第111章

"Then, unfortunately, came the French Revolution.This furnished him with an excuse for every kind of suspicion.He began to discover a revolutionary tendency in everything; to concoct terrible and unjust accusations, which made scores of people unhappy.Of course, such conduct could not fail in time to reach the throne.The kind-hearted Empress was shocked; and, full of the noble spirit which adorns crowned heads, she uttered words still engraven on many hearts.The Empress remarked that not under a monarchical government were high and noble impulses persecuted; not there were the creations of intellect, poetry, and art contemned and oppressed.On the other hand, monarchs alone were their protectors.Shakespeare and Moliere flourished under their magnanimous protection, while Dante could not find a corner in his republican birthplace.She said that true geniuses arise at the epoch of brilliancy and power in emperors and empires, but not in the time of monstrous political apparitions and republican terrorism, which, up to that time, had never given to the world a single poet;that poet-artists should be marked out for favour, since peace and divine quiet alone compose their minds, not excitement and tumult;that learned men, poets, and all producers of art are the pearls and diamonds in the imperial crown: by them is the epoch of the great ruler adorned, and from them it receives yet greater brilliancy.

"As the Empress uttered these words she was divinely beautiful for the moment, and I remember old men who could not speak of the occurrence without tears.All were interested in the affair.It must be remarked, to the honour of our national pride, that in the Russian's heart there always beats a fine feeling that he must adopt the part of the persecuted.The dignitary who had betrayed his trust was punished in an exemplary manner and degraded from his post.But he read a more dreadful punishment in the faces of his fellow-countrymen: universal scorn.It is impossible to describe what he suffered, and he died in a terrible attack of raving madness.

"Another striking example also occurred.Among the beautiful women in which our northern capital assuredly is not poor, one decidedly surpassed the rest.Her loveliness was a combination of our Northern charms with those of the South, a gem such as rarely makes its appearance on earth.My father said that he had never beheld anything like it in the whole course of his life.Everything seemed to be united in her, wealth, intellect, and wit.She had throngs of admirers, the most distinguished of them being Prince R., the most noble-minded of all young men, the finest in face, and an ideal of romance in his magnanimous and knightly sentiments.Prince R.was passionately in love, and was requited by a like ardent passion.

"But the match seemed unequal to the parents.The prince's family estates had not been in his possession for a long time, his family was out of favour, and the sad state of his affairs was well known to all.

Of a sudden the prince quitted the capital, as if for the purpose of arranging his affairs, and after a short interval reappeared, surrounded with luxury and splendour.Brilliant balls and parties made him known at court.The lady's father began to relent, and the wedding took place.Whence this change in circumstances, this unheard-of-wealth, came, no one could fully explain; but it was whispered that he had entered into a compact with the mysterious usurer, and had borrowed money of him.However that may have been, the wedding was a source of interest to the whole city, and the bride and bridegroom were objects of general envy.Every one knew of their warm and faithful love, the long persecution they had had to endure from every quarter, the great personal worth of both.Ardent women at once sketched out the heavenly bliss which the young couple would enjoy.

But it turned out very differently.

"In the course of a year a frightful change came over the husband.His character, up to that time so noble, became poisoned with jealous suspicions, irritability, and inexhaustible caprices.He became a tyrant to his wife, a thing which no one could have foreseen, and indulged in the most inhuman deeds, and even in blows.In a year's time no one would have recognised the woman who, such a little while before, had dazzled and drawn about her throngs of submissive adorers.

Finally, no longer able to endure her lot, she proposed a divorce.Her husband flew into a rage at the very suggestion.In the first outburst of passion, he chased her about the room with a knife, and would doubtless have murdered her then and there, if they had not seized him and prevented him.In a fit of madness and despair he turned the knife against himself, and ended his life amid the most horrible sufferings.

"Besides these two instances which occurred before the eyes of all the world, stories circulated of many more among the lower classes, nearly all of which had tragic endings.Here an honest sober man became a drunkard; there a shopkeeper's clerk robbed his master; again, a driver who had conducted himself properly for a number of years cut his passenger's throat for a groschen.It was impossible that such occurrences, related, not without embellishments, should not inspire a sort of involuntary horror amongst the sedate inhabitants of Kolomna.