Frederick Whishaw

“ I revere him, as Tsar and head of the Boyars, but to love is different.’
‘Well, well, fool; in order to marry wisely it is not always necessary to love. Love yourself, that is the first thing; if you truly love yourself you should seek your own good: is not that fair logic? What better thing can a maiden have than to be chosen Tsaritsa? I say there is no better destiny for a maiden under Heaven!’
‘To love and to be loved is the best, Madam, for some,’ said Vera, hesitating.
‘Tut, fool!—love does not wear for long. ”

“ Louise lay and listened to Masha's yawning and half-uttered exclamations of weariness. Why had these people not despatched her at sight? Had they entered in the dark and failed to detect her? The thing was a mystery. She felt refreshed and her head scarcely ached; Biéloy was, she remembered, but a league away, towards Moscow. So far as she had understood the Starost's words, it was Marshal Ney and his guards who were to be ambushed. "I shall warn them, of course," she reflected; "but there is no need to disturb them too soon, for Heaven knows every man of us requires all the sleep he can get." ”

“ On mature reflection I am quite determined that if my friends the Mahatmas give me another dream-chance I shall jump at the offer of Erinofka as a place of abode, however long the sentence be. What if the spirit-gun will not go off? So long as I may tramp the heather and see the game and carry over my shoulder the semblance of a gun to point at it, even a dummy gun; so long as I may see the dew-pearled gossamer, and feel the broad smile of the August sun, and hear the hum and buzz and crackle and cluck of teeming life around me, I really do not think I care so very much about the killing. ”

“ Thou shalt love me again, as before, and marry me. Help me in this, dear Chelminsky.{221} She has robbed me of the Tsar and insulted me. I shall die if I am not quickly avenged. Tell me, truly, does she love thee?’
‘I think it may well be so,’ said I, for this farce amused me and I would see how it should end. ‘For one who marries such a husband as Ivan, it is no very great sin to keep a little affection for a handsome lover from the old days!’
‘Make sure of her, Chelminsky; let her love thee madly, and when she is at her maddest thou shalt marry me before her eyes. ”

“ The Emperor was a splendid-looking man, tall and straight as a pine stem, and handsome withal; there was perhaps but a single man in all Russia who was his superior in manly bearing and in stately presence, and that was his younger brother and successor, Nicholas, who had not his equal in Europe.
"Oh, he is splendid!" murmured Vera Demidof, gazing in wonder and admiration—"what a man! Oh, the sight of him makes me proud to be Russian after all!"
"Ha! it is good to hear you praise something which is not French. ”

“ From the spot where she had stood upon the bank a tiny stream of crystal water trickled through the grass and flowers and found its way back to the parent river.
"How terrible!" said Liuba. "Oh, how I hope I shall never be a rusalka!" and a great rush of longing came over the little bankrupt soul for that baptism of which it knew nothing save its own great need and desire for the gift, and away she floated once more over woods, meadows, and rivers, wailing and crying, "Oh, who will baptize me, baptize me! Christian men, have pity upon a soul that wanders and weeps, and baptize me!" ”

“ He even began to raise her fingers as though to bring them to his lips, but at his touch Vera paled, staggered, and would have fallen fainting to the ground or into the Tsar’s arms, but that Galitsin caught her and laid her senseless form upon a divan.
‘See!’ said Sophia triumphantly: ‘she is overcome, brother, by the honour and the happiness thou hast done her in thus noticing her beauty above the others. Thou hast chosen well, my soul——’
‘I have not chosen her—I have not, I say,’ cried Ivan, stamping his foot and turning upon the Regent. ‘Why do you speak foolishness? I want no woman. ”

“ Now I know not what is best; the evil is done; I do not approve of Marie's foolishness, yet I would not have her heart broken—for imagine, Monsieur le Baron, so false has become her estimate of the proportions that she would rather marry this young man than see him enrolled among the heroes of his country. Surely the object of love is the happiness and the well-being of the beloved? Compare then: to be a soldier of the Grande Armée, or to sit at home to lose manhood in the endearments of a foolish woman! Yet, knowing of the conscription, she would marry him to-morrow. ”

“ For instance, to compare us physically, I am taller than many, and broader, stronger, braver, fleeter, more majestic than the best of them. A human is a mere toy in my hands, as I have proved over and over again—why, there was old Ivan the keeper, only last month, he—but I am digressing. Ha ha! I can't help laughing, though, when I recall poor Ivan's face as I hugged him—my! how his tongue did stick out!
Again, if we are compared intellectually, I very much doubt whether we bears are so inferior as my friends the humans suppose. We do not talk their language—true! ”

“ Let Peter marry when he is old enough, and leave me alone—you, sister, and you, Galitsin, and you, Miloslavsky. I have done you no harm.’
‘But see, dear Ivan,’ said the Regent Sophia, ‘you have come to man’s estate, and men should marry. It is the intention and the will of the Almighty that they should do so; go not contrary to the laws of God. Your life is dull and lonely; why should you not choose for yourself a companion, as other men do, to comfort your days? ”

“ All that is best and most precious of our manhood has gone, and Sasha with the rest. Oh, this Napoleon of yours—though indeed he is no more yours than ours—there is no good thing to be said of him; he is Beelzebub, the prince of the devils!"
"I do not defend him," said Vera. "Why should I? I am as good a Russian as the best."
"See how ill-natured people are! It is said that you so love the French people that you no longer have a thought for your own folks; some even said that you would remain in Paris throughout the war!" ”

“ The noise immediately aroused us, for it recalled a similar sound which we had good cause to remember, and carried us back to that dreadful day when our poor mother had been done to death, together with little Katia. On peeping through the hole we soon perceived that we were besieged by two men—both of whom were peasants. One of these held a fire-stick, and the sight of it put my heart all of a quake; for I confess, though I fear nothing else in the world, I am terribly frightened of that dreadful, death-spitting stick, called gun. ”

“ Henri reflected, "or he has discovered that Louise already loves me, in which case she might have chosen another messenger! Soon I shall know whether Louise indeed loves me. Mon Dieu, if she does not, after all this, I know not what shall happen." Henri strode up and down the room, scarcely able to contain his excitement, it was most inconsiderate of Louise to keep him waiting so long—what did it mean?
"She adorns herself; that is what it means!" Henri reflected; "it is only natural that she should desire to look her best; it is only what every woman would do." ”

“ Doubtless those few who were unwilling to be chosen were they whom Love had so securely entangled in his net that the poor fluttering things had lost their heads and were unable to see salvation except in struggling for freedom.
Thus some preferred, as I say, to disfigure themselves, and a few tried to escape; and among these latter was a fair maiden, Doonya Meschersky, who was so terribly in love with her lover, Kostromsky, that they could not wait upon events, but must needs take destiny into their own hands and attempt in clumsy fashion to shape their own ends. ”

“ Presently a superb covey of willow-grouse (who are the parents of our own red variety of the family) rise with a whirr and a loud laugh from the old cock, leave their tribute of four upon the heather—and vanish. We see them flit like a white cloud over the open moorland, rise like one being to top the bushes, flash their wings in the sun as they wheel round in the traditional manner of their tribe before settling, and then we suddenly lose sight of them and see them no more.
"They are down among the aspens," said Jemmie. Hermann dissented. ”

“ Louise murmured, speaking as though in a dream; "so should all brave men go; oh, Monsieur, it is grand to be a man, to take a great part in the affairs of life; to move and live and fight, while others remain at home to weep and think with folded hands. To which army corps is Monsieur attached?"
"To that of Ney," said Henri, puzzled by the mood of Louise. Evidently he had surprised her in a moment of unusual softness. Henri had thought, more than once, that the attitude of Louise towards himself indicated a certain partiality. ”

“ And to my boundless surprise I recognised this frantic rider for the Tsar Peter himself—for him who is at this day known as Piotr Veleeki, Peter the Great; whose slightest word or frown is feared or hailed by millions of subjects; the conqueror of Charles of Sweden; a second Alexander the Great; the maker of a new Russia; the greatest Russian that God’s sun ever shone upon. ”

“ It must not be for one moment supposed that we, in the exuberance of our happiness, and in the all-accepting, unquestioning, all-enjoying spirit of the British schoolboy, cared a farthing for the depth or width of the very vilest hole that time and horseshoes ever wore in a Russian road; on the contrary, we loved the sensation of being sent flying up into the air every other minute, and if we came down upon the top of one another or of the luckless driver on his hard box-seat, or even into the six-inch dust of the road in the rear of the telyega, why, I believe we liked it all the better. ”

“ Then the Barin fell upon him, raining abuses and curses and knout-blows; and in a moment the wretched peasant was upon his knees blubbering and beseeching, rage in his heart, but in his veins the craven blood distilled by generations of oppression.
"Come to Toxova for a flogging once a month for a year," said the Barin, panting with his exertions; "and when you come Olga shall come also. I will show you both, and the rest of the village too, that I am to be obeyed. As for marrying, you shall marry the oldest hag in your own village, since you will have a wife." ”

“ It was a hot day, one of the last we should see, for this was what, Vainka says, the humans call "old woman's summer," which comes after the real summer and lasts but a few days. Perhaps I was asleep: I may have been taking forty winks, for about this time we bears begin to do a trifle of yawning and napping at odd moments, in preparation for the winter function; but suddenly a truly awe-inspiring noise startled the delicious silence of the forest and brought me out of the land of dreams and upon my feet in a moment. The noise was produced by humans or devils, that much was certain. ”

“ What manner of a husband would the Tsar be for such as your daughter? She should marry a man, not a plaster figure!’
‘And who in the devil’s name are you, then?’ said old Kurbatof, astonished at my boldness.
‘I own to as good a name as even your own—Chelminsky. It is one of the best of our Cossack names; not like Mazeppa’s there, which he picked up Heaven knows where—no Cossack knows it! I am a better suitor than he, Boyar. He tells you doubtless that he will be Hetman; but it is also possible that I shall be so, and not he; for I have a Tsar behind me, and he a Regent. ”

“ How long will the troops occupy a burning city? A week? Two weeks? And then comes Kootoozof's opportunity; Platof and his Cossacks; the Drujina of Moscow, and all you good regulars; you shall fall upon them like terriers upon the rats. Now do you understand why we of the league must remain in Moscow?"
"I see—I see!" said Sasha, trembling with excitement. "Yes! there is work to be done in the city, you are right, Vera; but it is not woman's work; it is work for desperate men, Vera, not for fair girls." ”

“ What a foolish fight will this be!"
"Michel is a good fencer, he has few equals. What if he should slay you, my beloved, for—if I remember rightly—you have not more than a passable hand with the rapier."
"Bah! in such a cause I would overthrow even Louise herself," Henri laughed; "but will Michel fight?"
"It—it shall be arranged; he shall slip and you shall disarm him—neither shall be hurt." Louise blushed and became agitated. "Go down, chérie, to the salon d'armes, you know it of old, and there Michel shall meet you. Adieu, until—until Michel is overthrown." ”

“ Shall we not do the best for our own country? What matters who is Hetman or whether a man dies, or a hundred men, if we are learning meanwhile what is wisdom and what is folly?’
‘I am not a reader of riddles,’ said I, ‘but this I know and will say, that you shall treat me as an equal, for your equal I am, or it maybe that swords will be drawn, and it shall be shown that you have a superior.’
‘See here, Chelminsky,’ said Mazeppa in his friendliest manner; ‘put up your sword, or rather do not dream of drawing it against me who am your best friend. ”

“ Is your fiancé soldier or bourgeois?"
"A soldier and a splendid fencer!" said Vera, looking out of the window and far away.
"Good," said Paul; "I would rather fight a man than kill a sheep."
"I think you will never come to Moscow, and I pray God you may not," said Vera; "that would be a disaster indeed."
"I promise you it should be a disaster for your fiancé," said Paul; but it is probable that she heard nothing of what he said; her mind was entirely absorbed by this new and overwhelming idea: that Napoleon threatened Moscow—the holy city of her own race. "It is not a real danger?" she asked. ”

“ Be careful with this wench Olga, my friend. Do not trust her too much. I have told thee of her violence within the terem when she found that the Tsar would choose Praskovia before her. She is a fiend, no less. She is mad with rage and the desire of vengeance. This very day she has avowed her love for me, or rather she has offered me her love upon conditions——’
‘Avowed her love for you!’ I exclaimed, starting to my feet, as though in fury, though in truth I felt more inclined to laugh than to rage; ‘and you dare to tell me this, Mazeppa?’
‘Stay, I speak as your friend. ”

“ If the Tsar be pleased to jest in a matter which does not concern him, let him jest. It is quite likely that Alexander Petrovitch, when he sees me, will think the Tsar's jest but a poor one."
"A thousand times no, chérie! He will love you at sight. Already he is prepared to lose his heart; it is a heart worth winning! There are many who would give the world in exchange for it! Yet I whisper to you, dooshinka, this secret—he waits but to learn that you have escaped scatheless from Paris!"
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Vera, laughing. ”

“ For him, the crown is the crown, the man nothing. He thinks of the glory that would be mine and his if I were to become Tsaritsa. He glories in the prospect already, for, indeed, many say that the Tsar’s mind is made up, and that he will marry me or none. Now you understand how imminent is my need of escape. I would die a hundred times rather than mate with that loathsome thing.’
‘Well, I will tell Mazeppa,’ I said, feeling strangely mortified and somewhat heavy at heart besides. Vera Kurbatof had drawn me within the hall of her father’s house, and we sat before the stove and conversed. ”

“ During the months of anxiety preceding the arrival, first of the Russian army and afterwards of the French, Vera had shown herself one of the most patriotic of Russian women. She had been surprised by her own fierce patriotic passion. She had gone daily among the people, inflaming their minds against the foreigners, helping—like many of the ladies in Moscow—to enrol every man of fighting age and capacity among the drujina or militia, which had started into being in response to the manifesto of the Tsar. ”

“ If my heart were of the breaking kind, that would have been a deadly blow when thou didst leave Batourin in my absence for the terem of the Tsar, forgetting thy plighted troth to me!’
‘What, the chance to be Tsaritsa, and abandon it because of a word to thee? Thou must think me a fool indeed, Chelminsky!’
‘And what of certain courting with Mazeppa while the lover was away?’
‘Bah! Mazeppa! to dally with Mazeppa means nothing, for every woman is the same to him; all are toys, to play with and to forget in a day! ”