A MYSTERIOUS ARREST.
A young man had been seized with seditious publications. It was the
first political arrest in Miroslav, and the report was spreading in a
maze of shifting versions. This much seemed certain: the prisoner
pretended to be a deaf-mute and so far the gendarmes and the procureur
had failed to disclose his identity. The local newspaper dared not
publish the remotest allusion to the matter.
Countess Anna Nicolayevna Varova (Varoff) first heard the news from her
brother-in-law, the governor, and although the two belonged to that
exceptional minority which usually discussed topics of this character in
their normal voices, yet it was in subdued tones that the satrap
broached the subject. Anna Nicolayevna offered to send for Pavel, who
had recently arrived from St. Petersburg, after an absence of three
years, but the governor checked her.
"Never mind, Annette," he said, impatiently, "I've dropped in for a
minute or two, in passing, don't you know. He called on me yesterday,
Pasha. Quite a man. Tell him he must look in again and let me see how
clever he is. Quite a man. How time does fly!" Then sinking his voice,
he asked: "Have you heard of the fellow they've bagged? One of those
youngsters who are scaring St. Petersburg out of its wits, you know."
He gave a laugh and fell to blinking gravely.
"What do you mean, George? Did the gendarmes catch a Nihilist?" she
asked, in dismay. "Did they? Bless me! That's all that's wanted. If
there is one there must be a whole nest of them." She made a gesture of
horror--"But who is he, what is he?"
"That I know no more than you do."
"Well, it's too bad, it's really too bad. I thought Miroslav was immune
from that plague at least." And seeing his worried look she added: "I
hope it's nothing serious, George."
Governor Boulatoff shook his head. "I don't think it is. Although you
never can tell nowadays. You never can tell," he repeated, blinking
absently. "The Armenian doesn't seem to be cleaning those fellows out
quite so rapidly as one thought he would, does he? They are playing the
devil with things, that's what they are doing." "One" and "they"
referred to the Emperor and his advisers.
"Pooh, they'll weary of that parvenu, it's only a matter of time," she
consoled him.
The old man proceeded to quote from Loris-Melikoff's recent
declarations, which the countess had heard him satirise several times
before. "'In the cooperation of the public,'" he declaimed theatrically,
"'lies the main force capable of assisting the government in its effort
to restore a normal flow of official life.' Do you understand what all
this jugglery means? That we are knuckling down to a lot of ragamuffins.
It means an official confession that the 'flow of official life' has
been checked by a gang of rascally college boys. 'The public is the main
force capable of assisting the government!' Charming, isn't it? Might
as well invite 'the public' to be so kind and elect representatives,
deputies, or what you may call 'em, start a parliament and have it over
with."
Anna Nicolayevna made another attempt to bring the conversation back to
the political prisoner, but her visitor was evidently fighting shy of
the topic.
"Birch-rods, a good, smart flogging, that's what the public needs," he
resumed, passionately gnashing his teeth, in response to his own
thoughts.
"Oh, don't say that, George. After all, one lives in the nineteenth
century."
But this only spurred him on.
The arrest having been ordered from St. Petersburg, the implication was
that the presence of the revolutionist in town had escaped the attention
of the local authorities. So Governor Boulatoff, who had had no
experience in cases of this kind, wondered whether the affair was not
likely to affect his own standing. Besides, the governor of Kharkoff had
recently been killed, and Boulatoff was asking himself whether the
arrest of the unknown man augured the end of his own peace of mind. This
he kept to himself, however, and having found some relief in
animadverting upon the policy of Loris-Melikoff he took leave.
* * * * *
The countess was left with a pang of sympathy for her brother-in-law.
Not that she had any clear idea of the political situation at which he
was forever scoffing and carping. She felt sure that his low spirits
were traceable to loneliness, and her compassion for him revived
heart-wringing memories of his dead wife, her sister.
The young prince was out in the garden romping about with Kostia, his
half-brother, now a ten-year-old cadet on sick leave. Anna Nicolayevna
went to take a look at them through the open window of a rear room. The
garden was so jammed with fresh-tinted lilacs, so flooded with their
scent, that it seemed like an explosion of color and fragrance. Two
Germans were at work with picks and spades. From an invisible spot where
a new summer house was being constructed came sounds of sawing and
hammering, while the air near the window rang with a multitudinous
twitter of sparrows. Pavel was trying to force Kostia into a
wheelbarrow, the boy kicking and struggling silently, and a huge shaggy
dog barking at Pavel ferociously.
"Come in, Pasha. I want to speak to you," said Anna Nicolayevna.
The return indoors was a race, in which the gigantic dog took part. The
convalescent little cadet was beaten.
"Wait till I get well," he said.
"Wait nothing. Your excellency will be rolling along like a water-melon
all the same. Good-bye, Monsieur le Water-melon!"
Presently Pavel stood before his mother, mopping his flushed, laughing
face.
"Do you remember his 'express trains' in the garden?" he said. "Now it
is beneath his dignity, to be sure." He was always trying to prove to
himself that the present Kostia and the five-year-old boy he used to
fondle five years ago were one and the same person.
"He's right," said the countess. "He's a baby no longer. It's you who
are acting like one. Uncle has been here. He was in a hurry, so I didn't
send for you." Her serious-minded, intellectual son inspired her with a
certain feeling of timidity. She had not the courage to bring up the
subject of the political arrest. Her mind was so vague on matters of
this kind, while Pavel was apparently so well informed and so profound,
she was sure of making a poor showing. So she told herself that it was
not a proper topic to discuss in a well-ordered family and kept her own
counsel.
"I didn't know he was here," he said.
"Poor man! he seems to be feeling lonely."
Pavel made no reply.
"Why, don't you think he does?"
"What matters it whether I do or not," he said, lightly.
"You haven't a bit of heart, Pasha."
He would not be drawn into conversation, treating everything she said
with an inscrutable, somewhat patronising flippancy that nettled her. At
last he said he was going out.
"'Looking up old chums' again?" she asked. "And does it mean that you
are going to dine out once more?"
"I'll try not to, mother," he answered, with a fond smile in his bright,
aggressive eyes.
His small slender figure, beautifully erect, and his upward-tending,
frank features haunted her long after he left. She felt like a jealous
bride. Otherwise he kept her thoughts tinged with sunshine. A great
attachment on quite new terms had sprung up between mother and son since
his arrival. At the same time he seemed to belong to a world which she
was at a loss to make out. Nor did he appear disinclined to talk of his
life in St. Petersburg--a subject upon which she was continually plying
him with questions. The trouble was that the questions that beset her
mind could no more be formulated than a blind man can formulate his
curiosity as to colour. Moreover, all these questions seemed to come
crowding upon her when Pavel was away and to vanish the moment she set
eyes on him. She told herself that he belonged to a different
generation from hers, that it was the everlasting case of "fathers and
sons." But this only quickened her jealousy of the "sons" and her
despair at being classed with the discarded generation. And the keener
her jealousy, the deeper was her interest in Pasha.