perfectly right to retreat. Played billiards. Gave Cleopatra 25. She
beat me. She will soon be able to give me something. She is a
surprising woman. Last night the Greek envoy dined. Too clever for me,
but Cleopatra floored him over Anaxagoras. Wonderful woman! She sang, or
rather hummed, in the evening a little Greek song, the burden of which
is
Ἐγὼ δὲ μόνα καθεύδω.
I cannot get the tune out of my head.
XVI
FROM THE DIARY OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE
_Moscow, September_ 1, 1560.--I drove to the village of O----, 24
versts. On one side of the river is the village, with its church, on the
other a lonely windmill. The landscape flat and brown, the nearer houses
and the distant trees sharp in the clear autumn air. The windmill is
maimed; it has lost one of its wings. It is like my soul. My soul is a
broken windmill which is rusty, stiff, and maimed; it groans and creaks
before the winds of God, but it no longer turns; and no longer,
cheerfully grumbling as of yore, it performs its daily task and grinds
the useful corn. The only spots of colour in the landscape were the
blue cupolas of the church; a blue and red shirt hanging up to dry on an
apple-tree near a wooden hut, and the kerchiefs of the women who were
washing linen in the river. A soldier talked to the women, and laughed
with them. I would that I could laugh like that with men and women. I
can only laugh alone and bitterly. I had never been there before. But
when lazily, a cock crew, and a little boy made music on a wooden pipe,
and a long cart laden with sacks creaked by, the driver walking by its
side, I knew that I had seen all this before, not something like unto
it, but this very thing, that same windmill, that same creaking cart,
that same little boy playing that very tune on that very pipe.
It was a mournful tune, and it said to my soul, "Why art thou so dusty
and rusty, O my soul, why art thou sorrowful? Crusted with suspicion;
uneasy and fearful, prompt to wrath and slow to trust, inhospitable
towards hope, and a stranger to gladness?"
The world is a peep-show, and I have satisfied my expectation. I am
weary of the sights of the fair, and the mirth of the crowd to me is
meaningless. The bells, and the tambourines, and the toy trumpets, the
grating of the strings, and the banging of the drum jar upon me. Like a
child, who has spent a whole day in frolic and whose little strength is
utterly exhausted, I desire to go home and to rest.
Rest, where is there any rest for thee, Ivan, Ivan the Restless?
Everywhere have I sought for peace and found it nowhere, save in a cell,
and on my knees, before the Image.
_September_ 10.--Why was I born to be a King?
Why was I cast, a frail and fearful infant, to that herd of ravenous
wolves, those riotous nobles, that band of greedy, brutal, and ruthless
villains who bled my beloved country and tore my inheritance into
shreds? I think I know why I was sent thither. Out of the weakness came
forth strength; a little boy was sent forth to slay the giant. I was
sent to deliver the Russian people, to break the necks of the nobles,
and to cast the tyrants from their stronghold. I was sent to take the
part of the people, and they will never forget this or me; in years to
come, ages after I am dead, mothers will sing their children to sleep
with songs about the great Tsar of Moscow, Ivan the well-beloved, Ivan
the people's friend, Ivan the father of the fatherless, the brother of
the needy, the deliverer of the oppressed.
But the proud and the mighty, the rich and the wicked, shall hate me and
vilify me, and blacken my name. I know you, ye vipers, and all your
ways. I would that not one of you could escape me; but, like the hydra,
you have a hundred heads, that grow again as fast as they are cut off.
When I am gone, O vile and poisonous nobility, you will raise your
insolent head once more, and trample again upon my beloved people.
Would that I could utterly uproot you from the holy soil of Russia, and
cast you to perish like weeds into a bottomless pit.
_October_ 1.--I dreamed last night a fearful dream. I dreamed that I had
done an abominable thing, and that I bore stains on my hands that the
snows of the mountains and the waves of the sea could not wash out. I
dreamed that all mankind shunned me, and that I wandered alone across
the great plain till I came to the end of the world and the gates of
Heaven. I knocked at the gates, but they were shut; and round me there
was a multitude, and there arose from it a sound of angry voices,
crying, "He has slain our fathers, and our brothers, and our mothers, by
him our houses were burnt and our homes were laid waste, let him not
enter"; and I knocked at the gate, and then there came a man with a mark
on his brow, and he said, "This man has killed his son, let him not in."
And I knew that man was Cain. And the howling of the voices grew louder,
and the cries of hate surging round me deafened me. I knocked, and
prayed, and cried, and wept, but the gate remained shut. And all at
once I was left alone in the great plain deserted even by my enemies,
and I shivered in the darkness and in the silence. Then, along the road,
came a pilgrim, a poor man, begging for alms, and when he saw me, he
knelt before me, and I said, "Wherefore dost thou kneel to me, who am
deserted by God and man?" And he answered, "Is not sorrow a holy thing?
Thou art the most sorrowful man in the whole world, for thou hast killed
what was dearer to thee than life, and bitter is thy sorrow, and heavy
is thy punishment." And the pilgrim kissed my hand, and the hot tears
that he shed fell upon it.
And at that moment, far away I heard a noise as of gates turning on a
great hinge, and I knew that the doors of Heaven were open.
Then I awoke, and I crept up the stairway way to my little son's
bedroom. He lay sleeping peacefully. And I knelt down and thanked Heaven
that the dream was but a dream; but when the sun rose in the morning,
like a wave from out of infinity, apprehension rolled to my soul and
settled on it. I am afraid, and I know not of what I am afraid.
_February_ 13, 1570.--Thanks to God Novgorod is no more. I have utterly
destroyed its city and its people for its contumacy. So fare all the
enemies of Russia and of Moscow.
XVII
FROM THE PRIVATE LOG OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
On Board the _Santa Maria_.
_August_ 3, 1492, _Friday_.--At five in the morning made the signal to
weigh: but in less than half an hour the wind shifting to the southward
and blowing fresh, I furled the topsails. The wind came in the afternoon
to S. by W.; we weighed, but did not get far, the flood tide making
against us.
_August_ 4.--Little wind, or calm, all day. Send-off very fine; but now
that we have started wonder whether I have been wise after all. Wonder
whether we shall reach Western India and China.
_August_ 5.--Took the meridian observation at midday; wind northerly
with a great swell. Ship's company in good spirits: but the doctor says
we have started on a wild goose chase.
_August_ 8.--Stood close in with the land. At noon the latitude by
observation was 28 degrees 18 minutes. Stood in to a small bay to the
southward of Teneriffe. Anchored with the stream anchor, and sent the
boat for water. Went ashore with the astronomer and instruments. All the
liberty men came on board the worse for liquor, which is, on the whole,
fortunate, as we shall have no trouble in getting them to continue the
voyage.
_August_ 9.--Several of the men confined with colds, and complain of
pains in their bones. But from the careful attendance given them, doses
of "Skulker's Mixture" being administered by the doctor all round, few
continued in the sick list. The air very warm.
_September_ 9.--Thick fog. At five the officer informed me that we were
near an iceberg. I ordered the ship to be kept N. by W. and hauled
farther in. At noon I steered north, seeing nothing of the ice; soon
after I was told that they saw the ice: I went upon deck and perceived
something white upon the bow, and heard a noise like the booming of
surf. I hauled down the studding sails and hailed the _Niña_ and the
_Pinta:_ I desired that they would keep close to us, the fog being so
thick, and have everybody up ready to follow our motions
instantaneously, determining to stand under such sail as should enable
us to keep the ships under command, and not risk parting company. Soon
afterwards, we saw something on the bow, which from the appearance we
took to be islands, and thought we had not stood far enough out. The
ship's company raised a cheer. I hauled up immediately to the N.N.W.,
and was soon undeceived, finding it to be a moderate-sized sea serpent,
which we could not clear upon that tack; we tacked immediately, but the
wind and sea both setting directly upon it, we neared it very fast, and
were within a little more than a cable's length of the animal whilst in
stays.
The doctor, who has always scoffed at the idea of the sea serpent,
which, he said, was a travellers' tale (adding, sarcastically, and, I
think, very inconsiderately, "like the western passage to China"), was
silent all the evening.
Prefer this to his irritating reiteration of that silly Andalusian song:
And if we ever get back to Spain
We will never, never, never go to sea again,
which he is so fond of indulging in. Sea serpent of the ordinary kind,
with a white ring round its neck and a tufted crest. Not so large as the
Icelandic specimens. Expect to reach China in ten days' time, should the
weather be favourable. Officers and ship's company in decidedly less
good spirits since the foggy weather began. Sea serpent incident also
caused a good deal of disappointment, the men being convinced we had
reached the coast of China, although I had repeatedly explained that we
could not possibly make that land for some time yet.
_September_ 10.--Lost the _Niña_ and the _Pinta_ twice in the night from
the very thick fog. The situation of the men from the very fatiguing
work made most minute precautions necessary. Double allowance of
Manzanilla served round to-day.
_September_ 11.--No land in sight. Calm all day, with a great swell from
the S.W., and the weather remarkably mild. Confess am disappointed;
wonder whether there is such a country as China after all. Confess I
have no satisfactory evidence for thinking so. But am concealing my
anxiety, of course, from the officers and the doctor, who grow more and
more sarcastic every day. He said at dinner yesterday that we might come
home by the Nile, as we should certainly encounter its source in China.
Want of taste. It is only too plain that both officers and ship's
company are growing sceptical as to the practical results of our voyage.
Wish the King and Queen of Spain had been a little less sanguine. We
shall indeed look very foolish if we come back having accomplished
nothing.
_September_ 12.--Ship's company distressingly sulky. If matters
continue like this it will end in a mutiny. Have been obliged to fake
the observations, measuring the ship's way so that the ship's company
should remain in ignorance of the distances traversed, and think that
they are much less than they are in reality.
This faking has been an easy task, since the log, being only a mean
taken every hour and consequently liable to error from the variations in
the force of the wind during the intervals, from which an arbitrary
correction is made by the officer of the watch; as this allowance must
from its nature be inaccurate, it is very easy to make it more
inaccurate still, now, that is to say, that I have squared Roderigo.
_September_ 13.--Have made a startling and disagreeable discovery. There
is something wrong or odd about the compass. The axis of the needle no
longer coincides with the geographical meridian it occupies--but makes
an angle. This matter must be investigated.
_September_ 17.--The ship's company discovered at dawn to-day the
vagaries of the compass. Situation alarming. They at once said we must
go home. Doctor and surgeon both say that they are not surprised.
Roderigo has constructed an instrument, hanging by a universal joint on
a triangular stand, adjusted so as to hang in a plane perpendicular to
the horizon, by means of a plumb line, which is suspended on a pin above
a divided circle. The length of the magnetic needle is 12 inches, and
its axis is made of gold and copper.
Roderigo says he can now observe the variation. Most ingenious (if
true).
_September_ 18.--Everybody expects to see land to-day. Why, I can't
think. Sailors sometimes have strange superstitions.
_September_ 25.--We are now 475 leagues from the Canaries. No sign of
land. I am quite convinced personally that there is no chance of our
ever reaching land this voyage. I knew from the first the affair was
hopeless. Feel certain we cannot be near China or India. Unfortunately,
my conviction, which I have never expressed, is shared by the ship's
company, who showed signs of positive mutiny to-day. Calmed them as best
I could with soothing words and old sherry. Steered S. to W.
_September_ 26.--Steered W. No sign of anything. Wish we had never left
Spain. The Alguazil disgracefully drunk again last night, and rude in
his cups. Doctor sarcastic. Surgeon sea-sick. Ship's company mutinous.
Have a bad headache. Never did like the sea. It never agreed with my
liver.
_October_ 7.--I ordered the allowance of liquor to be altered, serving
the ship's company one-fourth of their allowance in Manzanilla and the
other three-fourths in brandy. One half of this allowance was served
before dinner, and the other half in the evening. Result satisfactory.
Altered course W. to S.W.
_October_ 10.--Mutiny. Ship's company refuse to go on. Insist on
returning to Spain. If I refuse they threaten to kill me; but I fear
they will kill me if I consent. Otherwise the matter would be simple.
Have asked for three days' respite. Roderigo saw a piece of driftwood
and a small bird called a red-poll. Thinks we are not far from land. Too
good to be true.
_October_ 11.--Saw a light on starboard bow, but am not quite certain
that it wasn't a star.
_October_ 12.--Roderigo saw the land at two in the morning. The King
promised a reward of 10,000 Maravedises to whoever saw land first.
Clearly this reward is mine, as the light I saw on Thursday night was
not a star. Explained this to Roderigo, who lost his temper, and said
that if he didn't get the reward he would turn Mahommedan. The land is,
of course, the coast of China. I always said it was somewhere about
here.
Stood in to make the land. Anchored with the best bower in eleven
fathoms, soft clay. Hoisted Spanish flag; took possession of the
country, which seems to be India, and not China, after all. Call it West
India or Hispaniola. Natives talk in a drawling sing-song, chew tobacco
and gum, and drink Manzanilla and Vermouth mixed, icing the drink. This
is a very gratifying mixture. It is called a _Cola de gallo_. They have
a round game of cards with counters, called chips, in which you pretend
to hold better cards than you do hold in reality. Played and lost.
Natives very sharp.
XVIII
FROM THE DIARY OF THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK
_Pignerol, August_ 21, 1669.--Have at last, I think, attained my heart's
desire. Arrived last night under the pseudonym of _Eustache Danger_.
Found everything fairly satisfactory. That is to say, the King's
promises to me with regard to the absolute solitude I crave have been
carried out as far as was possible in the time. The prison is not
finished, and this accounts for a fact which annoyed me not a little on
my arrival. I found that the walls of my room were not of the thickness
promised, so that, should any one be lodged next door to me, which
Heaven forfend! he might have the bad taste to try and communicate with
me by knocking on the wall. I wear a black velvet mask and the King
solemnly promised me that if any officer were to dare to ask me who I
was he would be instantly dismissed.
_August_ 22, 1669.--So far so good. Saint Mars, the Governor of the
Prison, is certainly doing his best. But last night, when he brought me
my dinner, he forgot himself and said, "Bon Soir, Monsieur." If he does
this again he will have to be removed. I did not come here to be
bothered with conversation.
_August_ 25.--I am enjoying myself immensely. The relief of waking up in
the morning and of gradually becoming conscious that it will not be
necessary--
(_a_) To dress in Court clothes.
(_b_) To go out hunting.
(_c_) To attend the King's _lever_, or still worse, his _coucher_.
(_d_) To play cards and lose.
(_e_) To listen to a play performed in a private house.
(_f_) To laugh at Madame ----'s chaff.
(_g_) To make love to J----.
(_h_) To pretend to enjoy the beauties of nature.
(_i_) To hear and give opinions on Molière.
(_j_) To sit through the long, long dinner.
(_k_) To talk philosophy with Mademoiselle.
(_l_) To find fault with my servant for giving me the wrong stockings.
(_m_) To wait for hours in the crown of the _Œil-de-Bœuf_.
(_n_) To be taken to the window by the English Ambassador and asked if I
think the Spaniards really mean business.
(_o_) To talk internal politics with Louvois.
(_p_) To listen to Le Nôtre's account of Lord Carlisle's new garden.
(_q_) To listen to Bossuet's sermon on Sunday.
(_r_) Not to annoy the Duchesse de La Vallière.
(_s_) To have to look as if I thought the King an amusing
conversationalist.
(_t_) To say that a _Bal Masqué_ is great fun.
(_u_) To go to the opera at the back of a box.
(_v_) To pretend I like Dutch pictures.
(_w_) To dance all night in a room like a monkey cage.
(_x_) To read the Gazette.
(_y_) To be civil to the German Ambassadress.
(_z_) To change my clothes three times a day.
That is my alphabet of negation. It is incomplete. Yet to write it and
read it over and over again fills me with ecstasy.
_March_, 1670.--A most annoying incident happened to-day. The upper
tower, at the western angle of the Castle, is occupied by Fouquet and
Lauzun. The King promised me solemnly that neither of them should be
allowed to hold any communication with me. To-day one of Fouquet's
servants entered my room and spoke to me, asking me whether I had
anything of importance to communicate. I told him very sharply to go to
the devil. If this happens again I shall ask to be moved to a quieter
prison.
It is extraordinary that even in a place like this one cannot be free
from the importunity and the impertinence of human curiosity.
_April_ 3, 1670.--As the days go on, I enjoy myself more and more. A
cargo of books arrived yesterday from Paris, sent by the King, but
Saint Mars had the good sense not to bring them to me. He merely
notified the fact on a slip of paper, which he left on my plate. I
scribbled a note to the effect that he could throw them to the bottom of
the sea, or read them himself, or give them to Fouquet's servant. Books
indeed! It is no longer, thank God, necessary for me to read books, or
to have an opinion on them!
_November_ 1, 1671.--Lauzun has been sent here. The prison is getting
far too crowded. It will soon be as bad as Versailles.
_November_ 10.--Lauzun is being very tiresome. He taps on my ceiling. I
wrote a short note to Saint Mars that if this annoyance continued I
should be constrained to leave his prison.
_March_ 3, 1680.--The situation was intolerable. Lauzun and Fouquet
found some means of communication and they carried on interminable
conversations. What they can have to talk about passes my understanding.
I bore it patiently for some days. At last I complained to Saint Mars in
writing, he took some steps and it appears that Fouquet has had an
attack of apoplexy and died. I cannot endure the neighbourhood of
Lauzun, and I have written to the King saying that unless I am
transferred to a quieter dungeon I shall leave the prison.
_April_ 8, 1680.--Matters have been arranged satisfactorily, and I have
been moved into the lower chamber of the _Tour d'en bas_. But the whole
fortress is far too crowded. There are at least five prisoners in it.
Also I found a tame mouse here, left I suppose by a former occupant. Had
the nuisance removed at once. It is delicious to be safely in prison
just now that the spring is beginning and to think that I shall not
have to spend chilly evenings in wet gardens and to speak foolishly of
the damp April weather.
_January_, 1681.--Caused much annoyance by a tiresome Italian fellow
prisoner called Mattioli, who, feigning either madness or illness, or
both, caused a commotion in the prison, necessitating the arrival of
doctors and priests. Kept awake by noise of bolts being drawn, and the
opening and shutting of doors. Wrote to the King complaining of this
which is a direct infringement of his promise. Asked to be moved to a
quieter spot.
_September_ 2,1681.--Moved to the Fortress of Exiles. Prison said to be
empty. Hope this will prove true.
_October_ 10,1681.--Saint Mars very nearly spoke to me to-day. He was
evidently bursting with something he longed to communicate. However, I
made such a gesture, that I think he felt the frown through my velvet
mask and withdrew.
_January_ 5, 1687.--After months, and indeed years of peace, perfect
peace, with loved ones far away, I have again been subjected to
intolerable annoyance. Fouquet's valet fell ill, and _Saint Mars
informed me of the fact_. I wrote to the King at once saying that either
Saint Mars or I must go.
_April_ 30, 1687.--King has granted my request. Arrived at Sainte
Marguerite in a chair with wheels covered with wax-cloth. I think I
shall be quieter here. I have been promised that no other prisoner shall
be lodged here at all, but the promises of Kings are as iridescent and
as brittle as Venetian glass.
_January_, 1690.--Alas! Alas! for the vanity of human wishes. Here I was
perfectly contented, and, as I thought, quiet at last. Day followed day
of perfect enjoyment, unmarred by conversation, undisturbed by study,
unvexed by the elements, when the peace of my solitude is rudely
shattered by the arrival of two Protestant ministers. It is true I am
never to see them, but the mere fact of knowing that there are two
Protestant ministers in the same building is enough to poison life!
_June_ 1, 1698.--More Protestant ministers have arrived, worse than the
last. They sing hymns. I have written to the King asking him to transfer
me to the Bastille at once. I always said that the Bastille was the only
tolerable dwelling-place in France.
_September_ 13, 1698.--Arrived at the Bastille this afternoon. Lodged on
the third floor of the _Bertandière_ tower--the _thickest_ tower. Really
quiet.
_September_ 19.--A man hammered over my head at four o'clock this
morning. It is intolerable. Shall I ever find a place where I can sleep
from 4 to 8 a.m. without being disturbed? As it is, I might just as well
be living in a fashionable inn.
XIX
FROM THE DIARY OF AN ENGLISH GOVERNESS RESIDING IN PARIS
DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
_Paris, October_ 7, 1789.--I arrived this afternoon after a rapid and
satisfactory journey. To my amazement found that neither the Count nor
the Countess were here to receive me. The Hotel was deserted save for
the presence of an old servant, and his wife, who appears to be the cook
of the household, and to combine with this office the duties of hall
porter. As I have no command over even the elementary rudiments of the
French language, and as the French never trouble to learn any language
but their own, communication is a sorely difficult task and results in
perpetual misunderstanding. Nevertheless, I succeeded in apprehending
from the voluble expostulations and the superfluous gesticulation of the
old servant, whose name appears to be Pierre, but whom I have decided to
call Peter, that the family had left Paris. That they had departed but
recently and in haste, my senses were able to inform me. All over the
house were traces of disorder. Some but half-packed boxes had been left
behind; cupboards were open, clothes were strewn on the floor, and
everywhere traces of precipitate packing and sudden departure were
manifest. I made as if I would depart also, but Peter made it plain by
signs that I was expected to remain, and indeed he conducted me to my
room, which is airy and commodious enough, and where, after partaking of
a light supper, insufficient and badly cooked as all French meals, and
accompanied by the sour "wine" of the country, I fell into a comfortable
slumber.