FEODOR SERGHEIEVITCH RAMODANOFSKY.
I TOOK a step backward and stared at him in surprise. My feelings were
strangely confused, and in that first moment I did not realize how
completely the situation was transformed by this revelation; the only
thought that presented itself to me was that I saw Zénaïde’s father.
The boyar’s strong face was without its mask of repose, and was full of
deep emotion. Before I had collected myself he spoke again.
“I am greatly indebted to you, M. le Vicomte,” he said. “I owe you my
life, for it is probable that Polotsky would have murdered me that
night; and now Von Gaden tells me that I owe you my daughter’s escape
from a loathsome and degrading marriage.”
“I pray that she may have escaped,” I said, “but this disappearance
alarms me greatly.”
“We have just learned it,” Von Gaden remarked. “Ramodanofsky had but
now decided to announce his identity to his daughter, when my wife told
us of your discovery.”
I explained to them my abortive attempt to learn something at the
Ramodanofsky house, and of Pierrot’s suspicion that Polotsky knew more
than the other servants, but would not reveal it.
“Polotsky must be secured, then,” Feodor said at once; “he is an
abominable wretch, and deserves nothing so much as torture.”
Looking at the boyar’s face, I recognized the fact that his nerves were
not so delicately strung as to shudder at the most refined cruelty, and
fancied that the steward would find little mercy at his hands. Polotsky
would be difficult to capture, however, for his experience with us had
probably made him wary; nevertheless, we soon fixed upon a plan for
securing him. Pierrot and Ramodanofsky’s servant, Michael, were deputed
to lie in wait for the wretch and bring him to us; the only danger
seeming to be Michael’s ferocious hatred of his enemy. The man had
accompanied the boyar to my quarters, and he and Pierrot were at once
despatched with instructions to secure Polotsky as soon as possible.
Ramodanofsky went to the anteroom to give a last word of warning to
his servant, and I found myself alone with the Jewish doctor.
“It appears that dead men rise at their pleasure in Russia,” I remarked
dryly.
Von Gaden smiled. “It is a strange history, but I was not wrong in my
supposition,” he replied; “Vladimir did nearly murder the boyar, and
did compass his ruin.”
“Undoubtedly,” I returned; “but how has he hidden him all these years?”
“It is easy to obliterate a ruined man, M. de Brousson,” replied the
boyar himself, for, entering unobserved, he had overheard my question.
“My life has been checkered by black misfortunes, and my identity
almost destroyed by the villainy of Vladimir.”
“I beg pardon, monsieur,” I said at once, “for the question that
would have seemed unwarranted from a stranger if addressed to you;
but Dr. von Gaden has told me of your apparent death, therefore your
re-appearance naturally overwhelmed me with amazement.”
“I have been as good as dead,” replied Ramodanofsky, an expression
of stern sadness coming over his face. “After I was stricken down in
my own courtyard, by my brother’s hand, I lay in a trance, and on my
recovery, found myself in a convict’s garb and in prison. My efforts
to proclaim my identity and obtain justice were scouted as the
vagaries of a madman. It was impossible to gain redress; impossible to
reach the proper authorities with my complaint. I had not only ceased
to be a free man, but it seemed as if I had ceased to be even a human
being! I have eaten the bitter bread of humiliation and exile. If I am
no longer merciful and just as other men, it is because I have received
neither mercy nor justice. Hunted like a wild beast, and treated as
one, it seems to me a marvel that I have retained the semblance of
a man. There was no chance of escape for years, and when it came at
last, so worn out and broken was I, that I would scarcely have embraced
my opportunity but for the thought of my child. There was no hope of
justice from the late czar or his father; but the Czarevna Sophia is
willing to propitiate the older nobles, and I represent a class that
has had little friendship for her.”
“Prince Galitsyn knows of your identity, does he not?” I asked, my mind
full of the new possibilities.
“Prince Basil is my friend,” replied Ramodanofsky; “his father and I
were comrades, and it is to him I owe the friendship of the czarevna.”
“You have come at the time when you are most needed, monsieur,” I said;
“you, and you alone, can save your daughter.”
“If I had been earlier advised of her danger,” he replied, “I should
have acted more decisively; as it stands, it is to you that I am
beholden, M. de Brousson.”
I bowed in acknowledgment, not without a feeling of pleasure that
Zénaïde’s father was already in my debt. As he stood before us now,
in his true character, I was more than ever impressed by the man’s
dignity, the stern resolution of his brow and mouth, the traces of
a handsome youth lost by rugged usage and the disfiguring scar. Yet
I was conscious too of a new feeling, which I could not analyze: I
was no longer Zénaïde’s only chance of escape; here was her natural
protector, the one who would have the first voice in deciding my fate.
I could not but wonder how much he knew, or imagined, of my feeling for
his daughter, meanwhile endeavoring to play the host with what grace
I could summon in the midst of my anxiety. I invited my two guests to
partake of a light repast, which I noticed the boyar ate calmly, like
a man who was accustomed to facing anxieties and difficulties, and
whose nerves could remain unshaken in the midst of disaster; even Von
Gaden showed more excitement, and I only made a pretence of eating as a
matter of courtesy.
“Your appetite is poor, M. le Vicomte,” Ramodanofsky remarked calmly,
glancing at my plate.
I made some excuse, speaking of the anxiety of the moment.
“It makes no difference, M. de Brousson,” he replied quietly. “I am
a good deal of a fatalist. If evil is to happen, it will happen; to
eat or to fast will not avert it. If you had been through my bitter
experience, you would face any crisis with more composure. Fear or
suffering, in anticipation, is a poor method of borrowing trouble, and
avails nothing. The only way to conquer misfortune is to meet it with
indomitable will.”
Looking at his severe scarred face, I could readily fancy his manner of
meeting adversity.
“M. de Brousson is young yet,” Von Gaden remarked, “and young blood is
easily stirred.”
I heard footsteps on the stair, and rising from my chair, stood looking
at the two men before me.
“_Mon Dieu_, gentlemen!” I exclaimed, “is it a light matter? I could
face death, methinks, with a composure equal to your own, but here is
a terrible situation. Mademoiselle Ramodanofsky has disappeared, and we
cannot tell what fate may have overtaken her!”
Ramodanofsky rose too, and a look of deep trouble swept over his hard
features, refuting my momentary thought that all natural feeling was
dead within him. While we stood thus, the door was flung open, and
Pierrot, with a disordered and mud-splashed dress, stood upon the
threshold.
“M. le Vicomte,” he said in a tone of great excitement, addressing me
in French, and unconscious that both the other two understood him,
“we have trapped the steward, and if you do not come down at once,
that Russian devil will fricassee him alive before we can extract any
information from him!”
Feodor laughed, startling Pierrot so that he stood staring.
“My good fellow,” the boyar said to him in French, “you would fricassee
the steward too, if you had as heavy a debt against him as poor Michael
has.”
Knowing Michael’s proclivities, neither Von Gaden nor I delayed, but
hurried down the stairs, followed by the boyar. Pierrot directed us to
a low room on the ground floor; and before we reached the door, sounds
like suppressed groans, greeting our ears, hastened our steps. When we
arrived, a curious scene met our eyes. It was a low, bare room, which
had probably been used as a dungeon before; there was a fire burning on
the hearth, and over it hung the white-faced Michael, heating a poker
red-hot. Tied in a chair before the fire was the cringing figure of
the steward, a miserable heap of cowardice. His shoes and stockings
having been removed, I had no doubt about his enemy’s intentions; the
abject fear on one face and the fierce exultation on the other were
both suggestive, not of men, but of beasts. Von Gaden and I paused
on the threshold, arrested by the curious and revolting spectacle;
but Ramodanofsky passed us, and going over to the hearth, checked his
servant by a gesture. Michael stood transfixed at his order; but his
fingers still clung lovingly to the handle of the red-hot poker, and
his small, cruel eyes never left his enemy, seeming to feast on his
agony. Feodor Sergheievitch took his position in front of the prisoner,
and standing with his hands behind him, viewed him with cold contempt.
“Make a full confession, knave,” he said scornfully, “for equivocation
will avail nothing now. Where has your master hidden my daughter?
Answer, for you are at our mercy!”
“Ay!” ejaculated the steward, sullenly, and without looking up; “your
hour has come, and it will be as easy to die one way as another, so you
are quick.”
“But we will not be quick,” replied the Russian, calmly; “we will be
slow,--extremely slow, Polotsky. You shall die as traitors ought to
die--as thieves and assassins always die! And be sure it will be ten
times more slow--more agonizing--more terrific--if you do not confess.
Every moment that you delay adds an hour to your torture, delays just
so long the blessed relief of death, which is too good for you!”
Von Gaden and I said nothing, but stood there, silent witnesses of a
scene which suggested to both of us the barbarism of the Tartar. We
could not doubt, looking at the Russian’s cold, composed face, that he
would torture his victim if he thought that it was necessary to do so,
to extract information,--would torture him as readily as he would look
at him. Polotsky lay there before him, cringing like a stricken beast.
There was no doubt of his making a full confession, if it was possible
for him to tell the truth at all before such a tribunal: his old master
looking at him without mercy, and behind him his bitterest foe with a
livid face, as ferocious in its longing for his blood as any wolf’s.
“Speak, brute!” exclaimed the boyar, harshly, glancing aside at the
red-hot poker in his servant’s hand.
“Have mercy on me!” shrieked the wretch, suddenly writhing in his bonds
until he faced me. “Have mercy on me, Frenchman! save me, and I will
confess all--all!”
Loathsome as the fellow was, I felt some pity. I have never loved the
thought of torture; an equal fight, a swift and just retribution,
but never such a scene as this! Beneath the Russian noble’s cold
exterior I saw the savage goaded to hatred and revenge by bitter wrong:
relentless, inexorable, resistless.
“Save me,” shrieked the wretched steward, “and you shall save her!”
“Do you hear that?” cried Ramodanofsky. “He admits his knowledge of my
child’s fate! Confess, you villain, or I will burn you with fire!”
I came into the room and spoke to him in French.
“I pray your forbearance, monsieur,” I said; “the fellow is too
miserable a coward to confess under such a pressure. Leave him to me
but a moment, and I think I can promise you the whole truth.”
“It is easier to cut his throat if he refuses,” exclaimed the boyar,
impatiently.
“Time presses, monsieur,” I said quietly, “and he is willing to confess
to me.”
Ramodanofsky stood aside with a gesture of courtesy.
“It is your house, M. le Vicomte,” he said with dignity, and made
Michael go with him, so that in a moment I was left alone with the
prisoner, the red-hot poker gleaming lividly upon the hearthstone.