Chapter I: Part 1

“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”--SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

N^{o.} 306.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1856. {Price 2_d._
{Stamped 3_d._

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BEEF. ADVENTURES OF A RUSSIAN SOLDIER. P.N.C.C. LAVATER’S WARNING. THE FRIEND OF THE LIONS. THE MANCHESTER STRIKE. THE HALL OF WINES. THREE WIVES.

BEEF.

If I have a mission upon this earth, (apart from the patent and notable one of being a frightful example to the rising generation of blighted existence and misused energies)--that mission is, I believe, beef. I am a Cœlebs, not in search of a wife, as in Mrs. Hannah More’s white-neck-clothed novel, but in search of beef. I have travelled far and wide to find it--good, tender, nourishing, juicy, succulent; and when I die, I hope that it will be inscribed on my tombstone: “Here lies one who sought for beef. Tread lightly on his grave: quia multum amavit.”

Next to the Habeas Corpus and the Freedom of the Press, there are few things that the English people have a greater respect for and a livelier faith in than beef. They bear, year after year, with the same interminable unvarying series of woodcuts of fat oxen in the columns of the illustrated newspapers; they are never tired of crowding to the Smithfield Club cattle-show; and I am inclined to think that it is their honest reverence for beef that has induced them to support so long the obstruction and endangerment of the thoroughfares of the metropolis, by oxen driven to slaughter. Beef is a great connecting link and bond of better feeling between the great classes of the commonwealth. Do not dukes hob and nob with top-booted farmers over the respective merits of short-horns and Alderneys? Does not the noble Marquis of Argentfork give an ox to be roasted whole on the village green when his son, the noble Viscount Silvercorrel, comes of age? Beef makes boys. Beef nerves our navvies. The bowmen who won Cressy and Agincourt were beef-fed, and had there been more and better beef in the Crimea a year ago, our soldiers would have borne up better under the horrors of a Chersonesean winter. We feast on beef at the great Christian festival. A baron of beef at the same time is enthroned in St. George’s Hall, in Windsor’s ancient castle, and is borne in by lacqueys in scarlet and gold. Charles the Second knighted a loin of beef; and I have a shrewd suspicion that the famous Sir Bevis of Southampton was but an ardent admirer, and doughty knight-errant in the cause of beef. And who does not know the tradition that even as the first words of the new-born Gargantua were “A boyre, à boyre,” signifying that he desired a draught of Burgundy wine--so the first intelligible sounds that the infant Guy of Warwick ever spake were, “Beef, beef!”

When the weary pilgrim reaches the beloved shores of England after a long absence, what first does he remark--after the incivility of the custom-house officers--but the great tankard of stout and the noble round of cold beef in the coffee-room of the hotel? He does not cry “Io Bacche! Evöe Bacche!” because beef is not Bacchus. He does not fall down and kiss his native soil, because the hotel carpet is somewhat dusty, and the action would be, besides, egregious; but he looks at the beef, and his eyes filling with tears, a corresponding humidity takes place in his mouth; he kisses the beef; he is so fond of it that he could eat it all up; and he does ordinarily devour so much of it to his breakfast, that the thoughtful waiter gazes at him, and murmurs to his napkin, “This man is either a cannibal or a pilgrim grey who has not seen Albion for many years.”

By beef I mean, emphatically, the legitimate, unsophisticated article. Give me my beef, hot or cold, roast, boiled, or broiled; but away with your beef-kickshaws, your beef-stews, your beef-haricoes, your corned beef, your hung beef, and your spiced beef! I don’t think there is anything so contemptible, fraudulent, adulterine in the whole world (of cookery) as a beef sausage. I have heard that it is a favourite dish with pickpockets at their raffle-suppers. I believe it. There was a boy at school with me in the byegone--a day-boy--who used to bring a clammy brownish powder, in a sandwich-box, with him for lunch. He called it powdered beef; and he ate this mahogany, sawdust-looking mixture between slices of stale bread and butter. He was an ill-conditioned boy who had begun the world in the face-grinding sense much too early. He lent halfpence at usury, and dealt in sock (which was our slang for surreptitious sweet-stuff); and I remember with what savage pleasure I fell upon and beat him in the course of a commercial transaction involving a four-bladed penknife he had sold me, and which wouldn’t cut--no, not even slate-pencil. But the penknife was nothing more than a pretext: I beat him for his beef. He had the ring-worm, and it was bruited about afterwards that he was of Jewish parentage. I believe, when he began life, he turned out but badly.

I am reminded, however, that the subject of beef, as a British institution, has already been treated at some length in this journal.[A] I have merely ventured a few remarks on the bovine topic generally, to preface the experiences I have to record of some recent travels in search of beef I have made in the capital of France. One might employ oneself better, perhaps, than in transcribing the results of a week’s hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt; and surely the journey in search of bread is long and wearisome enough that we might take beef as it comes, and thankfully. But, as I have said, beef is my mission. I am a collector of bovine experiences, as some men collect editions of Virgil, and some Raffaelle’s virgins, and some broadsides, and some butterflies. And I know that there are moralities to be found in beef as well as in the starry heavens and the vestiges of creation.

[A] See Volume x. page 113.

Let me first sum up all the knowledge I have acquired on the subject, by stating my firm conviction that there is no beef in Paris,--I mean, no beef fit to be eaten by a philobosopher. Some say that the French cut their meat the wrong way; that they don’t hang it properly; that they don’t hang it enough; that they beat it; that they overcook it. But I have tasted infinite varieties of French beef; of the first, second, and third categories. I have had it burnt to a cinder, and I have had it very nearly raw. I have eaten it in private English families resident in Paris, and dressed by English cooks. It is a delusion: there is no beef in Lutetia.

The first beef I tried in my last campaign was the evening I dined at His Lorship’s. Don’t be alarmed, my democratic friend. I am not upon Lord Cowley’s visiting list, nor are any coronetted cards ever left at my door on the sixth storey. I did not receive a card from the British Embassy on the occasion of the last ball at the Hôtel de Ville; and I am ashamed to confess that, so anxious was I to partake of the hospitality of the Prefect of the Seine (the toilettes and the iced punch are perfect at his balls), that I was mean enough to foreswear temporarily my nationality and to avail myself of the card of Colonel Waterton Privilege of Harshellopolis, Mass.:--said colonel being at that time, and in all probability exceedingly sick, in his stateroom of the United States steamer Forked Lightning, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. But, by His Lorship’s I mean an Anglo-French restaurant--named after a defunct English city eating-house--situate near the Place de la Concorde, and where I heard that real English roast beef was to be obtained at all hours in first-rate condition.

Now, there is one thing that I do not like abroad; yea, two that are utterly distasteful to me. The one thing is my countrymen’s hotels and restaurants. These houses of refection I have usually found exceedingly uncomfortable. So I was disposed to look somewhat coldly upon His Lordship’s invitation, as printed upon placards, and stencilled on the walls, till I was assured that his beef was really genuine, and that he was an Englishman without guile.

His Lordship’s mansion I found unpretending, even to obscurity. There was no porte-cochère, no courtyard, no gilt railings, nor green verandahs. His Lordship’s hotel was, in fact, only a little slice of a shop, with one dining-room over it; for which I was told he paid an enormous rent--some thousands of francs a-year. In his window were displayed certain English viands pleasant to the sight: a mighty beef-steak pie just cut; the kidney end of a loin of veal, with real English stuffing, palpable to sight; some sausages that might have been pork, and of Epping; some potatoes in their homely brown jackets, just out at elbows, as your well-done potatoes should be, with their flannel under-garments peeping through; and a spherical mass, something of the size and shape of a bombshell, dark in colour, speckled black and white, and that my beating heart told me was a plum-pudding. A prodigious Cheshire cheese, rugged as Helvellyn, craggy as Criffell, filled up the background like a range of yellow mountains. At the base there were dark forests of bottles branded with the names of Allsopp, and Bass, and Guinness, and there were cheering announcements framed and glazed, respecting Pale Ale on draught, L.L. whisky, and Genuine Old Tom.[B] I rubbed my hands in glee. “Ha! ha!” I said internally. “Nothing like our British aristocracy, after all. The true stock, sir! May His Lordship’s shadow never diminish.”

[B] Our gallant allies have yet much to learn about our English manners and customs. Only the other night, in the Foyer of the Grand Opera, I saw (and you may see it there still if you are incredulous) a tastefully enamelled placard, announcing that “genuine Old Tom” was to be had at the Buffet. Imagine Sir Harcourt Courtley asking the Countess of Swansdown, in the crush-room of Covent Garden Theatre, if she would take half a quartern of gin!

His Lordship’s down-stairs’ apartment was somewhat inconveniently crowded with English grooms and French palefreniers, and with an incorrigible old Frenchman, with a pipe as strong as Samson, a cap, cotton in his ears, and rings in the lobes thereof, who had learnt nothing of English but the oaths, and was cursing some very suspicious-looking meat (not my beef, I hope) most energetically. I have an opinion that stables and the perfume thereof are pretty nearly analogous the whole world over; so, at the invitation of a parboiled-looking man in a shooting-jacket and a passion (who might have been His Lordship himself for aught I knew), I went up-stairs. There was an outer chamber, with benches covered with red cotton velvet, and cracked marble tables, like an indifferent café; where some bearded men were making a horrible rattle with their dominoes, and smoking their abominable cigars (surely a course of French cigars is enough to cure the most inveterate smoker of his love for the weed). This somewhat discomposed me; but I was fain to push forward into the next saloon where the tables were laid out for dining; and taking my seat, to wait for beef.

There was myself and a black man, and his (white) wife, the Frenchman with the spectacles, and the Frenchman with the bald head (I speak of them generically, for you are sure to meet their fellows at every public dining-table abroad), the poor old Frenchman with the wig, the paralytic head and the shaking hands that trifle with the knives and forks, as though they were red-hot. There were half-a-dozen other sons of Gaul; who, with their beards, cache-nezs, and paletôts, all made to pattern, might have been one another’s brothers; two ancient maiden ladies, who looked like English governesses, who had passed, probably, some five-and-thirty years in Paris, and had begun to speak a little of the language; a rude young Englishman, who took care to make all the company aware of the coarseness of his birthplace; an English working engineer, long resident abroad, much travel-worn, and decidedly oily, who had a voice like a crank, and might have been the identical engineer that Mr. Albert Smith met on the Austrian Lloyd’s steamer; and a large-headed little boy, with a round English jacket, who sat alone, eating mournfully, and whom I could not help fancying to be some little friendless scholar in a great French school, whose jour de sortie it was, and who had come here to play at an English dinner. The days be short to thee, little boy with the large head! May they fly quickly till the welcome holidays, when thou wilt be forwarded, per rail and boat, to the London Bridge station of the South Eastern Railway, to be left till called for. I know from sad experience how very weary are the strange land and the strange bed, the strange lessons and the strange playmates, to thy small English heart!

A gaunt, ossified waiter, with blue black hair, jaws so closely shaven that they gave him an unpleasant resemblance to the grand inquisitor of the holy office in disguise seeking for heretics in a cook-shop, and who was, besides, in a perpetual cold perspiration of anger against the irate man in the shooting jacket below, and carried on fierce verbal warfare with him down the staircase. This waiter rose up against me, rather than addressed me, and charged me with a pike of bread, cutting my ordinarily immense slice from it. I mildly suggested roast beef, wincing, it must be owned, under the eye of the cadaverous waiter; who looked as if he were accustomed to duplicity, and did not believe a word that I was saying.

“Ah! rosbif!” he echoed, “bien saignant n’est ce pas?”

Now, so far from liking my meat “bien saignant” I cannot even abide the sight of it rare, and I told him so. But he repeated “bien saignant,” and vanished.

He came again, though; or rather his Jesuitical head protruded itself over the top of the box where I sat (there were boxes at His Lordship’s) and asked:

“Paint portare? p’lale? ole’ ale?”

I was nettled, and told him sharply that I would try the wine, if he could recommend it. Whereupon there was silence, and then I heard a voice crying down a pipe, “Paint portare!”

He brought me my dinner, and I didn’t like it. It was bien saignant, but it wasn’t beef, and it swam in a dead sea of gravy that was not to my taste; fat from strange animals seemed to have been grafted on to the lean. I did not get on better with the potatoes, which were full of promise, like a park hack, and unsatisfactory in the performance. I tried some plum-pudding afterwards; but, if the proof of the pudding be in the eating, that pudding remains unproved to this day; for, when I tried to fix my fork in it, it rebounded away across the room, and hit the black man on the leg. I would rather not say anything about the porter, if you please; and perhaps it is well to be brief on the subject of the glass of hot gin-and-water I tried afterwards, in a despairing attempt to be convivial; for it smelt of the midnight-lamp like an erudite book, and of the midnight oilcan, and had the flavour of the commercial terebinthium, rather than of the odoriferous Juniperus. I consoled myself with some Cheshire cheese, and asked the waiter if he had the Presse.

“Ze Time is gage,” he answered.

I did not want the Times. I wanted the Presse.

“Sare,” he repeated wrathfully, “Ze Time is gage. Le Journal Anglais (he accentuated this spitefully) is gage.”

He would have no further commerce with me after this; and, doubtlessly thinking that an Englishman who couldn’t eat his beef under-done or indeed at all, and preferred the Presse to the Times newspaper, was an outcast and a renegade, abandoned me to my evil devices, and contented himself with crying “Voila!” from the murky distance without coming when I called. He even declined to attend to receive payment, and handed me over for that purpose to a long French boy in a blouse, whose feet had evidently not long been emancipated from the pastoral sabots, whose hair was cropped close to his head (in the manner suggesting county gaol at home, and ignorance of small toothcombs abroad), and who had quite a flux of French words, and tried to persuade me to eat civet de lièvre that was to be served up at half-past seven of the clock.

But I would have borne half a hundred disappointments similar to this dinner for the sake of the black man. Legs and feet! he was a character! He sat opposite to me, calm, contented, magnificent, proud. He was as black as my boot, and as shiny. His woolly head, crisped by our bounteous mother Nature, had unmistakeably received a recent touch of the barber’s tongs. He was perfumed; he was oiled; he had moustaches (as I live!) twisted out into long rats’-tails by means of pommade Hongroise. He had a tip. He had a scarlet Turkish cap with a long blue tassel. He had military stripes down his pantaloons. He had patent leather boots. He had shirt-studs of large circumference, pins, gold waistcoat-buttons, and a gorgeous watch-chain. I believe he had a crimson under-waistcoat. He had the whitest of cambric handkerchiefs, a ring on his forefinger, and a stick with an overpowering gold knob. He was the wonderfullest nigger that the eye ever beheld.

He had a pretty little English wife--it is a fact, madam--with long auburn ringlets, who it was plain to see was desperately in love with, and desperately afraid of, him. It was marvellous to behold the rapt, fond gaze with which she contemplated him as he leaned back in his chair after dinner, and refreshed his glistening ivories with a toothpick. Equally marvellous was the condescension with which he permitted her to eat her dinner in his august presence, and suffered her to tie round his neck a great emblazoned shawl like a flag.

Who could he have been? The father of the African twins; the Black Malibran’s brother; Baron Pompey; Prince Mousalakatzic of the Orange River; Prince Bobo; some other sable dignitary of the empire of Hayti; or the renowned Soulouque himself, incognito? Yet, though affable to his spouse, he was a fierce man to the waiter. The old blood of Ashantee, the ancient lineage of Dahomey, could ill brook the shortcomings of that cadaverous servitor. There was an item in the reckoning that displeased him.

“Wass this sa?” he cried, in a terrible voice; “wass this, sa? Fesh your mas’r, sa!”

The waiter cringed and fled, and I laughed.

“Good luck have thou with thine honour: ride on ----” honest black man; but oh, human nature, human nature! I would not be your nigger for many dollars. More rib-roasting should I receive, I am afraid, than ever Uncle Tom suffered from fierce Legree.

I have not dined at His Lordship’s since--I would dine there any day to be sure of the company of the black man--but I have more to say about Beef.

ADVENTURES OF A RUSSIAN SOLDIER.

I was inscribed as a sergeant of the Séménofski guards at a very early age. I was entrusted to the care of one of my father’s serfs, named Savéliitch. He taught me to read and write, and was very indignant when he learned that a Frenchman was to be conveyed back to the estate with the annual provision of wine and oil from Moscow. “Nobody can say that the child has not been well fed, well combed, and well washed,” murmured old Savéliitch; “why then spend money on a Frenchman, while there are plenty of native servants in the house!”

M. Beaupré came and engaged himself to teach me French, German, and all the sciences; but he made me teach him my native language, and taught me many things that did me little good. He was fond of brandy, and was, as I was told, too ardent an admirer of ladies. I remember only that one day, when my respected tutor was lying upon his bed in a hopeless state of drunkenness, and I was cutting up a map of Moscow for a kite, my father entered the room, boxed my ears, and turned moussié out of the house, to the great joy of Savéliitch, and to my sorrow. My education being thus brought to a sudden close, I amused myself until I had completed my sixteenth year, in playing at leap-frog, and watching my mother make her exquisite preparations of honey, when one day my father said to my mother:

“Avdotia Vassiliéva, what age is Pétroucha?”

“He has just entered his seventeenth year. Pétroucha was born the same year that Nastasia Garasimova lost her eye, and--”

“Well, well,” my father replied, “he starts for his regiment to-morrow.”

My mother burst into tears, and I jumped for joy.

“Don’t forget, André Pétrovitch,” said my mother to my father, who was writing my letter of introduction, “to remember me to Prince B----, and to bid him show every kindness to Pétroucha.”

“Pétroucha is not going to St. Petersburg,” my father replied. I was heart-broken. I had dreamed of nothing but St. Petersburg. When my father had finished the letter, he turned to me and said:

“This letter is addressed to André Karlovitch, my old companion in arms. He is at Orenberg, and you will join him there.” The kibitka was at the door. The servants had stowed away in it a tea-service, and pies of different sorts tied up in cloths. My parents gave me their blessing. My father said to me, “Good bye, Pierre; serve your Empress with fidelity; obey your superiors, don’t seek favours from them; and remember the proverb, ‘Take care of your coat while it is new, and of your honour while it is white.’” A hare-skin touloup, or cape, was thrown about me, and over it a fox-skin cloak. Thus equipped, I took my seat in the kibitka, and left my parents, accompanied by Savéliitch.

We arrived that night at Simbirsk, where I committed my first folly by losing one hundred roubles at billiards, while Savéliitch was out, executing some orders from home with which he had been entrusted. I lost this sum to Ivan Lowrine, a captain of hussars. On this occasion I also became intoxicated for the first time. Savéliitch hastened my departure the following morning, and reluctantly paid my losses. I promised him that, henceforth, I would not spend a single kopek without his consent.

We travelled rapidly; and, as we approached our destination, the country became a measureless waste, covered with snow. Presently, the coachman, taking off his hat, asked me anxiously whether we should not return; and, pointing to a white cloud far in the east, said, “That is the bourane!”

I had heard of the bourane, and I knew that it sometimes buried whole caravans of travellers. I knew it to be a tremendous cloud of snow, out of which few people, once fairly in it, ever made their way. But this one seemed to me to be a long way off, so I told the coachman to drive forward. We went at full gallop. The wind rose rapidly, however; the little white cloud became a huge moving snow mountain; very fine flakes began to fall about us; then the wind howled, and in a few minutes we could not see an inch beyond our noses. It was, in truth, the bourane. The horses stopped; the snow began to bury us; Savéliitch began to scold; the coachman played nervously with the horses’ harness--and no house could be seen. We had begun to believe we should be soon buried alive, when we suddenly perceived a black object near us, which we were afraid was a wolf, but which turned out to be a man. We asked our way; he replied that he knew the country under ordinary circumstances, but could not distinguish anything then. Suddenly he cried, “Turn to the left--there you will find a house: I smell the smoke.”

The coachman managed to whip the horses into unusual exertion, and we presently reached a hut lighted by a loutchina (a deal stick which serves for a candle). The ornaments of the little room into which we were ushered were a carbine and a Cossack hat. The Cossack host got us some tea; and then I inquired for a guide. Some one called out from a recess that he was cold, for he had pawned his touloup the day before, for brandy. I offered him a cup of tea, and he advanced to drink it. He was a remarkable fellow in appearance: tall, with very broad shoulders. He wore a black beard, and short hair; his eyes were restless and large; the expression of his face was, at times agreeable, at times malicious. He preferred brandy to tea; and, having held a mysterious conversation with the host, he retired for the night. I did not like the look of affairs; the hut was in the middle of the steppe--very lonely, and very like the meeting-place for thieves.

But we were not robbed; and, the following morning, as we left to proceed on our journey, I gave my hare-skin touloup, much against my servant’s wish, to the guide who had led us to the house. The guide was grateful, and promised that if ever he could be of service to me I should be served. At that time the promise seemed sufficiently ridiculous.

We arrived without further adventure at Orenberg, where I presented my letter to the general, who received me kindly, and then sent me to serve, under the orders of Captain Mirinoff, in the fort of Bélogorsk. This did not please me. The fort was a wretched little village, surrounded by palisades. I stopped before a little wooden house, which, I was informed, was the commandant’s. I entered. In the antechamber I found an old man, seated upon a table, occupied in sewing a blue patch upon one of the elbows of a green uniform. He beckoned me into the inner chamber. It was a clean little room, with an officer’s commission, neatly framed, hanging against the wall, and rude prints surrounding it. In one corner of the room an old lady, with a handkerchief bound round her head, was unwinding some thread from the hands of a little old man with only one eye, who wore an officer’s uniform. The old lady, on seeing me, said:

“Ivan Kourmitch is not at home; but I am his wife. Be good enough to love us, and take a seat, my little father.”

I obeyed, and the old lady sent for her subaltern, the ouriadnik. While the servant was gone, the lady and the officer both questioned me, and judged that it was for some offence that I was sent to Bélogorsk. The lady informed me that Chvabrine, an officer at Bélogorsk, had been sent thither for duelling. The ouriadnik appeared, and was a fine specimen of a Cossack officer.

“Quarter Piote Andréïtch,” said the old lady, “upon Siméon Kouroff. The fellow let his horse break into my garden.”

These, my quarters, looked out upon the dreary steppe. The next morning a little fellow, with a remarkably vivacious appearance, came to see me. I found that he was Chvabrine, the duellist. His lively conversation amused me, and we went together that day to the commandant’s house to dinner. As we approached it I saw about twenty little old invalids, wearing long tails, and three-cornered hats, ranged in order of battle. The commandant, a tall, hale old man, dressed in a cotton nightcap and a morning gown, was reviewing this terrible force. He spoke some civil words to me, and we left him to complete his military duties. When we arrived at his house, we found the old one-eyed man and Palachka laying the cloth. Presently, the captain’s daughter, Marie, made her appearance. Chvabrine had described her to me as a very foolish person. She was about sixteen years of age, had a fine fresh colour, and was very bashful.

I did not think much of her that day. She blushed terribly when her mother declared that all she could bring her husband in the way of wealth was a comb and a few kopeks. We talked chiefly of the possibility of standing a siege from the Bachkirs; and the commandant declared that if such a siege occurred he would teach the enemy a terrible lesson. I thought of the twenty invalids, and did not feel quite so confident on the subject.

Ivan Kourmitch and his wife Vassilissa were very kind to me, and received me as one of the family. I liked the little one-eyed officer; I became more intimate with Marie.

Father Garasim and his wife Akoulina I was also glad to meet, almost daily, at the commandant’s house. But I soon disliked Chvabrine. He talked lightly and slightingly of Marie, and even of Vassilissa. One day, however, I read to him some amorous verses I had written; he saw at once, and truly, that they were addressed to Marie. He ridiculed them mercilessly, and told me that if I wished to win the love of Marie I had only to give her a pair of ear-rings. I flew into a passion, and asked him how he dared to take away the character of the commandant’s daughter. He replied, impertinently, that he spoke of her from personal experience. I told him to his teeth that he lied. He demanded satisfaction.

I went to the one-eyed officer--whom I found threading mushrooms for Vassilissa--to ask him to act as second. But he declined. In the evening I was at the commandant’s house; and thinking that night that it might be my last, as my duel with Chvabrine was to be early on the morrow, Marie appeared dearer to me than ever. Chvabrine came, and behaved so insolently that I could hardly wait until the morrow.

I was to my time, the next morning, behind a haystack; Chvabrine was also punctual. We had just stripped our coats off, when the one-eyed officer appeared with five invalids, and marched us off in custody.

Vassilissa ordered us to give up our swords, and told Palachka to take them up into the loft; for, in truth, Vassilissa was the commandant of Bélogorsk. She then ordered Ivan Kourmitch to put us in opposite corners of the rooms, and to feed us on bread and water until we repented. Marie was very pale. After a stormy discussion, however, our swords were restored to us, and I parted with my adversary: feigning reconcilement, but secretly agreeing to meet again when the affair had quite blown over. The next night I had an opportunity of talking alone with Marie Ivanovna; and I learned from her--how she blushed as she told me!--that Chvabrine had proposed marriage to her, but that she had refused him. This information explained to me the fellow’s measured scandal. I burned to meet him again.

I had not to wait long. The next day, as I was biting my pen, thinking of a rhyme in an elegy I was composing, the very fellow tapped at my window. I understood him; seized my sword; engaged with him; and fell presently--wounded in the shoulder, and insensible.

When I became once more conscious, I found myself in a strange bed, Savéliitch by my side, and--Marie Ivanovna also. She asked me tenderly how I felt? Savéliitch, faithful fellow, cried out:

“Thanks to Heaven he recovers, after four days of it!”

But Marie interrupted him, and begged him not to disturb me with his loud exclamations. I seized her hand, and she did not withdraw it. Presently I felt her burning lips upon my forehead. I asked her then to become my wife. She begged me to calm myself, if only for her sake, and left me.

Although the barber of the regiment was my only medical adviser, I soon recovered. I and Marie were engaged; but she doubted whether my parents would consent. This doubt I could not help sharing; but the letter I wrote to my father on the subject appeared to both of us so tender and convincing, that we felt certain of its success, and gave ourselves up to the happy dreams of lovers.

I found that Chvabrine was a prisoner in the corn-warehouse, and that Vassilissa had his sword under lock and key. I obtained his pardon from the captain; and, in my happiness at tracing his wretched calumny to offended pride, forgave him. My father, in answer to my appeal, refused my prayer, and informed me that I should soon be removed from Bélogorsk. He also wrote to Savéliitch, and called him “an old dog,” for not having taken better care of me.

I went straight to my mistress. She was bitterly distressed, but adjured me to follow the will of Heaven, and submit. She would never marry me, she declared, without the benediction of my parents, and from that day she avoided me.

This was towards the end of the year seventeen hundred and seventy-three. The inhabitants of the vast and fertile province of Orenberg had only lately acknowledged the sovereignty of the Czar, and were yet discontented, and full of revolutionary ideas. Every month some little insurrection bubbled up. To suppress this harassing state of things, the imperial government had erected fortresses in various parts of the province, and quartered therein Cossack soldiers. These Cossacks in their turn became turbulent; and the severe measures adopted by General Traubenberg to reduce the army to obedience ended in his cruel murder, and a rising that cost much blood. By severe imperial punishments this rising had been suppressed; and it was only some time after my arrival at Bélogorsk that the authorities perceived how ineffectual their cruel punishments had been.

One evening when I was sitting alone in my room, thinking of doleful things, I was sent for by the commandant. I found him in consultation with Chvabrine, Ivan Ignatiitch, and the ouriadnik of the Cossacks. Neither Marie nor her mother appeared. The subject of our conference was the rising of the Cossacks under Pougatcheff, and his assumption of the style and title of Peter the Third. The commandant had received orders to be on his guard; and, if possible, to exterminate the enemy. Putting on his spectacles, he began to bustle about, and to issue orders to have the cannon cleaned; and to have the Cossacks kept true to the imperial cause.

The ouriadnik had already deserted to the rebel’s camp. A Bachkir had been taken prisoner, with seditious papers upon his person. This prisoner, had been bound and secured in the commandant’s loft; and it was resolved that he should be conducted before us, and be subjected to the torture, in order to extract from him a description of his leader’s strength.

The commandant had scarcely ordered the Bachkir into his presence, when Vassilissa rushed into the chamber, and cried out that the rebels had taken the fortress of Nijnéosern, had hanged all the officers, and were now marching upon Bélogorsk. I thought of Marie, and trembled; but my energy increased with the occasion, and I at once advised the commandant to send the ladies to Orenberg. But Vassilissa would not hear of this. She declared that she would live and die with her husband, but that she thought Marie should be sent away; and that evening--the last Marie might possibly spend at Bélogorsk--the supper-table was surrounded by gloomy faces; and no face I think, was gloomier than mine. We parted early, but I contrived to forget my sword, that I might have an excuse for returning to bid Marie good-bye alone. When I returned, I clasped her in my arms; she sobbed bitterly; and thus we parted. I went home, and, without undressing myself, lay down to sleep.

I was aroused by the entrance of the corporal, who came to announce to me that the Cossack soldiers had all deserted the fortress, and that bands of strange men surrounded us. I thought, with horror, that Marie’s retreat was cut off. Having given some necessary orders to the bearer of this unwelcome news, I hurried off to the commandant’s house, as the day was dawning. On the way I was met by Ivan Ignatiitch, who told me that the commandant was already upon the ramparts, and that it was too late for the commandant’s daughter to be safely conveyed to Orenberg. Terribly agitated, I followed the one-eyed officer to that little eminence protected by a pallisade, which was the only fortification of Bélogorsk. The captain was arranging his soldiers in order of battle. In the dreary distance of the steppe, I could plainly see the Cossacks and the Bachkirs. The commandant ordered Ivan Ignatiitch to point the cannon upon the enemy, and the soldiers all vowed that they would fight to the death.

Presently, as the enemy began to advance in a compact mass, Vassilissa, accompanied by Marie, who would not leave her mother, appeared, to know how affairs stood. Marie’s pale face was turned upon me, and I burned to prove to her that I had a brave spirit worthy of her love. In the midst of the advancing enemy, Pougatcheff, the renowned rebel leader, could be distinguished, mounted upon a white horse. In a few minutes four horsemen advanced from the main body, and rode close up to the ramparts. They were four traitors from the fortress. They called upon us not to resist. The captain replied by a volley which killed one of the four, and the rest rode back to join the advancing army. The balls now began to whistle about us; and at this moment the commandant ordered Vassilissa and Marie to withdraw. The old man blessed his child, embraced his wife, and bade her put a sarafan upon Marie, lest she should require it; the sarafan being the rich robe in which the dead are buried. The pale girl came back to make to me the sign of a last farewell, and then went away with her mother.

The fall of the fortress was soon accomplished. Our soldiers would not fight (though they had very much affected me when they swore to do it), but threw down their arms after the first assault. We were taken prisoners, and dragged by the triumphant rebels through the streets, to an open place, where Pougatcheff was seated surrounded by his officers. He was handsomely dressed; and, as I caught a glimpse of his face through the crowd, I thought it was one I had seen before. Pougatcheff ordered the commandant to swear fidelity to him as his lawful czar. Ivan Kourmitch replied with a defiance. Pougatcheff fluttered a white handkerchief in the air, and in a few moments our poor commandant was swinging from a gibbet. Ivan Ignatiitch shared his commander’s fate: and then my turn came. I was ready to follow my brave brother officers; when Chvabrine, who had found time to cut his hair short and provide himself with a Cossack caftan, to desert to the enemy, whispered something in the chief’s ear. Pougatcheff, without looking at me, said, “Hang him at once!”

The rope was round my neck, and my thoughts were with Heaven, when I was suddenly released. I found that Savéliitch had thrown himself at the chief’s feet, and told him that a large sum would be paid for my ransom. I was put aside, and remained a horrified spectator of the scenes which ensued. A Cossack killed Vassilissa with his sword, at the foot of her husband’s gibbet, and then Pougatcheff went to Father Garasim’s to dinner. I rushed to the commandant’s house to find Marie; there every room had been ransacked. Presently, however, I found Palachka, and she told me that the commandant’s daughter was at Father Garasim’s house. Wild with terror I rushed thither, for it was to be the scene of Cossack revels. I asked for the father’s wife; and she told me that she had passed Marie off as her niece. The poor girl was safe. I returned home hastily, passing groups of rebels engaged in the work of pillage.

Savéliitch asked me whether I did not remember Pougatcheff. I did not. He was surprised; and reminded me of the drunken fellow to whom I had given my touloup on my way to Orenberg. He was right; that drunken wanderer was now the successful rebel-chief, and I understood the mercy that had been extended to me. But I was much troubled. I could not make up my mind to leave Marie; yet I knew that my duty to my country forbade me to remain in the midst of a rebel camp. While I was thinking deeply of these opposite calls upon my conduct, a Cossack arrived to take me once more before his chief, at the commandant’s house, where I found Pougatcheff seated at a table covered with bottles, and surrounded by eight or ten Cossack officers. The wine had already excited them. Chvabrine and the rebel ouriadnik, who had deserted with the Cossacks from the fort, were of the party.

Pougatcheff welcomed me heartily, and bade his officers make place for me at the banqueting table. I sat down in silence. Here, on the previous night, I had taken leave of Marie.

All were on good terms and quite free with their chief. A march upon Orenberg having been arranged, the officers retired. I was about to follow them, when Pougatcheff bade me remain. When we were alone, he burst into a fit of laughter; telling me he had spared me because of my kindness to him when he was hiding from his enemies, and that now, if I would serve him, he would heap favours upon me. He asked me to tell him frankly whether or not I believed him to be the Czar. I was firm, and told him that he was too clever to believe me, even if I were capable of telling him a lie to serve my purpose. He promised to make me field-marshal if I would remain with him. I replied that I had sworn to serve the Empress; and that, if he wished to do me a favour, he would provide me with an escort to Orenberg. I told him that my life was in his hands, but that I would neither serve him nor promise not to bear arms against him. He behaved well, and said I should be free.

Next morning I found Pougatcheff surrounded by his officers, throwing money to the crowd. He beckoned me to approach, told me to leave instantly for Orenberg, and to tell the garrison to expect him in a week. If they threw open the gates to him they would be well treated: if they resisted they must expect terrible consequences. He then turned to the crowd, and, to my horror, presented Chvabrine to them as their future governor! Chvabrine! Marie’s traducer!

When Pougatcheff had left the square, I hastened to Father Garasim’s house to learn that Marie was in a fever and quite delirious. I rushed to her room--how changed she was! She did not know me. How could I leave the poor orphan at Bélogorsk while Chvabrine remained governor? Suddenly, however, I thought that I might make all haste to Orenberg and return with a strong force, drive the rebels away, and claim my bride. I seized the poor girl’s burning hand, kissed it, took leave of her good protectors, and was soon on my way, determined not to lose a moment.

As we approached Orenberg we saw the state prisoners with their shaven heads and disfigured faces, hard at work upon the fortifications. I was conducted direct to the general, who was lopping the fruit trees in the garden. I related to him the misfortunes of Bélogorsk, and pressed for help. He replied that there would be a council of war in the evening, and that he would be happy to see me at it. I was there punctually. A cup of tea was given to each guest, after which the general called upon all present to deliberate upon the state of affairs. The question was, should the Imperial troops act on the offensive or defensive? He declared that he should require an opinion from each individual; and, as usual, he should begin by asking the opinion of the junior officers. He then turned to me. I stated that the rebels were not in a condition to resist a disciplined army, and therefore urged the propriety of acting vigorously on the offensive: hereupon a little civil functionary, who was taking his third cup of tea with the help of an admixture of rum, suggested that operations should be confined to an offer of seventy or one hundred roubles for the head of Pougatcheff. Every voice was for defensive measures; and, when all present had delivered their opinions, the general, tapping the ashes out of his pipe, declared that he was of the same opinion as the ensign. I looked proudly about me; but the conclusion of the general’s speech turned the triumph to the side of my opponents, for this gallant old soldier declared that he could not assume the responsibility of acting against the decision of the majority; therefore, preparations must be made for a siege, and we must depend upon the fire of the artillery, and the force of vigorous sorties. I returned to my quarters in a state of wretched despondency. Poor Marie!

Pougatcheff was true to his message. He appeared before Orenberg with a considerable force, and the siege lasted long--with various fortune--until the people within the walls were almost starving. One day when some of our cavalry had dispersed a strong body of Cossacks, I was about to dispatch a loiterer with my Turkish sword, when he raised his hat and saluted me by name. I recognised the ouriadnik of Bélogorsk. He had a letter for me--I tore it open--it was from Marie. It informed me that she was the forced occupant of Chvabrine’s house, and that within three days she would be compelled to marry him or be at his mercy. The girl implored me to fly to her succour.

Almost mad, I spurred my horse, rode at full gallop to the general’s house, threw myself without ceremony into his room, and asked him to give me a battalion of soldiers and fifty Cossacks to drive the rebels out of Bélogorsk. The old soldier began to argue the matter coolly. This exasperated me, and I told him that the daughter of our late valiant commander was in the hands of Chvabrine, and that he was about to force her to marry him. The general thought that she might be very happy with him for a time, and that afterwards, when he had shot him on the ramparts of Orenberg, it would be time enough for me to marry the charming widow. There was no hope of softening the old man. I wandered away in despair. Out of this despair, grew a desperate resolution.

I resolved to leave Orenberg and go alone to Bélogorsk. Savéliitch tried in vain to dissuade me from my purpose, but without effect. I mounted my horse and rode briskly past the sentinels, out of Orenberg, followed by my faithful servant: who was mounted upon a lean horse, which one of the besieged had given him, having no more food for it. We rode hard; but night had closed in when we approached the great ravine where the main body of the rebels, under Pougatcheff, were encamped. Suddenly four or five lusty fellows surrounded me. I struck at the first with my sword--putting spurs to my horse, at the same time, and so escaped; but Savéliitch was overpowered, and, returning to help him, I was overpowered too, and through the darkness of that terrible night, led before the rebel chief that his guard might know whether they should hang me at once or wait till daylight. I was conducted at once to the isbâ, which was called the czar’s palace. This imperial hut was lighted by two tallow candles, and was furnished like any common isbâ, except that the walls were finely papered. Pougatcheff, surrounded by his officers, recognised me at once, and bade all his attendants retire, except two, one of whom was a prisoner escaped from Siberia. This man’s face was hideously disfigured; his nose had been cut off, and his forehead and cheeks branded with red-hot irons. I told my business frankly, and Pougatcheff declared that the oppressor of the orphan should be hanged. But his officers dissuaded him, and one of them suggested that he should try the effects of a little torture upon me. Pougatcheff then questioned me as to the state of Orenberg; and, although I knew that the people were dying of hunger, I declared that it was excellently provisioned. This reply suggested to one of the chief’s confidential friends, the propriety of having me hanged, as an impertinent liar. But Pougatcheff was a generous enemy, and made me declare to him that the commandant’s daughter was my betrothed, and then he bade his officers prepare supper for us, saying that I was an old friend of his. I would have willingly avoided the festivity, but it was impossible; and I saw two little Cossack girls enter to spread the cloth, sadly enough. I ate my fish soup almost in silence.

The festivity was continued until all present were more or less intoxicated, and until Pougatcheff had fallen asleep in his seat. I was then conducted to the place in which I was to sleep, and was there locked up for the night. On the following morning I found a crowd surrounding a kibitka, in which Pougatcheff was seated. He beckoned me to a seat beside him, and to my astonishment shouted to the stout Tartar driver, “To Bélogorsk!” The kibitka slipped quickly over the snow. In a few hours I should see my beloved Marie.

We drew up, after a rapid journey, before the old commandant’s house. Chvabrine hastened out to meet his sovereign; but was troubled when he saw me. Pougatcheff entered the house, drank a glass of brandy, then asked about Marie. Chvabrine said she was in bed. His chief then ordered the traitor to conduct us to her room. The fellow did so, but hesitated at her door,--pretended to have lost the key--then said that the girl was delirious. Pougatcheff forced the door with his foot; and, to my inexpressible horror I saw my dear betrothed lying upon the floor, in coarse peasant clothing, with bread and water before her. She shrieked when she saw me. Pougatcheff asked her what her husband had been doing to her; but she replied vehemently that she was not his wife, and never would be. Pougatcheff turned furiously upon Chvabrine, and Chvabrine, to my disgust, fell upon his knees at the rebel chief’s feet. Then Pougatcheff told Marie that she was safe; but she recognised in him the murderer of her father and closed her eyes in horror. However, he made Chvabrine write a safe-conduct for Marie and me through all the provinces under the control of his followers; and then he went out to inspect the fortifications. I was left alone, and presently Marie came to me, with a smile upon her pale face, dressed in her own becoming clothes.

We enjoyed the tenderness of our meeting for a time in silence; but presently I told her my plan--how that it was impossible for her to accompany me to Orenberg, where starvation was playing terrible ravages;--how I had arranged that Savéliitch should conduct her to my father’s house. Remembering my father’s letter, she hesitated; but, at length, my arguments prevailed. In an hour my safe-conduct arrived.

We followed in a few hours, travelling in an old carriage that had belonged to Marie’s father, Palachka being in attendance upon Marie. A little after nightfall we arrived at a small town which we believed to be in the possession of the rebels; but, on giving Pougatcheff’s pass-word to the sentinels, we were instantly surrounded by Russian soldiers, and I was hurried off to prison. I demanded an interview with the commanding officer; but this was refused; and I was told the major had ordered Marie to be taken to him. Blind with fury, I rushed past the sentinels direct into the major’s room, where I found him gambling with his officers. In a moment I recognised him,--as the commander--Lowrine, who had lightened my purse at Simbirsk.