The Queen of Spades, and other stories
three days for reflection, and, in the meanwhile, do not dare to show
your face in my presence."
Alexis knew that when his father took a thing into his head nothing
could knock it out again; but then Alexis was as obstinate as his
father. He went to his room and there reflected upon the limits of
parental authority, on Lisa Muromskaia, his father's threat to make him
a beggar, and finally he thought of Akulina.
For the first time he clearly saw how much he loved her. The romantic
idea of marrying a peasant girl and working for a living came into his
mind; and the more he thought of it, the more he approved it. Their
meetings in the wood had been stopped of late by the wet weather.
He wrote to Akulina in the roundest hand and the maddest style, telling
her of his impending ruin, and asking her to be his wife. He took
the letter at once to the tree trunk, dropped it in, and went much
satisfied with himself to bed.
Next morning, firm in resolution, he started early to call on Muromsky
and explain the situation. He meant to win him over by appealing to his
generosity.
"Is Mr. Muromsky at home?" he asked reining up his horse at the porch.
"No, sir, Mr. Muromsky went out early this morning."
How provoking, thought Alexis.
"Well, is Miss Lisa at home?"
"Yes, sir."
And throwing the reins to the footman, Alexis leapt from his horse and
entered unannounced.
"It will soon be over," he thought, going towards the drawing-room.
"I will explain to Miss Muromsky herself." He entered ... and was
transfixed. Lisa!... no, Akulina, dear, dark Akulina, wearing no
_sarafan_ but a white morning frock, sat by the window reading his
letter. So intent was she upon it that she did not hear him enter.
Alexis could not repress a cry of delight. Lisa started, raised her
hand, cried out, and attempted to run away. He rushed to stop her.
"Akulina! Akulina!" Lisa tried to free herself.
"_Mais laissez moi donc, Monsieur! mais êtes vous fou?_" she repeated,
turning away.
"Akulina! my darling Akulina!" he repeated, kissing her hand.
Miss Jackson, who was an eye-witness of this scene, knew not what to
think. The door opened and Grigori Muromsky entered.
"Ah!" cried he, "you seem to have settled things between you."...
The reader will excuse me the unnecessary trouble of winding up.
KIRDJALI.
Kirdjali was by birth a Bulgarian.
Kirdjali, in Turkish, means a bold fellow, a knight-errant.
Kirdjali with his depredations brought terror upon the whole of
Moldavia. To give some idea of him I will relate one of his exploits.
One night he and the Arnout Michailaki fell together upon a Bulgarian
village. They set fire to it from both ends and went from hut to hut,
Kirdjali killing, while Michailaki carried off the plunder. Both cried,
"Kirdjali! Kirdjali!" and the whole village ran.
When Alexander Ipsilanti proclaimed the insurrection and began raising
his army, Kirdjali brought him several of his old followers. They
knew little of the real object of the _hetairi._ But war presented an
opportunity for getting rich at the expense of the Turks, and perhaps
of the Moldavians too.
Alexander Ipsilanti was personally brave, but he was wanting in
the qualities necessary for playing the part he had with such eager
recklessness assumed. He did not know how to manage the people under
his command. They had neither respect for him nor confidence.
After the unfortunate battle, when the flower of Greek youth fell,
Jordaki Olimbisti advised him to retire, and himself took his place.
Ipsilanti escaped to the frontiers of Austria, whence he sent his
curse to the people whom he now stigmatised as mutineers, cowards, and
blackguards. These cowards and blackguards mostly perished within the
walls of the monastery of Seke, or on the banks of the Pruth, defending
themselves desperately against a foe ten times their number.
Kirdjali belonged to the detachment commanded by George Cantacuzène, of
whom might be repeated what has already been said of Ipsilanti.
On the eve of the battle near Skuliana, Cantacuzène asked permission
of the Russian authorities to enter their quarters. The band was left
without a commander. But Kirdjali, Sophianos, Cantagoni, and others had
no need of a commander.
The battle of Skuliana seems not to have been described by any one in
all its pathetic truth. Just imagine seven hundred Arnouts, Albanians,
Greeks, Bulgarians, and every kind of rabble, with no notion of
military art, retreating within sight of fifteen thousand Turkish
cavalry. The band kept close to the banks of the Pruth, placing in
front two tiny cannons, found at Jassy, in the courtyard of the
Hospodar, and which had formerly been used for firing salutes on
festive occasions.
The Turks would have been glad to use their cartridges, but dared not
without permission from the Russian authorities; for the shots would
have been sure to fly over to our banks. The commander of the Russian
military post (now dead), though he had been forty years in the army,
had never heard the whistle of a bullet; but he was fated to hear it
now. Several bullets buzzed passed his ears. The old man got very angry
and began to swear at Ohotsky, major of one of the infantry battalions.
The major, not knowing what to do, ran towards the river, on the other
side of which some insurgent cavalry were capering about. He shook his
finger at them, on which they turned round and galloped along, with
the whole Turkish army after them. The major who had shaken his finger
was called Hortchevsky. I don't know what became of him. The next day,
however, the Turks attacked the Arnouts. Hot daring to use cartridges
or cannon balls, they resolved, contrary to their custom, to employ
cold steel. The battle was fierce. The combatants slashed and stabbed
one another.
The Turks were seen with lances, which, hitherto they had never
possessed, and these lances were Russian. Our Nekrassoff refugees were
fighting in their ranks. The _hetairi,_ thanks to the permission of our
Emperor, were allowed to cross the Pruth and seek the protection of our
garrison. They began to cross the river, Cantagoni and Sophianos being
the last to quit the Turkish bank; Kirdjali, wounded the day before,
was already lying in Russian quarters. Sophianos was killed. Cantagoni,
a very stout man, was wounded with a spear in his stomach. With one
hand he raised his sword, with the other he seized the enemy's spear,
pushed it deeper into himself, and by that means was able to reach his
murderer with his own sword, when they fell together.
All was over. The Turks remained victorious, Moldavia was cleared of
insurgents. About six hundred Arnouts were scattered over Bessarabia.
Unable to obtain the means of subsistence, they still felt grateful
to Russia for her protection. They led an idle though not a dissolute
life. They could be seen in coffee-houses of half Turkish Bessarabia,
with long pipes in their mouths sipping thick coffee out of small cups.
Their figured Zouave jackets and red slippers with pointed toes were
beginning to look shabby. But they still wore their tufted scull-cap
on one side of the head; and daggers and pistols still protruded
from beneath, their broad girdles. No one complained of them. It
was impossible to imagine that these poor, peaceable fellows were
the celebrated pikemen of Moldavia, the followers of the ferocious
Kirdjali, and that he himself had been one of them.
The Pasha governing Jassy heard of all this, and, on the basis of
treaty rights, requested the Russian authorities to deliver up the
brigand. The police made inquiries, and found that Kirdjali really was
at Kishineff. They captured him in the house of a runaway monk in the
evening, while he was at supper, sitting in the twilight with seven
comrades.
Kirdjali was arraigned. He did not attempt to conceal the truth. He
owned he was Kirdjali.
"But," he added, "since I crossed the Pruth, I have not touched a
hair of property that did not belong to me, nor have I cheated the
meanest gipsy. To the Turks, the Moldavians, and the Walachians I am
certainly a brigand, but to the Russians a guest. When Sophianos, after
exhausting all his cartridges, came over here, he collected buttons
from the uniforms, nails, watch-chains, and nobs from the daggers for
the final discharge, and I myself handed him twenty _beshléks_ to fire
off, leaving myself without money. God is my witness that I, Kirdjali,
lived by charity. Why then do the Russians now hand me over to my
enemies?"
After that Kirdjali was silent, and quietly awaited his fate. It was
soon announced to him. The authorities, not thinking themselves hound
to look upon brigandage from its romantic side, and admitting the
justice of the Turkish demand, ordered Kirdjali to be given up that he
might be sent to Jassy.
A man of brains and feeling, at that time young and unknown, but
now occupying an important post, gave me a graphic description of
Kirdjali's departure.
"At the gates of the prison," he said, "stood a hired _karutsa._
Perhaps you don't know what a _karutsa_ is? It is a low
basket-carriage, to which quite recently used to be harnessed six or
eight miserable screws. A Moldavian, with a moustache and a sheepskin
hat, sitting astride one of the horses, cried out and cracked his whip
every moment, and his wretched little beasts went on at a sharp trot.
If one of them began to lag, then he unharnessed it with terrific
cursing and left it on the road, not caring what became of it. On the
return journey he was sure to find them in the same place, calmly
grazing on the steppes. Frequently a traveller starting from a station
with eight horses would arrive at the next with a pair only. It was
so about fifteen years ago. Now in Russianized Bessarabia, Russian
harness and Russian _telegas_ (carts) have been adopted.
"Such a _karutsa_ as I have described stood at the gate of the jail in
1821, towards the end of September. Jewesses with their sleeves hanging
down and with flapping slippers, Arnouts in ragged but picturesque
costumes, stately Moldavian women with black-eyed children in their
arms, surrounded the _harutsa._ The men maintained silence. The women
were excited, as if expecting something to happen.
"The gates opened, and several police officers stepped into the street,
followed by two soldiers leading Kirdjali in chains.
"He looked about thirty. The features of his dark face were regular and
austere. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and seemed to possess great
physical strength. He wore a variegated turban on the side of his head,
and a broad sash round his slender waist. A dolman of thick, dark blue
cloth, the wide plaits of his over-shirt falling just above the knees,
and a pair of handsome slippers completed his dress. His bearing was
calm and haughty.
"One of the officials, a red-faced old man in a faded uniform, with
three buttons hanging loose, a pair of lead spectacles which pinched
a crimson knob doing duty for a nose, unrolled a paper, and stooping,
began to read in the Moldavian tongue. From time to time he glanced
haughtily at the handcuffed Kirdjali, to whom apparently the document
referred. Kirdjali listened attentively. The official finished his
reading, folded the paper, and called out sternly to the people,
ordering them to make way for the _karutsa_ to drive up. Then Kirdjali,
turning towards him, said a few words in Moldavian; his voice trembled,
his countenance changed, he burst into tears, and fell at the feet of
the police officer, with a clanking of his chains. The police officer,
in alarm, started back; the soldiers were going to raise Kirdjali, but
he got up of his own accord, gathered up his chains, and stepping into
the _harutsa_, cried _egaida!'_