Читать книгу The Green Book; Or, Freedom Under the Snow - Mór Jókai - Страница 12

CHAPTER IX
THE BOARD OF GREEN CLOTH AND THE GREEN BOOK

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The room in which the "Confederation of the North" held its meetings was provided with double doors—a circumstance by no means uncommon in Russian palaces, in order that there should be no spying through keyholes, no listening at doors.

The centre of the room was taken up by a massive table, or rather a great chest, the upper part of which formed a roulette-table.

The rolls of gold—probably sovereigns (bank-notes are not used in roulette)—are laid out in rows, beside which is placed the croupier's long scoop. Each new-comer, as he enters, takes his seat at the table and puts down his purse before him. But there is no play—in fact, it is a mere sham. At each arrival the opening of the outer door sets the table in motion, the noise of the rotary ball calling the attention of those present to the fact that some one is coming. Thus there is no fear of surprises.

The introductions are performed by the lady of the house—a necessary ceremony, for on this occasion there are people who have never met before—accredited agents, representatives of secret societies which have been formed in the remotest corners of the Russian dominion. The president and keeper of the privy seal of the Northern Confederation is Prince Ghedimin; the secretary, Ryleieff, is a young poet, and agent of the American corn trade.

Of the three brothers Turgenieff, Nicholas, the historian, is present; as well as Colonel Lunin, the proprietor of the secret press; Bestuseff, Kuchelbäcker, Commandant of Artillery. There are also Vaskofsky, Chief of the "Welfare Union"; Muravieff, the representative of the "United Slavs"; and Orloff, the life and soul of the "Patriots." All are distinct secret societies; yet all are united in one aim, "Freedom" (freedom under the snow)—their mode of procedure, action, the instruments employed, wholly diverse. For this reason they have arranged the present meeting, in order to unite the various opposing plans into one common form of action. To this conference they have called the president of the "Southern Confederation," Colonel Pestel, from the far-off shores of the Black Sea, and the still more distant chief of the Caucasian "Barbarians," Jakuskin. But of all, he who has come from the remotest part (for he had had to wade through the sea of blood which separates the two countries) was the spokesman of the Polish "Kosinyery," Krizsanowski. All these men wear uniforms, save Ryleieff, who is of the burgher class, and who wears a modern blue frock-coat with gold buttons; all are beardless, with clean-shaven faces; only the Pole preserves the national type; and Jakuskin, whose shaggy eyebrows join his tousled beard, represents the wild Cossack, and seems, by his rough, neglected exterior, to bid defiance to the civilized world.

There is something written on the foreheads of all these men.

Zeneida stands by the door to receive the new-comers, until the room fills up. Conversation is not loud; each seems to be conferring with the spirit which has led him hither.

The rolling of the roulette ball is heard yet again.

"Who can still be coming?" asks Zeneida.

Pushkin appears on the threshold.

Zeneida's countenance involuntarily assumes an expression of alarm.

"Why do you come here?" she whispers, excitedly, to him.

"Is it not permitted?"

"Did I not commission you to watch Galban, that he might not take us by surprise?"

"I found a better guardian for him. Diabolka has got him in the mouse-trap."

"But your responsibility remains."

"I will go back as soon as I can do so without exciting attention. At present, I stay here. Introduce me!"

"What a child you are! Are you not consumed with curiosity to know what we are about here?"

"I wish to take my part in it."

"What wilfulness! Of course you imagine lives are going to be risked, and must needs stake yours for sake of the glory. Well, stay here. You shall see. Herr Pushkin!" And she turned her back upon him, as if in anger, while making the introduction.

Zeneida was the accredited agent of the whole union. Whom she invited to her palace was received as a "Brother"; to whom she confided any work was ranked among the "Men"; but to take part in secret conferences and to be promoted to be a "Bojar" required a further recommendation.

"Who else stands security for him?" asked Prince Ghedimin.

"I," answered Ryleieff.

Upon which room was at once made for Pushkin at the table.

His was a fine head. The curly hair and form of the nose recalled the African blood which ran in his veins, one of his forefathers having taken to wife a daughter of Hannibal, the negro slave promoted by Peter the Great to be a general. His eyes were dark and deep-set, yet, despite the irregular features, one could trace in the expression a resemblance to Byron. Pushkin was in love with Zeneida—that is, he raved about her. Zeneida was deeply in love with Pushkin, therefore she did not want him really to love her.

A word will clear up this seeming paradox. Zeneida knew too well that he who united his fate to hers must inevitably meet some dark doom, in the background of which loomed the scaffold. Finland had been reduced to subjection by the same power against which these secret societies were waging war, and Zeneida could still remember her mother's tears, and the plain black coffin brought by stealth to her home one dark night, wherein lay the corpse of a headless man for whom they dared not even mourn. Only when she was grown up had she learned that that man was her father. She loved Pushkin far too dearly to lead him on that perilous path on which men risk their heads. She had dreamed of a happier, sunnier lot for him. She had long detected in the wild, restless youth that genius that had not been given him to make the lion of a lady's boudoir—a genius which belonged, not to Russia only, but to the whole world. A poet was not thus to be wasted. Why load the gun with a charge of diamonds when common lead would answer the purpose equally well, nay, better!

"Gentlemen," said Zeneida, addressing those assembled. "I will first request our brother Ryleieff to read to us the verses we are to spread among the people. To prepare the minds of the people is, indeed, the main object." (General applause.)

Ryleieff, the poet, a fair, slim, handsome young man, here rising, produced the verses he had written.

It was a fine, noble-toned poem, perfectly rhythmical, and true to every rule of composition. The rhetorical warmth rising gradually to an impassioned climax, the under-current expressing that deep spirit of yearning melancholy which harmonizes so entirely with the spirit of the people.

The poem recited, all united to congratulate the youthful Tyrtæus; while Zeneida, with eyes filled with tears, kissed him on both cheeks.

Pushkin, annoyed, looked away. For a woman to kiss a man is the accepted custom in Russian society. Ghedimin scarcely heeded Zeneida's action, and he certainly had the best right to demur; but Pushkin was plainly annoyed by it. He envied Ryleieff: envied him the kiss; how much more the poem which answered its purpose—faute de mieux!

"The verses are splendid!" exclaimed Prince Ghedimin. "We will have a million copies of them struck off in Lunin's press, and distributed among the peasants."

"You forget, Prince," put in Zeneida, "that our peasants cannot read. I would suggest it were more practical to have the poem set to music, that it might be diffused more rapidly among them. In that way it would pass from field to field; mowers, reapers, wagoners, would carry it from village to village, and what is once sung among them never dies out. In our Finnish Volkslieder has lived the history of the nation, the traditions of its historical life, its freedom. These no man can take away. The Marseillaise alone raised an army in France."

"But to whom confide the setting of it to music?" asked the Prince.

"Here is Herr Pushkin," said Zeneida. "He composes charming melodies."

Pushkin felt as if stung by a tarantula.

He compose the melody to Ryleieff's song of freedom! Subordination can be carried to a nicety of perfection. A state councillor, when he puts on the uniform of a private of volunteers, may find he has to obey the orders of his own chancery clerk and corporal; or a duke, if he become a freemason, have to make obeisance to a bootmaker, as master of the lodge; but for one poet to be called upon to write the music to another poet's effusion, when he feels himself to be Cæsar and the other man Pompey, is a sheer impossibility.

Pushkin's face crimsoned.

"To the best of my belief, the words and air of the Marseillaise were composed at one and the same time. Rouget de l'Isle wrote them together. Nor can it be otherwise. The poet alone can find the fitting inspiration. Ryleieff's poem is fine, very fine, but it does not inflame and excite one. To such an end the fire of enthusiasm is a necessity." And unconsciously he slapped his breast, as though to say, "And it is here."

"Do you know, Pushkin," said Zeneida, "if you are really feeling the poetic ardor of which you speak—if you think you can compose something better than we have here, you could not do better than to retire into this little side chamber; there you will find piano and writing-table. Give us something better suited to our purpose!"

Pushkin was caught.

"Why not? I will write you a song which the peasant will not need to take first to the priest to have its meaning explained to him."

And with that he looked straight into Zeneida's eyes, with a look which said, "If you can bestow a kiss for Ryleieff's rhymes, what will you give me when I put on paper the words that burn in my heart?"

Rising, he repaired to the inner room. Soon the sound of chords showed him to be deep in poetic creation. When once thus absorbed, a man does not lightly break off.

Zeneida had no better wish for him.

As Pushkin left the room Zeneida turned the roulette-board. The ball stopped at Nicholas Turgenieff. He was thus made President of the Council that day, and accordingly took the chair—made to resemble that of the banker of a roulette-table.

And now Prince Ghedimin, drawing out a delicate little polished key, which fitted into a keyhole revealed by pushing aside a brass button, handed it to the President, who turned it twice in the lock. Hereupon the copper slab, upon which the roulette-board was fixed, slid to the other end of the long table, disclosing, in the part thus laid open, "the green book." One single lamp hanging from the ceiling illuminated the figures of those sitting there, looking, by its light, like statues in a museum; every feature seemed to gain in sharpness of outline; their immobility lending character and determination to their faces; so many historical subjects destined either to rise to eminence, the idols of the people, or to fall under the hand of the executioner. In those few moments, devoted to silent reflection, which each man seemed to be engaged in studying his neighbor, many were looking upon the other for the first time, and appeared to be mentally comparing the reality with the ideal previously formed. The members of the Southern Confederation had never before met their Polish brother. Many of them had seen Jakuskin ten years before, but then he was a merry youth with clean-shaven face. That has all disappeared. He is now a wild man of the woods, who only smiles when he speaks of murder. Leaning against the President's chair is Zeneida; attitude and figure alike recall statues of the "Republic," only that instead of a dagger she holds a bouquet in her hand sent her by her rival. A dagger in disguise. Besides those we have already named, the following historical personages were present: the three brothers Bestuseff, Prince Trubetzkoi Obolensky, Korsofski, Urbuseff, Peslien, Orloff, Konovitzin, Odojefski, Setkof, Sutsin, Battenkoff, Rostopschin, Rosen, Steinkal, Arsibuseff, Annenkoff, Oustofski, and Muravieff Apostol, all representatives of the many wide-spread secret societies.

Ryleieff, the secretary, opened "the green book."

The President desired him to read out the business done during the last sitting.

It concerned the working out of a plan of constitutional government for the whole Russian empire; its title—"Ruskaja Pravda." It was a republic in which every province that the Russian despot had annexed to form one vast empire was to arise as an independent state under its individual president—Great Russia, Little Russia, Finland, Poland, Livland, Kasan, Siberia, the Crimea, the Caucasus; nine republics with one government and one army, under the control of one Directorate, to hold its sittings at Moscow.

The Republic needed no St. Petersburg. Neither the "Saint," nor the "Peter," nor the "burg" (city).

The device upon the plan was—

Question: "Will Europe in fifty years' time be republican or Russian?"

To which the answer was—"Both."

This plan of constitution was painted with the colors of a glowing fancy. First, to free every people, and then to unite all free peoples! None to be oppressed by the other. Each to be left to choose his own way to prosperity, speak his own tongue, cultivate his own land. No more hatred or jealousy among nations.

So it stood in "the green book."

Prince Ghedimin was the first to speak.

"It is a grand idea; but the greatest obstacle in the way of freeing the people is that the people are unconscious of their servitude. Let it be our part to make it clear to them. Let us flood the land with catechisms of the 'free man'; let us study the special grievances of every race in the provinces; learn to know their want and misery, and win them to the cause of freedom by promising them redress. A people suffers when it is hungry; has to submit to blows; has its sons taken off to be soldiers; but it is ignorant of the yoke that is bowing down its neck."

Pestel waited impatiently until he could speak.

"My dear Prince, your plan may be very good for such as can afford to wait fifty years and build card houses, which fall to pieces at every current of air. We have not the time to devote to philosophical theories. We count upon the army and the aristocracy. The power once in our hands, we can take our measures to secure the education of the masses. A revolution left in their hands would lead to another Pugatsef revolt."

"And would that be a bad thing?" asked Jakuskin, in a hoarse voice, advancing to them from the corner where he was seated.

"It would be bad because there could be no organization. He who would carry out our scheme must be master of the situation. In Russia, the successful leader of an insurgent movement would only be another tyrant. Our scheme must be carried out simultaneously, at the word of command, throughout all Russia. No sooner that done than every secret society is abandoned, and we suppress all conspiracies; and, hateful as is now the system of police detectives, it must, in future, be raised to an honorable calling. Every man of mind, every free man, and every patriot must be proud to make himself a police-agent of a free country. All this must come about at the stroke of a magic wand."

"And what do you propose to do under the stroke of the magic wand with the Czar and the Grand Dukes?" asked Jakuskin, with chilling irony.

"Make them prisoners, convey them on board a man-of-war, and ship them off to the New World."

"Humph! to the other world! In Charon's boat," hissed out the Caucasian soldier; and, going up to the table, he struck it with his clinched fist. "Hark ye, envoys of the North and South, members of your various virtuous and benevolent societies, you are all on a wrong tack, you deceive yourselves. There is but one answer to the question I put to you: scatter their ashes to the four winds. I am no puling child, such as you are. I have not covered two thousand versts to come here and hear you thresh out your philosophical theses; I am here to act."

The Green Book; Or, Freedom Under the Snow

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