HERITAGE
When he woke next morning, and the unusual incidents of the day before
came back to him one by one, Ivan's sense of mortification at his
self-abandonment in the evening had but one saving grace: the fact that
Joseph had slept through his impulsive and extravagant fantasy. But
unhappily, as it presently appeared, this supposition proved a mistake.
The youth had certainly heard part of his rescuer's parable; though how
much Ivan did not attempt to discover, in his embarrassment at finding
himself burdened with a disciple who very evidently believed him a
world-famous man.
First of all Ivan set to work to assure himself of the truth of the
young man's story; and, this being proved, next sought his friends'
advice about establishing him somewhere in the neighborhood of the big
art-school where he had worked, (which, as a matter of fact, happens to
be the best in Russia); meantime giving him the wherewithal to live till
his course was finished.
Unquestionably, Joseph had been in a state of abject destitution. His
rooms were bare of every salable object save the cheapest of necessary
toilet articles, and a rather extravagant color-box and set of brushes.
But this fact of his having refused to sacrifice the implements of his
art, put a final touch to Ivan's growing friendship for and belief in
the plucky boy who had suffered as he had suffered for love of his work.
For one week Joseph remained in Ivan's rooms. At the end of this time
he, now fairly well recovered from the effects of his long privation,
removed to the new rooms provided for him by Ivan, Nicholas Rubinstein,
and four or five more intimates who had become interested in the young
fellow's career. With these rooms, of which the rent for three months
was already paid, went a purse of five hundred roubles:--far more than
enough, Joseph protested, to keep him during the ten months that would
elapse before the autumn _salon_ which would, he hoped, exhibit his
first picture.
The young Pole made no trouble about accepting this help from his sudden
friends. Nevertheless, his gratitude was well-expressed and patently
sincere. Nicholas Rubinstein alone, felt some secret, uncorroborated
doubts about the character of the boy; but he was too doubtful of his
perceptions not to abuse even his own _alter ego_ for a pessimistic
cynic. And when, within the month, he received from the protégé a small
portrait of himself, in which the likeness was so striking that it
excused every fault of execution, he tried hard to take Joseph to his
genial heart as, years ago, he had taken Ivan, on sight.
Every member of the group who had helped him received similar testimony
of the stranger's gratitude. But of them all only the picture of Ivan, a
pastel, in which the face alone was thrown out by the light of a red
lamp, and the rest of the figure, seated at a piano, remained deep in
shadow, was in any way remarkable for its execution. This, however,
impressionistic though it is, remains to this day the one thoroughly
characteristic portrait of Gregoriev; albeit in later life he sat for,
and at the request of, three great artists. This little picture,
however, being recognized as something remarkable, went into the _salon_
in the following October, and received the first medal for
pastels--completely overtopping the more elaborate oil which had also
been accepted, and which got a mention.--Truly, the Pole's second start
in life bade fair to be as sensationally successful as his first had
been unhappy.
Joseph once settled and happily at work, Ivan went back to his own
routine again in excellent spirits. Now and then he saw the young man,
who regarded him, as Ivan could not but know, as his benefactor, his
self-constituted guardian and adviser. Ivan was himself a man of so much
individuality and independence that he failed to understand Joseph as
one of those who cannot live without leaning, if not for help, at least
for constant encouragement, on some one else. Ivan had, indeed,
perceived that a little vein of weakness ran side by side with the
peculiar spirituality of the Pole. But so beyond his own nature was this
combination, that it never entered his head to watch and guard the young
fellow as he might have done had he understood. Perhaps, in this way,
Joseph's gift might have been saved to the world. But fate grants much
help to no man; and when Ivan's eyes were opened, it was already too
late. This did not come about, however, until, in the spring of the year
1871, something had happened to change Gregoriev's mode of life almost
as completely as he had altered that of the waif thrown up at his door
out of the troubled sea of the Akheskaia.
* * * * *
It was now twelve years since the youth Ivan, graduated from his four
penitential years of military schooling, had taken his first long flight
from Moscow, northward, into the joyous unknown: twelve years since he
had put behind him all that half-comprehended blackness of evil and grim
unhappiness that had weighted his boyhood with vague premonitions of
coming disaster. Indeed, had he been told, at the hour of his going,
that he should never again know a month of life in the same house with
his father, he would have been possessed by a secret joy. Not so,
however, Prince Michael. Nothing in all his merciless life had hurt this
man of shadows like the defection of his son. Nor did the rolling years
soften the sting of loss. Rather, as, little by little, the mantle of
loneliness was drawn closer and closer about him, muffling him at last
even from contact with the companions of his relaxation and license, the
hardness and the bitterness in him increased, till something of it was
surmised even by the jackals that served him. Still, of the processes of
that strange nature, no one in the world knew much. His high position,
held against all rivals by power of fear, naturally brought him into
contact with officialdom, from Czar down to police-sergeant. But from
every man he got the same species of servility, fawning or inimical,
born of guilty knowledge of Michael's hieroglyphic map and his
relentless use of it. And this attitude of the world, encouraged though
it was by its recipient, bred in him no desire for intimacy with any of
his kind, but only a half-indifferent, lazily calculating, contempt.
There had been a time when certain of his private
occupations--interviews with personages of wealth or influence, cryptic
conversations, resulting always, however defiant the beginning, in the
same grovelling pleas and promises--had amused and interested the cynic
most mightily: been the cream of his labors, indeed. But latterly even
these scenes had palled; and it came to him with a faint shock of
surprise that he was beginning to remember with relief those few
occasions on which such talks had ended, by reason, truly, of some mere
wanton freak, in unconditional release.--Preposterous indeed that the
only acts of his life hitherto viewed with self-contempt, were beginning
to seem the only ones bearable to remember!
His wife, a woman for whom he had had a certain tolerant affection, but
no respect, he had probably not greatly mourned. Of friendship with his
equals, he knew nothing. So, of sheer necessity, all the personal
interest of his last years had been centered in the career of his
banished son.--And ah! How he had suffered through that son! No other
blow devised by man or God could have touched him save just the disgrace
and downfall of Ivan in Petersburg. During the months immediately
following the court-martial, the palace in Konnaia Square had been the
abode of a fiend incarnate. Servants slunk from room to room in terror
of their very lives; and the Governor-General, an Imperial Highness, had
looked forward with dire dread to his occasional necessary visits to the
chief of the Third Section. This lasted throughout the summer. Then, in
the autumn, had come sudden opportunity for vengeance, of a sort, on
Ivan's persecutor, Colonel Brodsky, whose disgrace and exile were
achieved with marvellous swiftness, and who died, fifteen years later,
in the horrible mines of Kara. Not until midwinter, however, did Prince
Michael's agents receive orders to locate, watch, and make report on the
condition of his son. It took some weeks before Ivan, half-starved,
badly clothed, living like a day-laborer, was discovered in his garret
on Vassily Island. Help was not proffered. But never again did Michael
lose sight of the young man.
In the succeeding years, the Prince watched the growing career of his
son with a mingled passion of anger, pride, humiliation, relief, and a
mighty, uncontrollable eagerness. As, slowly, wearily, beset with every
difficulty, Ivan climbed, round by round, the ladder of his chosen
profession, his father noted his progress far more accurately than he
himself. And when at last Michael was forced to realize that the younger
Gregoriev had come to a distinction almost as marked as, and infinitely
more respected than, his own, the grim-souled Prince felt himself torn
by an almost unbearable emotion, half delight, half remorseful pain.
For, all unconsciously, the musician stood a living reproach to the
father whose ambition had found no better road to celebrity than that of
trickery, dishonesty, blackmail,--all-unscrupulousness; while the boy,
by personal sacrifice and hard and honorable labor, had reached the same
end many years earlier.
A pity, perhaps, that his father's inmost heart should have gone forever
unfathomed by Ivan. But deep down in the son's nature lay the sting of
Michael's desertion in the hour of his great need. That strange
interview held between them on the night of the students' capture, had
done no more to soften the relationship between them than had the money
sent to Ivan on one or two occasions when it had not been greatly
needed. As to the interview, indeed, it was only Ivan who came out
unscathed; for the ring of Ivan's laugh--that cruel laugh which Michael
had understood far better than Ivan himself--sounded for many a month in
the official's ears; and for a time he denied himself his greatest, but
unacknowledged, delight. For three months he kept away from the opera on
Ivan's nights, thereby suffering incredibly.
Many another incident showing the possibility of reconciliation between
the two might be recounted; but none brought result; and, in fact, till
the very end, a mocking fate kept the two apart.
In the January of 1872, Michael Gregoriev entered upon his
seventy-fourth year. Up to this time he had held his age back in the
leash of an iron will. Death was, to him, the one unconquerable terror;
and he was determined to hold it off as long as human mortality might.
To the danger of personal attack in which he hourly dwelt, he was
absolutely indifferent. But with the least suggestion of physical
suffering, the thought of the relentless approach of that blank
nothingness of death gripped him till his brow grew cold, and his limbs
trembled.
Up to the Christmas of that year he had kept the appearance of a man in
his fifties. Then, quite suddenly, his failure began. He was himself
aware of it in December. By the end of January it was the great topic of
the kitchen. In mid-lent the Governor remarked upon it to the
Governor-General;--and hope began to stir in a hundred hearts: hope of a
long despaired-of release from the terrors of an invincible blackmail.
Up to the middle of March he managed to get about alone. But as the
breath of spring began to make itself perceptible in the icy air,
Michael was forced secretly to realize that will and body were on the
verge of divorce. On the afternoon of March 13th, his sleigh was
announced, ready to drive him across the city to a council with his
colleagues of the police. His furs--cap and coat--were up-stairs in his
bedroom. Piotr delayed answering his ring. At the end of five minutes
the Prince, raging like a school-boy, left the house coatless, wearing
only a common felt hat, and in that guise drove for more than two miles
in the open _troika_. It was a performance not unique; but it was
destined to be his last.
Prince Michael was carried home from the council and put to bed, burning
with fever. Two days later the whole city sat awaiting the six-hour
bulletins that recounted the state of the mysterious official, whose
attack of double pneumonia was as serious as it was sudden. The notice
of the morning of April 3d read thus:
"His Excellency has passed a critical night, and this morning it is
feared that there is slight hope of recovery."
By noon of that day Ivan was speeding across the city in his father's
sleigh, with Piotr, who had been sent for him, at his side.
During the drive, Ivan did not speak. By this time he had somewhat
recovered from the shock of the news of three days before. But Piotr's
word that his father was actually dying, brought up those thoughts
which, hitherto, he had resolutely refused to consider. And, as his mind
wavered through innumerable irrelevant subjects, he was subconsciously
wondering why, in all the years of his banishment, the possibility of
reinstatement and the inheritance of that enormous fortune, had never
once entered his head. That his casting-off had been final, he had not
doubted. Who had known Michael Gregoriev to forgive?--And now--even now,
how could he have the faintest assurance that this summons meant
forgiveness?--No. His watchword must still be:--Wait.
When at last the flying vehicle halted at the familiar portal, the heavy
door swung open on the instant, and Ivan found himself facing a
sharp-eyed, lean-jawed man of forty-five, who announced himself one of
the doctors in attendance, and begged "his Excellency" to come up-stairs
at once. Marvelling at the form of address and the vast respect of him
who had used it, Ivan followed, docilely, and soon found himself in the
antechamber to one of the state bedrooms, in which, it appeared, Prince
Michael had been installed. Here the stranger halted, and proceeded to
give Ivan the details of his father's condition. These were of the
worst; and Dr. Fröl Pavaniev strove in no way to make them appear
better.--It was a peculiar form of flattery, but one heretofore used
with excellent effect.--Ivan, however, failed to appreciate it; and
presently pushed past the pessimist, flung open the bedroom door,
and--paused. A sound had reached his ears that struck him to the heart:
a high, feeble, gasping wail, that was repeated again and again. Ivan
shuddered, and immediately the smooth voice whispered in his ear:
"It is merely his breathing.--The lungs are nearly filled you see; and
his weakness is too great to repress the sound. However, we must not
expect--"
But once more Ivan shook off the unbearable man, and walked into the
room. It was a great, tapestried chamber, dusky in the early
candle-light, furnished with heavily carved chairs and chests, and a
huge, four-posted bed. In a distant corner stood a man bending over a
tiny oil-stove, and stirring the contents of a steaming dish that stood
thereon. Beside the bed was a sister of mercy, with the white coif on
her smooth hair, her white robes girdled at the waist by a rosary which
she fingered, mechanically. Finally, in the bed, shaded by curtains
which, on one side, were drawn tight, on the other thrust wide apart,
lay the huge form from which issued those ceaseless, sobbing breaths.
Ivan remained standing a little way beyond the threshold till Pavaniev
entered and passed him, and the sister looked around. Then, for an
instant, the wailing ceased, and was replaced by a high, wavering,
querulous voice, that none would have dreamed of as belonging to Michael
Gregoriev.
"He is come?--Ivan?--Bring him to me!"
Only then did the other doctor turn and perceive the new-comer. He did
not summon him, however, but hurriedly poured his decoction into a cup
and carried it to the bed. Then followed whispered words, the slow
administration of the draught, and some further performance requiring
the united efforts of the nurse and both doctors. Afterwards, all three
drew away, and Ivan felt himself called. At once he was at the bedside,
gazing down upon the fever-ravaged face, with its stubble of beard and
the shock of white hair beneath which the cavernous eyes glowed and
burned with something of their old fierceness.
"Ivan!" whispered the hoarse and feeble voice.
A rush of pity overwhelmed the son, and, for the moment, to his own
amazement, he could not speak. Instead, he lifted and pressed to his
cheek one of the burning hands. At that moment the nun placed a chair
for him, whispering, adroitly, that strychnine had been given, that in a
few minutes Prince Gregoriev would be much stronger, and that she, with
the doctors, would remain in the antechamber awaiting his summons. Then,
evidently by command, the three left the room, and Ivan was alone with
his dying father.
For thirty-five minutes the hired attendants waited in the anteroom,
before they were called by the white-faced son of their rebellious and
powerful patient. Ivan emerged from the sick-room, motioned the three to
go in, and then himself passed swiftly out and made his way down to his
father's office, whither Piotr the omniscient presently brought a little
_déjeuner_ and a bottle of champagne--of Imperial vintage. Ivan drank
rather eagerly, but touched no food. The revelations of the last,
emotional half-hour had affected him to a point of exhaustion. For,
though no priest of the Orthodox Church had been summoned to the
Gregoriev palace, its master had made his confession--fully, without
reservation,--to his son. All his life lay bare before the mental gaze
of Ivan, who had in his pocket the slip of parchment containing the key
to the cipher of the famous map--that marvellous biographical history of
Russia which must always be a fortune of untold magnitude to its
possessor. For there was many a man in the white empire who would have
offered a million roubles for its destruction on the day of Michael's
death; and there were yet others who would have given double the sum for
its possession;--both of which facts Ivan had surmised. And Ivan knew
also, now, that this treasure was but as one gold piece in a mint. He
had been left his father's sole heir; and a few hours more would see him
one of the wealthiest Princes in Europe. Strange, then, that, as he
reflected on these things, there was no joy in his heart, but, rather,
sensations of revolt and horror, flaming against a background of
dreariness unspeakable: the combination forming an emotion the memory of
which caused this day to stand out from its fellows draped in midnight
darkness.
It was afternoon before the young man reascended to the antechamber,
where Pavaniev greeted him with the report: "Great exhaustion, lapsing
from semi to total unconsciousness." Any attempt at rousing might
possibly prove fatal.--Was there any message?--No?--Then one could but
wait.--These things were, indeed, most trying. And so Ivan seated
himself on a bench against the wall in the dark little room, to wait.
There come to most lives certain periods of crisis, when the violence of
shock drives away every commonplace thought or remembrance; when the
mind seems a comparative blank, and time ceases to have any meaning. For
an instant, or an hour, a mortal gazes out upon the void of eternity. So
was it with Ivan, to-day. He sat for the most part huddled in a chair,
lost in depths of the past, the strangeness of the present, the blank of
the morrow. Memories of the last, agonizing, saintly hours of his
mother's life, mingled themselves with remorse for his present numb
indifference. A chaos of thoughts and dreams followed, bringing up
detached visions of the various periods of his life. In the midst of
them he was summoned to another meal; and he followed Piotr docilely to
the table, this time trying to force a little food between his lips.
It did not occur to him to re-enter the bedroom;--afterwards he wondered
why. Neither, however, did he think of going to bed. Numberless people
were calling at the palace for information:--among them the
Governor-General, who came in person. Ivan, however, saw no one; and by
ten o'clock the house was wrapped in a vast silence. Piotr came to tell
the heir that his old room was prepared; but Ivan still sat beside the
fire, smoking, lost in vague conjectures. It was as well that he had not
gone to bed. Precisely at midnight--the ghostly hour--the older doctor
came quietly in to him.
"Your Excellency, I regret to inform you that your father, Prince
Michael, passed from us five minutes ago."
* * * * *
At ten o'clock on the following morning Ivan, quiet, self-possessed,
entirely himself again, came down to the small drawing-room for his
morning tea. He knew that a mountain of work lay before him; though
there were people enough to execute his orders. But the only command
which the obsequious Piotr could extract from the young Prince was this:
"Till twelve o'clock I will neither speak to nor see a single person. At
that hour have the whole household assembled in the state drawing-room."
Only this bit of news could the excited valet of the dead Prince carry
out to the kitchen; but the effect of his announcement was to send every
servant, male and female, scudding across the court to their own
building, to prepare themselves for the inspection of the new master.
Ivan, meantime, was occupying himself with the one matter which must be
concealed from all the throng of executors, lawyers and officials of
administration, by which he would presently be surrounded. During the
night he had pondered on what was to be done concerning the affair of
which his father had spoken at such length. And by now his course was
chosen; his way looked clear; his mother, from on high, seemed smiling
down on him in loving approval.
At half-past ten he stood alone in that sanctum which was to know its
grim master no more. Behind him was a locked door; before him, the huge
map, now entirely covered with the minute black figures that
constituted the life-misery of many a respected malefactor;--that map
which Grand-Dukes had prayed to look upon, and which, saving Piotr, and
twice, in his boyhood, Ivan, no human eye but its creator's had ever
seen.
Before this sinister cipher stood Michael's son; and in his hand was the
little slip of parchment by means of which he was to read the strange
secrets of his father's rise and position. For some minutes Ivan stood
debating within himself as to his right to read so much as a fragment of
this condemnatory document. If he began, what great name might not
become forever dishonored in his thoughts?--Bah!--What need to fear for
good men, after all? With a cynical shrug, he advanced to where the
parchment hung; and then, referring each second to his key, began to
read at the top of one of the narrow columns. After fifteen minutes, he
drew the great table across the room, pulled pencil and paper towards
him, and set to work systematically. It was an hour before he had
translated the following disjointed items:
"_March 18, 1832_: Contract for new outfits of line regiments Nos.
87-8-9 and 90, granted to C---- A---- (one of the Grand-Dukes).
Perquisites understood, 30,000 roubles. Actual per. 280,000
roubles: all cloth, arms, and ammunitions being lowered two grades.
Suspect Count A---- of complicity. Not proved. Remonstrance from
H---- E---- overruled."
"_December, 1853._ Indictment prepared, November 11th, for inquiry
into recent deaths of Prince D---- and his heir, attributed to
poisoning, by person or persons unknown (?). November 20th,
Princess D---- engaged in secret service work for Alexis G----.
November 26th. This day investigation dropped; reconsidered verdict
states poisoning to have been by sterlet caviar. Public feeling
high. Note: Wait definite development. Try woman first."
Over these typical paragraphs Ivan sat for some time. They were what he
had expected.--He himself, indeed, remembered well enough the D----
scandal, and the subsequent disappearance of the notorious Princess,
who had been her husband's second wife, and had hated the heir that
took precedence of her own son.--Had Gregoriev finally exposed
her? or had accident taken from Prince Michael this hold upon
a powerful minister, and one of the greatest beauties of her
time?--Faugh!--Sickening, indeed, this wretched system of blackmail,
more systematic, daring and successful than ever blackmail had been
before!--That map! Good Heaven! What further revelations might it not
contain?--What great name of Russia was absent from it?--Crime,
intrigue, peculation, faithlessness, treachery, treason--by these sins
of others had his father risen to his position and his wealth. Trusting
to the ever-renewed baseness, cupidity, passion of humankind, and their
cowardice in the possibility of discovery, Michael had known that his
sources of revenue would never fail, his victims never rebel. So much,
indeed, he had openly acknowledged. His defence had been: "No innocent
person could ever be touched by me. One mistake on my part, and I should
be lost. Whatever I may have done, Ivan, know that I have never been the
coward, never the remorseless traitor, that my victims are and have
been." And the man who could say this, the man who had taken pride in
his skilful manipulation of the world's evil, and had used it all his
life, had been his own _father_!
Little by little Ivan's rising emotions of shame and repudiation had
grown into an excitement of righteous anger. All the blood in his body
seemed to have rushed to his brain and to have remained there,
throbbing. Before his mental eyes rose mental pictures of the events in
his father's life: deeds of dishonor unregretted, that ate poisonously
into Ivan's sensitive intelligence. The fearful significance of the
foundations of the enormous wealth that had come to him; its foul
sources, its beginnings laid in filth, in deeds of blackness known to
men and left unrebuked through fear, came upon him, as it were, for the
first time. In this mood he sprang to his feet, hands shaking, eyes
ablaze, in his soul such a rage as he had never been subject to. For
an instant he stood wavering, gone blind and sick with the fury of
his shame. Then, with a hoarse and guttural cry, he threw himself
at the wall, snatched the great map from its fastenings, and tore,
and tore, and trampled and tore again, till that long record of
Russia's corruption lay scattered at his feet, a pile of crushed
and crumpled bits of the vellum that had been chosen because of its
indestructibility!
When the mood passed, as suddenly as it had risen, Ivan sank weakly back
into a chair, trembling, and gazing blankly at his bruised and bleeding
hands. He was in this state still when, to his astonishment and
displeasure, there came a knock at the door.--Had the years of his
father's discipline been obliterated in a single night?--What could
Piotr be about, thus to disobey his first command?--What!--Was the knock
repeated?
It was a stern and angry master that shot back the bolts of the door and
opened it by half an inch. And it was a very humble voice that addressed
him from without:
"May the Prince pardon his servant!--What choice had I? His Imperial
Highness the Governor-General commands your Excellency's presence. He is
in the outer office."
Struck though he was by the condescension of such a visit, Ivan
hesitated. Then, with a gesture of impatience, he came out, ignored
Piotr's exclamation at sight of his bleeding hands, and locked the door
after him, following his father's example of putting the key in his
pocket. In one moment he was standing in the presence of the uncle of
the Czar.
The Grand-Duke's greeting was gracious in the extreme; and five minutes
of condolences and conventionalities passed between them before Ivan,
driven by the recollection of infinite work to be begun, precipitated
that subject to which his Highness was troublously leading up.
"The graciousness of your Imperial Highness does my father much honor.
At the same time, realizing the value of your time, it emboldens me to
refer to a matter that may seem to you unduly personal. I am beginning
the adjustment of my father's private papers, that all matters may be in
perfect order for his successor in office. Now if there is--"
"My dear Prince, this brings us capitally to the second object of my
visit this morning. You are indeed most thoughtful. As it happens, I am
myself--hum--ha--interested in this matter of--You must understand that
I knew your father intimately, for many years. Having the highest
respect for his ability, I took him into my inmost confidence
on--hum!--many affairs.--So, my dear Prince Gregoriev, I will come
straight to my point. You have it in your power to do me the highest
favor. Among your father's personal documents, or somewhere, in some
form, among his papers, there is something relating wholly to me: a few
brief notes regarding an old, and quite unofficial, transaction which,
now that your father is so unhappily lost to us, would be nearly or
entirely incomprehensible and valueless to any one save myself. But to
me, that paper happens to be of some moment: so much so, indeed, that
really no recompense for your trouble in obtaining it for me would be
too great for you to ask. Whatever office might most appeal to you--"
"Your Imperial Highness will pardon me if I request permission to answer
you in deeds rather than words? Will you do me the honor to come with
me?"
The Governor-General sprang to his feet. Ivan, without speaking, led the
way back to dead Michael's inner room, into which the Grand-Duke
preceded him, his eyes falling at once upon the litter on the floor.
The royal visitor turned silently to his host; and Ivan, answering his
look, said, slowly, without royal formalities, but as man to man:
"The sole condition that I must impose, and which, for your sake as well
as _his_ memory, you will grant, is absolute silence regarding what I
have to say to you here.--Have I your promise?"
"Absolutely: upon the honor of my house and station!"
"The details of the incident to which you have referred, sir, I do not
know; but the paper containing it does not lie among my father's
documents. It, with many hundreds of such notes, was written upon a huge
sheet of vellum which hung on the wall of this, my father's private
room. Of the use he made of those notes, we shall not speak.--You were
not alone by more than a thousand men and women.--Yesterday, before his
death, I was given the cipher key to this document, and was urged to
continue his use of it."
The Governor-General gave a slight, involuntary groan.
"How I carried out that wish, you may see for yourself, sir. The whole
of that infamous document lies there, on the floor, before you. Within
one hour those shreds will be in ashes."
* * * * *
"And your reward, Ivan Mikhailovitch?--What can I make you?--What have I
to give you?"
"Two things, your Imperial Highness: first, your hand--to me! Secondly,
if possible, your forgiveness,--at least, not too much condemnation--of
the crimes of him who was my father."
But the Grand-Duke Dmitri, faulty though he might be, had not the vice
of utter ingratitude. In that hour, and for the rest of his life, there
was no exertion of power or strength that he would not have made for the
man who had voluntarily freed him from the yoke which, for years, had
been forcing him ever lower and lower towards the soil. He left Ivan's
house that day with twenty years fallen from his face and his heart. One
week later a royal messenger entered Prince Gregoriev's presence,
leaving in his hand a little packet, which was found to contain one of
the great honors of Russia:--the white-and-gold cross of St. George,
bestowed only on one who has performed a deed of surpassing personal
heroism.
* * * * *
It took nearly three months to dissolve every vestige of the world that
had once revolved round Michael Gregoriev. At the end of that time there
was a new chief of the Third Section in Moscow, who dwelt far on the
other side of the Moskva. Thus the great palace on Konnaia Square opened
no longer to receive the great dignitaries of the mother-city: nor rang
to any sounds of revelry by night. The formidable suite in the east wing
was closed; for the new Prince dwelt up-stairs, in rooms that had been
his mother's. The palace routine knew little state. The staff of
servants had been cut in twain; but old Sósha was again in the house of
his youth, having first superintended the removal of the furniture from
Ivan's old rooms to the palace: articles gathered, one by one, during
the years of Ivan's long struggle, and so endeared to him forever. The
grand Érard, which had been his one great extravagance, stood in the new
studio between two high windows. And about it Ivan's new life revolved,
dreamwise, for a time. Indeed, Piotr and Sósha and a handful of their
fellows, used to weep with the weakly sentiment of age, as they served
their young master in the rooms that had witnessed the long tragedy of
their beloved Lady Sophia, who had been his mother, and whose gentle
presence, outliving the wild individuality of her lord, still haunted
the house for them as for Ivan.