The Red Starosta

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Title:     The Red Starosta
Author: Maurus Jokai [More Titles by Jokai]

CHAPTER I

THE JUDAS-MONEY

Have you ever heard of the Bialystok Dominion? There lie the huge Sylvan wildernesses of Lithuania, the native home of the Ure-ox, the ancestor of horned cattle, the king of all oxen; in every other part of Europe it has been exterminated. They are now the quarry of the Russian Tsar, and only the Romanovs and their guests possess the privilege of hunting them down.

But Bialystok is still more famous for its wondrously beautiful Palace, which worthily bears the name of "the Polish Versailles." Built in the Italian renaissance style, embellished within and without by the sculptures and the paintings, the bronzes and the mosaics of the most eminent masters, surrounded by the most lovely ornamental gardens in the world, in which the exotic trees in winter time have whole wooden houses built around them, so that pomegranate and citron trees bloom in the open air during the spring, and Bruin comes from the depths of the surrounding forests to pluck the citrons from the trees and roar over his unaccustomed food--the Palace of Bialystok is one of the most wonderful places in the world.

And this famous Palace is connected with no one family name. At every fresh human generation it carries a different family name on its forehead. It has belonged successively to the Moskowskis, the Potoccy, the Branickis, and the Czernuskis. And popular tradition says that before it belonged to them it was the possession of the "Red Starosta."

But whether purchased or won by confiscation it never descended from father to son, for there was this odd thing about it, that its proprietor never had male issue, and consequently it always passed through his daughter to his son-in-law. To explain this condition of things, popular tradition tells the following story:--

In the days of the Red Starosta, the Jews had great influence in the Grodno district; indeed, it would be difficult to imagine Poland without them. Bialystok was their head-quarters, and there they had their synagogue. The Starostas allowed them to multiply and get rich, just as a highly practical agriculturist allows the bees to collect their stores throughout the summer, and when the autumn winds begin to blow does not treat them after the manner of ungrateful and unreasonable bee-keepers, who smoke out the industrious insects with sulphur, no, but in the most approved modern fashion he subtracts the honey, leaves the bees just enough to live upon, and then puts back the empty cells into the hive that the bees may fill them full again.

The bees themselves regard this method as perfectly normal, for otherwise they would leave the hive and go into the forest and fill the stumps of trees with honey. But then the bears would eat them and it, so that, after all, it is very much better for the bees to have to do with the bee-keepers.

On one occasion the Red Starosta (he was just about to marry for the third time, and wanted a lot of money rather badly for the wedding feast) hit upon a new method of obtaining a voluntary contribution by attacking the Jews in their synagogue on one of their holy days. Every one of them was compelled to pay liberally. There were a good many treasures concealed in the synagogue, and these also they had to hand over. The Jews lamented and paid up; they had not even courage enough to curse.

But in the strong-box of the sanctuary there was a secret drawer, and in this secret drawer there was a single piece of silver. Now, when this secret drawer was opened by the Starosta, the Rabbi, Jitzchak Ben Menachim, quickly seized the coin and thrust it into his mouth. They could only get it out again by breaking his teeth, while a heyduke squeezed his throat tightly the whole time so that he should not swallow it.

What merit could there be in suffering so much for the sake of a single piece of silver? The whole thing was no bigger than a Mary-dollar, which is only worth 5 polturas.[15] On one side of it was a fig-tree with the inscription: "Jerusalem the Holy," in Hebrew letters, with a burning altar beneath the fig-tree with the words: "Shekel: Israel." On the obverse side was a crowned head with the inscription: "Melach Herodes."

[Footnote 15: Worth about 6d.]

When this silver piece had been taken from the Rabbi, the whole congregation began to rend their garments and cast ashes on their heads. Then they abased themselves before the Starosta and implored him to give them back their one piece of silver. They promised to give him for it twice as much, eight times as much as he had already extorted from them, thereby betraying the secret that this piece of money was of great value to them.

"Why is this silver coin so precious to you?" inquired the Starosta.

At this question every Jew present closed his mouth so tightly that not even a sigh escaped from it.

"Very well," said the Red Starosta, "you won't tell me, eh? Then I'll find a way of making your Rabbi tell me."

So the Red Starosta flung the Rabbi into a dungeon, and for a whole week he experimented upon him with the latest and most approved instruments of torture. But Rabbi Jitzchak Ben Menachim remained steadfast. Neither fire, nor water, nor the Spanish boot could extract from him the secret of the piece of silver.

Now the Rabbi had a grown-up son, Jaikef by name. On the eighth day he could endure no longer the spectacle of his father tortured there before his eyes, so he went to the Starosta and said to him--

"Let my father go free, and I will tell you the secret of the silver coin."

And thus Jaikef told the story whose preliminaries are well known to us all.

There was once a Jew named Judas Iscariot, who sold to the Priests of Jerusalem "The Son of Man," the "King of Nazareth," above whose head on the cross was nailed the inscription "I.N.R.I." The price paid to him for this was thirty pieces of silver. But when they crucified "the Master" on Golgotha, he repented him of what he had done and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the Priests. They would not accept them. Then he flung down the money in the Temple, and went and hanged himself on a maple-tree. But the Priests resolved with the rejected money to buy a portion of land from the Potters. The Priests entrusted the business of the purchase to Kramoi-Chita Anselm, and this enterprising man beat down the price to nine and twenty pieces of silver, the thirtieth piece he kept for himself. His son Nathan inherited it from him. Solomon, the son of Nathan, inherited it in his turn, till at last, in the period of the exodus of the Jews from Palestine, it fell into the possession of Joisef Zedek, who brought it away with him. This one remaining piece of Judas-money puts power and riches into the hands of the Jews. This is their living hope, their talismanic treasure--and now Jaikef gave the secret away.

"Then it is a very good thing that I have got it," said the Red Starosta, and, as promised, he set free the Rabbi, at the same time telling him that as he now knew the secret of the piece of silver, he would not give it back to the Jews for all the treasures in the world.

The Rabbi Jitzchak Ben Menachim thereupon, first of all, cursed his own son:

"As thou couldst not close thy mouth, henceforth thou shalt open it in vain."

And the curse was accomplished. From that time forth poor Jaikef was expelled from every Jewish threshold, not a single Jew would thenceforth give him meat and drink, whilst the law of the Talmud forbade him to eat food prepared by Christians. So he starved to death.

But upon the Red Starosta the Rabbi Jitzchak Ben Menachim pronounced this curse--

"A manchild shall never be borne in thy family!"

And this curse also took root and abided.

Henceforth the mortars on the terrace in front of the Palace of Bialystok never thundered forth in honour of the birth of an heir male.

Of girls there were plenty and to spare, but what's the good of a girl to an ancient Lithuanian ancestral house? Up to her twelfth year she is allowed to trot about like other little kids, and then they clap her into a convent, where she is taught gold and silver embroidery till she reaches a marriageable age, when they bring her home again. What else can she talk about except saints and angels!

How different with the male children. A boy is taught by his papa all manner of sensible things. You can take him off with you to hunt bears and wild boars and elks. He'll not learn much about the book of martyrs from his chums, perhaps, but all the more knowing will he be in the folklore of the chase, in the mythology of the ancient Lithuanian deities. He will know all about Bagán, the protector of the brute creation, who makes the cattle fruitful; about the White God, Belim, who gives rich increase to the earth; about the goddess Vastrulia, who gives luck in love; while in the day of battle and the hour of danger he must call upon Father Dedka! At great banquets, too, Holyada will defend him from the disgrace of being the first to fall down drunk, while Lado will send him good dreams.

A girl would not understand this--it is part of the lore of the ancients.

And besides that, a girl does not pass the name of her father on to her children, so that if the grandson hears the name of his grandsire, he will ask--who is that?

So the curse of the Rabbi Jitzchak Ben Menachim was accomplished in the families of the Castellans of Bialystok. At every great funeral, when they carried forth the head of the family, they hung up his ancestral shield on the corner of his tomb as a sign that the family history had run out. And thus it went on through half a century, during which time the lords of the Castle never let the Judas-money out of their hands. The rich Jews of Grodno offered them a million for it, but in vain. They would not give up the talisman even for that.

The last magnate proprietor was Prince Moskowski. When his wife was in good hopes of offspring he made a vow that if she bare him a son he would give the Judas-money as a donation to the Blessed Virgin. And sure enough a son was born.

The Prince, faithful to his vow, bestowed the Judas-money upon the Monastery of Supraseli which was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.

And then the Rabbi of Bialystok, the descendant of Jitzchak Ben Menachim, on the original curse thus becoming void, imposed a fresh curse on the head of Prince Moskowski: "Thy son and thy son's son," said he, "shall become the lowliest serfs in the Russian Empire!"

And to a Lithuanian noble family this was an even more terrible curse than the former one.

 

CHAPTER II

VACCINATIO SPIRITUALIS

The Starosta Prince Moskowski believed in the operation of a curse; it was the only weapon of a homeless people.

He had no other son but this one, and he himself remained a widower.

If he had had five or six sons he would have snapped his fingers at the whole thing as an old wife's story, for the curse could not have taken effect on the whole lot of them. But as he only had one, Destiny might very easily get the better of him. This one lord would inherit the vast Bialystok estates, the splendid castle and its treasures, yet what if all this would not save him and his descendants from becoming serfs in the end.

The Starosta guarded this son of his so jealously from his very cradle that he never so much as cast eyes on a peasant. He did not even know whether such a thing even existed. His servants were all chosen from the Szlachta, or gentry. A Szlachzi?, even in a menial livery, is still a gentleman.

But even then the father could not rid him of his fear.

He went to take counsel of the Bishop.

The Bishop told him to bring up his son for the priesthood, then he could not possibly become a serf. But this solution did not please the Starosta, although it would have been the very best way to break the force of the curse. It is true that if his only son became a bishop he could have no sons, and then of course no grandson of the Starosta could become a serf, because he would have no grandsons at all. But he wanted the branches of the Moskowski family tree to go on growing.

So he consulted yet another dignitary, the High Treasurer of Cracow. What was he to do, he asked, to stay the operation of the curse and prevent his son and his grandsons from becoming the lowliest serfs in the Russian Empire?

The High Treasurer advised him to open a deposit account in the name of his son to the amount of a million thalers at the Bank of England, where no power on earth could get at it. He would thereby provide against every eventuality. To whatever extremities his son and his grandsons might be reduced, they would never be obliged to do the labour of serfs so long as they had a million to their credit at the Bank of England.

But the Starosta did not like that expedient either. He could produce the million easily enough, but he had no confidence in the Bank of England. Not very long before there had been a conspiracy to rob the Bank of England, and it had been within a hair's breadth of succeeding. Moreover it was a fact within living memory that on the occasion of the invasion of the Stuart Pretender there had been such a run on the Bank of England that it had been obliged to pay its customers over the counter in shillings and sixpences. Why, at that rate, if any one clean-shaved himself and went to the Bank to draw out the million, and they were obliged to pay him down on the nail in Polish small change, he might be able comfortably to tuck his beard within his girdle by the time he was able to get home.

Now, there happened to be a Protestant clergyman in the domains of the Starosta who dwelt in the county town, the Rev. Gottlieb Klausner by name. He was the pastor of the Lutheran community. His flock mostly consisted of handicraftsmen and mechanics who had emigrated to Lithuania from Brandenburg.

The only thing the Starosta knew about the Lutheran clergyman was that he never bothered him with inconvenient demands. He and his flock alike were quiet, inoffensive persons. They never advertised their profession of faith by anything in their outward dress and bearing; they never prayed publicly in the streets; they never rang bells, for their meeting-places had no belfries.

Nevertheless, one day the pastor visited the Starosta in his splendid princely palace.

The Starosta received the reverend gentleman cordially.

Gottlieb Klausner first of all apologized for the inconvenience he was causing, and then craved permission to acquaint his Excellency with the great errand which had emboldened him to appear before him.

He was such a long time coming to the point that the Starosta fancied he was going to beg for a church-tower full of bells at the very least. Yet all that he wanted, after all, was permission to send his son abroad to complete his studies. He had brought the deed of permission with him in his pocket, written in the fairest caligraphy, it only needed the hieroglyphics of the magnate at the bottom of it and the impression of his seal.

This was very quickly done, but to-day the great man was curious and wanted to know all about it.

"What is your son's Christian name, your Reverence?"

"Henry."

"How old is he?"

"Sixteen."

"Just as old as my lad. Then, how old may your Reverence be."

"Forty-seven, by the favour of God."

"Just my age. Perhaps we were born on the same day."

"I came into the world on the festival of St. John Chrysostom."

"So did I. That's very right. And why, then, do you want to send your son abroad? And so far too? It is to the Sorbonne at Paris, isn't it?"

"In order that he may perfect himself in the sciences."

"And why need he perfect himself in the sciences?"

"In order that he may not become a serf."

At these words the heart of the Starosta began to beat fiercely.

"Then he cannot be a serf if he becomes a scholar, eh?"

"No. At all times and everywhere a scholar is a gentleman."

"Your Reverence has no doubt heard of the curse with which a Rabbi threatened me?"

"Every one knows of it."

"And do you suppose that it can be fulfilled?"

"Everything is possible in this world."

"But, according to your reasoning, a scholar can never become a serf."

"And I maintain my contention. Great estates may be called in again by those who bestowed them; brilliant escutcheons may be torn to pieces by the hand which embellished them; but the knowledge which dwells in our heads and our hearts neither king nor emperor can take away, and if we leave knowledge to our sons as an inheritance, no power on earth can make our sons serfs. Pardon me for elevating my words into such a bold discourse."

"You elevate me at the same time, my brother in the Lord! But come! you have kindled a bright idea in my brain. I will educate my son as a scholar likewise. He has both the mind and the will for it. I have kept him from poring over books hitherto, but now let us send him abroad with your son. Let your Henry be his guardian and comrade. I shall know then that he is in good hands. And I'll pay the expenses of the pair of them. They shall live in the same room and eat off the same dish. My son and your son shall be treated exactly alike. Let them fare as youths studying abroad must fare, and let the best scholar be the best gentleman. Is it agreed, brother?"

Gottlieb Klausner gratefully stretched out his hand towards the Starosta, who hastily drew back his own, fancying that the pastor was about to kiss it. He might have spared himself the trouble. A Lutheran pastor never kisses the hand of one of his own sex. The Starosta, however, immediately afterwards embraced the pastor.

"Good, my brother! We are agreed then. But I do this under one condition. I ask a service of your Henry. I'll take care that there shall be a regular postal service hither from France and Germany twice a week, and your Henry must write to you every post about himself and my son, and let us know how they are and what progress they are making."

"My son will certainly not neglect to do so."

"Bring your son hither that I may make his acquaintance."

"This very day I will bring him."

"And now, hearken, my brother. You and I are both old fellows, and hitherto each of us has celebrated his birthday alone with his son. Henceforth we shall be quite alone. Let us henceforth keep our birthday in each other's company."

But the two old men did not only keep their common birthday together, but when their two sons had departed on the common path of learning, the homely pastor went up to the Castle twice a week with the letter he had received from his son, that he might read it aloud to the Starosta. And the Starosta always compelled him to remain to dinner. And though he might have a brilliant host of guests staying with him, the Rev. Gottlieb Klausner, in his simple black cassock, always sat at the Starosta's right hand. The only change took place when a priest of the Starosta's own religion happened to be his guest. Then Klausner sat at the left hand of the Starosta, but there also he was treated with great distinction. And just before the bumpers began to go round, the latest letter received from Henry was always read to the general delectation.

And Henry's letters certainly were amusing. There was no frothy effusiveness, no cheap claptrap in them as is generally the way with students' productions, and for that very reason they were all the more genuinely interesting. They were full, indeed, of the comical adventures, without which a student's life is inconceivable, and no mystery was made of the scrapes and exploits which fell to his lot, but at the same time the distinctions which the two youths gained at the Sorbonne were duly enumerated.

It occurred to none of the guests to ask the reverend gentleman why he had sent his son to the Sorbonne instead of to Heidelberg, where Lutherans generally go to college.

But once when these scholastic testimonials were passing from hand to hand among the army of guests, an inquisitive guest remarked that in young Moskowski's testimonial he was described as "eminent" in such sciences as "mathematics," "geometry," "chemistry," and "mineralogy." What need, he added, had a Moskowski to grub about amongst such things as these. He was not going to be a miner, was he? Whereupon the reverend pastor, with philosophical composure and prophetic inspiration, replied: "A man never knows what sciences may be useful to him one day."

This was the vaccinatio spiritualis, the inoculation of the mind--against the infection of the serf distemper.

 

CHAPTER III

FACE TO FACE

The two youths spent two years in the foreign University. They studied together and they caroused together. They fought for each other, and they wrote each other's dissertations. When they spent all their money they wrote verses, and whichever of them was able to borrow a livre or two, always shared it with the other. And whenever the Philistines were too much for them they bolted into the next town.

Heinrich's last letter to his father was written from Utrecht. There both of them gained their promotio. Casimir became a baccalaureat of philosophy, Heinrich a doctor of medicine.

The Rev. Mr. Klausner told the Starosta that his little Heinrich had appropriated the new science, according to which doctors were no longer to plague their unfortunate patients with bitter draughts at the rate of a pint a dose; but went about with little white pillules, the size of millet seeds, in their pockets, and wrought marvellous cures on the principle of similia similibus.

"Very well," said the Starosta, "as your son Heinrich has become a doctor, I will make him my family physician, with a salary of 2000 thalers, on condition that he bleeds me in the first quarter of every month, and gives me some of his drugs. For I invented homœopathy before Herr Hahnemann, inasmuch as whenever wine gets into my head I drink still more to get it out again. That's my view of similia similibus. Tell your son what I say."

Gottlieb Klausner thereupon took up his pen and informed his son what a brilliant opening had thus come in his way at the very beginning of his career. He would be sure of a post as soon as ever he got home, with a nice salary of 2000 thalers. Moreover, he would ride in a carriage, and give his orders to the cook, for he would have to taste of every dish before it was presented to the Starosta, according to the wont of princes, lest they be poisoned in their meat or drink. How many a man would envy him such an office!

And now the two accomplished young men were summoned back to Lithuania.

All the way to the boundary hillock of the Bialystok domain they travelled in a peasant's cart; but there a noble cavalcade awaited them, with the Major Domo of the Starosta at their head.

The great gilded carriage of the Starosta, which was only used on the greatest occasions of State, was sent to meet the young men, and to it the four most reliable nags from the Starosta's stables were harnessed, which went at a slow, dignified, parade step. On the box sat a coachman in the national costume, and a couple of heydukes clung on to the straps behind.

The Major Domo ought to have pronounced a solemn greeting; but he never had the opportunity, for no sooner had the two youths leaped from the cart, than a rush was made upon them by the mounted Szlachta, who took possession of them uproariously, every one who could pressing up to, embracing, and kissing them. Besides the youths, there leaped from the cart a huge mastiff, the indispensable attribute of University students, who seemed to be greatly attracted by the Major Domo, and kept taking vigorous leaps at him. The gentleman in question was wearing a bear-skin kaczagány, which the noble beast had evidently determined to tear from his shoulder by hook or by crook, and in the mean time the fine oration the poor Major Domo had prepared for the occasion escaped him altogether.

The new arrivals were really two very nice young fellows--both of them heroic-looking figures, though entirely different from each other.

Casimir was dark, with fiery-black eyes. His head was entirely covered with curly hair, he had a luxuriant forelock hanging over his forehead, and such a thick, luxuriant crop of hair that it would have blunted the edge of a descending sword. His thick eyebrows drew near to each other like bushy-headed serpents--perhaps, also, they would have seized each other had they not been separated by the powerful authoritative nose, which was the characteristic feature of the Moskowski family. Such an aquiline nose you would not have met with in the whole Sarmatian race, and it was fitly accompanied by the protuberant red mouth and the pronounced double chin, which were also hereditary peculiarities. He was his father's own son, though of a somewhat higher type.

Heinrich, on the other hand, was an excellent specimen of the type of masculine beauty peculiar to the German race. His thick, leonine, dark-red hair rolled over his shoulders in luxuriant masses. His face was ruddy, his forehead white, he had a small and delicate nose, with sensitive nostrils, large bright-blue eyes, above which the thin straight eyebrows seemed to have been added by a painter's brush. His mouth was large, but his lips were finely chiselled, and a large brown mole at the corner of the lips gave a peculiar expression to the mouth.

There was no fear of mistaking one of them for the other.

And the dog, too, was a fine dog. He belonged to that race of mastiffs which in the Hungarian Corpus Juris bears the name of "sinkorán," the keeping of which is forbidden in Hungary by a special paragraph of the code.

When the fêted gentlemen had been released from the embraces of the young cavaliers, and the Major Domo from the jaws of the sinkorán, the next thing was for them to take their places in the State carriage. The noble youths carried Casimir on their shoulders to the carriage, and set him down on the back seat. Heinrich also was carried on men's shoulders to the carriage--only in his case it was not the cavaliers, but the heydukes who performed that office, and they placed him in the front seat face to face with Casimir.

"Why may I not sit by my friend's side?" asked Heinrich.

"What an odd question!" said the Major Domo. "Here you have been to half a dozen colleges, and learnt so much, and yet you don't know that! A subject cannot sit down by the side of his Prince; and when they ride together in the same carriage his proper place is the front seat."

Of course, it was the regular thing.

Moreover, as the place beside Casimir on the back seat remained empty, the big mastiff leaped into the carriage, and occupied the place of honour by his master's side.

"Then is a dog allowed to sit down by a nobleman?" inquired Heinrich, indignantly.

"Certainly, for the sinkorán is also a noble animal."

And then the procession, amidst the crack of pistol-shots, proceeded towards the castle.

In the castle gate a triumphal arch awaited the new arrivals, and the notabilities of the place were grouped around the entrance, the damsels arrayed in white and the peasantry in gala costumes.

When they reached the gate of the castle, it was not Heinrich's face that was red, but his forehead, and his eyes seemed rather to be green than blue.

He saw his father among the deputation. He could easily make him out--one black cassock was very prominent amidst the dazzling-bright Polish parade costumes.

He did not wait for the carriage to stop, but leaped from it, and rushed up to the old man, embracing him again and again with great ostentation, and kissing him in the sight of every one. The clergyman did not betray the least emotion.

When the congratulatory addresses came to an end, the Major Domo shouted to Heinrich--

"Come, doctor! Get in!"

"I am going with my father."

"But I am going on foot," said the clergyman.

"Then, I'll go on foot with you."

They did not press him further. Every one's head was full of something else. The ladies praised the young squire. What a fine fellow he was, they said. The girls flung flowers into the carriage, which went so slowly that the foot-passengers could easily keep up with it.

Father and son trudged on together among the ranks of the pedestrians.

Presently the old man began speaking to his son in the Latin tongue, so that the people might not understand him.

"My dear son, you well remember, no doubt, that I have always looked upon lying and deception as the greatest of sins; and from your childish years upwards you have always had a great inclination thereto. You know how many hazel twigs I have worn out upon you in endeavouring to eradicate that evil tendency. But I see that even now you are not cured of it. Look, now! the moment you beheld your poor father amidst a group of gentlemen, you immediately leaped from the gilded carriage, ran up to me, embraced me, called me carissime pater, pinned yourself on to my cassock, and accompanied me on foot. You thought you would deceive me by all this hypocrisy. Yet all this ostentation of filial piety was only because you were obliged to sit in the State carriage opposite to your comrade, instead of by his side, and your pride was wounded in consequence. That was why your heart suddenly conceived such a fondness for your father. Look me straight in the face, and tell me if it was not so."

"Yes, it was."

"Exactly; it was your pride that suffered. I do not count pride among the more deadly sins, although I know that Petrus Lombardus elevated this opinion into the rank of a dogma. We Protestants are content with the definition of John the Evangelist, who saith that every falsehood is a deadly sin. Yet pride is not falsehood, but the true image of every man. It is the very eye of his soul. Moreover, as a philosopher, you must know very well that whoever attaches himself to a master must make submission his business. A colonel is a big man; but when the general speaks it is for the colonel to listen; and if the general says to him, 'Go through fire,' or, 'Go through water,' he must submit and obey. If a man who has been born poor would drink and make merry, he must first renounce his pride. When you wanted to choose a career, I left you a fine choice. You had only to please yourself. You might have become a clergyman, like myself, in the usual way. True, we cook with water and do not throw away our crusts, and when we wear out our clothes we turn them, and so wear them again; but, on the other hand, the clergyman always sits in the front seat, and gives place to no son of man, unless it be the Son of God. But this haughty poverty seemingly is not to your liking. You say to yourself, 'Dat Galerius opes, dat Justinianus honores.' Well, you have got what you sought. Wealth, a life of comfort is in your hands. Galerius has given them to you. He who wants to wear a bedizened hat must be prepared to doff it right and left--to high and low. I need take off my capillum to no man. Why do you oscillate like a pendulum? A man must make his own position. If you don't like subjection, turn back, go to Göttingen, go through a whole course of theology--then come here, be my curate, and then perhaps in ten years' time you may get a living somewhere. But if you want to live in splendour and comfort, go back to the carriage, and sit on the back seat face to face with your lord and master, for that is your proper place."

Heinrich, very red in the face, went back to the slowly lumbering carriage, and again took his place in it opposite his youthful comrade. And thus they went to the town together, and right into the castle.

 

CHAPTER IV

THE CDT-TABLE AND THE CHALLENGING GLOVES

The coming home of young Squire Casimir was celebrated with great solemnity at the palace of the Starosta. The thunder of the mortars, the roll of the drums, the blare of the trumpets, announced to the thronging crowd the moment when the parade carriage rolled over the drawbridge. In front of the gate stood a guard of honour of the assembled heydukes, under the command of the Castellan. The Starosta himself had come as far as the hall door to welcome his son.

Casimir, according to ancient custom, received his father's greeting on bended knee, and kissed his uplifted hand, whereupon the old man, thrusting his powerful palm into his son's well-thatched poll, lugged him to his feet by his hair, and, slapping his face gently at the same time, said: "Come, come, you have put on a mighty fine fleece since last I saw you." But immediately afterwards he kissed him on both cheeks, and the kiss obliterated the slap.

Heinrich got neither kisses nor slaps, he simply didn't count at all.

A hundred guests were in the large hall, all of them prominent noblemen and priests, and all of them embraced the young gentleman in turn, while Heinrich they only patted on the shoulder, and while every one said: "Vitam pana!"[16] to the nobleman's son, they only greeted the son of the pastor with: "Badz zdrow!"[17]

[Footnote 16: "Long live your honour!"]

[Footnote 17: "Good health to you!"]

Immediately after the first interchange of greetings the court tailor took the two youths beneath his protection. It was his duty to give them new clothes corresponding to their rank, they had ceased to belong to the category of students. Heinrich got a brand-new black velvet jacket with puff sleeves, a starched ruff, black atlas knee-breeches, with stockings, and shoes with silver buckles--the whole get-up was completed by a sword-belt, a broad silver chain wound round the breast with a large medallion hanging to it, and a black flowered taffety mantle fastened to the shoulder and reaching to the heels. When he had taken a good all-round look at himself in the mirror, he was quite proud of his costume. He fancied that it was a great distinction.

But it was not a distinction, but only a difference.

When he entered the great hall, its pomp and grandeur almost blinded him. The walls of the room were embellished by the portraits of the Lords of Bialystok. There were armorial shields everywhere, and in the corners stood the figures of men in armour. The lofty pointed windows perpetuated, in masterpieces of coloured glass, all manner of ancient Polish legends. The long table was crowded with artistic plate and drinking vessels of chased gold and silver, with confect-holders mimicing the figures of giraffes and elephants. In the midst was a large fountain, at the foot of which enamelled dolphins cast lavender-water high up in the air; and the enchanting spectacle was but enhanced by the costumes of a whole army of guests and the splendour of their weapons. Heinrich hardly recognized his dear friend Casimir. He was resplendent in such splendid raiment as the Polish magnates are only in the habit of wearing at coronations or similar ceremonies. In the midst of so much fur and velvet, Heinrich, in his simple black medical suit, felt almost like the inhabitant of another and much humbler planet. While the army of guests crowded round Casimir, so that every one might have a chance of embracing him at least once, Heinrich was simply thrust aside by an elbow or trodden on by one foot after another, and nobody even troubled to say: "Wymow mie Pán!"[18]

[Footnote 18: "Your pardon, sir!"]

Great was the crushing and pushing to get into the banqueting-hall, where every guest immediately sought out his proper place. This was quite an easy matter. Every guest who had ever dined at the Palace of Bialystok had his own beaker on which his name was engraved. As often as he returned thither so often was his particular beaker produced from the plate-chest. As for the spoons, knives, and forks, every guest brought his own with him. Aristocratic pride laid down this rule: "From the beaker out of which I drink none else may drink; the knife, fork, and spoon which touches my mouth none else may swallow--neither may I serve others so."

Heinrich would also have very much liked to know where he was to sit.

As a poor man he naturally began to look for his seat at the lowest end of the table.

At the head of the table a large armchair, carved with armorial bearings, had been placed, this was obviously the seat of the Starosta. On each side of it stood two smaller armchairs. All the other chairs were armless. The arm of a chair is rather in the way when a man has to drain his beaker to the very dregs. At the head of the opposite end of the long table was the seat of "the little master." His beaker was a christening gift, a crystal goblet upon a golden base.

Heinrich fancied that he would find his seat by the side of his comrade's. But there he found a beaker with another name upon it.

He had to seek higher. He went searching from chair to chair for a silver beaker marked with his name. On the right-hand side of the table there was no trace of it. Perhaps it was on the left-hand side? Of course, it must be there.

Again he began from the bottom and worked his way up, but he could find no trace of his name.

By this time he had got to the topmost armchair. Merely out of curiosity he glanced at the silver beaker placed beside the plate. He couldn't believe his eyes, and his heart began to beat violently, for on that beaker he read the name--Klausner. But his wonder only lasted for a moment. The Christian name was not Heinrich, but Gottlieb. This place of honour by the side of the Starosta belonged to the Lutheran clergyman, on the opposite side to him was the Catholic bishop.

Thus did they exalt the simple curer of souls, while his son, the doctor, was not even included among the guests.

Much hurt he turned to the Major Domo.

"Then am I not invited to the banquet?" he asked.

"Invited, doctorkin! What a question! Of course you are. Why, you are the most important person here. Why, the banquet couldn't begin without you."

"But where am I to sit, then?"

"I'll show you immediately. But you must first let all the other guests take their places. All their honours are now assembled. We are only waiting for his reverence, your dear father."

"But he arrived along with us."

"True for you. But their honours come in their coaches or on horseback, so that they may not make their green or yellow boots muddy on the road, while your dear father came all the way on foot, so that he has to have his shoes polished before he can come in."

This was honour indeed. First of all, however, the pastor had to go and pay his respects to the Starosta, and he appeared along with him in the banqueting-chamber when the heydukes threw open the folding-doors. It was such a large door that three men could enter it abreast; and three men did enter now, the master of the house in the centre, with the bishop on his right and the pastor on his left.

At the appearance of the Starosta the trumpets blew a flourish, and every guest took his proper place at the table.

Then the bishop pronounced a long grace in Latin, every one present murmuring the Doxology after him, except the Rev. Master Klausner, who belonged to another confession, and who, after the Latin prayer was over, pronounced a blessing in his own language:--

"Der Herr segne euch und sättige euch!"[19]

[Footnote 19: "The Lord bless you and satisfy you!"]

Then followed the creaking of chairs drawn forward, and every one settled comfortably into his place.

Heinrich wondered what was going to happen to him.

He had not to wait long. A couple of bustling heydukes brought forward a little three-legged table, covered with a fine linen cloth, and placed it behind the armchair of the Starosta. They also placed a chair by the side of this little table, and put upon it a silver trencher, a beaker, and the usual dining apparatus. His knife, spoon, and fork were much more costly than the knives, spoons, and forks of the other guests. The Major Domo, with his ivory wand, indicated to the doctor that that was his place. The body-physician always sits behind the Starosta. It is his office to exercise a dietetical and gastronomical superintendence at the magnate's table.

And that he might have a board-fellow, the big mastiff Caro now came up, and Heinrich being his best-known acquaintance, he put his head on the table--he was a big dog, so he could just reach it. He was determined that Heinrich should have a vis-à-vis, anyhow.

Heinrich tried to perform the duties of his queer office with due dignity.

Every dish was put on his table first, and he had to taste each one of them first of all.

That of itself was a great dignity, surely! Every great man ought to order his table after a similar fashion. He ought to have a house-physician standing beside him at every dish, to say: "You are free to fill your distinguished stomach with that; but this, on the other hand, you are not so much as to look at."

Monsieur Heinrich was a disciple of Hahnemann, so he began to raise difficulties as early as the soup.

"Don't touch it, your Excellency!" said he. "It is poison. As the verse says: 'Ginger and saffron, nutmegs, cloves, and pepper only thicken the blood and clog the stomach.'"

The whole company laughed heartily, but they shovelled down their soup all the same.

The next dish was wild-boar's head stuffed with celery and truffles, and flanked with cold jelly.

Against this dish Heinrich was able to intone a whole litany when the master who invented it presented him with a small slice of it on a silver platter.

"The head of every beast is forbidden food," he said; "and as for the wild boar, no part of him is good, from hoof to scull. As for the truffle, it grows under ground, and brings those who eat it under ground; while celery inflames the blood, and gelatine neutralizes the gastric juices; it is no fit food for men."

At this the Starosta laughed more than ever.

"But you must take me at my word, gentlemen," insisted Heinrich. "I eat according to the principles of the immortal Hahnemann. That dish is poison to you, I say."

"It is a very slow poison. For the last fifty years I've been killing myself with it, and yet here I am," cried the Starosta.

"Yes; but it is the cause of the gout in your knees, the colic in your stomach, the spasms in your side. You may also thank it for your sleepless nights and the humming in your ears, as well as for heartburn, erysipelas, and St. Vitus's dance. I, your house-doctor, certify that you partook of this poisonous dish at your own table, and indigestion and apoplexy are only a prayer apart."

But Casimir spoilt everything by his intervention. From the other end of the table he bawled to his comrade--

"Come, come, old chap! Surely you don't want to play the part of Doctor Pedro Recio de Tiertafuera at the banquet given by Sancho Panza, in his official capacity of Governor! All these gentlemen have read 'Don Quixote,' you know."

And with these words he regularly flung his comrade out of his doctorial chair. The whole company laughed heartily at him, and even the Rev. Pastor himself apostrophized his son with the facetious citation:--

"Descende Philippe, non sunt hic ollae!"

"Then why have I been put here?" inquired Heinrich, in great wrath, of the Major Domo.

"Why? Why, to taste of every dish, to see that there is no deadly poison in it which might make a man suddenly ill."

"Then the dog Caro here could perform my office equally well."

And henceforth Heinrich flung the cut-off portion of every dish presented to him to taste into the jaws of the mastiff, who snapped them up in an instant, and was highly delighted with his new duties.

Thus the doctor himself absolutely starved during the sumptuous banquet, for not a single dish was ever brought back to him, the remains being sent into a side room, where, at a table without a table-cloth, sat the lower order of guests, such as the begging friars, the clerks who acted as secretaries, and the court poets. The latter usually went by the name of "court fools" when they had more than common genius, but not every poet merited this higher title, for there were bores among them too, and these remained poets, and nothing but poets.

The favourite amongst them all was the house-fool, Lupko, who had also been invited into the gentlemen's dining-hall, and was there practising every sort of tomfoolery, letting off literary squibs, imitating feline and canine concerts, and the squeaking of stuck pigs, turning his hat into twenty different shapes, tootling in a bottle, and drumming in the hollow of his hand, and drinking glasses of wine at the same time that he was imitating the scream of a peacock.

Naturally, in these things Heinrich could by no means compete with him.

All the guests treated Lupko with wine; but none of them said to the doctor, "What will you drink? Fetch wine for the doctor."

Casimir also joked familiarly with the jester--nay, he almost openly urged him to go along and try conclusions with the doctor.

Students love to heckle each other, especially if one of them has had a full skin at table.

So the fool skipped away to the doctor.

"Servus humillimus collega! For colleagues we really are. Yes, doctores ambo! The only difference is that on your head is a college cap, and on mine a cap with pointed hare's-ears. Evoe Bacche!"

And with that he clapped Heinrich on the shoulder.

At this Heinrich was very angry, but still angrier was the mastiff to see his master hit on the shoulder by a hunch-backed rascal, so he rushed at him incontinently, placed his paws on his neck, and snatched from his head the fur cap adorned with the two projecting hare's-ears.

The fool tried to recover his cap, but the dog would not give it up, so a great debate began between the dog and the fool. The doctor's little table was overthrown in the midst of the scrimmage, and finally the cap was torn in two, half of it remaining in the hands of the fool, and the other half in the jaws of the mastiff.

"Silence, you God-forsaken rascals!" cried the Starosta; "don't you hear that his reverence is trying to say grace?" And with that he seized the Spanish cane which was standing beside his chair, and belaboured with it the dog's back and the jester's body at the same time, and so restored peace between them.

And now the reverend gentleman stood up in his place, and, raising his beaker unctuously aloft, pronounced a Latin grace full of graceful turns of expression, invoking blessings on the heads of the Starosta, his son, and their remotest posterity. The blessing was followed by a great clinking of glasses, and every guest drained his goblet to the very dregs.

When the din of the vivats and the blast of the trumpets had subsided, the Starosta spoke from his place at the head of the table.

"Deo Gratias, my thanks for all these pretty wishes. And look now, to show in what great respect my reverend neighbour here is held in heaven above, I may mention that his kind wish that my family might flourish in the days to come had scarce died away when an answer to his petition that instant arrived. For I have just received, from the glorious city of Vienna, a letter from my dear friend, Prince Maximilian Sonnenburg, in which he informs me that the dearest wish of his Excellency, and of his Excellency's consort, the Princess Ludmilla Rattenburg of Tannenfels and Bunteviéz, corresponds with mine, to wit, that their only daughter, the Princess Ingola Sonnenburg and Rattenburg should be betrothed to my son Casimir."

This famous piece of news was instantly greeted with a vivat which made the very rafters ring. Every guest hastened to congratulate Casimir.

But he, from the other end of the table, bawled to his father--

"But is the lady beautiful?"

"I have her portrait here. They sent it with the letter."

And he drew from his side-pocket a little miniature in a jewelled frame.

Naturally every one wished to look at it.

But the Starosta would not let it go out of his hand.

"Ho, ho! Softly, softly! It is only the bridegroom who has the right to look at it."

Then he turned round, knowing that Heinrich was behind him. "Look ye, my son," said he to the doctor, "take this portrait to Casimir, but show it only to him and to none other. You may look at it, too, because you are a doctor. Do you understand physiognomies? Can you say, from looking at this portrait, whether the little Princess is phlegmatic, or choleric, or, which God forbid, of a melancholy temperament?"

Well, this was a great distinction for Heinrich. He took the portrait to Casimir, and showed the portrait to him first of all.

The bride in the portrait was of mythological loveliness. She was painted as Sappho, in a Greek chlamys, with her golden tresses flowing down her shoulders, and her arms bare to the shoulder. The portrait, painted on ivory, was a masterpiece of water-colouring.

Casimir was unable to conceal his enthusiasm at the beauty of his bride. "She is a veritable goddess!" he cried.

"Worthy indeed of adorations!" cried Heinrich, with still greater emphasis.

Nobody else was allowed to look; only they two were so privileged.

But the jester burrowed his way out from beneath the table, and thrust his head between them that he might cast a glance at the portrait.

Heinrich gave him a box on the ears, and hid the picture from him.

"Would you?" said he; "this is no spectacle for fools."

Now a fool, even in those days, drew the line at a box on the ear, and did not take it kindly; on the contrary, it was apt to make him angry.

So, instead of his torn and tattered pointed cap, he drew forth his protean hat and placed it on his head, after forming it into the exact shape of the biretta worn by the Rev. Master Klausner. Then he wound round his neck a bed-curtain, making it take the guise of the reverend gentleman's well-creased cassock. And in this guise he planted himself beside the table and raised his glass.

The guests made a clatter with their glasses by way of indicating that Lupko was about to speak. At last there was silence, and the jester was able to begin.

In his voice and delivery he managed to throw an audacious imitation of the pastor. He dismissed his words through his nose with the same unctuous solemnity, and amplified the ends of his periods just as the reverend gentleman was wont to do.

"My worthy gentlemen," he began, "I also have to disemburden myself of a joyful piece of intelligence which has just reached me through the dog-post from Siberia, from the illustrious capital of mighty Siberia, Irkutsk. I have got the letter written in Tungusian hieroglyphics on reindeer parchment, and this letter informs me that the mighty Prince of the Samoyeds, Pan Subagalleros, on behalf of himself and his consort, her Highness Pana Csoroszlya, has this day betrothed his only daughter, Panicza Kaczamajka, to my only son Heinrich."

The army of guests burst into a loud ho, ho! at this farcical parody, the trumpets blew a frightfully loud flourish, every one roared with laughter, and even the worthy pastor himself smiled gently at the fooling.

For, after all, it was but fooling. Perhaps Heinrich would have laughed at it likewise if he had been drinking all through the banquet with the rest of the merry company. But remember that he had remained hungry and thirsty throughout, and a sober man in a society that has well drunken is a danger to mirth.

Casimir also had guffawed at the words of the fool. It was a rough jest, no doubt, but who would take the folly of a fool seriously?

Only Heinrich remained pale and silent, and pressed his lips together till the blood came.

"Come, comrade, why so dumfoundered? Surely you are not angry?" bawled Casimir.

But Heinrich continued moody and sulky.

* * * * *

The grand banquet was not terminated, but interrupted by a ball. The Starosta himself gave the signal by lighting his big meerschaum pipe, whereupon the other gentlemen followed his example, and began their beloved fumigation by the side of their black coffee. The musicians thereupon quitted the dining-room, and a short time elapsed, during which they also took a snack, and then the music began again over the heads of the guests, in the upper story of the palace, which could be reached from the dining-room by means of a spiral staircase.

As soon as the inspiring notes of a mazurka burst forth from above, the fiery youths spurned their chairs away, and without waiting for a special invitation, hastened up the spiral staircase into the dancing-room. Those of the elderly gentlemen whose feet were capable (after dinner) of grappling with the tortuous stairs, followed them.

On the upper floor was the dancing-room, brilliantly illuminated with wax candles, where were now assembled the flower of the belles and the pick of the stately matrons of the Lithuanian capital--a goodly company who reached the ballroom by the opposite staircase.

Heinrich, swallowing his wrath, and oblivious of the pangs of hunger, also hastened up to the dancing-room, which was now quite full of ladies.

The girls were standing, the more mature women were sitting, according to custom.

Heinrich also found the idol of his heart among the girls. Six years before she was a growing little lassie, now she was a damsel in full bloom. In those days they had dearly loved each other, and had sworn that they would belong to none else. There stood the beautiful and charming Tatiana in front of her mamma. She was wearing the Russian national costume, with an apron embroidered with pearls and a coif adorned with precious stones. She was the daughter of a Russian chinovnik[20] whose father had been sent from St. Petersburg to keep the Poles in order.

[Footnote 20: Official.]

The beautiful girl had grown in a marvellous manner during these six years, she was the tallest among the damsels present, and her lofty Russian coif made her appear even taller than she was.

Just then a good many couples were dancing a mazurka.

Heinrich made his way up to his former ideal, and, bowing first of all before her dear mamma, with a chivalrous flourish demanded the hand of her daughter for a dance. It was six years since last he had seen her.

The stately damsel proceeded deliberately to draw off her long, embroidered gauntlet.

Heinrich was amazed. What an odd custom for a lady to draw off her glove when invited to dance!

The young lady extended her hand towards Heinrich, her smile was somewhat peculiar.

"Miss Tatiana?" stammered Heinrich.

"Well, doctor! I thought you wanted to feel my pulse!"

Heinrich was crushed. They were making game of him. He was no cavalier, but only a doctor, apparently. He rather wondered the lady did not protrude her tongue as well, to make the consultation quite complete. It only needed that.

He seemed to have lost the use of his limbs, and stood there like a stone idol. But some one speedily came to his assistance by shoving him out of the way. It was Casimir. He signified that he desired a dance with the lady by simply stamping the ground with his foot, as became a cavalier, and she immediately gave herself up to him, and Casimir passed his arm around her slim waist and flew with her among the maze of dancers.

Heinrich gazed after them in stupefaction. So that was his former sweetheart, and this his former comrade! How the girl's eyes sparkled when she gazed at the face of her partner! They seemed to hold one another fast by the eyes. The mazurka has its charm, certainly. The cavalier stands in the midst with his arms folded, after dismissing his partner, who moves gracefully round him in a circle. Yet the damsel gazes continually into the eyes of her cavalier, and the magic of his eyes draws her back to him again. And then it is as though they were whispering to each other.

When the dance was over, Casimir led his partner to the credenz-table and offered her refreshments. Thither also strolled Tatiana's papa, worthy Nicholas Eskimov. The girl embraced her father, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered something in his ear. Then she flew back into the colonne on the arm of her partner. There are many figures in the mazurka, Heinrich had every opportunity of studying them to the end from a window recess.

When the dance was over, Casimir returned his partner to her mamma, and after a good deal of genuflecting and hand-kissing, took his leave of her. Heinrich at once hastened to his comrade and began to reproach him.

"Why did you take my sweetheart from me?" he asked.

Casimir first of all regarded him with amazement, and then laughed in his face.

"What a foolish chap you are! Why, it was only natural that I should have the first dance with the fair Tatiana in our own house. That is the custom all the world over."

"Why is it the custom all the world over?"

"Why? It seems to me that you do not realize that during the six years when you and I have been walking up and down the earth, not only the little girl has grown something bigger, but her papa also. The chinovnik, whom six years ago you helped to copy legal documents, is nowadays Governor of Grodno. His Excellency now lives in the town, and orders about even my father, the Starosta. And I am only my father's little son. Little Tatiana has grown big while you weren't looking at her, if you want her you must grow bigger yourself. Only don't make such an ecce homo face; go, rather, and pay your respects to his Excellency, the Governor. He is a very big wig now, I can tell you!"

 

CHAPTER V

EVERY ROAD LEADS TO ST. PETERSBURG--BUT WHITHER DOES ST. PETERSBURG LEAD?

And now it suddenly dawned upon Heinrich why Tatiana's papa, Nicholas Eskimov, was placed next to the Bishop. Truly he was a great potentate!

A far-seeing idea popped into Heinrich's brain. He went to the credenz-table, where refreshments were being distributed, and where also the Governor was delighting his eyes with the spectacle of the pretty girls dancing, and at the same time sipping a glass of iced sherbet.

He bowed deeply before him, and saluted him in Russian--

"Zdorovuyte!"[21] he said.

[Footnote 21: "Your health!"]

The Governor tapped the doctor on the shoulder.

"So you have come home! And got an appointment too, I hear?" said he.

"But I don't want to keep it."

"Then what do you want?" asked Eskimov, regarding the youth through his glass.

"A wider career. Here at Bialystok there is no scope for a doctor, especially if he be a homœopathist. Here, if anybody is ill he wants the doctor to drink the medicine with him in whacking tumblers, and won't accept a recipe unless it covers a whole sheet of foolscap. True there will be no end of bleedings and cataplasms, but the whole of modern medical science is absolutely thrown away upon them. There is no getting on here. The Pole lives in his traditions. I want to go to St. Petersburg. There there is a fine open career for an enterprising doctor. St. Petersburg is the new Rome. Every road leads to it. I beg your Excellency to give me letters of introduction to your acquaintances in the Tsar's capital, that beneath their protection I may go on to prosper."

"Well, I should like to pack you off myself and I'll give you the letters of introduction at once. When do you want to go? To-morrow! Immediately! So much the better. But hold! my son! We never give anything gratis in our part of the world, we always like something in exchange. Apparently you are the good comrade of young Squire Casimir, eh?"

"That depends."

"But I noticed just now that when Squire Casimir finished dancing with my daughter just now you had a private chat with him. At least answer me this question: if a Pole gives his word to any one, does he keep it?"

"Well, I can tell your Excellency so much: if a Pole gives his word to a comrade, he will go through fire and water for him; if he gives his word to an enemy, he will return to his prison; if he gives his word to a tyrant, he will bear that tyrant's yoke;--but if he gives his word to a pretty girl he will forget it as soon as he turns upon his heel."

"It is not only the Poles who do the last thing. But just one more question, and accordingly as you answer it truthfully I shall know what to think of you. You heard the congratulations made to the Starosta when he announced the betrothal of his son to a Viennese Princess; you saw her portrait, for the Starosta let you have it. Tell me truly, on your honour, which is the lovelier of the two, my Tatiana or the Viennese Princess?"

"Your Excellency! Paris never had so much difficulty in pronouncing judgment when called upon to award the golden apple to one of three goddesses, as I should have to decide which of the two girls is the lovelier in my eyes. But one thing I can tell you. In the background of that portrait are painted two splendid castles. Those castles, with all the appurtenances thereof, will be part of the bride's dowry. And those two castles are very fine castles."

"Good. I know everything. To-morrow, after dinner, come to me at the fortress for your letters of introduction."

After that Heinrich vanished from the dancing-room, he returned to his own room to devise artful plans for the future.

Every evil inclination was now aroused in his bosom: envy, shame, anger, and slighted love--those four monsters who never close an eye and are alert even when they are asleep.

At dawn of day he was summoned by the Starosta. The old fellow was sitting in an armchair with a mottled purple face and breathing heavily.

"What ails your Excellency?"

"I am waiting for a stroke or for a surgeon to open a vein, and the question is which will be the quicker," replied the Starosta, pleasantly.

"Well, I've come first, you see."

And then he performed the little surgical operation on the Starosta which his constitution demanded after every banquet.

"Well done, my son. You understand your business, I see. What a pity you can't remain at my court here."

"What does your Excellency mean?"

"The Governor has been talking to me. He says you want to go to St. Petersburg. You are right. But he also advised me to send my own Casimir to the Russian court. There's a great career open there for such youths as he who can read and even philosophize a bit. The Muscovites love philosophy. Well, with us a little of it goes a long way. We always do what the warmth of our hearts suggests to our brains, and don't waste much time in deliberation. Well, go together. I'll send after you the salary I promised you for your official services here, and in return I will only ask you to keep watch over my son, lest any evil befall him."

Heinrich pressed the hand of his benefactor. He understood the allusion.

It was the usual pretext: to advance a person in order to remove him.

The Governor had observed that Casimir had brought the girl back to her mother by her left hand. Let the young squire go to St. Petersburg!

After dinner, Heinrich went to town, to the Governor's. He gave him the promised letters of introduction and two passports, one for himself and one for Casimir.

"So Squire Casimir goes with you? Well, my son, I lay it upon your soul to let me know everything that he does or intends to do during his stay at St. Petersburg. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly, your Excellency."

Scarce a year had passed since the two young men had departed for St. Petersburg, when one night they returned home together to the Castle of Bialystok.

It was a dark night when they arrived, and they came to the gate of the park, which they opened with the assistance of their keys and got into the Castle without the knowledge of the family. They sought the Starosta.

The old man was sitting all alone in his bedroom, in a large armchair. He was betwixt three tables, one in front of and one on each side of him. On the table in front of him was a large book printed on vellum, containing the history of Lithuania (each chapter beginning with beautiful big illuminated letters), from the days of the first pagan Grand Duke. On the other two tables were placed flasks of all shapes and sizes, and of a religious character, coming as they did from Chartreuse or Benedictine monasteries, not to mention other similar elixirs worthy of equal praise. He was astonished when he saw the two young men enter.

"Has the magic bird griffin brought you hither?" he cried.

"Yes, the bird griffin has indeed brought us hither," said Casimir to the Count. "I mean that griffin who clutches hold of the mightinesses of this world and carries them to the mountains of Kaf."

And then he told his father how a world-illuminating idea had come to birth in the capital of the great Russian empire, which aimed at nothing less than freeing all the nations of the earth from tyranny. A powerful league had arisen, with the Grand Duke Constantine at its head, for the annihilation of tyrants. The members of this league were all the nations of the Russian Empire, and the fifth of these nations was Poland. The sixth and seventh, who did not yet belong to the Russian world-empire, were the Wallachians and the Magyars; but these also were going to join on. Every member of this holy league carried by way of a symbol a copper ring, whose sevenfold monogram contained the initial letters of the seven nations.

Old Moskowski welcomed the idea with great delight.

Everything was ripe for a rupture. The army had been won over to the cause of the Revolution. In the various provinces, administrative details had already been arranged, and to every one his part had been distributed. To Casimir Moskowski was assigned the insurrectionary province of Volhynia. The signal was awaited from St. Petersburg. As soon as the Revolution had broken out and gained ground there, the signal would be given to all the other chief towns, to the South Russians in Kiev, to the Tartars at Kazan, to the Crimean peoples in Bogchiserai, to the Finns in Helsingfors, to the Poles at Warsaw--the Revolution would raise its head simultaneously in all these places. And before long the concerted outbreak would spread from Bialystok to Perm, Odessa, and even to distant Tobolsk.

The Starosta was ravished at the prospect.

"But how about the Governor?" he said.

"Nicholas Eskimov will be seized in the citadel, together with the garrison."

"And then he shall sweep the courtyard of the Palace of Bialystok," cried the Starosta, "and that stuck-up little daughter of his, Tatiana, shall wash the crockery in my scullery."

"But all this must be kept secret till the signal arrives from St. Petersburg for a general rising."

There was only one thing which nettled the old Starosta. As the Holy League had included Volhynia among its provinces, why did they not confide the leadership of the insurrection to the man best entitled to it; in other words, to himself, the father? Why give it to his son?

"Well, you know, you are very old, and drink a great deal."

At last the old man accommodated himself to the new order of things. After all, if his son became the chief man in Volhynia, the glory of it could not fail to rebound upon him.

From that day forth the two young men remained hidden in the Castle; none knew of their whereabouts.

They were to receive the stipulated signal from St. Petersburg by pigeon-post.

And one day the post-pigeon really did arrive at the Castle.

They found among its tail feathers a thin membrous letter, to whose cipher Heinrich possessed the key.

Heinrich took the letter and unhusked its contents. "Bad news--the very worst," he cried; "the Revolution broke out at St. Petersburg, but was instantly suppressed. All the leaders of the league have been seized. Sauve qui peut!"

"There you are," said the Starosta. "I'm old, and drink too much, eh? But if I want to do anything, nobody shall stand in my way but myself. You are young and wise; that is why you can talk so much and do nothing."

"Our sole safety is now in flight," said Heinrich. "The pigeon-post has just brought us the bad news, but as yet the Governor knows nothing about it. He will only be informed of it officially to-morrow afternoon. We have the start of him by two days. We ought to take refuge at once."

"Where?" inquired the Starosta.

"Our way is plain. Austria is quite close to us. Vienna will not deliver up political refugees. There, too, is Casimir's future father-in-law, and he is a man of great political influence. We must take shelter under his wings. Only let the first fury pass away over our heads; the rest will be a matter of high diplomacy."

So the two young men resolved to fly towards the Austrian frontier. The Russian Government would know nothing of their flight thither and their stay there.

A week later the Starosta received a letter written by Heinrich, in which he was informed that the two young men had safely crossed the border and arrived in the Austrian capital, proceeding at once to the Prince's family mansion, where they had been very heartily welcomed. There was no danger. They had simply denied any participation in the revolution. The ambassadors would make all the rest easy.

Moskowski hastened to communicate this joyful intelligence to the Rev. Mr. Klausner, who, in the mean time, had again become the daily guest of the Starosta's.

Still greater satisfaction did it afford Moskowski when he read all about the St. Petersburg rising in the newspapers and those implicated therein; and at the same time he frequently met Governor Eskimov, who continued to treat him most affably, and never once inquired about his son or ever alluded to the conspiracy at St. Petersburg, treating it as an affair which did not concern either of them the least bit in the world. Naturally, Moskowski himself took good care to let the matter alone.

After a very short delay a letter arrived for the Starosta from the Prince von Sonnenburg, in which he informed his dear friend that his only daughter Ingola had that very day before the altar been united by the insoluble bonds of holy matrimony to Squire Casimir, the Starosta's son. Simultaneously, Heinrich sent a letter to his father, circumstantially describing the pomp and splendour of the wedding, after which the happy pair had retired to the ancestral Castle of Sonnenburg. Thence they were to proceed to Italy for the honeymoon, and they proposed to take him, as doctor, along with them.

On hearing this joyful intelligence, old Moskowski attended a plain Mass from mere thankfulness.

Another year had elapsed, when Squire Casimir himself informed his father by letter of a joyful family event. A little son had been born to him, and both mother and child were doing excellently well. He was to be named Maximilian, after his maternal grandfather.

"There you are," cried old Moskowski in triumph to the Rev. Mr. Klausner, "a grandson with the name of Maximilian, a grandson of an Austrian prince! He never can become a boor. Was there ever a Maximilian in the world who came down to that? Never! A fig for all your Jewish prophesies!"

After that there arrived frequent letters from the bride, letters written in a fine, elegant hand, with a soft flowing pen. And in these letters the highly cultured grand dame drew, without end, idyllic pictures of the bliss she shared with her Casimir.

Presently there came an agreeable communication subscribed by the Chancellor of the Imperial Court officially informing the Starosta that his son Casimir had been promoted to the rank of major in the First Imperial Uhlan regiment.

A year later a second joyful family event was announced. "A second, eh?" His name was Stanislaus. To him, at any rate, they gave a good old Polish name.

"Ah, how I should like to see them all!" sighed the old Starosta.

But his old bones did not like the idea of a long carriage journey. The City of Vienna is, alas! a terrible distance from Bialystok.

Never mind, what one cannot see face to face can be presented fairly well in a picture; and the loving daughter-in-law painted the two little descendants in the act of embracing each other, with their two little curly polls all mixed up together. The tears regularly flowed from the eyes of the old Starosta as he gazed upon this pretty picture.

"These never can become serfs; no, never!"

And fresh presents arrived.

They sent from Vienna the twofold family tree of the Moskowskis and the Sonnenburgs, blended together in a harmonious whole. It was wrought in copper-plate with masterly engravings. Not a fault could be found in it.

Then the old Starosta wrote a letter with his own hand to his children, to his son and daughter-in-law. He called them "my children" expressly in this letter. He assured them he was longing for the time when he should see them all in the ancient Castle of Bialystok. The Tsar would certainly grant an amnesty to those who had been compromised in the rising of 1824, and had taken refuge abroad. He trusted the Almighty would permit him to see that time. He also thanked Heinrich for cleaving so faithfully to Casimir. He was a worthy young man, who deserved all respect.

And a worthy young man he was indeed. He wrote his father a letter every week, and every now and then he sent a little money home, although his earnings were very small.

And once more the Starosta received an official letter from Vienna, in which the Lord High Steward informed him, in the most obliging manner, that his Majesty, the Emperor and King, had advanced Casimir Moskowski to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and at the same time decorated him with the golden key of a Kammerherr.

"What, my son a lieutenant-colonel!--in the mighty Imperial army! Ah, how I should like to see him in his fur-bedizened red uniform! And I wonder where he'll hang his Kammerherr key--on his breast or in his girdle? If only I could see his face! My dear pastor, do write once more to Heinrich, and urge him to say to my son, 'Have your portrait painted for your father's sake, at full length, life size, sitting on horseback, commanding your regiment, and send it on to him. It would be the very best Christmas gift you could give him.'"

So the Rev. Gottlieb Klausner wrote to his son, declaring the wish of the affectionate father, and duly got an answer from him.

But this answer greatly angered the two old gentlemen.

"Casimir will not let himself be painted; he is tormented by the suspicion that those who are painted in their youth will die young."

"Did ever any one hear such rubbish?" growled the Starosta. "My son superstitious! And a superstition, too, the like of which I never heard of! What was the good, then, of his learning philosophy, metaphysics, and chemistry? I never took my degree at Utrecht, yet even I don't believe such nonsense. That comes of settling down in Vienna, you see. He's got mumpish and stupid."

"I'll soon find a remedy for all that," said Gottlieb Klausner. "I know a famous painter at Vienna who has a peculiar talent. If once he has had a good look at any one, he can go home and paint that person's portrait to the life without the person so painted knowing anything about it. I can certainly trust him with this commission."

"Do it for me, by all means. I'll send him a thousand dollars in advance on account, and if when the picture arrives I recognize my son, I'll give the painter whatever he likes to ask for it."

A few months afterwards Klausner got his answer from the painter. The picture was already on its way, well packed up, frame and all. A four-horse waggon would bring it from Vienna to Bialystok. Let them only keep an eye on the frontier custom-house officers, lest they injured it.

The bringing of the picture to the house was a veritable triumphal progress. It was packed in a gigantic case, and it required four master carpenters to open it and disentangle it from all its swathing bands and wrappings.

On the same day on which the picture arrived, the Governor intimated to the Starosta that he was inviting himself to dinner at the latter's house.

"So much the better," said the Starosta. "I should like him to be present when they bring in the picture. Don't tell him anything about it. Let it be a great surprise for him. How the chinovnik will stare when he sees Casimir in the imperial uniform! I wonder if the painter has painted his golden key?"

"He cannot paint that," said Klausner, "because these Kammerherr gentlemen wear it behind their backs."

"What, wear a mark of distinction behind! Who ever heard of such a thing?"

Mr. Eskimov arrived punctually to dinner. There were only three at table--the Starosta, the clergyman, and the Governor--and they very pleasantly drank a few glasses of Tokai together. When the pipes were produced, by way of winding up the repast, the Governor observed--

"Well, my good sir, we can now talk together about a very serious business. I didn't want to put you out in any way during the meal. I want to speak to you about your poor son."

"Oh, that won't put me out in the least; though I don't know why you should call him poor. I, for one, don't consider my son's fate at all a sorry one."

"Come, now, that's very noble of you to be so content with the Tsar's exalted measures, and not consider your son's fate so terrible, especially as I may at once give you the assurance that his fate has now come to an end; the Tsar has just issued a general amnesty for the leaders of the rebellion of 1824."

Moskowski shrugged his shoulders. "My son held no leading part in that rebellion."

"Come, come, my dear Starosta, don't tell me that. I am acquainted with all the details of the process. I know exactly what part Casimir took in it. I took a lot of trouble to get the capital sentence commuted to lifelong transportation to Siberia."

"My son in Siberia?"

"Yes. The Tsar's clemency delivered him from it not so very long ago."

"My friend, that little drop of Tokai has got into your head. You shouldn't play with your glass; take bigger gulps, and cure yourself that way. My son was never in Siberia."

"Indeed! Why, I sent him there myself. I have about me my letter on the subject to the Governor of Tobolsk, which I sent to him seven years ago."

"And I have a letter of congratulation from the Lord High Steward of the Imperial Court, in which he informs me of the promotion of my son to the rank of a major of Lancers."

"Your son a major of Lancers! Why, he's a raskolnik."

"A raskolnik? They would not be likely, I think, to give a Princess of Sonnenburg in marriage to a raskolnik."

"A Princess of Sonnenburg to your son! You're mad! Why, I seized him myself when he was attempting to escape across the border. He could not deny that he had taken part in the rebellion, for we found on his person full powers from the revolutionary committee. It was a good job for him that he also had about him his academic diploma, which certified that he understood chemistry and mining. Those delinquents who understand the science of mining are treated with particular favour: they do not get the knout, and are not put in chains. But, on the other hand, they are obliged to utilize their knowledge in the gold mines of the Urals."

"My son in the gold mines of the Urals! You are beside yourself, comrade."

"On the contrary, I am a good deal in advance of you. This was in the beginning of 1825."

"What was in the beginning of 1825? At that very time my son was enjoying his honeymoon in Italy. He wrote to me there, from the summit of Vesuvius--he and his consort."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Governor. "Your son's consort wrote to you! The daughter of a Samoyede chief wrote to you from the summit of Vesuvius! Ha, ha, ha!"

"Don't enrage me, my son! Do you mean the Kamtschatka to which that mad Vulko alluded?"

"I don't know the name of your son's consort; but I do know that she is the daughter of a Samoyede chief. The Governor of Siberia has sent me regular reports about your son Casimir every year. I expressly asked him to do so. One year your son spent in the gold-mines of the Urals, and then, because of his good conduct, and also out of regard to his father, he was permitted to devote himself to agriculture on the banks of the Jenisei. There he fell in with a Samoyede stock, good, honest, hospitable people. The chief's daughter fell in love with him, and they gave her to him. Casimir built himself a jurta, as they call their huts, reared reindeer, ploughed up a bit of land, and settled down there with his Siberian rose, and in the mean time two children have been born to them."

"I know--I know it right well," said the Starosta, whose long-repressed laughter now burst forth, "and he has sent his father their portraits."

"His father? Their portraits?"

"And two pretty little fair-haired chaps, too!"

"Fair-haired! Has he got fair-haired children, too?"

"One of them has been christened Maximilian, after his maternal grandfather; the other is called Stanislaus."

"I had no idea there were ancestral Maximilians and Stanislauses among the Samoyedes."

But now the Starosta began to grow really angry. He struck the table viciously with his fist.

"In the name of St. Procopius, what do you mean? We have had about enough of this Siberian joke and these Samoyede princes. You must not jest so with me. D'ye hear?"

"And I protest by St. Michael that I am not jesting at all, but that you are jesting with me; and your jesting is very much out of place, and out of season, too. D'ye hear?"

"Very well. I'll fetch this instant the letter of the Lord High Steward at Vienna, and that will open your eyes a bit."

"And I'll produce letters from the Governors of Tobolsk, Irkutsk, and Jeniseisk, and that will make you prick up your ears."

The two distinguished gentlemen were on the point of coming to fisticuffs when, fortunately, the pastor, always sober-minded, intervened between them.

"Pray be calm, your honours," said Gottlieb Klausner. "Why all this barren strife? Have we not here the very portrait painted for his honour the Starosta by a famous Viennese painter--the portrait, I mean, of Squire Casimir in the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel of the Imperial and Royal Uhlans? That picture will be the best means of deciding which of you is right."

Two heydukes thereupon brought the huge picture in its bronzed frame into the room, and they leaned it up against the wall.

And as they all three gazed at the picture--and, remember, they were all of them strong-minded men--they bounced back in amazement, as if they had seen a spectre.

"Lord have mercy upon us!"

And yet it was an extremely handsome picture, too, painted in a most masterly manner--true to the life. An officer of Uhlans, a manly and picturesque figure. Tawny, lion-like locks flowed over both shoulders; his ruddy face, blue eyes, and light eyebrows went very well together. At the corner of his smiling mouth there was a little mole.

"That is my son," gasped the clergyman, and he fell senseless to the ground.

 

CHAPTER VI

THE EXCHANGE

"'Tis the way of the world," Heinrich Klausner had said to himself when he had locked himself into his attic after that memorable ball. "I am nobody. I am not recognized among living beings. I am empty air; people look through me without seeing me. In society I am alone with the servants. At table I sit beside a big dog. I am the sport of the court fool. If they think of me at all it is only to laugh at me. They promise me the daughter of a Samoyede chief to wife. Pretty girls put out their tongues at me when I ask them for a dance. And why? Because my name is Heinrich Klausner, and by profession I am only a doctor. Casimir every one kisses and embraces and exalts. Casimir's health is drunk. Casimir carries the national standard. The dignity of Starosta will one day be Casimir's. Casimir opens the ball. Casimir may do anything. All the girls adore Casimir. Casimir gives his right hand to the daughter of a prince at Vienna, and his left hand is good enough for my former sweetheart. Why? Because his name is Casimir Moskowski, and he has a noble title before his name. What if we were to change places? Then who would have the daughter of the Samoyede chief to wife, the Kamskatka lady?"

It was thus that the demoniacal idea was first hatched in his breast.

First of all, he induced the Starosta to send his son to St. Petersburg. In the foreign Universities they had frequently come across young democratic Russians belonging to the great league whose object it was to depose Tsar Alexander and put in his place the Grand Duke Constantine, and then to form from the provinces of Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Wallachia a confederation of constitutional states. The pillars of this project were the leading members of the Russian aristocracy.

Heinrich felt certain that if Casimir could be got to St. Petersburg he could easily be inveigled into this league. His enthusiastic spirit, responsive to every noble idea of liberty, would be unable to resist the temptation which would be all the stronger as it sprang from its most natural source, the love of the ardent and fanatical Poles for their country. Such a grand part would satisfy all his desires. He would be the Voivode of liberated Volhynia. His hands would hold the banner emblazoned with the Ureox of Grodno. His birth, his rank, his riches--everything would entitle him to the rôle of leader. It was impossible to conceive that he would refuse the offer.

When, then, the plans of the conspirators had so far matured that the day for the outbreak of the insurrection was already fixed upon, the revolutionary committee authorized Casimir to begin the rising in the Province of Volhynia, and, with this object, Casimir and Heinrich proceeded to Bialystok.

The St. Petersburg rising meanwhile was crushed as soon as it broke out. In vain they made the Russian soldiers believe that the "Constitutsyd" (the constitution) was the name of the consort of the Grand Duke Constantine--they preferred the Tsar to any such lady.

Thus all those who had been sent to provoke a popular rising in the provinces were obliged to fly for their lives so long as the frontier still remained open, and it was then that Heinrich betrayed his friend to Eskimov, the Governor of Grodno.

The pursuing Cossacks overtook them on the frontier. But the Cossacks only had orders to seize Casimir, so they let the doctor go.

Casimir, however, had taken the precaution to hand over all his papers to Heinrich, not only those on account of which they might prosecute him, such as the credentials of the revolutionary committee, but also the letters of introduction from his father to the Vienna magnates, the Sonnenburg princes. Nothing whatever was found upon him.

But Heinrich sent the compromising documents to Eskimov by the first post, together with Casimir's academical certificates.

He himself continued his journey to Vienna without interruption. On arriving at the imperial metropolis he announced himself wherever Casimir's letters of introduction gained him an entry as Count Casimir Moskowski. His refined, distinguished appearance, social charm, and brilliant accomplishments made the fraud easy. The acquaintance with the Starosta and his whole environment, but especially his intimacy with Casimir, had placed him in possession of the deepest family secrets which justified the false part he was playing. His chivalrous bearing, moreover, completely won the heart of the young princess. The engagement between them contracted from afar through other hands, became a veritable love-match, and it soon won powerful supporters in Court circles. He took part in all the court festivities, for he had no lack of money wherewith to maintain a splendour corresponding with his dignity. He quickly mounted the rungs of the ladder of rank. He was free-handed with his money or rather with the Starosta's. In a very short time the false Count Moskowski was one of the most fêted, one of the most envied personages at the Imperial Court.

He had nothing to fear from anyone. In the whole empire none knew anything of Heinrich Klausner. Who was he? Nothing at all! Empty air. Those who looked at him did not see him. The deception could not be unmasked. The old Starosta could not come from Bialystok to Vienna on any account. Gout and corpulence would not let him. He himself could not cross the Russian border with his consort to visit his father, for he was proscribed and an exile, and even if he could get an amnesty, a Polish refugee prefers to hate the Russian at a distance and avoid his territory.

But how about the genuine Casimir Moskowski? Well, he has very good reasons not to come to Vienna. Even if he has not already died beneath the blows of the knout, he may calculate upon lifelong imprisonment in the mines of Siberia or on the endless snowfields, and while his good comrade is making his fine charger caracole to the delight of the lovers of sport at the Imperial Court, or guiding countesses through the mazes of the minuet at Court balls, or receiving the congratulations of foreign envoys, or responding to the toasts of his noble colleagues on his name-day, and living out his days in an earthly paradise in the arms of the loveliest woman in the world and choosing aristocratic names for his children--in the mean time, the nameless man from whom he has filched his family name, is known by no name at all, but simply by a number fastened to or painted on the jacket which he wears on his back--No. 13579. Why on earth should convict No. 13579 think of visiting Vienna? All that he sees before him is a huge piece of rock which he has to break up in order to get at the vein of gold within. And even if they release him from that, it will only be to conduct him still further into the depths of Siberia, to the colonies of the skin-hunters. There he will have to collect sufficient sable and ermine skins to enable him to get permission to settle down somewhere by the banks of the river where he may plough the land and wring bread from the earth by the labour of his own hands, and in winter time tan leather and carve little human figures out of walrus tusks for the Samoyedes. Perhaps also he may get a consort from the chief of one of the tribes of these nomadic tent-dwellers, a short-legged, tubby, seal-like beauty, with whom he may taste the joys of family life. Find out the name of this new princess if you can, but don't look for it in the Almanach de Gotha. Yes, the true Casimir Moskowski has been very well disposed of.

But suppose the White Tsar were one day to utter words of mercy and grant an amnesty to the rebels deported to Siberia? Well, even then, there will be no cause for anxiety. To those who receive permission to return from Siberia to Russia is always assigned a particular town in which they have to dwell, a good distance from the capital as well as from their own homes. And this town they must never leave, nor are they permitted to go abroad.

Then, too, the Starosta cannot live for ever; he is bound to have a stroke some day. Heinrich felt quite secure. He need fear nobody. Yet stay; there was one man he did fear. He did not feel sure of his own dear father. It might occur to the clergyman one day to take a journey to Vienna to see his own son.

But this eventuality was also provided for. The false Moskowski had provided on purpose for it a modest little lodging in the suburbs poorly furnished, where the doctor might be able to receive his old father in an austere environment. A special costume was held in reserve for that occasion--should it ever occur.

And if, perhaps, which was more than probable, Gottlieb Klausner wished to see his distinguished patron in the Sonnenburg Castle, against that danger also Heinrich had provided an antidote. In the later letters to his father he had tried to make the old man believe that for some little time he had good cause to be angry with his dear friend, Casimir, and, in fact, things had come to such a pass between them that he had been forbidden the Prince's door. If, on the other hand, the clergyman went by himself to see the Princess, he knew very well that his consort would not receive him. He had already explained to her pretty clearly that Heinrich Klausner was the traitor whose treachery was the cause of his exile, and consequently he was quite sure that the Princess would tell her servants to show the father of the treacherous comrade the door.

Meanwhile he kept up his correspondence with the Starosta, having learnt to imitate Casimir's handwriting most exactly, and in all these letters he was constantly complaining of Heinrich. So skilfully did he enwrap himself in a spider's web of lies that it was impossible to catch a clear glimpse of him through it.

There was only one thing he had never thought of--that his picture might be painted for the Starosta without his knowledge. And this was the very idea which had occurred to his father.

 

CHAPTER VII

NEMESIS

A great festival was being held in the Castle of Sonnenburg. It was the sixth birthday of little Prince Maximilian.

The little lad had just recovered from a severe illness; from one of those epidemics especially dangerous to children.

Heinrich during his son's illness had frequently been on the verge of betraying himself. Three doctors had been summoned to the Castle, and not one of them possessed his up-to-date knowledge. And all he could do was to listen to their disputes while they were in consultation. How he would have liked to exclaim: "You are charlatans, the whole lot of you! Poisoners! Ignoramuses! I can diagnose the case quite well; you can't."

He had to bury his knowledge out of sight. Two or three pillules administered in homœopathic doses would immediately have cured the child's weakness, and he could not give them to him. He was not allowed to save his own child. He was obliged to look on while his colleagues experimented with, tortured, the child. He could not reveal to them that he was a physician. Ah, ah!--then where is your diploma? And his diploma was in the name of Heinrich Klausner.

And self love was stronger in him than paternal love. So he was silent, and looked on cold-bloodedly at the torments of his child.

And at last nature and a mother's prayers prevailed against the severity of the disease. Little Max, despite the united operations of three specialists, actually recovered. It was on his very birthday that he was permitted to leave his room.

That day was kept in the Castle as a joyful festival. The grandparents, the Prince of Sonnenburg and his wife, had come to the house. The feast had been a calm and quiet rejoicing from beginning to end. No guests outside the family had been invited.

At the end of the meal, just as the father, his face radiant with happiness, had risen with a glass of foaming champagne to propose the health of the grandparents, the Major Domo came in from the ante-chamber and whispered something in the ear of the young Princess.

For an instant, Ingola angrily contracted her brows, but the next moment a benevolent smile lit up her face.

"No. To-day I will be angry with no one. To-day I am ready to forgive my mortal foe. Let him come in."

But at the sight of the visitor, as he passed through the doorway, the champagne glass which had been raised for the toast fell from Heinrich's hand, and he himself collapsed into a chair.

The visitor was Gottlieb Klausner; he had entered the banqueting-room in his simple black cassock.

He made straight for his son, and, placing his muscular hand on his shoulder, shook him out of his benumbing stupefaction.

"What do you want with Prince Casimir Moskowski?" exclaimed old Prince Sonnenburg.

The clergyman, in a dry, scornful voice, replied: "This man is not Count Casimir Moskowski, but my son, Heinrich Klausner, betrayer, impostor, thief."

Then, scarcely audible, he murmured to his son: "Rise and follow me."

Heinrich rose mechanically from the table and allowed his father to seize his hand.

Then the Princess Ingola, full of fear, shrieked: "My husband! What are you doing with my husband?"

The clergyman turned round, and with his long, lean, extended arm indicated another visitor whom he had brought with him; and who, before he made his appearance, had been leaning against the lintel of the door.

"Your husband, Princess Sonnenburg, is standing there. That is Prince Casimir Moskowski, your lawful consort."

The creature standing against the door was the exile just returned from Siberia; a creature broken down by oppression and suffering, with a mop of tangled hair and a long beard prematurely grey; his face livid and sunken, and prematurely aged by a network of wrinkles; bentbacked, with hands purple, frost-bitten, and horny from hard labour. Six years in the school of Siberia had reduced the stately son of the Starosta to this. Just look at him!

At the sight of this spectre, Heinrich quickly snatched a knife from the table, but his father still more quickly wrenched it from his grasp before Heinrich could draw it across his throat.

"Oho! my son! You don't get out of it so easily. You must make an exchange. The convict's coarse sheepskin awaits you. Your name is '13579.' You can easily remember it; it is a perfectly straightforward series of odd numbers. Your predecessor bore it for six years."

* * * * *

And the exchange really took place. Both the Austrian and the Russian Governments agreed that this scandalous fraud must be kept a profound secret, which would have ruined two of the most illustrious families of both empires. They also compelled the party most interested in the affair, the clever impostor, to make a late reparation. Moreover, Casimir had his property returned to him on condition that he acknowledged the Princess Ingola to be his consort. The Princess was also obliged to take him for her husband in order to procure for her children the family name, and the right of succession to the property. They all went together to Bialystok, and there they lived, as well as they could, joyless, cut off from the world, with their doors closed against every one.

But Heinrich they sent to the banks of the Jenisei. They shoved him into the sheepskin which had been made expressly for convict No. 13579, and gave him his predecessor's digging implements, sledge--and Samoyede consort.

And the old Starosta lived for a long time after that. He lived long enough to see the death of the children bearing the name of Moskowski, both Maximilian and Stanislaus; he lived long enough to see the family name of the Moskowskis become extinct. No other offspring came to supply their place.

But the veritable offspring of his flesh and blood, the little Samoyedes, increased and multiplied like sparrows. Their descendants now people the plains of the Jenisei, and very careful and industrious peasants they are.

[The end]
Maurus Jokai's short story: Red Starosta

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