Mary Jane Holmes

“ The nobility have then returned from their summer homes. The czar is at his palace. The Nevsky Prospect is gay with equipages of every description, from the common sledge to the carriages of the aristocracy, while the Neva, frozen to the thickness of three or four feet, rivals the Nevsky, with its crowds of sledges and skates and lookers-on, its colored lights, its bazaars and booths filled with a laughing crowd till long after the coachmen and horses, who have stood for hours in the cold before the Winter Palace, where a ball was in progress, have gone home. ”

“ Mrs. Browne inquired; and Zaidee replied: “Monsieur Seguin’s. You’ve heard of the Seguins, on the Nevsky?”
Mrs. Browne shook her head. The Seguins were as strange to her as the Scholaskies.
“Are they nihilists?” she asked, sharply; and I replied: “No, indeed! Madame Seguin is as bitter against them as you are, and her son is a gendarme.”
“Oh!” she said. “And he owns this beast? Seems to me I have heard of him. He can track anybody, if he has once known them and smelled their clothes or hands? He seems very fond of you.” ”

“ That night M. Seguin called, seeming at first under some restraint, as if he had lost favor with us. He did not mention Ivan until I asked where he was, and what would probably be his fate.
“Siberia, undoubtedly; but not for a long time, as they can find nothing criminal against him,” he said. “He is an agitator—a stirrer-up. He kept the thing simmering wherever he went. A very fine fellow, but a dangerous man, with his principles and pleasing personality. We had to arrest him to keep him out of mischief. I am sorry that you were present at the arrest.” ”

“ I loved Sophie as I have never loved any other girl, and yet there was always something queer about it; and, when I knew she was Ivan, I recoiled from her for a while. I have never known Ivan as a man; never seen him in a man’s clothes. If I had, I should know better what to do. I must think.”
She took a week to think, and then one day surprised me with a letter she had written to Madame Scholaskie. ”

“ Whether you marry me or not, I shall leave the country and go to America. Many predict trouble for Russia in the future. There is unrest everywhere, and treachery. You don’t know whom to trust. Every servant of mine is a nihilist, and Zaidee the worst of all. But mother never suspected it. If she had, she would have flayed them alive, if she could. I am tired of it, and shall go to a free country, where, as Carl Zimosky once said, one can sneeze without being made to tell why he did so. ”

“ SOPHIE SCHOLASKIE. Three years later I was again in Europe, traveling with my nephew and niece, Katy and Jack, the motherless children of my only sister. We had seen a great deal, for the young people were full of life and health, and eager to see everything—not once, but twice and sometimes three times. I was getting tired and glad of a rest in Paris, where at the Bellevue I was taking my breakfast one morning in our salon, while Katy and Jack were looking up some route presumably to Italy, our next objective point. ”

“ We have no wish to shed blood, nor harm the czar—the weak, timid man, ruled by the grand dukes. We want some rights to make us free and intelligent and educated, like the poor in your country. Instead of that, we are almost as much slaves as we were before the emancipation. You ought to see the poverty and misery on the farms in the country. We are held down with an iron hand; but it must open—it will open—and Russia be free!”
She was very eloquent, and showed the effect of the meetings she had attended, and where Ivan probably charmed the people with his eloquence. ”

“ Carl had been in prison, and nearly killed with the knout, but he had his good parts, and would share his last crust or kopecks with a friend.
“He is”—and she hesitated a moment; then began, in tolerably fair English; and, when I looked at her in surprise, she explained that she had once lived in England for a year, and learned the language. “I was not always what I am now,” she said. “It is a great fall from the Court Quay to this place, but I have made the descent, and was so bruised and stunned that life holds nothing for me now—nothing—and what goes on around me rather amuses me. ”

“ The Scholaskies’ rooms were on the third floor, and surprised us with their handsome furnishings, from the golden-framed icon to the ivy-covered screen which shut off one end of the salon. Madame, too, was a surprise, as, with her snow-white hair, her piercing, black eyes, and faded, velvet gown, which told of better days, she came forward to greet us. If not an aristocrat, as the Russians understand the term, she was a lady born, and showed it in her manner, her language and her voice. ”

“ I saw you, and we had a great tussle with the dog—the porter and I—to keep him in. The porter fell down, and swore so hard and I laughed so that Chance got away and followed you. I did not mean to have him come with me to-night, and didn’t know he had till I heard him at the door. He is hard to manage when his master is away. He is in Moscow, and the house is like a tomb without him.”
I was conscious of a feeling of happiness in knowing that Zaidee’s black was not worn for Michel, and my next question was for Madame Seguin. ”

“ He took Zaidee out one day, rather against his will, as he remembered the touzle-haired girl who had your aunt’s hat, and hardly thought it fit that she should ride in his new drosky, even if she is transformed into a fine-looking girl, with a tongue in her head, he said, and a devil in her eyes! He nearly upset her, he drove so fast, and she was glad to escape with whole bones. Zaidee is what you call a case—a rank nihilist at heart, I believe, but she covers it so well that mother does not suspect. If she did, she would not tolerate the girl a moment. She is death on anarchy of any kind. ”

“ Ivan was arrested and sent to Siberia, and escaped, no one knows how but himself. As old Alex, he passed a year in St. Petersburg, and no one suspected him until I got a clew, no matter how, and went to Mrs. Browne’s. The moment I saw him I guessed I had my man, and, the more I saw of him, the more certain I became. But I would not arrest him before you. I would wait, I said, and, when I heard he was going to America, I made up my mind to let the poor fellow go, and I kept Paul Strigoff from the scent, and I’ve got him across the frontier and into Paris, where he is safe. ”

“ Katy sat perfectly still and scarcely gave a sign that she had heard; but when the story was finished she left her seat by the window and sat down beside Sophie, whose hand she took in hers, pressing it in token of her sympathy.
“I am so sorry for you,” she said; “and I don’t know that I want to go to Russia.”
“I do!” Jack exclaimed. “I want to lick ’em.”
This created a diversion, at which we all laughed, and no one more heartily than Sophie.
“Better keep quiet, my boy,” she said. “You can do no good. No one can help us but God, and sometimes it seems as if He had forgotten. ”

“ I was always dreading some evil, and now it has come. If he had kept in Sophie’s clothes, the evil might have been averted, but he would go to their meetings in his own dress, and this is the result. The night you were here, and Michel Seguin came, I felt my life strings snap, for I was nearly sure he knew it was Ivan, and refrained from arresting him for your sake. He can be very stern on occasion, but is also kind. He was kind to my husband, and will be to Ivan, if he is sent to Siberia, as is probable. ”

“ I have no patience with a nihilist, or anarchist, or striker of any kind. They deserve Siberia, or something worse, and I’m glad Ivan has his deserts at last—masquerading in petticoats! Yes, he has his deserts. It’s the Scholaskie blood, not mine—not the Rubenstein on the Russian side, nor the Burnells on the English. I’m proud of both. And my daughter is going to join her scapegrace son? ”

“ You are not afraid of him?”
“No,” I answered, and, before I could say more, the officer continued, to the dog: “Salute the lady!”
In an instant two great paws were on my shoulders, and Chance was looking into my face, with an expression so human that I began to feel cold and sick, and tried to free myself from him, and in my effort dropped my handkerchief.
“Down, Chance! That will do,” his master said, and then to us: “He will know you now wherever he meets you, especially after I have shown him this.” ”

“ No one need be afraid of him, except they are bad,” she said, forgetting the time when, a poor street waif, she used to run at the sight of him.
We tried to see Ivan, but that was impossible. We could only send him a message and a good-by through Michel Seguin, who promised to do for him all he consistently could do.
190“Perhaps he may write to you,” he said, looking at Katy, who had been like a wilted flower ever since the arrest, caring for nothing, except to leave the city as soon as possible. She went once alone to call on Madame Scholaskie, and when she returned she seemed much happier. ”

“ You don’t arrest girls, do you? Shame on you! Let her go! We know her well. She is our friend. She came with us from Paris.”
He held on to the officer’s arm with all his might, while Chance, who knew something was wrong, and that the feeling was against the gendarme, growled ominously, ready to spring, if told to do so. I think the gendarme was amused, or he would have walked off at once with his prisoner. As it was, he waited a few moments, while Sophie said to Jack: “No use, my boy! The game is up! I am not Sophie Scholaskie. I am Ivan, her brother!” ”

“ I wish this scamp Ivan, who escaped from Siberia—Heaven only knows how!—and has kept himself from the law for more than a year, I wish, I say, that he was in America, where such as he belongs, and where he could make something of himself better than hiding like a rat in a hole, or in many holes. He has a rare faculty of attracting people to him. Not a nihilist in the city would betray him. Zaidee did let out something accidentally, which made me think she knew where he was, but, when I asked her, she replied: ‘No, sir! ”

“ We want to act—rise in a body and march upon the grandees, and make them give us our rights! That’s what we want, and mean to have!”
She was flourishing her feathers in one hand and her silk duster in the other, and looked as if she were ready to lead a mob at any time against the Winter Palace and Hermitage and Gatschina and Tsarselo, if necessary.
Just then Mrs. Browne appeared, to see what kept Alex so long, and instantly the feathers moved rapidly across a window stool and mirror, and then the old woman declared the room done, and asked what next she should “fly at.” ”

“ Jack and I read up about it last night after you went to bed. You wondered why we were up so late. We read till midnight, and, like the girl who had been in Rome eight days and knew it thoroughly, we know Russia pretty well—St. Petersburg, I mean. That’s where we want to go—the place where your hat freezes to your head, your veil to your face, and if you shut your eyes when they are full of water your lids freeze together. That’s what some writer says, and I want to know if it is true, and see St. Isaac’s and the fortress, and the Winter Palace, and skate on the Neva. ”

“ Here Katy interposed, suggesting that we take M. Seguin’s advice and stay at home. “He had some reason besides the cold,” she said. But Jack was determined, and began to call back the dog, who had started for home.
“Jack,” Katy said, and I never saw her so firm, “if Chance comes, I shall stay at home. Miss Sophie”—and her voice shook—“does not like him, nor anything pertaining to the Seguins. She was white as a corpse when Chance was at the door clamoring to get in. She is afraid of dogs.” ”

“ Petersburg is a right jolly place, after all, and it is my home. I hope you will go there some day. Your knowledge of the language will make it easy for you, and you will not find us a bad lot, or know a nihilist from a partisan of the government. They are all mixed in together. If you go, I may or may not be there, but find No. — Nevsky Prospect. It was once my home, where we kept forty servants, falling over each other and doing less work than half a dozen do in America. It is part of the system. ”

“ We had stood upon the sidewalk so long that the few passers-by began to look at us curiously and with suspicion, as if the presence in our midst of a gendarme boded evil to some of us, and one or two stopped to see what would follow. It was to me that Michel had addressed his invitation, and before I could answer and decline, as I meant to do, although I wished very much to see Nicol’s old home, he said: “It is perfectly proper for you to do so. Tourists not infrequently visit private houses when the owner is gone—for a compensation, of course. ”

“ Whitney was afraid of dogs.
“Drive fast, and don’t let him overtake us,” I said to the coachman, who had turned his head, and needed no second bidding to hurry, so that it was now a race between the horse and the dog, and the horse beat, for it seemed to dawn on Chance that he was doing a ridiculous thing, and he began to slacken his speed, while Zaidee came running, bareheaded and bare-armed, along the Nevsky till she reached the animal, and, seizing him by the mane, led him back to the house. ”

“ Something was choking me, as I went through the rooms where Nicol used to live, and I tried to imagine him there, with his fastidious ideas and his dainty dress, free from spot or blemish.
“It must have been different then,” I thought, and I said: “Mr. Patoff told me they sometimes had as many as forty servants in his day.”
“Oh, yes,” the gendarme replied. “No doubt of it. I think we at one time had sixty, before the emancipation of the serfs, when labor cost nothing.”
“Sixty!” Mary repeated. “Why, at home if we have one we do well. What did sixty do?” ”

“ MRS. SCHOLASKIE. Just how Ivan’s wooing of Katy sped I had no means of knowing except through Jack, who wrote:
“Ivan has been here and gone. I tell you he is the right kind. I took him everywhere and introduced him to everybody, and told them he was an escaped nihilist, and had been disguised as a lady in satins and silks, and as an old woman with a hump on her back and a gray wig. That made him a lion at once and folks stared at him till he got tired and said: ‘Please drop Alex and Sophie and the escaped nihilist. It sounds too much like “escaped convict.” ”

“ Your sister was a beautiful little girl. Give her my love, if she cares to take it from an old man like me. And give it to your auntie, too. I always think of her as a girl, she looks so young. Tell her that the old drosky man, who, the winter she was here, was keeping his bones warm in his mud hut on the plains, has come back, with a new establishment and new horse, and loudly laments that he did not have the pleasure of driving little madame. He thinks he lost a great deal—not so much in kopecks as in honor. ”