Ibrahim’s arrival, his looks, education, and natural intelligence, attracted general attention in Paris. All the ladies wanted to see le Nègre du czar in their salons and tried to be the first to catch him; the regent invited him to his merry evenings more than once; he was present at suppers animated by the youth of Arouet and the old age of Chaulieu, the conversation of Montesquieu and Fontenelle;8 he did not miss a single ball, nor a single fête, nor a single première, and he gave himself to the general whirl with all the ardor of his youth and race. But it was not only the thought of exchanging these diversions, these brilliant amusements, for the stern simplicity of the Petersburg court that horrified Ibrahim. Other stronger bonds tied him to Paris. The young African was in love.
The countess D., no longer in the first bloom of youth, was still famous for her beauty. At the age of seventeen, on leaving the convent,9 she was given in marriage to a man she had had no time to fall in love with and who never bothered about it afterwards. Rumor ascribed lovers to her, but, by the lenient code of society, she enjoyed a good reputation, for it was impossible to reproach her with any ludicrous or scandalous adventure. Her house was the most fashionable. The best Parisian society gathered there. Ibrahim was introduced to her by the young Merville, generally regarded as her latest lover—something he tried to make felt by every means possible.
The countess received Ibrahim courteously, but with no special attention. That flattered him. Ordinarily, the young Negro was looked upon as a wonder, was surrounded, showered with greetings and questions, and this curiosity, though hidden behind an appearance of benevolence, offended his self-esteem. Women’s sweet attention, all but the unique goal of our efforts, not only did not gladden his heart, but even filled it with bitterness and indignation. He felt that for them he was some rare sort of animal, a special, alien creature, accidentally transported to a world that had nothing in common with him. He even envied people whom nobody noticed, regarding their insignificance as happiness.
The thought that nature had not created him for mutual passion delivered him from conceit and the claims of self-esteem, lending a rare charm to his relations with women. His conversation was simple and dignified; it pleased the countess D., who was sick of the eternal jokes and refined allusions of French wit. Ibrahim often visited her. She gradually became used to the young Negro’s appearance, and even began to find something appealing in that curly head, black amidst the powdered wigs in her drawing room. (Ibrahim had been wounded in the head and wore a bandage instead of a wig.) He was twenty-seven years old; he was tall and trim, and more than one beauty gazed at him with a feeling more flattering than mere curiosity, but the prejudiced Ibrahim either noticed nothing, or saw it as mere coquetry. But when his glance met the glance of the countess, his distrust vanished. Her eyes expressed such sweet good-nature, her manner with him was so simple, so unconstrained, that it was impossible to suspect even a shadow of coquettishness or mockery in her.
Love never entered his head—but it had already become necessary for him to see the countess every day. He sought to meet her everywhere, and meeting with her seemed to him each time like an unexpected favor from heaven. The countess guessed his feelings before he did. Say what you like, but love with no hopes or demands touches a woman’s heart more surely than all the calculations of seduction. When Ibrahim was present, the countess followed all his movements, listened to all he said; without him she became pensive and lapsed into her usual absentmindedness…Merville first noticed this mutual inclination and congratulated Ibrahim. Nothing so inflames love as an encouraging observation from an outsider. Love is blind and, not trusting itself, hastily seizes upon any support. Merville’s words awakened Ibrahim. The possibility of possessing the beloved woman had so far not presented itself to his imagination; hope suddenly lit up his soul; he fell madly in love. In vain did the countess, frightened by the frenzy of his passion, try to oppose to it the admonitions of friendship and the counsels of good sense: she herself was weakening. Imprudent rewards quickly followed one after another. And finally, carried away by the power of the passion she had inspired, fainting under its influence, she gave herself to the enraptured Ibrahim…
Nothing is hidden from the eyes of observant society. The countess’s new liaison soon became known to all. Some ladies were astonished by her choice; many thought it quite natural. Some laughed, others saw it as an unforgivable imprudence. In the first intoxication of passion, Ibrahim and the countess noticed nothing, but soon men’s ambiguous jokes and women’s caustic remarks began to reach them. Ibrahim’s dignified and cool behavior had hitherto shielded him from such attacks; he endured them impatiently and did not know how to ward them off. The countess, accustomed to the respect of society, could not see herself cool-headedly as the object of gossip and mockery. She complained tearfully to Ibrahim, then bitterly reproached him, then begged him not to intercede for her, lest the useless clamor ruin her completely.
A new circumstance complicated her situation still more. The consequences of imprudent love manifested themselves. Consolations, advice, suggestions—all were exhausted and all were rejected. The countess faced inevitable ruin and awaited it with despair.
As soon as the countess’s condition became known, gossip sprang up with new force. Sentimental ladies oh-ed and ah-ed in horror; men bet on whether the countess would give birth to a white child or a black one. There was a downpour of epigrams about her husband, who alone in the whole of Paris knew nothing and suspected nothing.
The fatal moment was approaching. The countess was in a terrible state. Ibrahim came to her daily. He saw how her moral and physical strength were gradually dwindling. Her tears, her terror were renewed every moment. Finally she felt the first pangs. Measures were taken at once. A way was found of removing the count. The doctor came. Two days earlier a poor woman had been persuaded to give up her newborn infant into the hands of others; a confidant was sent for him. Ibrahim was in the boudoir just next to the bedroom where the unfortunate countess lay. Not daring to breathe, he heard her muffled moans, the maid’s whispers, and the doctor’s orders. She suffered for a long time. Her every moan rent his soul; every spell of silence bathed him in terror…Suddenly he heard the weak cry of an infant and, unable to contain his rapture, rushed into the countess’s room. A black baby lay on the bed at her feet. Ibrahim approached him. His heart was pounding. He blessed his son with a trembling hand. The countess smiled weakly and held out a weak hand to him…but the doctor, fearing emotions too strong for the patient, drew Ibrahim away from her bed. The newborn was put in a covered basket and carried out of the house by a secret stairway. The other infant was brought and its cradle was placed in the new mother’s bedroom. Ibrahim left somewhat reassured. The count was expected. He came late, learned of his spouse’s happy delivery, and was very pleased. Thus the public, awaiting a scandalous outcry, was deceived in its hopes and was forced to console itself with nothing but wicked gossip.
Everything went back to its usual order. But Ibrahim felt that his fate was bound to change and that sooner or later his liaison would become known to Count D. In that case, whatever happened, the countess’s ruin was inevitable. He loved her passionately and was loved in the same way; but the countess was whimsical and light-minded. She was not in love for the first time. Loathing, hatred could replace the tenderest feelings in her heart. Ibrahim already foresaw the moment of her cooling; hitherto he had not known jealousy, but he anticipated it with horror; he imagined that the suffering of separation must be less tormenting, and he already intended to break the unfortunate liaison, leave Paris, and go to Russia, where both Peter and an obscure sense of his own duty had long been calling him.
CHAPTER TWO
No longer strongly moved by beauty,
No longer ravished so by joy,
No longer of such flippant wit,
No longer is all so well with me…
Desire for honors now torments me,
I hear glory loudly calling!
; DERZHAVIN10
Days, months went by, but the amorous Ibrahim could not bring himself to leave the woman he had seduced. The countess grew more attached to him by the hour. Their son was being brought up in a distant province. Society’s gossip was dying down, and the lovers began to enjoy greater tranquillity, silently remembering the past storm and trying not to think of the future.
One day Ibrahim attended the levee of the duc d’Orléans. The duke, in passing, stopped and handed him a letter, telling him to read it at his leisure. It was a letter from Peter the Great. The sovereign, guessing the true cause of his absence, wrote to the duke that he had no intention of forcing Ibrahim in any way, that he left it to his goodwill to return to Russia or not, but that in any case he would never abandon his former charge. This letter touched Ibrahim to the bottom of his heart. From that moment on, his fate was decided. The next day he announced to the regent his intention to set out for Russia at once.
“Think what you’re doing,” the duke said to him. “Russia is not your fatherland. I don’t think you’ll be seeing your torrid birthplace ever again; but your prolonged stay in France has made you equally alien to the climate and way of life of half-savage Russia. You were not born Peter’s subject. Trust me: avail yourself of his generous permission. Remain in France, for which you’ve already shed your blood, and rest assured that here your merits and gifts will not go without their due reward.” Ibrahim sincerely thanked the duke, but remained firm in his intention. “I’m sorry,” the regent said to him, “but, anyhow, you’re right.” He promised him retirement and wrote about it all to the Russian tsar.
Ibrahim quickly made ready for the journey. On the eve of his departure, he spent the evening, as usual, at the countess D’s. She knew nothing; Ibrahim did not have the courage to be open with her. The countess was calm and cheerful. She called him over several times and joked about his pensiveness. After supper, everybody left. The countess, her husband, and Ibrahim remained in the drawing room. The unfortunate man would have given anything in the world to be left alone with her, but Count D. seemed so calmly settled by the fireplace that there was no hope of getting him to leave the room. The three were silent. “Bonne nuit,”*2 the countess finally said. Ibrahim’s heart was wrung and suddenly felt all the horror of separation. He stood motionless. “Bonne nuit, messieurs,” the countess repeated. He still did not move…Finally his vision darkened, his head began to spin, and he was barely able to leave the room. On coming home, almost in oblivion, he wrote the following letter:
I am going away, dear Léonore, I am leaving you forever. I write to you, because I do not have the strength to explain it to you otherwise.
My happiness could not continue. I enjoyed it in defiance of fate and nature. You were bound to fall out of love with me; the enchantment was bound to disappear. That thought always pursued me, even in moments when I seemed to forget everything, when at your feet I reveled in your passionate self-abandon, your infinite tenderness…Light-minded society mercilessly persecutes in reality what it allows in theory: sooner or later its cold mockery would have vanquished you, would have subdued your ardent soul, and you would finally have felt ashamed of your passion…What would have become of me then? No! Better to die, better to leave you before that terrible moment…
Your peace is dearest of all for me: you could not enjoy it while the eyes of society were turned on us. Remember all that you endured, all the injured self-esteem, all the torments of fear; remember the terrible birth of our son. Think: Should I subject you longer to the same anxieties and dangers? Why strive to unite the destiny of so delicate, so beautiful a being with the wretched destiny of a Negro, a pitiful creature, barely worthy to be called human?
Farewell, Léonore, farewell, my dear, my only friend. In abandoning you I am abandoning the first and last joys of my life. I have neither fatherland nor family. I am going to sad Russia, where total solitude will be my comfort. Strict labors, to which I shall give myself henceforth, will, if not stifle, at least deflect the tormenting memories of days of rapture and bliss…Farewell, Léonore—I tear myself from this letter as if from your embrace; farewell, be happy—and think sometimes of the poor Negro, your faithful Ibrahim.
That same night he set out for Russia.
The journey did not seem as terrible to him as he had expected. His imagination triumphed over reality. The further he went from Paris, the more vividly, the more closely he pictured to himself the things he had forsaken forever.
Unawares, he found himself on the Russian border. Autumn was already setting in, but the coaches, despite the bad roads, drove like the wind, and on the seventeenth day of his journey, in the morning, he arrived in Krasnoe Selo, which the high road of that time passed through.
It was another twenty miles to Petersburg. While the horses were being harnessed, Ibrahim went into the post-house. In the corner, a tall man in a green kaftan, with a clay pipe in his mouth, his elbows resting on the table, was reading the Hamburg newspapers. Hearing someone come in, he raised his head. “Hah, Ibrahim?” he cried, getting up from his bench. “Greetings, godson!” Ibrahim, recognizing Peter, joyfully rushed to him, but stopped out of respect. The sovereign came to him, embraced him, and kissed him on the head. “I was forewarned of your arrival,” said Peter, “and came to meet you. I’ve been waiting for you here since yesterday.” Ibrahim found no words to express his gratitude. “Order your carriage to follow us,” the sovereign went on, “and you get into mine and come with me.” The sovereign’s carriage was brought; he got in with Ibrahim, and they galloped off. An hour and a half later they arrived in Petersburg. Ibrahim gazed with curiosity at the newborn capital that was rising from the swamp at a wave of the autocratic hand. Bare dams, canals without embankments, wooden bridges showed everywhere the recent victory of human will over the resisting elements. The houses seemed hastily built. In the whole town there was nothing magnificent except the Neva, not yet adorned by its granite frame, but already covered with warships and merchant vessels. The sovereign’s carriage stopped at the palace known as the Tsaritsyn Garden. At the porch Peter was met by a woman of about thirty-five, beautiful, dressed after the latest Parisian fashion. Peter kissed her on the lips and, taking Ibrahim by the hand, said: “Do you recognize my godson, Katenka? Be kind and gracious to him as before.” Catherine turned her dark, piercing eyes to him and benevolently offered him her hand. Two young beauties, tall, slender, fresh as roses, stood behind her and respectfully approached Peter. “Liza,” he said to one of them, “do you remember the little Moor who stole my apples for you in Oranienbaum? Here he is: I introduce him to you.” The grand duchess laughed and blushed. They went to the dining room. The table had been laid in expectation of the sovereign. Peter and all his family sat down to dine, inviting Ibrahim to join them. During dinner the sovereign talked with him about various subjects, questioned him about the Spanish war, about the internal affairs of France, about the regent, whom he liked, though he disapproved of him in many ways. Ibrahim was distinguished by his precise and observant mind. Peter was very pleased with his replies; he recalled some features of Ibrahim’s childhood and recounted them with such mirth and good nature that no one could have suspected in the gentle and hospitable host the hero of Poltava, the powerful and dread reformer of Russia.11
After dinner the sovereign, following the Russian custom, went to rest. Ibrahim remained with the empress and the grand duchesses. He tried to satisfy their curiosity, described the Parisian way of life, the local fêtes and capricious fashions. Meanwhile some persons close to the sovereign gathered in the palace. Ibrahim recognized the magnificent Prince Menshikov, who, seeing the Moor talking to Catherine, proudly cast a sidelong glance at him; Prince Yakov Dolgoruky, Peter’s tough councillor; the learned Bruce, known among the people as the Russian Faust; the young Raguzinsky, his former schoolmate; and others who came to the sovereign with reports or to receive orders.12
After some two hours the sovereign appeared. “Let’s see if you still r
emember your old duties,” he said to Ibrahim. “Take the slate and follow me.” Peter shut himself in the wood-turning shop and busied himself with state affairs. He worked in turn with Bruce, with Prince Dolgoruky, with the police chief Devier, and dictated several ukases and resolutions to Ibrahim. Ibrahim could not help marveling at his quick and firm mind, the strength and flexibility of his attention, and the diversity of his activities. Having finished work, Peter took a notebook from his pocket to make sure he had done all he had intended to do that day. Then, as he was leaving the wood-turning shop, he said to Ibrahim: “It’s already late; you must be tired: spend the night here, as you used to in the old days. I’ll wake you up tomorrow.”
Left alone, Ibrahim could barely come to his senses. He was in Petersburg, he had seen again the great man close to whom, not yet knowing his worth, he had spent his childhood. Almost with remorse, he confessed in his heart that the countess D., for the first time since their separation, had not been his only thought all day. He saw that the new mode of life awaiting him, activity and constant occupation, could revive his soul, worn out by passion, idleness, and secret dejection. The thought of being a great man’s associate, and joining with him to influence the fate of a great nation, for the first time aroused in him a feeling of noble ambition. In that state of mind he lay down on the camp bed prepared for him, and then the habitual dream transported him to far-off Paris, into the arms of his dear countess.
CHAPTER THREE
Like clouds in the sky,
So thoughts change their light shape in us,
What we love today, tomorrow we despise.
W. KÜCHELBECKER13
The next day, as he had promised, Peter woke Ibrahim and congratulated him on becoming lieutenant commander of the artillery company of the Preobrazhensky regiment, of which he himself was the commander. The courtiers surrounded Ibrahim, each trying in his own way to make much of the new favorite. The arrogant Prince Menshikov gave him a friendly handshake. Sheremetev inquired about his Parisian acquaintances, and Golovin invited him to dinner.14 Others followed this last example, so that Ibrahim received invitations for at least a whole month.