends to stay. Cabbage with fried sausages
is very acceptable after such an active morning! After dinner they find
they are just enough for a game of tarok, and the husband can boast next
day how he has conquered against long odds.
The only political allusion made was when Pushkin named the "fox"
Araktseieff; but even at that the postmaster shook his head
disapprovingly. Why disturb the harmony of the evening by such
reference?
Then, as the company is about to separate, the postmaster suddenly
remembers that he has forgotten to give Pushkin his newspaper, which he
had brought in his coat-pocket.
The paper was opened. Old-fashioned newspapers used to be sent out in
envelopes. What news?
"A military review."
No one reads that.
Well, then, France: The French are content. How satisfactory! Turkey:
Peace concluded with the Greeks. Evident enough! England: The Channel
Fleet returned to Dover. And a good thing too! In Russia nothing of
interest has transpired. Heaven be praised!
After which each, lighting his lantern, repairs home. The master of the
house seeks his wife's room. The good little woman has had time for her
first sleep, and is not angry with his friends for staying so long at
cards. Good little wife! Next day they rise late, because the snow has
fallen so deep in the night that their windows are blocked and they
cannot see out. What matter! One is not merely a Nimrod, but a Tyrtæus
as well. If one cannot go forth to Diana, one can toy with the muses at
home; they are good friends, too.
A man lights his pipe, paces the room, and poetizes, pausing at every
comma and full stop to give his dear little wife a kiss; she, the while,
busied in doing her hair in becoming fashion. If a rhyme be hard to
find, he takes his wife on his knee and looks into her eyes, and--the
rhyme is soon found.
In the afternoon the friends turn up again--the postmaster, a gentleman
farmer, and a landed proprietor. They have not been deterred by the
heavy snow. Two had driven over; for the third, Bethsaba had sent the
sledge, that the party might be complete. She set out the card-table.
"It is paradise--perfect paradise!"
But once the serpent succeeded in wriggling into paradise.
At the end of the game, when the long score had to be reckoned up, in
order to see how many copecks had been won, the postmaster was fain to
turn out all his pockets to scrape together enough small coin wherewith
to pay his debts. In so doing he extracted several letters.
"No news to-day?" the gentleman farmer asks him.
The only newspaper in that part came to Pushkin, so the neighbors always
came to him to hear the news.
"What are you twaddling about? Did I not bring a paper yesterday? Do you
think a press correspondent can afford to lie every day? Quite enough to
have to do it three times a week. Poor devil! he must bless the
intermediate days. If you must have a paper, read yesterday's."
"So we have, from beginning to end."
"I bet you've not read about the review."
"Right you are. Hand it over."
And it repaid the trouble of reading. For it stated that each regiment
of guards quartered in St. Petersburg had severally taken the oath of
allegiance in the chapel of the Winter Palace. And why not, if they
liked to do so? It would do the soldiers no harm. Ah, but it was to Czar
_Constantine_ that they had sworn allegiance.
"Czar _Constantine_? Who ever heard of a Czar Constantine?"
In the great confusion the press had _entirely forgotten_ to officially
announce the death of Czar Alexander.
"It's a slip of the pen," quoth the postmaster. "Perhaps the
correspondent was drunk. Why should they not get drunk, poor devils,
just once a year?"
So the matter dropped. The writer of the article in question had been
celebrating his name-day too freely, had got mixed, and had written,
instead of Alexander, Constantine.
In the next number, under _errata_, the mistake would be rectified.
But the next number brought no correction; rather the "error" was
repeated twofold, threefold--all edicts being published in the name of
"His Majesty Czar Constantine."
The death of Czar Alexander was never officially announced.
The worthy news-reading public only saw from their Sunday papers what
was going on. These papers gave full details of the funeral services
held in all the churches of St. Petersburg, and the official odes to the
dead, which sang the fame of the deceased Czar in Russian, Latin, and
Greek.
After that no one wondered that future edicts were promulgated in
Constantine's name; he was the Czarevitch, and, according to Russian
laws of succession, heir to the throne. That the people did not love him
did not affect the question. What had the people to do with it? The
soldiers had sworn him allegiance, and the soldiers are the empire.
And what matters all this to those "happy folk" in the country-house?
Their home was dear to them in Czar Alexander's time; that Constantine
now reigns in his stead only makes that home dearer.
The Winter Palace has got a new inmate more unwelcome than the last. The
former, as he wandered silent and melancholy among his courtiers, was
hard to serve; how much more the new one, who knouts, kicks, breaks
men's bones, and swears! His cheerful moods excite more terror than did
the other's depression.
On these accounts the officer of the guards, among whose private papers
was a ukase, "by command of the Czar" forbidding him to leave Pleskow
beyond a day's journey, might well be called a lucky fellow.