Suddenly we were startled by news of the invasion and the Tsar’s appeal staggered us. Moscow was in a state of panic. Count Rastopchin’s pamphlets16 for the common people appeared on the scene. The populace braced itself. Society buffoons grew quiet; the ladies became alarmed. Persecutors of the French language and the Kuznetsky Bridge gained what was decidedly the upper hand in society gatherings, and drawing-rooms were filled with patriots; there were those who emptied their boxes of French snuff and started to take Russian; some people burnt French pamphlets by the dozen; some renounced Château Lafite and took to sour cabbage soup. Everyone vowed to give up speaking French; everyone raved about Pozharsky and Minin17 and started to preach about the people’s war while preparing to depart for their Saratov18 estates with hired horses.
Polina would not conceal her contempt, just as previously she could not conceal her indignation. Such a swift change of attitude and such cowardice made her lose all patience. On the boulevards, at the Presnensky Ponds,19 she deliberately spoke French; at the dinner-table, in the presence of the servants, she deliberately challenged patriotic bragging, deliberately spoke of the vast numbers of Napoleon’s troops, of his military genius. Those present turned pale, fearing they would be reported to the police, and hastened to reproach her for supporting an enemy of the fatherland. Polina smiled disdainfully. ‘God grant,’ she would say, ‘that all Russians shall love their native land as I do.’ She amazed me. I always knew Polina as a self-effacing and taciturn person, and I could not understand from whom she had acquired such boldness.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ I once said, ‘why do you meddle in matters that do not concern us! Let the men fight and shout about politics; women don’t go to war and Bonaparte is no concern of theirs.’ Her eyes began to gleam.
‘You should be ashamed,’ she said. ‘Surely women have a fatherland? Don’t they have fathers, brothers, husbands? Can Russian blood be alien to us? Or do you suppose that we were born simply to be whirled around in the ballroom and to be made to embroider little dogs on canvas at home? No, I know the kind of influence a woman can have on the opinion of society, or even on the heart of one man. I do not accept the humiliation to which we are condemned. Just take a look at Madame de Staël: Napoleon fought her as he fights enemy forces… And my uncle still dares to mock her timidity at the approach of the French army! “Be calm, young lady: Napoleon is fighting Russia, not you…” Yes! If Uncle happened to fall into enemy hands they would at least let him stroll in the Palais Royal; but if that were to happen to Madame de Staël she would die in a state prison. What about Charlotte Corday? And our own Marfa Posadnitsa? And Princess Dashkov?20 Am I in any way inferior to them? To be sure, not in boldness of spirit and resoluteness.’ I listened in amazement to Polina. Never had I suspected such fire, such ambition in her. Alas! Where have her rare qualities of spirit, her manly loftiness of mind led to? My favourite writer spoke the truth when he said, ‘ Il n’est de bonheur que dans les voies communes.’*21
The Tsar’s arrival intensified the general excitement. The ecstasy of patriotism finally took hold even of the highest society. Drawing-rooms were turned into debating rooms. Everywhere there was talk of patriotic sacrifice. The immortal speech of young Count Mamonov,22 who had sacrificed his entire estate, was constantly being retold. After that, several mamas remarked that the Count was no longer such a desirable match, but all of us were in raptures over him. Polina raved about him.
‘And what are you going to sacrifice?’ she once asked my brother.
‘I’m not the owner of the estate yet,’ that rake replied. ‘All in all I have debts of thirty thousand roubles: I shall sacrifice them on the altar of my fatherland.’
Polina became angry. ‘For some people,’ she said, ‘both honour and fatherland are mere trifles. Their brothers die on the field of battle and they fool around in drawing-rooms. I don’t know if there is a woman low enough to permit such a clown to claim that he is in love with her.’ My brother flared up.
‘You are too severe, Princess,’ he retorted. ‘You demand that everyone should see a Madame de Staël in you and should recite tirades from Corinne. Please understand that while a man can joke about a woman, he cannot joke about his country and its enemies.’
With these words he turned away. I thought that they had fallen out for good, but I was mistaken: Polina found my brother’s insolence pleasing; she forgave him his inappropriate joke as no more than a noble outburst of indignation, and when she discovered a week later that he had joined the Mamonov regiment, she implored me to reconcile the two of them. My brother was in raptures. He proposed there and then. She accepted, but postponed the wedding until the war was over. Next day my brother set off for the army.
Napoleon advanced on Moscow; our forces retreated; Moscow became exceedingly alarmed. One after the other her citizens left. The prince and princess persuaded my mother to travel with them to their country estate in*** province.
We arrived at **, a large village about fifteen miles from the provincial capital. Around us were numerous neighbours, most of whom had come from Moscow. Every day we would get together; and our life in the country resembled that in the city. Letters from the army arrived almost every day, and old ladies searched on maps for the places where our soldiers encamped and were angry when they could not find them. Polina occupied herself solely with politics, read nothing except newspapers and Rastopchin’s proclamations, and did not open one book. Surrounded by people of limited mental capacity, constantly hearing stupid judgements and news without any factual foundation, she fell into a deep depression; a feeling of languor possessed her soul. She despaired of her country’s salvation and it seemed to her that Russia was swiftly approaching her fall; every communiqué intensified her hopelessness. Count Rastopchin’s police announcements made her lose all patience. Their facetious style struck her as the height of indecency, and the measures he had taken as intolerable barbarity. She could not understand the spirit, so great in its horror, of that epoch, a spirit whose bold execution saved Russia and freed Europe. She spent whole hours with her elbows on a map of Russia, calculating the miles, following the swift movements of the armies. Strange thoughts entered her head. Once she informed me her intention to leave the country, to appear in the French camp, to find her way to Napoleon and then to kill him with her own hands. It was not difficult for me to convince her of the insanity of such an undertaking, but thoughts of Charlotte Corday never left her mind for very long.
Her father, as we already know, was a fairly relaxed person; all he thought about was living a life in the country that was as close as possible to Moscow life. He gave dinner parties, organized a théâtre de société, where French proverbes23 were enacted, and he tried in every way to vary our pleasures. Several officer prisoners arrived in town. The prince was delighted to see new faces and sought permission from the governor to have them billeted with us…
There were four of them – three rather insignificant men, fanatically devoted to Napoleon, insufferable boasters but who, it must be said, redeemed their boasting with honourable wounds. But the fourth was a really remarkable man.
At that time he was twenty-six years old. He came from a good family. His face was pleasant, his manners excellent. We immediately singled him out from the others. He accepted kindness with a noble modesty. He spoke little, but his conversation was sound. Polina liked him because he was the first person she had known who could give her a lucid interpretation of military operations and troop movements. He set her mind at rest, assuring her that the retreat of the Russian troops was not a senseless flight and that it disturbed the French as much as it embittered the Russians. ‘Surely,’ Polina asked him, ‘you are convinced of the invincibility of our emperor?’ Senicourt (I shall call him by the name given him by Mr Zagoskin) – Senicourt, after a brief pause, replied that for someone in his position it would be difficult to be frank. Polina insisted on a reply. Senicourt admitted that the onward drive of the French army into the heart of Rus
sia could become dangerous for them, that the march of 1812 was apparently over, but that did not mean anything decisive.
‘Over!’ retorted Polina. ‘But Napoleon is advancing the whole time and we keep on retreating!’
‘So much the worse for us,’ Senicourt replied and changed the subject.
Polina, who was tired of both the cowardly predictions and stupid boasting of our neighbours, eagerly listened to these unbiased, factual judgements. I found it impossible to make any sense out of the letters I received from my brother. They were filled with jokes, good and bad ones, questions about Polina, banal assurances of love and so on. Polina grew annoyed as she read them and shrugged her shoulders.
‘Admit,’ she said, ‘that your Aleksey is the shallowest of men. Even in present circumstances he manages to write meaningless letters from the battlefield. What will his conversation be like in the course of a tranquil family life?’ She was mistaken. The futility of my brother’s letters did not originate from his own worthlessness, but from a prejudice which was most insulting to us: he assumed that with women one should use language adapted to their feeble powers of comprehension and that important topics did not concern us. Such an opinion would be disrespectful anywhere, but in this country it is stupid as well. There is no doubt that Russian women are better educated, read more, and think more than the men, who are busy with God knows what.
News spread of the Battle of Borodino. Everyone was talking about it; everyone had his own, absolutely authentic information, his casualty list of killed and wounded. My brother did not write. We were extremely worried. Finally one of the carriers of news of all kinds arrived to inform us that he had been taken prisoner and at the same time whispered to Polina that he was dead. Polina was deeply upset. She was not in love with my brother and was often annoyed with him, but at that moment she saw him as a martyr, a hero and secretly wept over him. Several times I found her in tears. This did not surprise me; I was aware of how painful was her concern over the fate of our suffering country. I never suspected what was the reason for her grief.
One morning I was strolling in the garden. Senicourt walked by my side; we were talking about Polina. I noticed that he was deeply conscious of her unusual qualities and that her beauty had made a powerful impression on him. Laughing, I pointed out to him that his position was most romantic. Taken prisoner by the enemy, a wounded knight falls in love with the noble chatelaine, touches her heart and finally wins her hand.
‘No,’ Senicourt told me, ‘the princess sees me as an enemy of Russia and will never agree to leave her native land.’
At that moment Polina appeared at the end of the avenue, and we went to meet her. I was struck by her pallor.
‘Moscow has fallen,’ she told me, without acknowledging Senicourt’s greeting; my heart sank, the tears came in floods. Senicourt was silent, his eyes downcast.
‘Those noble, enlightened Frenchmen,’ she continued, in a voice trembling with indignation, ‘have aptly marked their triumph. They have set fire to Moscow – Moscow has been burning for two days already.’
‘What are you saying?’ cried Senicourt. ‘That cannot be possible!’
‘Just wait until nightfall,’ she coldly replied. ‘Perhaps you will see the glow.’
‘My God! He has been destroyed,’ said Senicourt. ‘Can’t you see that the fire of Moscow means the ruin of the whole French army, that Napoleon will have nowhere to go, nothing to hold out with, that he will be forced to retreat as fast as he can across ravaged, deserted countryside – and at the approach of winter, with a discontented, disorganized army! And yet you could think that the French dug this hell for themselves! No, no, it was the Russians, the Russians who set fire to Moscow. Such terrible, barbarous magnanimity! All is now decided: your native land is out of danger; but what will become of us, what will happen to our Emperor…’
He left us. Polina and I could not collect ourselves.
‘Could Senicourt be right,’ she said, ‘and the burning of Moscow be our handiwork? If that is so… Oh, how proud I am to bear the name of a Russian woman! The world will be astounded at our great sacrifice! Now even our fall does not frighten me, our honour has been saved! Never again will Europe dare to fight against a nation which chops off its own hands and burns its capital.’
Her eyes gleamed, her voice rang loud. I embraced her. Our tears of noble ecstasy mingled with ardent prayers for the fatherland.
‘Don’t you know?’ Polina told me with an inspired look. ‘Your brother… he is happy, he is not in captivity. Rejoice: he died for the salvation of Russia.’
I cried out and fell unconscious into her arms…
183124
KIRDZHALI
KIRDZHALI
Kirdzhali was by birth a Bulgarian. In Turkish ‘Kirdzhali’ means knight, dare-devil. I do not know his real name.
With his brigandage Kirdzhali terrorized the whole of Moldavia. To give you some idea of him I shall recount one of his exploits. One night he and the Albanian Mikhaylaki jointly attacked a Bulgarian village. They set fire to it at both ends and then went from hut to hut. Kirdzhali did the killing, while Mikhaylaki carried off the booty. Both shouted, ‘Kirdzhali! Kirdzhali!’ The entire village fled.
When Alexander Ypsilanti proclaimed the revolt and started recruiting his army, Kirdzhali brought a few of his old comrades to him. For them the real object of the Hetairists1 was not at all clear, but war afforded an opportunity of enriching themselves at the expense of the Turks, or perhaps the Moldavians – that was clear enough to them.
Alexander Ypsilanti was personally a brave man, but he did not possess the qualities necessary for that role which he had undertaken with such fervour and lack of caution. He did not know how to handle the people whom he was obliged to lead. They had neither respect for him nor confidence in him. After that unfortunate battle2 in which the flower of Greek youth perished, Iordaki Olimbioti advised him to withdraw from the scene and stepped into his place himself. Ypsilanti galloped off to the borders of Austria, whence he sent his curses upon those whom he called disobedient, cowards and scoundrels. The majority of these cowards and scoundrels perished within the walls of the monastery of Seko, or on the banks of the River Prut, desperately defending themselves against an enemy ten times stronger.
Kirdzhali found himself in the detachment of Georgi Kantakuzin,3 about whom the same could be said as has been said about Ypsilanti. On the eve of the Battle of Skulyani, Kantakuzin asked the Russian authorities for permission to cross into our territory. His detachment was now without a leader, but Kirdzhali, Safyanos, Kantagoni and others had no need of any leader.
The Battle of Skulyani does not appear to have been described by anybody in all its affecting reality. Imagine seven hundred Arnouts,4 Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians and all manner of riff-raff with no idea of the art of war retreating at the sight of fifteen thousand Turkish cavalry. This detachment kept close to the banks of the Prut and placed in front of themselves two small cannon found at Jassy5 in the Governor’s courtyard and from which they used to fire salutes at name-day banquets. The Turks would have been glad to use their grape-shot, but dare not without the permission of the Russian authorities: the shot would undoubtedly have landed on our side of the river. The commander of our lines (now deceased) had served forty years in the army without hearing the whistle of a bullet, but God ordained that he should hear it now. Several whizzed past his ears. The old man flew into a terrible rage and for what was happening abused the major of the Okhotsk infantry regiment which was attached to our lines of defence. Not knowing what to do, the major dashed towards the river, on whose far bank commanders of the Turkish crack troops were performing caracoles on their horses, and wagged a threatening finger at them. As soon as they saw this the commanders wheeled round and galloped away, followed by the entire Turkish detachment. The major who had wagged his finger was called Khorchevsky. I do not know what became of him.
Next day, however, the Turks attacked the Hetaerists. Not darin
g to use either grape-shot or cannon balls, they decided, contrary to their usual practice, to fight with cold steel. The battle was fierce and yataghans6 were brought into play. The Turks fought with lances, something they had not done before; these lances were Russian. The Nekrasovists7 fought in the ranks of the Turks. The Hetaerists, with our Tsar’s permission, were able to cross the Prut and take refuge behind our lines. They started to make their way across the river. Kantagoni and Safyanos were the last to leave the Turkish bank. Kirdzhali, wounded the evening before, was already within our lines. Safyanos was killed. Kantagoni, a very plump man, was wounded in the belly by a lance. With one hand he raised his sabre, while with the other he grabbed his enemy’s lance and pushed it in deeper: in this way he was able to reach his murderer with his sabre and both fell together.
It was all over. The Turks emerged victorious. Moldavia was cleared of insurgents. About six hundred Arnouts scattered over Bessarabia. Unable to support themselves, they were nevertheless grateful to Russia for her protection. The life they led was idle, but not dissipated. They were always to be seen in the coffee houses of half-Turkish Bessarabia with long chibouks8 in their mouths, sipping coffee grounds from tiny cups. Their patterned jackets and red, pointed slippers had begun to wear out, but they still wore their crested skull-caps on the side of the head, while yataghans and pistols still stuck out from their broad sashes. No one made any complaints about them. It was hard to believe that these peaceable wretches had been the notorious bandits of Moldavia, comrades of the dread Kirdzhali, and that he himself was amongst them.