A CAT'S-PAW.
One evening a fortnight later Godfrey went with two young Englishmen to
a masked ball at the Opera. It was a brilliant scene. Comparatively few
of the men were masked or in costume, but many of the ladies were so.
Every other man was in uniform of some kind, and the floor of the house
was filled with a gay laughing crowd, while the boxes were occupied by
ladies of the highest rank, several of the imperial family being
present. He speedily became separated from his companions, and after
walking about for an hour he became tired of the scene, and was about to
make his way towards the entrance when a hand was slipped behind his
arm. As several masked figures had joked him on walking about so vaguely
by himself, he thought that this was but another jest.
"You are just the person I wanted," the mask said.
"I think you have mistaken me for some one else, lady," he replied.
"Not at all. Now put up your arm and look as if I belong to you.
Nonsense! do as you are told, Godfrey Bullen."
"Who are you who know my name?" Godfrey laughed, doing as he was
ordered, for he had no doubt that the masked woman was a member of one
of the families whom he had visited.
"You don't know who I am?" she asked.
"How should I when I can see nothing but your eyes through those holes?"
"I am Katia, the cousin of your friend Akim."
"Oh, of course!" Godfrey said, a little surprised at meeting the music
mistress in such an assembly. "I fancied I knew your voice, though I
could not remember where I had heard it. And now what can I do for you?"
The young woman hesitated. "We have got up a little mystification," she
said after a pause, "and I am sure I can trust you; besides, you don't
know the parties. There is a gentleman here who is supposed to be with
his regiment at Moscow; but there is a sweetheart in the case, and you
know when there are sweethearts people do foolish things."
"I have heard so," Godfrey laughed, "though I don't know anything about
it myself, for I sha'n't begin to think of such luxuries as sweethearts
for years to come."
"Well, he is here masked," the girl went on, "and unfortunately the
colonel of his regiment is here, and some ill-natured person--we fancy
it is a rival of his--has told the colonel. He is furious about it, and
declares that he will catch him and have him tried by court-martial for
being absent without leave. The only thing is, he is not certain as to
his information."
"Well, what can I do?" Godfrey asked. "How can I help him?"
"You can help if you like, and that without much trouble to yourself.
He is at present in the back of that empty box on the third tier. I was
with him when I saw you down here, so I left him to say good-bye to his
sweetheart alone, and ran down to fetch you, for I felt sure you would
oblige me. What I thought was this: if you put his mask and cloak
on--you are about the same height--it would be supposed that you are he.
The colonel is waiting down by the entrance. He will come up to you and
say, 'Captain Presnovich?' You will naturally say, 'By no means.' He
will insist on your taking your mask off. This you will do, and he will,
of course, make profuse apologies, and will believe that he has been
altogether misinformed. In the meantime Presnovich will manage to slip
out, and will go down by the early train to Moscow. It is not likely
that the colonel will ever make any more inquiries about it, but if he
does, some of Presnovich's friends will be ready to declare that he
never left Moscow."
"But can't he manage to leave his mask and cloak in the box and to slip
away without them?"
"No, that would never do. It is necessary that the colonel should see
for himself that the man in the cloak, with the white and red bow pinned
to it, is not the captain."
"Very well, then, I will do it," Godfrey said. "It will be fun to see
the colonel's face when he finds out his mistake; but mind I am doing it
to oblige you."
"I feel very much obliged," the girl said; "but don't you bring my name
into it though."
"How could I?" he laughed. "I do not see that I am likely to be
cross-questioned in any way; but never fear, I will keep your counsel."
By this time they had arrived at the door of the box. "Wait a moment,"
she said, "I will speak to him first."
She was two minutes gone, and then opened the door and let him in. "I am
greatly obliged to you, sir," a man said as he entered. "It is a foolish
business altogether, but if you will enact my part for a few minutes
you will get me out of an awkward scrape."
"Don't mention it," Godfrey replied. "It will be a joke to laugh over
afterwards." He placed the broad hat, to which the black silk mask was
sewn, on his head, and Katia put the cloak on his shoulders.
"I trust you," she said in a low voice as she walked with him to the top
of the stairs. "There, I must go now. I had better see Captain
Presnovich safely off, and then go and tell the young lady, who is a
great friend of mine--it is for her sake I am doing it, you know, not
for his--how nicely we have managed to throw dust in the colonel's
eyes!"
Regarding the matter as a capital joke, Godfrey went down-stairs and
made his way to the entrance, expecting every moment to be accosted by
the irascible colonel. No one spoke to him, however, and he began to
imagine that the colonel must have gone to seek the captain elsewhere,
and hoped that he would not meet him as he went down the stairs with
Katia. He walked down the steps into the street. As he stepped on to the
pavement a man seized him from behind, two others grasped his wrists,
and before he knew what had happened he was run forward across the
pavement to a covered sledge standing there and flung into it. His three
assailants leapt in after him; the door was slammed; another man jumped
on to the box with the driver; and two mounted men took their places
beside it as it dashed off from the door. The men had again seized
Godfrey's hands and held them firmly the instant they entered the
carriage.
"It is of no use your attempting to struggle," one of the men said,
"there is an escort riding beside the sledge, and a dozen more behind
it. There is no chance of a rescue, and I warn you you had best not open
your lips; if you do, we will gag you."
Godfrey was still half bewildered with the suddenness of the
transaction. What had he been seized for? Who were the men who had got
hold of him? and why were they gripping his wrists so tightly? He had
heard of arbitrary treatment in the Russian army, but that a colonel
should have a captain seized in this extraordinary way merely because he
was absent from his post without leave was beyond anything he thought
possible.
"I thought I was going to have the laugh all on my side," he said to
himself, "but so far it is all the other way." In ten minutes the
carriage stopped for a moment, there was a challenge, then some gates
were opened. Godfrey had already guessed his destination, and his
feeling of discomfort had increased every foot he went. There was no
doubt he was being taken to the fortress. "It seems to me that Miss
Katia has got me into a horrible scrape of some kind," he said to
himself. "What a fool I was to let myself be humbugged by the girl in
that way!"
Two men with lanterns were at the door of a building, at which the
carriage, after passing into a large court-yard, drew up. Still
retaining their grip on his wrists, two of the men walked beside him
down a passage, while several others followed behind. An officer of high
rank was sitting at the head of a table, one of inferior rank stood
beside him, while at the end of the table were two others with papers
and pens before them.
"So you have captured him!" the general said eagerly.
"Yes, your excellency," the man who had spoken to Godfrey in the
carriage said respectfully.
"Has he been searched?"
"No, your excellency, the distance was so short, and I feared that he
might wrench one of his hands loose. Moreover, I thought that you might
prefer his being searched in your presence."
"It is better so. Take off that disguise." As the hat and mask were
removed the officer sprang to his feet and exclaimed, "Why, who is this?
This is not the man you were ordered to arrest; you have made some
confounded blunder."
"I assure you, your excellency," the official said in trembling accents,
"this is the only man who was there in the disguise we were told of.
There, your excellency, is the bunch of white and red ribbons on his
cloak."
"And who are you, sir?" the general thundered.
"My name, sir, is Godfrey Bullen. I reside with Ivan Petrovytch, a
merchant living in the Vassili Ostrov."
"But how come you mixed up in this business, sir?" the general exclaimed
furiously. "How is it that you are thus disguised, and that you are
wearing that bunch of ribbon? Beware how you answer me, sir, for this is
a matter which concerns your life."
"So far as I am concerned, sir," Godfrey said, "I am absolutely ignorant
of having done any harm in the matter, and have not the most remote idea
why I have been arrested. I may have behaved foolishly in allowing
myself to take part in what I thought was a masquerade joke, but beyond
that I have nothing to blame myself for. I went to the Opera-house,
never having seen a masked ball before. I was alone, and being young and
evidently a stranger, I was spoken to and joked by several masked
ladies. Presently one of them came up to me. I had no idea who she was;
she was closely masked, and I could see nothing of her face." He then
repeated the request that had been made him.
"Do you expect me to believe this ridiculous nonsense about this Captain
Presnovich and his colonel?"
"I can only say, sir, what I am telling you is precisely what happened,
and that I absolutely believed it. It seemed to me a natural thing that
a young officer might come to a ball to see a lady who perhaps he had no
other opportunity of meeting alone. I see now that I was very foolish to
allow myself to be mixed up in the affair; but I thought that it was a
harmless joke, and so I did as this woman asked me."
"Go on, sir," the general said in a tone of suppressed rage.
"There is little more to tell, sir. I went up with this woman to the box
she had pointed out, and there found this Captain Presnovich as I
believed him to be. I put on his hat, mask, and cloak, walked down the
stairs, and was leaving the Opera-house when I was arrested, and am even
now wholly ignorant of having committed any offence."
"A likely story," the general said sarcastically. "And this woman, did
you see her face?"
"No, sir, she was closely masked. I could not even see if she were young
or old; and she spoke in the same disguised, squeaking sort of voice
that all the others that had spoken to me used."
"And that is your entire story, sir; you have nothing to add to it?"
"Nothing whatever, sir. I have told you the simple truth."
The general threw himself back in his chair, too exasperated to speak
farther, but made a sign to the officer standing next to him to take up
the interrogation. The questions were now formal. "Your name is Godfrey
Bullen?" he asked.
"It is."
"Your nationality?"
"British."
"Your domicile?"
Godfrey gave the address.
"How long have you been in Russia?"
"Four months."
"What is your business?"
"A clerk to Ivan Petrovytch."
"How comes it that you speak Russian so well?"
"I was born here, and lived up to the age of ten with my father, John
Bullen, who was a well-known merchant here, and left only two years
ago."
"That will do," the general said impatiently. "Take him to his cell and
search him thoroughly."
Naturally the most minute search revealed nothing of an incriminating
character. At length Godfrey was left alone in the cell, which contained
only a single chair and a rough pallet. "I have put my foot in it
somehow," he said to himself, "and I can't make head nor tail of it
beyond the fact that I have made an ass of myself. Was the whole story a
lie? Was the fellow's name Presnovich? if not, who was he? By the rage
of the general, who, I suppose, is the chief of the police, it was
evident he was frightfully disappointed that I wasn't the man he was
looking for. Was this Presnovich somebody that girl Katia knew and
wanted to get safely away? or was she made a fool of just as I was? She
looked a bright, jolly sort of girl; but that goes for nothing in
Russia, all sorts of people get mixed up in plots. If she was concerned
in getting him away I suppose she fixed on me because, being English and
a new-comer here, it would be easy for me to prove that I had nothing to
do with plots or anything of that sort, whereas if a Russian had been in
my place he might have got into a frightful mess over it. Well, I
suppose it will all come right in the end. It is lucky that the weather
has got milder or I should have had a good chance of being frozen to
death; it is cold enough as it is."
Resuming his clothes, which had been thrown down on the pallet, Godfrey
drew the solitary rug over him, and in spite of the uncertainty of the
position was soon fast asleep. He woke just as daylight was breaking,
and was so bitterly cold that he was obliged to get up and stamp about
the cell to restore circulation. Two hours later the cell door was
opened and a piece of dark-coloured bread and a jug of water were handed
in to him. "If this is prison fare I don't care how soon I am out of
it," he said to himself as he munched the bread. "I wonder what it is
made of! Rye!"
The day passed without anyone coming near him save the jailer, who
brought a bowl of thin broth and a ration of bread for his dinner.
"Can't you get me another rug?" he asked the man. "If I have got to stop
here for another night I shall have a good chance of being frozen to
death."
Just as it was getting dark the man came in again with another blanket
and a flat earthenware pan half full of sand, on which was burning a
handful or two of sticks; he placed a bundle of wood beside it.
"That is more cheerful by a long way," Godfrey said to himself as the
man, who had maintained absolute silence on each of his visits, left the
cell. "No doubt they have been making a lot of inquiries about me, and
find that I have not been in the habit of frequenting low company. I
should not have had these indulgences if they hadn't. Well, it will be
an amusement to keep this fire up. The wood is as dry as a bone luckily,
or I should be smoked out in no time, for there is not much ventilation
through that narrow loophole."
The warmth of the fire and the additional blanket made all the
difference, and in a couple of hours Godfrey was sound asleep. When he
woke it was broad daylight, and although he felt cold it was nothing to
what he had experienced on the previous morning. At about eleven
o'clock, as near as he could guess, for his watch and everything had
been removed when he was searched, the door was opened and a prison
official with two warders appeared. By these he was conducted to the
same room where he had been first examined. Neither of the officers who
had then been there was present, but an elderly man sat at the centre of
the table.
"Godfrey Bullen," he said, "a careful investigation has been made into
your antecedents, and with one exception, and that not, for various
reasons, an important one, we have received a good report of you. Ivan
Petrovytch tells us that you work in his office from breakfast-time till
five in the afternoon, and that your evenings are at your own disposal,
but that you generally dine with him. He gave us the names of the
families with which you are acquainted, and where, as he understood, you
spend your evenings when you are not at the Skating Club, where you
generally go on Tuesdays and Fridays at least. We learn that you did
spend your evenings with these families, and we have learned at the club
that you are a regular attendant there two or three times a week, and
that your general associates are:" and he read out a list which
included, to Godfrey's surprise, the names of every one of his
acquaintances there. "Therefore we have been forced to come to the
conclusion that your story, incredible as it appeared, is a true one.
That you, a youth and a foreigner, should have had the incredible levity
to act in the way you describe, and to assume the disguise of a person
absolutely unknown to you, upon the persuasion of a woman also
absolutely unknown to you, well-nigh passes belief. Had you been older
you would at once have been sent to the frontier; but as it is, the
Czar, to whom the case has been specially submitted, has graciously
allowed you to continue your residence here, the testimony being
unanimous as to your father's position as a merchant, and to the
prudence of his behaviour while resident here. But I warn you, Godfrey
Bullen, that escapades of this kind, which may be harmless in England,
are very serious matters here. Ignorantly, I admit, but none the less
certainly, you have aided in the escape of a malefactor of the worst
kind; and but for the proofs that have been afforded us that you were a
mere dupe, the consequences would have been most serious to you, and
even the fact of your being a foreigner would not have sufficed to save
you from the hands of justice. You are now free to depart; but let this
be a lesson to you, and a most serious one, never again to mix yourself
up in any way with persons of whose antecedents you are ignorant, and in
future to conduct yourself in all respects wisely and prudently."
"It will certainly be a lesson to me, sir. I am heartily sorry that I
was so foolish as to allow myself to be mixed up in such an affair, and
think I can promise you that henceforth there will be no fault to be
found in my conduct."
In the ante-room Godfrey's watch, money, and the other contents of his
pocket were restored to him. A carriage was in waiting for him at the
outer door, and he was driven rapidly to the house of the merchant.
"This is a nice scrape into which you have got yourself, Godfrey," Ivan
Petrovytch said as he entered. "It is lucky for you that you are not a
Russian. But how on earth have you got mixed up in a plot? We know
nothing about it beyond the fact that you had been arrested, for,
although a thousand questions were asked me about you, nothing was said
to me as to the charge brought against you. We have been in the greatest
anxiety about you. All sorts of rumours were current in the city as to
the discovery of a plot to assassinate one of the grand-dukes at the
Opera-house, and there are rumours that explosive bombs had been
discovered in one of the boxes. It is said that the police had received
information of the attempt that was to be made, and that every
precaution had been taken to arrest the principal conspirator, but that
in some extraordinary manner he slipped through their fingers. But
surely you can never have been mixed up in that matter?"
"That is what it was," Godfrey said, "though I had no more idea of
having anything to do with a plot than I had of flying. I see now that I
behaved like an awful fool." And he told the story to Petrovytch and his
wife as he had told it to the head of the police. Both were shocked at
the thought that a member of their household should have been engaged,
even unwittingly, in such a treasonable affair.
"It is a wonder that we ever saw you again," the merchant's wife
exclaimed. "It is fortunate that we are known as quiet people or we
might have been arrested too. I could not have believed that anyone with
sense could be silly enough to put on a stranger's mantle and hat!"
"But I thought," Godfrey urged, "that at masked balls people did play
all sorts of tricks upon each other. I am sure I have read so in books.
And it did seem quite likely--didn't it now?--that an officer should
have come up to meet a young lady masked whom he had no chance of
meeting at any other time. It certainly seemed to me quite natural, and
I believe almost any fellow, if he were asked to help anyone to get out
of a scrape like that, would do it."
"You may do it in England or in France, but it doesn't do to take part
in anything that you don't know for certain all about here. The wonder
is they made any inquiries at all. If you had been a Russian the chances
are that your family would never have heard of you again from the time
you left to go to the opera. Nothing that you could have said would have
been believed. Your story would have been regarded by the police as a
mere invention. They would have considered it as certain that in some
way or other you were mixed up in the conspiracy. They would have
regarded your denials as simple obstinacy, and you would have been sent
to Siberia for life."
"I should advise you, Godfrey," Ivan Petrovytch said, "to keep an
absolute silence about this affair. Mention it to no one. Everyone knows
that something has happened to you, as the police have been everywhere
inquiring; but there is no occasion to tell anyone the particulars. Of
course rumours get about as to the action of the Nihilists and of the
police, but as little is said as possible. It is, of course, a mere
rumour that a plot was discovered at the Opera-house. Probably there
were an unusual number of police at all the entrances, and a very little
thing gives rise to talk and conjecture. People think that the police
would not have been there had they not had suspicion that something or
other was going to take place, and as everything in our days is put down
to the Nihilists, it was naturally reported that the police had
discovered some plot; and as two of the grand-dukes were there, people
made sure it was in some way connected with them.
"As nothing came of it, and no one was, as far as was known, arrested,
it would be supposed that the culprit, whoever he was, managed to evade
the police. Such rumours as these are of very common occurrence, and it
is quite possible that there is not much more truth in them this time
than there is generally; however, of one thing you may be sure, the
police are not fonder than other people of being outwitted, and whether
the man for whom they were in search was a Nihilist or a criminal of
some other sort you certainly aided him to escape. You are sure to be
watched for some time, and it will be known to the police in a very few
hours if you repeat this story to your acquaintances; if they find you
keep silence about it, they will give you credit for discretion, while
it would certainly do you a good deal of harm, and might even now lead
to your being promptly sent across the frontier, were it known that you
made a boast of having outwitted them.
"There is another reason. You will find that for a time most of your
friends here will be a little shy of you. People are not fond of having
as their intimates persons about whom the police are inquiring, and you
will certainly find for a time that you will receive very few
invitations to enter the houses of any Russians. It would be different,
however, if it were known that the trouble was about something that had
no connection with politics; therefore, I should advise you, when you
are asked questions, to turn it off with a laugh. Say you got mixed up
in an affair between a young lady and her lover, and that, like many
other people, you found that those who mingle in such matters often get
left in the lurch. You need not say much more than that. You might do
anything here without your friends troubling much about it provided it
had nothing to do with politics. Rob a bank, perpetrate a big swindle,
run away with a court heiress, and as long as the police don't lay hands
on you nobody else will trouble their heads about the affair; but if
you are suspected of being mixed up in the most remote way with
politics, your best friends will shun you like the plague."
"I will take your advice certainly," Godfrey said, "and even putting
aside the danger you point out, I should not be anxious to tell people
that I suffered myself to be entrapped so foolishly."
For some time, indeed, Godfrey found that his acquaintance fell away
from him, and that he was not asked to the houses of any of the Russian
merchants where he had been before made welcome. Cautious questions
would be asked by the younger men as to the trouble into which he got
with the police; but he turned these off with a laugh. "I am not going
to tell the particulars," he said, "they concern other people. I can
only tell you that I was fool enough to be humbugged by a pretty little
masker, and to get mixed up in a love intrigue in which a young lady,
her lover a captain in the army, and an irascible colonel were
concerned, and that the young people made a cat's-paw of me. I am not
going to say more than that, I don't want to be laughed at for the next
six months;" and so it became understood that the young Englishman had
simply got into some silly scrape, and had been charged by a colonel in
the army with running away with his daughter, and he was therefore
restored to his former footing at most of the houses that he had before
visited.
Two days after his release a note was slipped into Godfrey's hand by a
boy as he went out after dinner for a walk. It was unsigned, and ran as
follows:--
"Dear Godfrey Bullen, my cousin is in a great state of distress. She was
deceived by a third person, and in turn deceived you. She has heard
since that the story was an entire fiction to enable a gentleman for
whom the police were in search to escape. She only heard last night of
your arrest and release, and is in the greatest grief that she should
have been the innocent means of this trouble coming upon you. You know
how things are here, and she is overwhelmed with gratitude that you did
not in defence give any particulars that might have enabled them to
trace her, for she would have found it much more difficult than a
stranger would have done to have proved her innocence. She knows that
you did say nothing, for had you done so she would have been arrested
before morning; not improbably we might also have found ourselves within
the walls of a prison, since you met her at our room, and the mere
acquaintanceship with a suspected person is enough to condemn one here.
By the way, we have moved our lodging, but will give you our new address
when we meet you, that is, if you are good enough to continue our
acquaintance in spite of the trouble that has been caused you by the
credulity and folly of my cousin."
Godfrey, who had begun to learn prudence, did not open the letter until
he returned home, and as soon as he had read it dropped it into the
stove. He was pleased at its receipt, for he had not liked to think that
he had been duped by a girl. From the first he had believed that she,
like himself, had been deceived, for it had seemed to him out of the
question that a young music mistress, who did not seem more than twenty
years old, could have been mixed up in the doings of a desperate set of
conspirators; however, he quite understood the alarm she must have felt,
for though his story might have been believed owing to his being a
stranger, and unconnected in any way with men who could have been
concerned in a Nihilist plot, it would no doubt have been vastly more
difficult for her to prove her innocence, especially as it was known
that there were many women in the ranks of the Nihilists.
It was a fortnight before he met either of the students, and he then ran
against them upon the quay just at the foot of the equestrian statue of
Peter the Great, opposite the Isaac Cathedral. They hesitated for a
moment, but he held out his hand cordially.
"Where have you been, and how is it I have not seen you before?"
"We were afraid that you might not care to know us further," Akim said,
"after the trouble that that foolish cousin of mine involved you in."
"That would have been ridiculous," Godfrey said. "If we were to blame
our friends for the faults of persons to whom they introduce us, there
would be an end to introductions."
"Everyone wouldn't think as you do," Akim said. "We both wished to meet
you, and thank you for so nobly shielding her. The silly girl might be
on her way to Siberia now if you had given her name."
"I certainly should not have done that in any case. It is not the way of
an Englishman to betray his friend, especially when that friend is a
woman; but I thought even before I got your letter that she must in some
way or other have been misled herself."
"It was very good of you," Petroff said. "Katia has been in great
distress over it. She thinks that you can never forgive her."
"Pray tell her from me, Petroff, that I have blamed myself, not her. I
ought not to have let myself be persuaded into taking any part in the
matter. I entered into it as a joke, thinking it would be fine fun to
see the old colonel's face, and also to help a pair of lovers out of a
scrape. It would have been a good joke in England, but this is not a
country where jokes are understood. At any rate it has been a useful
lesson to me, and in future young ladies will plead in vain to get me to
mix myself up in other people's affairs."
"We are going to a students' party to-night," Petroff said. "One of our
number who has just passed the faculty of medicine has received an
appointment at Tobolsk. It is a long way off; but it is said to be a
pleasant town, and the pay is good. He is an orphan, and richer than
most of us, so he is going to celebrate it with a party to-night before
he starts. Will you come with us?"
"I should like it very much," Godfrey said; "but surely your friend
would not wish a stranger there on such an occasion."
"Oh, yes, he would! he would be delighted, he is very fond of the
English. I will answer for it that you will be welcome. Meet us here at
seven o'clock this evening; he has hired a big room, and there will be
two or three dozen of us there--all good fellows. Most of them have
passed, and you will see the army and navy, the law and medicine, all
represented."
Godfrey willingly agreed to go. He thought he should see a new phase of
Russian life, and at the appointed hour he met the two students. The
entertainment was held in a large room in a traktar or eating-house in a
small street. The room was already full of smoke, a number of young men
were seated along two tables extending the length of the room, and
crossed by one at the upper end. Several were in military uniform, and
two or three in that of the navy. Akim and Petroff were greeted
boisterously by name as they entered.
"I will talk to you presently," Akim shouted in reply to various
invitations to take his seat. "I have a friend whom I must first
introduce to Alexis." He and Petroff took Godfrey up to the table at the
end of the room. "Alexis," Akim said, "I have brought you a gentleman
whom I am sure you will welcome. He has proved himself a true friend,
one worthy of friendship and honour. His name is Godfrey Bullen."
There was general silence as Akim spoke, and an evident curiosity as to
the stranger their comrade had introduced. The host, who had risen to
his feet, grasped Godfrey's hand warmly.
"I am indeed glad to meet you, Godfrey Bullen," he said.
"My friends, greet with me the English friend of Akim and Petroff."
There was a general thumping of glasses on the table, and two or three
of those sitting near Alexis rose from their seats and shook hands with
Godfrey, with a warmth and cordiality which astonished him. Room was
made for him and his two friends at the upper end of one of the side
tables, and when he had taken his seat the lad was able to survey the
scene quietly.
Numbers of bottles were ranged down the middle of the tables, which were
of bare wood without cloth. These contained, as Petroff told him, wines
from various parts of Russia. There were wines similar to sherry and
Bordeaux, from the Crimea; Kahetinskoe, strongly resembling good
burgundy, from the Caucasus; and Don Skoe, a sparkling wine resembling
champagne, from the Don. Besides these were tankards of Iablochin Kavas,
or cider; Grushevoi Kavas, or perry; Malovinoi, a drink prepared from
raspberries; and Lompopo, a favourite drink on the shores of the Baltic.
The conversation naturally turned on student topics, of tricks played on
professors, on past festivities, amusements, and quarrels. No allusion
of any kind was made to politics, or to the matters of the day. Jovial
songs were sung, the whole joining in chorus with great animation. At
nine o'clock waiters appeared with trays containing the indispensable
beginning of all Russian feasts. Each tray contained a large number of
small dishes with fresh caviar, raw herrings, smoked salmon, dried
sturgeon, slices of German sausage, smoked goose, ham, radishes, cheese,
and butter. From these the guests helped themselves at will, the
servants handing round small glasses of Kümmel Liftofka, a spirit
flavoured with the leaves of the black-currant, and vodka.
Then came the supper. Before each guest was placed a basin of stehi, a
cabbage soup, sour cream being handed round to be added to it; then came
rastigai patties, composed of the flesh of the sturgeon and isinglass.
This was followed by cold boiled sucking pig with horse-radish sauce.
After this came roast mutton stuffed with buck-wheat, which concluded
the supper. When the table was cleared singing began again, but Godfrey
stayed no longer, excusing himself to his host on the ground that the
merchant kept early hours, and that unless when he had specially
mentioned that he should not be home until late, he made a point of
being in between ten and eleven.
He was again surprised at the warmth with which several of the guests
spoke to him as he said good-night, and went away with the idea in his
mind that among the younger Russians, at any rate, Englishmen must be
much more popular than he had before supposed. One or two young officers
had given him their cards, and said that they should be pleased if he
would call upon them.
"I have had a pleasant evening," he said to himself. "They are a jolly
set of fellows, more like boys than men. It was just the sort of thing I
could fancy a big breaking-up supper would be if fellows could do as
they liked, only no head-master would stand the tremendous row they made
with their choruses. However, I don't expect they very often have a
jollification like this. I suppose our host was a good deal better off
than most of them. Petroff said that he was the son of a manufacturer
down in the south. I wonder what he meant when he laughed in that quiet
way of his when I said I wondered that as his father was well off he
should take an appointment at such an out-of-the-way place as Tobolsk.
'Don't ask questions here,' he said, 'those fellows handing round the
meat may be government spies.' I don't see, if they were, what interest
they could have in the question why Alexis Stumpoff should go to
Tobolsk.
"However, I suppose they make a point of never touching on private
affairs where any one can hear them, however innocent the matter may be.
It must be hateful to be in a country where, for aught you know, every
other man you come across is a spy. I daresay I am watched now; that
police fellow told me I should be. It would be a lark to turn off down
by-streets and lead the spy, if there is one, a tremendous dance; but
jokes like that won't do here. I got off once, but if I give them the
least excuse again they may send me off to the frontier. I should not
care much myself, but it would annoy the governor horribly, so I will
walk back as gravely as a judge."