III.
I went to Antokollo, to the house where we had spent so many happy hours, feeling a kind of horror at being the bearer of such tidings. The arrest of Count Kourásoff, in itself a dangerous thing, became still more so when I reflected that he would be absolutely in the power of General Klapka, who, as military governor, had charge of all the state prisoners. As for Vladimir, I made no doubt that he would improve this chance to save his precious self. It would be some hours, and possibly some days, before it would be found out that they had not captured the real culprit.
Mademoiselle Olga came in, looking gayer and more brilliant than usual. When I told her of her lover's misfortune, this tender young creature exhibited the utmost courage. But when I expressed my indignation at Vladimir's conduct, she turned on me like a young lioness: he was Count Kourásoff's brother, and how dare I so speak of him before her? I hastily apologized and added one more to my list of the incomprehensibilities in woman's nature. I offered, at any cost, to carry the assurances of her faithfulness to Count Loris.
"He knows it better than you could tell him," she said, looking scornfully at me. But with her woman's wit she devised a plan by which I could communicate with my friend.
The next morning I presented myself at General Klapka's levée, and, having obtained a few minutes alone with him, I gave him to understand that I knew the state prisoner Kourásoff was Loris and not Vladimir, and, explaining that I had an account which I wished to settle with the former, I obtained permission to present it. General Klapka was ready enough to believe me one of those summer friends who change as seasons change, and the fact that a state prisoner could not alienate any of his property did not make it the less annoying to have claims presented to him.
General Klapka took me to a window, and, pointing significantly to the fortress where the prisoners were confined, said: "I have a question to ask of you. Now, if you attempt to deceive me, in less than twenty-four hours you will have an apartment there."
I bowed silently.
"You are probably aware," he continued, "that I am deeply interested in Mademoiselle Orviéff. Have you seen her since Kourásoff's arrest?"
"Yes," I replied; "I saw her immediately afterward."
"Did she express any fear for him or show any excitement?"
"Not in the least," said I.
"Did she endeavor to send any message to Kourásoff by you? Examine your recollection carefully, or—"
"No," said I. "I told her I should try to see him: I candidly acknowledge that I asked her if she had a message to send, and she declined positively."
He stood gazing thoughtfully on the ground for a little while. "You may go," he said at length. "Count Kourásoff has not at present any money at his disposal"—he smiled as he spoke—"but you may get his promise to pay your principal with interest—with good interest. And remember, my friend, if you suspect that the prisoner is not Count Vladimir Kourásoff, you will be careful not to speak of it: you will find it best to observe my—requests."
The next day, and many days after, I presented myself at the outer fort where Count Kourásoff was imprisoned, and, after having been duly searched and found to carry nothing with me but a huge account-book showing Count Kourásoff to be thousands of roubles in debt to me, I was admitted to his narrow apartment, where we would sit at a little table and figure and dispute by the hour. During these apparently stormy interviews, when a great deal of information was conveyed to him about Olga as well as public affairs, the sentry who walked up and down before his open door cast many angry looks at me, and always ushered me out with more haste than civility; for Count Loris had managed to engage the affections of the soldiers who guarded him as well as everybody else's. My parting assurance to him always was that the mines of Siberia would claim him yet; to which he would respond by saying that no misfortunes of his would benefit me or make him pay my dishonest account.
He had another visitor besides myself. Day after day a priest, whom I knew to be my friend at Ivánofka, but who was apparently fifty years older than in the August before, appeared at General Klapka's levée. He seemed so old as to be nearly imbecile; but with singular persistence he came, always telling some endless tale of the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of the Kourásoffs, and always demanding to see the supposed Vladimir. At last, one day, in a mingled fit of impatience and unusual good nature, General Klapka ordered him to be admitted to Count Kourásoff, where he talked and mumbled so incoherently that the count appeared unable to understand him and to be quite worn out with him. However, he continued to come at intervals, and his stupidity became a jest for the soldiers of the guard; but Count Loris understood from his wandering talk the exact state of affairs at Ivánofka during his absence.
Meanwhile the city was in a state of excitement difficult to describe. The arrest of Count Vladimir Kourásoff, as was supposed, followed by that of several other officers and members of families of distinction, created a profound impression; but the Government seemed in no haste to bring the prisoners to trial, and they were treated with extraordinary leniency. There was great surprise manifested at the disappearance of Count Loris Kourásoff; but General Klapka did not hesitate to say that Count Loris knew enough of his brother's schemes to make his absence convenient, if not necessary.
All this time General Klapka was more and more devoted to Mademoiselle Orviéff. She treated him with an indifference that was not devoid of coquetry, but he seemed under a spell. I once asked her if she felt no stings of remorse when she remembered General Klapka's real and disinterested affection, however ungenerous he might be. She gave me a look that was meant to wither me. "If I would sacrifice myself and all that I have or could hope for Loris Kourásoff, do you suppose I would hesitate to sacrifice General Klapka too?" she said.
"I do not know," I answered dubiously. "Maria von Spreckeldsen sacrificed me to Herr Sachs: I know that much."
"Maria von Spreckeldsen!" she said contemptuously; and clasping her hands behind her back, like a child saying a puzzling lesson, she came and stood before me. "Do you mean to say—do you really mean to say—that the sentiment between you and Maria von Spreckeldsen could be called love?"
Now, I thought this was very unkind of Mademoiselle Olga, and showed duplicity as well, for she had always professed the deepest sympathy for me in regard to my Maria, and a profound belief in the depth of my feelings.
"Come," said she, blushing, but straightening up her slim young figure, "do you know that when one loves as—as—"
"As you love Count Kourásoff," I said.
She took his picture from about her neck and kissed it for answer. "Very well, then; but men are so dense! You think that I love like that tedious Maria; General Klapka thinks he can persuade me to love him; while Count Loris thinks—I know not what. My heart is a mystery to every one of you, and to myself as well. Look what General Klapka brought me yesterday," she continued, producing from a cabinet a picture of him, elaborately set in a small gold frame. She was clever with her pencil and brush, and she had, with childish revenge, touched it up so that the general, who was anything but handsome, looked even uglier than Nature had made him.
I could not help laughing at the ludicrous effect, and, while she held it off at arm's length, she made a contemptuous face at it, besides several unflattering remarks; but she suddenly threw it down and burst into sobs and tears; "I sometimes wonder that I can laugh, for my heart always aches—always. I feel that Loris Kourásoff stands on the brink of an awful fate. That wretch is capable of anything; he would have him taken out and shot any morning that he discovered we still love each other."
I tried to comfort her, but could not. I too felt a dreadful uncertainty.
"You may tell Count Loris this for me," she said, drying her tears, "that I long to see him, and if I can not see him by lawful means I will see him by unlawful means. I will conspire."
I repeated this imprudent speech to my friend, who sent her in return a stern command to put all thoughts of conspiring for her and for himself out of her head. I found she had arranged in her mind a very plausible plan, by which she was to penetrate to the interior of the fort, and, taking his place, suffer him to escape; but this fine scheme was brought to naught by the count's peremptory orders.
The weeks dragged slowly along. I had begun to feel even a sort of security for my friend, when all at once a volcano burst beneath our feet. One evening, on returning to the modest apartment in which I had lived in Wilna since Count Kourásoff's imprisonment, I found awaiting me a gentleman who politely informed me that my presence was required at General Klapka's headquarters. I had little to fear for myself, but I felt an alarm for those who were so dear to me; and I had lived long enough in Russia to know that the military governor of a province can ruin whom he will. I followed my companion with a composed countenance, but a sinking heart. Upon reaching the barracks I was ushered into a small room to await General Klapka's pleasure, my polite captor remaining with me. To enliven my spirits, he dwelt upon the horrors of exile.
"But, my friend," I replied, "exile does not now mean what it did in the time of the Czar Peter. There are whole villages of prosperous inhabitants in Siberia, priests, school-masters, clerks, Government employés, all exiles, only the emperor prefers them to live in a certain part of his dominions."
"Ah," said he, sighing and shaking his head, "they are those who acknowledged their guilt and threw themselves on the mercy of the emperor. For those who persisted in calling themselves innocent, the mines—the railways—"
"But if I wished to call myself guilty, of what should I accuse myself? Of trying to get a settlement of my affairs with Count Kourásoff?" This view seemed to strike him so forcibly that he left me to my own sad fancies.
The hours dragged on until nearly midnight, when I was awakened from a heavy but troubled sleep before the stove by a messenger from General Klapka commanding my presence. I followed my guide to a small anteroom, where I saw the general at a table in an inner room, reading a closely-written paper. He motioned me to enter, and, rising, carefully closed the door after me. He was simply frightful in his anger. He thrust the paper at me, and I began to read it; it was a minute account of Vladimir Kourásoff's escape, of the true meaning of the visits of the village priest and myself to Count Loris, of Olga Orviéff's faithful devotion to him—even a copy of a few lines she had once rashly conveyed to him.
While I was reading, he had taken his sword from the scabbard, and was passing the naked blade through his fingers with a sort of murderous delight. "I have you—the tool—and in a few minutes I shall have the principal," was the only remark he made to me.
I seemed to have waited hours, when there was a sudden and peremptory knock at the door. General Klapka rose and opened it immediately. Two members of the police and a figure completely enveloped in a large fur cloak stood outside. "Excellency, it was the prisoner who knocked so loudly," began each of the police in a breath; but General Klapka, motioning the prisoner to enter, abruptly closed the door.
The room was well lighted, and the person who entered, walking boldly forward, dropped the cloak, and Olga Orviéff stood revealed. She was in a brilliant ball-dress of pale and shining green, and pearls gleamed softly on her milk-white neck and arms. She made a profound and graceful courtesy to General Klapka, adroitly spreading out her rich train as she did so. "I had not looked for the pleasure of seeing General Klapka when only a few moments ago I was unexpectedly called from the ball," she said with a certain grand air that she knew very well how to assume; then, catching sight of me, she suddenly dropped her stately manner. "You here, my friend?" she cried in a tone of laughing familiarity. "Have you been conspiring too?"
"Mademoiselle Orviéff, allow me to claim your attention first," said General Klapka. I looked at her to see if his infuriated presence had made any impression on her. If it had, it was only to arouse further her fearless spirit. He was still nervously feeling the edge of his sword. "You spoke just now of conspiring: conspiring may bring that white neck of yours into jeopardy," said he, looking as if he would like to try the blade on it.
She drew herself up and arched her proud neck. "Do you threaten me?" she said with cool scorn.
For answer he handed her with a low bow the paper I had read: "Read that, and see if I need to threaten."
She raised it with an air at once careless and coquettish, and, after reading a few lines, burst out laughing. "We are found out," she said, turning to me, "and General Klapka is vexed, I see, because I sometimes sent a tender message to my lover." When she said that, he made a spring at her which caused me to jump from my chair; but, instead of recoiling, she advanced two steps toward him, as he stood before her panting and furious. "Yes," she said in a clear, high voice, "to Count Loris Kourásoff."
"Mademoiselle, I implore you—" I began.
"What would you have me do?" she said, turning contemptuously to me. "If I am in his power, will anything avail me now? and if I am not in his power, let me say what I please."
"Yes, say what you please," said General Klapka in an intense voice: "it will only bring his destruction a little nearer. If Count—if that—"
"Do not dare to speak Count Kourásoff's name before me!" she cried.
If a man like General Klapka could be cowed by anything, he might be said to have quailed under her voice and presence; she spoke distinctly, and raised her little hand as she advanced nearer him. She stopped abruptly and fanned herself. "Really," she said, "I am losing my temper. You, General Klapka, appear to have lost yours before I came."
"Do you know, Mademoiselle Orviéff, what it is to be secretly communicating with a state prisoner?" said General Klapka, recovering his coolness a little.
"And do you know what it is, General Klapka, to have the discipline of the garrison so lax that a state prisoner can be communicated with, even visited, by his friends and," laughing and nodding her head at me, "his accomplices."
General Klapka could only grind his teeth and mutter, "Communicating with a state prisoner."
"If I could have obtained Count Kourásoff's consent," she continued, casting down her eyes modestly, "I could have entered the fortress, and with the aid of my friend the village priest have actually married the man I love. I wish I had!" she added, suddenly raising her eyes and opening them wide and bright.
If her object was to exasperate him still further, she was succeeding admirably, while he had not been able to intimidate her in the least degree. "Count Loris Kourásoff's life may pay for that wish," he said.
"You forget," she replied: "Count Kourásoff is only under arrest until his identity is established."
"Let him be brought to trial," said he, "and for a thousand rubles I can prove him to be Vladimir Kourásoff. You know what the moujiks say: 'Money can buy vengeance.'"
She turned slightly pale, and he seemed to gloat over this her first sign of discomfiture, when at that moment there was a loud commotion in the outer apartment and a vehement knock at the door. "Open! open!" cried a dozen eager voices.
When General Klapka opened the door, Vladimir Kourásoff walked in. He was haggard and unshorn—a piteous contrast to the handsome and dashing officer he had once been. "I surrender myself," said he to General Klapka. "I am Count Vladimir Kourásoff. I was in Geneva, safe, when I heard of my brother's arrest. I could not but come back." There was a deep pause. Vladimir continued in a collected manner: "I expected to find my brother exiled at the very least, but when I heard that he was still imprisoned here I communicated with some of his friends in St. Petersburg, who brought the matter before the emperor, and they have his personal guaranty that if I surrender myself my brother shall be immediately released."
I confess I never expected anything so noble or magnanimous from Vladimir. I sat in speechless astonishment; General Klapka stared stupidly at him like a man in a dream; while Olga began to weep, clinging to Vladimir.
The next morning it was all over Wilna that Vladimir had surrendered himself, and that a telegram had been received from St. Petersburg ordering Count Loris to be set at liberty, but to remain in the city on a sort of honorable parole until the trial of the prisoners came off.
A crowd of his friends and well-wishers, and the multitude of idlers whom such occasions always collect, assembled at the prison-gates in the early afternoon to see him brought forth. My friend the village priest and myself stood next the gate.
"There are the two who so cruelly tormented Count Kourásoff during his captivity," began to be whispered around. Taunts and epithets were freely bestowed upon us, which soon changed to open-mouthed wonder; for when the great gates clanged wide open, and Count Loris with uncovered head walked forward, we were the first he saluted and embraced.
Vladimir escaped with a sentence of only seven years' exile, which, through his own good conduct and his brother's influence, was considerably shortened.
Sometimes when I behold the happiness of the Count and Countess Kourásoff, I say to myself with a sigh. "This ideal life might have been mine with my adored Maria!"