第25章

I have already admitted that for me he is more especially the man who in his youth had eaten roast dog in the depths of a gloomy forest of snow-loaded pines.My memory cannot place him in any remembered scene.A hooked nose,some sleek white hair,an unrelated evanescent impression of a meagre,slight,rigid figure militarily buttoned up to the throat,is all that now exists on earth of Mr.Nicholas B.;only this vague shadow pursued by the memory of his grandnephew,the last surviving human being,I suppose,of all those he had seen in the course of his taciturn life.

But I remember well the day of our departure back to exile.The elongated,bizarre,shabby travelling-carriage with four post-horses,standing before the long front of the house with its eight columns,four on each side of the broad flight of stairs.

On the steps,groups of servants,a few relations,one or two friends from the nearest neighbourhood,a perfect silence;on all the faces an air of sober concentration;my grandmother,all in black,gazing stoically;my uncle giving his arm to my mother down to the carriage in which I had been placed already;at the top of the flight my little cousin in a short skirt of a tartan pattern with a deal of red in it,and like a small princess attended by the women of her own household;the head gouvernante,our dear,corpulent Francesca (who had been for thirty years in the service of the B.family),the former nurse,now outdoor attendant,a handsome peasant face wearing a compassionate expression,and the good,ugly Mlle.Durand,the governess,with her black eyebrows meeting over a short,thick nose,and a complexion like pale-brown paper.Of all the eyes turned toward the carriage,her good-natured eyes only were dropping tears,and it was her sobbing voice alone that broke the silence with an appeal to me:"N'oublie pas ton francais,mon cheri."In three months,simply by playing with us,she had taught me not only to speak French,but to read it as well.She was indeed an excellent playmate.In the distance,half-way down to the great gates,a light,open trap,harnessed with three horses in Russian fashion,stood drawn up on one side,with the police captain of the district sitting in it,the vizor of his flat cap with a red band pulled down over his eyes.

It seems strange that he should have been there to watch our going so carefully.Without wishing to treat with levity the just timidites of Imperialists all the world over,I may allow myself the reflection that a woman,practically condemned by the doctors,and a small boy not quite six years old,could not be regarded as seriously dangerous,even for the largest of conceivable empires saddled with the most sacred of responsibilities.And this good man I believe did not think so,either.

I learned afterward why he was present on that day.I don't remember any outward signs;but it seems that,about a month before,my mother became so unwell that there was a doubt whether she could be made fit to travel in the time.In this uncertainty the Governor-General in Kiev was petitioned to grant her a fortnight's extension of stay in her brother's house.No answer whatever was returned to this prayer,but one day at dusk the police captain of the district drove up to the house and told my uncle's valet,who ran out to meet him,that he wanted to speak with the master in private,at once.Very much impressed (he thought it was going to be an arrest),the servant,"more dead than alive with fright,"as he related afterward,smuggled him through the big drawing-room,which was dark (that room was not lighted every evening),on tiptoe,so as not to attract the attention of the ladies in the house,and led him by way of the orangery to my uncle's private apartments.

The policeman,without any preliminaries,thrust a paper into my uncle's hands.

"There.Pray read this.I have no business to show this paper to you.It is wrong of me.But I can't either eat or sleep with such a job hanging over me."

That police captain,a native of Great Russia,had been for many years serving in the district.

My uncle unfolded and read the document.It was a service order issued from the Governor-General's secretariat,dealing with the matter of the petition and directing the police captain to disregard all remonstrances and explanations in regard to that illness either from medical men or others,"and if she has not left her brother's house"--it went on to say--"on the morning of the day specified on her permit,you are to despatch her at once under escort,direct"(underlined)"to the prison-hospital in Kiev,where she will be treated as her case demands."

"For God's sake,Mr.B.,see that your sister goes away punctually on that day.Don't give me this work to do with a woman--and with one of your family,too.I simply cannot bear to think of it."

He was absolutely wringing his hands.My uncle looked at him in silence.

"Thank you for this warning.I assure you that even if she were dying she would be carried out to the carriage."

"Yes--indeed--and what difference would it make--travel to Kiev or back to her husband?For she would have to go--death or no death.And mind,Mr.B.,I will be here on the day,not that I doubt your promise,but because I must.I have got to.Duty.

All the same my trade is not fit for a dog since some of you Poles will persist in rebelling,and all of you have got to suffer for it."

This is the reason why he was there in an open three-horse trap pulled up between the house and the great gates.I regret not being able to give up his name to the scorn of all believers in the right of conquest,as a reprehensibly sensitive guardian of Imperial greatness.On the other hand,I am in a position to state the name of the Governor-General who signed the order with the marginal note "to be carried out to the letter"in his own handwriting.The gentleman's name was Bezak.A high dignitary,an energetic official,the idol for a time of the Russian patriotic press.

Each generation has its memories.