XXVI
Rezanov disembarked from the Juno at Okhotsk during the first days ofOctober. Had it not been for a touch of fever that had returned in thefilth and warm dampness of Sitka, he would have felt almost as buoyantin mind and body as in those days when California had gone to his head.The Juno had touched at Kadiak, Oonalaska, and others of the moreimportant settlements, and he had found his schools and libraries ingood condition, seals and otters rapidly increasing, in their immunityfrom indiscriminate slaughter, new and stronger forts threatening thenefarious Bostonian and Briton. At Okhotsk he learned that the embassyof Count Golofkin to China had failed as signally as his own, and thisalone would have put him in the best of tempers even had he not foundhis armament and caravan awaiting him, facilitating his immediatedeparture. He wrote a gay letter to Concha, giving her the painfulstory of the naturalist attached to the Golofkin embassy, Dr. Redovsky,who had remained in the East animated by the same scientific enthusiasmas that of his colleague, the good Langsdorff; parted some time sincefrom his too exacting master. Rezanov had written Concha many lettersduring his detention in Sitka, and left them with Baranhov to send atthe first opportunity. The Chief-Manager, deeply interested in theromance of the mighty Chamberlain with whom he alone dared to take aliberty, vowed to guard all that came to his care and sooner or laterto send them to California. Rezanov had also written comprehensivelyto the Tsar and the directors of the Russian-American Company, adroitlyplacing his marriage in the light of a diplomatic maneuver, andpainting California in colors the more vivid and enticing for thesullen clouds and roaring winds, the dripping forests and eternal snowsof that derelict corner of Earth where he had been stranded so long.He had also, when Langsdorff announced his intention to start upon adifficult journey in the interest of science, provided him not onlywith letters of recommendation, but with all the comforts procurable ina land where the word comfort was the stock in trade of the localsatirist. But Langsdorff, although punctiliously acknowledging thefavors, never quite forgave the indifference of a mere ambassador andchamberlain, rejoicing in the dignity of an honorary membership in theSt. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, to the supreme division of naturalhistory.
The first stage of the journey--from Okhotsk to Yakutsk--was about sixhundred and fifty English miles, not as the crow flew, but over theStanovoi mountains in a southwesterly direction to the Maya, by thisriver's wavering course to the Youdoma, then northwest to the Aldan,and south beside the Lena. The beaten track lay entirely alongside therivers at this season, upon their surface in winter; and in addition tothese great streams there were many too unimportant for the map, but aserratic in course and as irresistible in energy after the first rainsof autumn.
Captain D'Wolf had proved himself capable and faithful, and a caravanof forty horses had been in Okhotsk a week; twenty for immediate use,twenty for relief, or substitutes in almost certain emergency. Asthere were but one or two stations of any importance between Okhotskand Yakutsk, and as a week might pass without the shelter of so much asa hut, it was necessary to take tents and bearskin beds for theChamberlain, his Cossack guard, valet-de-chambre, cook and otherservants, one set of fine blankets and linen, cooking utensils, axes,arms, tinder-boxes, provisions for the entire trip, besides a greatquantity of personal luggage.
Rezanov lost no time. He had changed his original plan and dispatchedDavidov on the Avos from Oonalaska. Guns and provisions awaited theJuno at Okhotsk, and in less than a week after his arrival Rezanov wasable to start on his long journey with a mind at rest. Although thealmost extravagant delight that his body had taken in the comforts ofhis manager's home, after ten weeks on the Juno, warned him that hemight be in a better condition to begin a journey of ten thousandversts, he hearkened neither to the hint nor to the insistence of hishost. His impatient energy and stern will, combined with thepassionate wish to accomplish the double object of his journey,returning in the least possible time to California with his treaty andthe consent of the Pope and King to his marriage, would have carriedhim out of Okhotsk in forty-eight hours had disease declared itself.Nor were there any inducements aside from a comfortable bed and refinedfare, in the flat, unhealthy town with its everlasting rattle ofchains, and the hideous physiognomies of criminals always at work tothe rumbling accompaniment of Cossack oaths.
For the first week the exercise he loved best and the long days in thecrisp open air renewed his vigor, and he even looked forward to thefour months of what was then the severest traveling in the world, in aboyish spirit of adventure. He reflected that he might as well givehis brain a relief from the constant revolving of schemes and plans forthe advancement of his country, his company, and himself, and let histhoughts have their carnival of anticipation with the unparalleledhappiness and success that awaited him in the future. There was nopossible doubt of the acquiescence and assistance of the Tsar, and noman ever looked down a fairer perspective than he, as he galloped overthe ugly country, often far ahead of his caravan, splashing throughbogs and streams, fording rivers without ferries, camping at night inforests so dense the cold never escaped their embrace, muffled to theeyes in furs as he made his way past valleys whose eternal ice fieldschilled the country for miles about; sometimes able to procure a littlefresh milk and butter, oftener not; occasionally passing a caravanreturning for furs, generally seeing nothing but a stray reindeer forhours together, once meeting the post and finding much for himself thatin nowise dampened his spirit.
But on the eighth day the rains began: a fine steady mist, then intorrents as endless. Wrapped in bearskins at night within the shelterof a tent or of some wayside hut, and closely covered by day, Rezanovat first merely cursed the inconvenience of the rain; but whilecrossing the river Allach Juni, his guides without consulting himhaving taken him miles out of his way in order to avoid the hamlet ofthe same name where the small-pox was raging, but where there was agovernment ferry, his horse lost his footing in the rapid, swollencurrent and fell. Rezanov managed to retain his seat, and pulled thefrightened, plunging beast to its feet while his Cossacks were stillshouting their consternation. But he was soaked to the skin, hispersonal luggage was in the same condition, and they did not reach ahut where a fire could be made until nine hours later. It was then thatthe seeds of malaria, accumulated during the last three years inunsanitary ports and sown deep by exceptional hardships, but which hebelieved had taken themselves off during his six weeks in California,stirred more vigorously than in Sitka or Okhotsk. He rode on the nextday in a burning fever. Jon, minding Langsdorff's instructions,doctored him--not without difficulty--from the medicine chest, and fora day or two the fever seemed broken. But Jon, sick with apprehension,implored him to turn back. He might as well have implored the sky toturn blue.
"How do you think men accomplish things in this world?" asked Rezanovangrily. "By turning back and going to bed every time they have amigraine?"
"No, Excellency," said the man humbly. "But health is necessary to theaccomplishment of everything, and if the body is eaten up with fever--"
"What are drugs for? Give me the whole damned pharmacopeia if youchoose, but don't talk to me about turning back."
"Very well, Excellency," said Jon, with a sigh.
The next day he and one of the Cossack guard caught him as he fell fromhis horse unconscious. A Yakhut hut, miserable as it was, offered inthe persistent downpour a better shelter than the tent. They carriedhim into it, and his bedding at least was almost as luxurious as had hebeen in St. Petersburg. Jon, at his wits' end, remembered the'practice of Langsdorff in similar cases, and used the lancet, a heroictreatment he would never have accomplished had his master beenconscious. The fever ebbed, and in a few days Rezanov was able tocontinue the journey by shorter stages, although heavy with anintolerable lassitude. But his will sustained him until he reachedYakutsk, not at the end of twenty-two days, but of thirty-three. Herehe succumbed immediately, and although his sickbed was in thecomfortable home of the agent of the Company, and he had medicalattendance
of a sort, his fever and convalescence lasted for eightweeks. Then, in spite of the supplications of his friends, chief amongwhom was his faithful Jon, and the prohibition of the doctor, he beganthe second stage of his journey.
The road from Yakutsk to Irkutsk, some two thousand six hundred versts,or fifteen hundred and fifty English miles, lay for the most partalternately on and along the river Lena in a southeasterly direction;there being no attempt to cross Siberia at any point in a straightline. By this time the river was frozen, and the only concessionRezanov would make to his enfeebled frame was an arrangement to coverthe entire journey by private sledge instead of employing the swiftercourse of post sledge on the long stretches and horseback on theshorter cuts.
The weather was now intensely cold, the river winding, the delays many,but there were adequate stations for the benefit and accommodation oftravelers every hundred versts or less. Rezanov felt so invigorated bythe long hours in the open after the barbarous closeness of his sickroom, that at the end of a fortnight he was again possessed with allhis old ardor of desire to reach the end of his journey. He vowed hewas well again, abandoned his comfortable sledge, and pushed on in thecommon manner. In the wretched post sledges he was often exposed tothe full violence of a Siberian winter, and although the horsebackexercise stirred his blood and refreshed him for the moment, hesuffered in reaction and was several times forced to remain two nightsinstead of one at a station. But he was muffled in sables to his veryeyes, and the road was diverting, often beautiful, with its Gothicmountains, its white plains set with villages and farms, the high thincrosses above the open or swelling domes of the little churches.Sometimes the Lena narrowed until its frozen surface looked like a massof ice that had ground its way between perpendicular walls oroverhanging masses of rock that awaited the next convulsion of natureto close the pass altogether. Then the dogs trotted past caves andgrottos, left the abrupt and craggy banks, crossed level plains oncemore; where herds of cattle grazed in the summertime, now a vastuncheckered expanse of white. The Government and Company agents fawnedupon him, the best of horses and beds, food and wine, were eagerlyplaced at the disposal of the favorite of the Tsar. Rezanov's spirit,always of the finest temper, suffered no eclipse for many days. Hereveled in the belief that his sorely tried body was regenerating itsold vigors.
From Wercholensk to Katschuk the journey was so winding by river thatit consumed more than twice the time of the land route, which althoughonly thirty versts in extent was one of the most difficult in Siberia.Rezanov chose the latter without hesitation, and would listen to nodiscussion from the Commissary of the little town or from hisdistracted Jon: the journey from Yakutsk had now lasted five weeks andthe servant's watchful eye noted signs of exhaustion.
The hills were very high and very steep, the roads but a name insummer. Had not the snow been soft and thin, the horses could not havemade the ascent at all; and, as it was, the riders were forced to walkthe greater part of the way and drag their unwilling steeds behindthem. They were twelve hours covering the thirty versts, and atKatschuk Rezanov succumbed for two days, while Jon scoured the countryin search of a telega; as sometimes happened there was a long stretchof country without snow, and sledges, by far the most comfortablemethod of travel in Siberia, could not be used. The rest of thejourney, but one hundred and ninety-six versts, must be made by land.Rezanov admitted that he was too weary to ride, and refused to travelin the post carriage. On the third day the servant managed to hire atelega from a superior farmer and they started immediately, the heavyluggage having been consigned to a merchant vessel at Yakutsk.
Rezanov stood the telega exactly half a day. Little larger than anarmchair and far lighter, it was drawn by horses that galloped up anddown hill and across the intervening valleys with no change of gait,and over a road so rough that the little vehicle seemed to be propelledby a succession of earthquakes. Rezanov, in a fever which heattributed to rage, dismissed the telega at a village and awaited thecoming of Jon, who followed on horseback with the personal luggage.
It was a village of wooden houses built in the Russian fashion, andinhabited by a dignified tribe wearing long white garments borderedwith fur. They spoke Russian, a language little heard farther north andeast in Siberia, and when Rezanov declined their hospitality theydispatched a courier at once to the Governor-General of Irkutskacquainting him with the condition of the Chamberlain and of hisimminent arrival. In consequence, when Rezanov drew rein two dayslater and looked down upon the city of Irkutsk with its pleasantsquares and great stone buildings beside the shining river, the gildeddomes and crosses of its thirty churches and convents glittering in thesun, the whole picture beckoning to the delirious brain of the travelerlike some mirage of the desert, his appearance was the signal for asalute from the fort; and the Governor-General, privy counselor andsenator de Pestel, accompanied by the civil governor, the commandant,the archbishop, and a military escort, sallied forth and led the guest,with the formality of officials and the compassionate tenderness ofmen, into the capital.
For three weeks longer Rezanov lay in the palace of the Governor.Between fever and lassitude, his iron will seemed alternately to meltin the fiery furnace of his body, then, a cooling but still viscous andformless mass, sink to the utmost depths of his being. But here he hadthe best of nursing and attendance, rallied finally and insisted uponcontinuing his journey. His doctor made the less demur as thetraveling was far smoother now, in the early days of March, than itwould be a month hence, when the snow was thinner and the sledges wereno longer possible. Nevertheless, he announced his intention toaccompany him as far as Krasnoiarsk, where the Chamberlain could lodgein the house of the principal magistrate of the place, CounselorKeller, and, if necessary, be able to command fair nursing and medicalattendance; and to this Rezanov indifferently assented.
The prospect of continuing his journey and the bustle of preparationraised the spirits of the invalid and gave him a fictitious energy. Hehad fought depression and despair in all his conscious moments, neveradmitted that the devastation in his body was mortal. With but aremnant of his former superb strength, and emaciated beyondrecognition, he attended a banquet on the night preceding hisdeparture, and on the following morning stood up in his sledge andacknowledged the God-speed of the population of Irkutsk assembled inthe square before the palace of the Governor. All his life he hadexcited interest wherever he went, but never to such a degree as onthat last journey when he made his desperate fight for life andhappiness.