Chapter XXXI: Release

“Oh! I myself have sinned against her in my reports,” thought Galitzin, on his way to the fortress. “I fell under the influence of others, hastened on everything without judgment. I grasped at the guessings and conjectures of others!”

The ice on the surface of the Neva was still under water, the remains of the previous day’s inundation. The prince’s carriage drove on very slowly, and with difficulty through the pools of water. He did not find the commandant at home. Ever since evening the latter had been in the Ravelin. At the door stood Oushakoff with papers in his hand. He walked up to the prince, and was beginning--

“As your Grace knows, the expenses for this person.…”

“Lead me to the captive,” said the prince, addressing the officer on guard, and turning his back on Oushakoff. “Umph! found occupation!--And our sick captive? Is she still conscious?”

“She is dying,” answered the officer.

Galitzin devoutly crossed himself.

On entering the Ravelin, he met Tchernishoff. The prince did not recognise him. The brave, fine, spruce officer, Tchernishoff, who was never once in his life embarrassed by his service, was now quite bewildered and pale as death.

“Poor thing!” murmured the field-marshal, following Tchernishoff. “Can it be that she will die? Has the doctor been?”

“He has not left her since evening; the agony has already begun, she is quite unconscious. She is raving!”

“What does she rave about? Speak, speak!” and the agitated prince leant forward to Tchernishoff. “Were you there? Did you hear her ravings?”

“I went in several times,” answered the commandant. “I only heard some unintelligible words, amongst them Orloff … Princess … Gran Dio … Mio caro.…”

“And the child?” asked the prince, dashing away a tear.

“Is well, your Grace, in the hands of a wet nurse. My wife found a very good one.”

“See that everything necessary is found--everything. Do you hear me, sir? everything,” said the prince very seriously and impressively, trying to give his voice a most imperious and commanding tone. “In a Christian manner, do you understand?… In case, here … in secret … you understand me? without any fuss … suffering humanity … a martyr.”

The prince wanted to say something more, but could only sob. Tears were choking him. He merely nodded, and, pulling himself together as well as he could, he briskly walked out on the _perron_. Here he glanced at the dismal grey sky, covered with big heavy clouds. A whole flight of ravens was whirling round over the Ravelin. The iron leaves[48] of the roof, half torn away by the storm, were creaking dismally. The field-marshal drew his sable collar close round him, jumped into his carriage, and shouted, “Home!”

“God has had pity on her, poor thing; in past years, how often these small casemates have been flooded during the inundations. Yes, of course, it’s quite clear,” he went on musing. “The unfortunate girl has only been a toy in the hands of others. A usurper or not, who can tell? That’s just what I shall write to Her Imperial Highness--her death will not be on our heads.”

The carriage rolled along quickly over the newly-fallen snow, now passing carts loaded with wood or hay, now an elegant carriage, or a pedestrian feeling his way carefully through the pools and the snow,--those very same houses, churches, the same bridges, ensigns, that the prince had looked at for so many years, rushed past unnoticed by the now anxious and gloomy commander-in-chief of the northern capital. Then came the Police Department, at the Green Bridge over the Nevski, and at last the apartment of the field-marshal. His heart was very heavy.

“Well! and if, after all, she’s no pretender,” flashed through the mind of the prince, as he saw the Elizabeth Palace rising in the gloom, near the bridge on the Moïka, and a little farther on, on the Nevski, the Anitchkoff Hall, the residence of Razoumovski.

Galitzin remembered now all the late reign, the great of that time, his connections, his own youthful years, and the years and persons that time had carried away.

* * * * *

On the evening of 4th of December, 1775, the Princess Tarakanova, Dame d’Azow, Ali Emeté, and Princess Wladimirskaya, expired. No one was present at her last moments; she was found lying still, as though she had fallen asleep. Her dim open eyes were fixed on the image of the Saviour. On the next day the invalid watch of the garrison of the Petropavlovski fortress dug a grave, with the help of crow-bars[49] and spades, in the middle of the little yard in the Ravelin of Alexéef, under the shade of the lindens. And there, secretly from all, they buried the body of the unfortunate girl, filling the grave up with clods of frozen earth. The invalid watchman, Antipitch, on his own initiative, planted a birch tree over that grave. The servitors of the Princess, her maid Meshade, and secretary Charnomski, as the inquest now was terminated, were sent away to foreign parts, after having been sworn to secrecy.

Father Peter guessed at the death of the captive, from the tears and insinuations of the _commandantsha_, and said to himself, “Oh, God! Thou hast at last delivered the poor unfortunate captive from her burden, and given rest to her soul.” And, without any fuss or noise, went immediately to the church and celebrated a funeral mass, for the fallen asleep bond-slave of God, Elizabeth; and at the oblation, remembering her soul, cut a small piece from the consecrated loaf.

“For whom did you have that funeral mass?” asked Vâra of her uncle, noticing the loaf on the breakfast table.

“For that person you know of, that poor sufferer.”

“But who was she?”

“A slave, and child of a bond-slave,” mysteriously answered Father Peter. “We are all in the hands of God, the rich and the poor, the slaves and the kings.”

* * * * *

The Field-Marshal Galitzin was unable for a long time to decide on the means of letting the empress know of the death of Tarakanova. He would take a pen, write a few lines, dash them out, and again begin thinking.

“Ah! come what may,” said he to himself, “the dead will not be called to account, and for the living, it’s a vindication.”

The prince took out a clean sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the ink, and began very carefully to trace, in an old-fashioned hand, the following words:--

“The person so well known to your Imperial Highness as having usurped a name and rank not belonging to her, died on the 4th of December, an unrepentant sinner, having confessed to nothing and betrayed no one.”

“And if any of the great should learn anything about her, and let it out,” thought Galitzin to himself, “we can set rumours afloat that she was drowned in the inundation. Just at that very time, they fired enough cannon from the fortress, and the lovely Neva played her pranks.”

And this is the origin of the legend of the drowning of Tarakanova.[50]

* * * * *

Irena Lvovna Rakitina, after having gone about from department to department, was at last convinced of the hopelessness of her case, and returned to her native village accompanied by Vâra. This was in December, 1775. In Moscow, she tried to give a personal petition to the empress, but this was just the day before the departure of Ekaterina for Petersburg. The petition of Irena was graciously accepted; but somehow very likely, in the confusion dependent on the departure of the Court,--it got lost and was forgotten, as she never received any answer or resolution. Irena, while at Moscow, determined to find out Orloff, but afterward was dissuaded from her purpose.

On her arrival in Petersburg, the empress most assiduously questioned Galitzin about the last days of the captive; and notwithstanding all the endeavours of the old man to soften his tale, she understood what an awful tragedy had overtaken the blind victim of foreign intrigue.

“Yes; you and I, prince, have also ‘oversalted’ it!” said Ekaterina. “Why not more frankness with me?”

* * * * *

“I am the cause of everything,” decided Irena, after long hours of doubt and anguish. “I was the cause of Konsov’s leaving his native land. It was on my account he gave way to despair, and tried to help that unfortunate person, and then perished. I must make amends now for his broken life, and implore God to forgive me my share of sins in all this unhappy affair. I am now alone, and have nothing to expect from the world.”

In 1776, Rakitina left her estate in the hands of her father’s serfs, and accompanied by Vâra (who had that year become engaged to one of the teachers of the Muscovite Seminary), started for a small nunnery not far from Kieff, and entered it as a novice, hoping soon to be able to take the veil. However much Vâra implored her, or tried to convince her, to dissuade her from taking such a step, Irena was firm, and having put on the hood and nun’s dress, repeated only one thing--“I am the cause of all, and therefore must pray for him, and suffer all my life.” But Irena could not give up all her thoughts to prayer, however much she wished to.