Mazeppa

“ That would endanger thy favour with her Highness!’
‘Bah!’ said Mazeppa. ‘I tell you that he gazes at the jewel at her throat because it flashes in the sun: set a light dancing upon the wall, and he will stare at that. As for the girl, it is not my habit to do things in a hurry, and least of all will I marry in haste; but she is certainly one of the fairest of women that I have yet seen! Think you such as she would mate with an Ivan, even though he be half a Tsar? ”

“ My mind was full of Vera, for I had a horrible dread that she would be forced against her will to submit to marriage with the Tsar. I hastened therefore to Mazeppa’s lodging, for well I knew that if there was anything to know, whether of Vera or of anything else, Mazeppa would be the one to know the first news and the last.
‘A ghost!’ he said, as I entered and greeted him; ‘one risen from the tomb indeed, and limping, by the saints—what, wounded? Whom now hast thou found to brawl with?’
‘It is true that I have fought: one day I will tell thee all there is to tell. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Do you then know so much of Mazeppa that you mistrust his motives in offering to assist me?’
‘I know that Mazeppa admires a good-looking woman,’ I laughed, ‘and that you are one; also that he admires you even more than other fair women; and lastly, that what Mazeppa admires he covets, and what he covets he generally obtains, by fair means or foul.’
‘You should need to know a man well indeed before you would speak thus of him,’ Vera murmured. ”

“ Yet though the Tsar received from far and near almost daily complaints of Mazeppa’s deceitfulness—how he misruled his Cossacks, coquetted with Pole, Swede and Tartar, and was faithless to every friend he possessed—yet Peter, in this one instance, mistook his man from first to last; believing his word, trusting him in face of overwhelming evidence, and standing his friend and ally through every attempt, whether political or private, to shake his faith in the Hetman. The Tsar was usually a better judge of character than he showed himself in Mazeppa’s case! ”

“ Why not allowed to go to Moscow?’
‘As to that, only Mazeppa knows Mazeppa’s mind, but so it is. He is jealous maybe, and would rather not have you bargaining with the Tsar Peter against him. More than this I know not any more than yourself.’
The horse Ajax, meanwhile, had recovered his feet and stood shaking himself at intervals, panting, but apparently unhurt. I felt him up and down; there was nothing broken.
‘Well, take your life, Kostigin,’ I said. ‘Ride back and meet the next man; tell him he were wiser to return with you. You will find Shadrach yonder. ”

“ I sat and gazed at Mazeppa, too amazed to speak.
‘I see that I have surprised you,’ he said. ‘I have thought very deeply upon this matter, and I have persuaded myself that from the Tsar’s point of view I may indeed become a useful instrument for his ends. Kings are not guided by philanthropy in their imperial schemes, but by expediency. In me Alexis sees an agent suited, as he thinks, for his purposes; therefore he will employ me. ”

“ She has disappeared. If she is wise she has gone a long way and will tell to no one where to seek her. You should hope this as much as I. Do we not both desire that she should escape from this loathsome marriage with the Tsar? If so, what matters it to us where she is, so long as she is safe? The further the better, say I!’
‘That is true, of course,’ said Mazeppa, with a quick glance at me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They broke into wild indignation when Mazeppa unfolded to them his plan, most of them refusing to join in the revolt, and threatening to seize him and deliver him, bound hand and foot, to the czar. Some two thousand in all adhered to Mazeppa, and for a time it seemed as if a bloody battle would take place between the two [Pg 153] sections of the tribe, but in the end the chief and his followers made their way to the Swedish camp, while the others marched back and put themselves under the command of the nearest Russian general. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the prisoner stirs convulsively in the agony of his plight, the horse bounds forward even more recklessly. The fury of the ride continues, increases, until Mazeppa loses consciousness and mists becloud his senses. ”

“ I did warn Mazeppa, telling him that I had observed the Tsar Ivan look in such a manner at the girl that one might suppose he was attracted by her. Mazeppa laughed much when I told him.
‘The youth is one of God’s afflicted,’ he said. ‘There is not life enough in his veins to warm him into admiration for the charms of a maiden. What, would the Regent have Vera marry that dolt? ”

“ A jealous nobleman had him stripped naked and bound on his own horse, lying on his back and with his head to its tail, and let the animal loose, leaving Mazeppa to his fate. The horse carried him, senseless from exhaustion, to its native wilds of the Ukraine, according to the usual story. A more likely account is that his horse carried him through woods and thickets and brought him back, torn and bleeding, to his own home. Mazeppa now joined the Cossacks, became secretary to their hetman, Samoilovich, and in 1687 was chosen his successor. ”

“ They stuck the three heads upon spear-points and pushed through the mob, screaming that they had sent one or more of the Naryshkin litter to hell.
‘Come,’ said Mazeppa, ‘we will not stay!’{53} and, sick at heart and shocked, I struggled my way out of the square.
‘You devil, Mazeppa!’ I said, when I had recovered my breath. ‘No murderer is more guilty than you after such a deed!’
‘You fool—it was his death or ours!’ he replied. ‘Could you not discern so much? Let a man but point at another, this day, and speak loudly, and lo! there is found a Naryshkin for the Streltsi to fall upon. ”

“ Mazeppa was a well-educated man, and highly accomplished in the arts of war as they were practiced in those days. He soon acquired great popularity among the Cossacks, and, in the end, rose to be a chieftain among them, and he distinguished himself greatly in these very campaigns in the Crimea, fought by the Muscovites against the Turks and Tartars during the regency of the Princess Sophia. ”

“ Now that I reflect upon the matter, I see that the suspicion was foolish and baseless. Yet who should have set the rascal to spy upon me, and why?’
‘That is impossible to guess; but at any rate do not suspect your oldest friend,’ said Mazeppa. ‘Could you not compel the fellow to declare himself?’
‘A man must be caught before he is compelled,’ I laughed, ‘as a hare must be trapped{169} before he is stewed; and like a hare indeed the fellow ran.’
I watched Mazeppa’s face as I spoke, expecting to see at least a look of relief, but my fox gave no sign. ”

“ But Mazeppa was inclined to treat the matter lightly.
‘What!’ he said. ‘You bring no wife? Where, then, is the fair, foolish Vera?’
‘I have no wife. The Barishnya Kurbatof remains in Moscow. And why, I pray, is she called foolish?’
‘Oh!’ he laughed, ‘it would not become me to say; but, tell me, has she proved herself so wise that she has sent Chelminsky about his business?’
‘She is and remains wise,’ I replied, ‘since she both escaped Mazeppa and prefers to tarry where she is, safe from false friends and hypocrites.’
‘Come, Chelminsky, take not such matters too seriously: women are toys. ”

“ Mazeppa was the teacher's name. That is to say, his real name was Baruch-Moshe. He had come to our town from Mazapevka not long before, and the people called him the Mazapevkar. We boys shortened his name to Mazeppa. And when pupils crown their teacher with such a lovely name, he must be worthy of it. Let me introduce him.
He is small, thin, dried-up, hideously ugly. He hasn't even the signs of a moustache or beard or eyebrows. Not because he shaved. God forbid, but simply because they would not grow. But for that again he had a pair of lips and a nose. Oh, what a nose! ”

“ He had indeed the pleasure of seeing the former slacken to receive the latter, but the vehicle was wafted away again so smoothly that to the poor perspiring pedestrian Methusalem appeared in his original Mazeppa rôle.
The chase ran along wide horizons—great ploughed lands or meadows with grazing cattle—the level broken only by ricks, roofs, and trees, mainly witch-elms, with a few poplars. Sometimes these elms clustered in groves, sometimes a few helped to make the hedge-line; as often they rose solitary in arrogant individualism. ”

“ The Tsar speaks by hints, mentioning no names. I think I do not lack in friendliness towards you, my friend, in confiding all this to you. You shall go with me to Samoilovitch, and under him we shall rise side by side; which shall rise the higher in the end matters little so long as the two highest places are ours!’
In short, Mazeppa easily talked me over to his views, rousing my ambition and quieting my compunctions in the matter of the transfer of allegiance from Pole to Russian. ”

“ If I have done my best to save her from the terem, this has been done at thy own request.’
‘Well, I have long suspected thee. Any man might well desire so fair a creature, and it has seemed to me that she is more to thee than thou wouldst have me think. I am determined that none shall possess this maiden but I. Be sure, my friend, that when Mazeppa is resolved upon any matter, that matter is in the end accomplished.’
‘Dear heart!’ I exclaimed, laughing aloud, ‘have the girl for thy own if thou canst—what is she to me? ”

“ When he had despatched this last letter, Mazeppa left Batourin with as many of his lances as he could persuade that treachery such as his would prove the best policy—about two thousand men. Two thousand dupes out of the promised fifty thousand!
‘Here is thy chance, Chelminsky,’ said Peter the Tsar. ‘Thou hast waited long. Mazeppa is{329} dead or dying; his lances want a leader: Menshikof shall ride with thy Cossacks, and thou shalt be Hetman of the Ukraine.’
But I was devoted by this time to my own Cossacks, and preferred to remain by the Tsar’s side. ”

“ Never did men fight more desperately than our good Cossack fools who had followed the old fox into ruin. Once the Tsar, riding near me at the moment, bade me watch{331} the old Hetman charge with his fellows. By the saints, the sight did one good, even though they were against us!
‘Curse him!’ cried Peter, ‘his lances kill three to every one of them that falls. Take a thousand of our Cossacks, Chelminsky, and chase the rascals into the Vorskla! Bring me Mazeppa alive, and by all the devils I will make thee head over every Cossack that breathes!’
That was a notable fight. ”

“ Mazeppa, with his left arm, pressed me gently backwards until I stood beside him, back to the wall, I defending myself, meanwhile, against Zofsky’s onslaught.
‘Against odds,’ Mazeppa said, ‘it is better to have no one behind us, and especially,’ he added, glancing at our three opponents, ‘when we have Poles for adversaries.’
At this the three sprang angrily upon us, and for a minute or two there was quite a din of clashing swords, so that we did not know that the door of the King’s cabinet had opened and the King himself had entered the ante-room. ”

“ The fellows consulted, however, and determined to leave us to digest the letter, whatever it might be.
‘It seems a serious matter,’ said the Captain; ‘and you shall be taken to the Tsar’s Court at{35} Moscow. They have ways there of getting men to reveal what it is desirable to know.’
‘Take us to the devil if you will,’ laughed Mazeppa. ‘The Tsar shall know just as much or just as little as we—who know nothing—can tell him. It is easier to eat a sealed letter than to read it.’
‘It is easiest of all to tell what was in it, when the knout is at the back!’ laughed the Captain. ”

“ Although it was Sophia who made him hetman, he was among the first to declare for Peter. His enemies, of whom he had many, accused him before the czar, but Peter admired him, and delivered his accusers up to him; they did not live long after Mazeppa had them in his power.
It was Mazeppa's scheme to establish an independent kingdom, he had the support of the Cossacks who did not care to work but preferred to be supported by the people. The industrious classes longed to get rid of this burden, and looked toward the czar to set them free. ”