‘“It is true,” said Raily, “ours is a very intimate acquaintance.”
‘“Oh, it is, after all, without importance, I dare say, for the real basis of it—esteem—is wanting. You cannot possibly esteem the comte, and in this you are only following common opinion. His vanity, which he mistakes for pride, his impertinence, which he mistakes for courage, his cackle, which he mistakes for learning, are all he possesses. Beyond that he has absolutely nothing: neither heart nor soul, nor bowels. Such creatures may become acquaintances, they can never be our friends.” “Your portrait is the reverse of flattering,” said Raily; “but what does it all amount to?” “It amounts to this, monsieur; I am bound to tell you with shame on my face and hell in my heart that I am that man’s slave, that he is my master.” His excitement got the better of him for a moment, then he went on. “The comte’s father lived on one of his estates near Orel. My father, who while very young had become attached to him personally, served him most faithfully—so faithfully, in fact, that the old man at his death left him a considerable sum of money, without, however, giving him his liberty. Like many other serfs, my father employed the money in trafficking in furs and skins with Eastern Russia. Having been very successful in trade, his fortune increased rapidly; and as a matter of course, his establishment assumed a proportionate footing. While I was still a mere lad, my father gave shelter to a victim of the French Revolution, many of whom exile had brought to our country. M. de B——, a man of great parts, looked to my education. He was like a second father to me, and whatever I am, I practically owe to him. Being aware of our position, he often suggested to me to put an end to it, by accompanying him to some foreign land. I should, however, have had to leave my own country; my father would have been responsible for my doings; and the least punishment that he would have suffered would have been to leave his magnificent home in order to resume his labour as a serf. Another cause, based upon something more powerful than reason, bound me to this ignominious vassalage—love. I loved, monsieur, and was beloved; and though I recoiled from the thought of associating with my fate a young and well-born woman, who in uniting herself to me would have ceased to be free, I cherished the flattering hope that time would abolish those iniquitous laws, that sooner or later Emperor Alexander, the moral regenerator of his country—as his illustrious ancestor Peter the Great was the regenerator of his people—that Alexander would break our iron yoke, that he would treat us like the peasants living on the shores of the Baltic, or like the serfs on some of his own imperial domains; that, in fact, ere long the country would be indebted to him for the moral emancipation of forty millions of thinking beings, whose intelligence is crushed in the vice of an arbitrary power. Our masters, however, would sooner forgive him the greatest excesses of that arbitrary power than the exercise of that same power in favour of the humbler class of his subjects. In short, I hoped that, free at last, I should be able to lead Eudoxia to the altar, not sullied with the woollen band of the slave, but beaming beneath the white and pure wreath attached to the head of the free wife. Up to this day, I have hoped in vain. My father died; I not only continued his commerce, but extended it to the East; and in a few years doubled the very considerable fortune he left me.”
‘“Why not propose to the comte to buy your freedom?” remarked Mr. Raily.
‘“He would refuse. He is not one of the owners who would support a rational system of emancipation,” was the answer, followed by a most sombre picture of the condition of the serfs; and he finally added, “Well, monsieur, the end of all this wretchedness, the possession of the woman I worship, who’ll die of grief if we cannot be united—in short, liberty, all this I may possibly owe to you; and in that case you will have been to me more than a man, more than a friend, you will have been nothing less than a god.” “What am I to do?” asked Mr. Raily. “I am disposed to help you, but you must explain?” “You are fond of gaming, monsieur. What’s merely a pastime with you, is a frantic passion with the Comte K——. He sacrifices everything to it; and it will infallibly lead to his ruin. Nothing, therefore, will be easier than to get him to play with you. Get him to stake a small estate he has on the banks of the Volga; it’s a village counting no more than fifty households, and the industry of which consists in making nails. That estate he’ll not sell at any price; but for that, it would have been mine long ago. But in the feverish excitement of the game, he may be brought to stake it, he may lose it, and all my hope is there. If that village, where my father and I were born, where the rest of my relations are living—if that estate becomes mine, we shall all be free. And now, monsieur, you have my secret, and you are the arbiter of my fate. If you consent to come to my aid, your word will be sufficient for me, and you may raise your stakes to any amount, double them, increase them fourfold, as long as you get your final triumph. You have got an unlimited credit on my bank, and I wish you to make use of it unreservedly. Whatever may be your luck, if it remained persistently contrary—even if it ruined me—I should still be eternally grateful to you for having understood me, for having listened to my prayer, and for having attempted to make me happy and free.”
‘Raily promised everything, and the two men parted, and that will explain to you how he and the Comte K—— soon confronted each other at the gaming table. Manœuvring very cleverly, the Englishman at the outset suffered defeat upon defeat. His adversary, intoxicated by his success, literally clung to him like his shadow. He followed him everywhere—at the hunt, at the ball, at the promenade: he never left him. No courtier of Versailles or St. James’s was more exact at the rising and retiring of a sovereign. The game of faro, then very fashionable at Moscow, was, as a matter of course, that selected by the two antagonists. The comte held the bank. The sum lost by Raily already amounted to fifty thousand roubles. The Russian had tasted blood and liked it, but at last it came to the other one to deal the cards, and from that moment the luck turned. One day after dinner the game went so much in Mr. Raily’s favour that he won everything the Comte K—— possessed in roubles, in paper-money, in objects of art, even to the holy images, richly chased in gold and precious stones, on which Russians set such store. Raily won everything; and when daylight appeared the heap of riches lay around the table which had served for their game. Nevertheless, the comte proposed to continue the game, but only in ‘white money’; that is, figures serving as stakes drawn in chalk on the cloth, and in reality meaning credit. Mr. Raily pretended to have had enough of the game, and to ring for his servants to take to his carriage all that was portable of his rich and extensive loot. Seeing which, the comte renewed his insistences to persuade him to stay. He prayed so humbly, then so passionately, for his revenge, that Raily judged the occasion favourable and the moment decisive to carry out the promise he had given to his young protégé. Gold, jewels, and bank notes, everything was placed on the table. Then Raily turned to his adversary. “You see, comte,” he said, “that I play the game in no niggardly spirit, and I will give you a new proof of it. I have taken a fancy to be a Russian landowner, if only for the strangeness of the fact. You have got a small estate on the banks of the Volga. If you like, I will stake all that’s there against it.” If at that moment Lucifer had offered the comte to stake his soul against a ducat, he would not have hesitated to accept. Without replying, the comte rushes to his writing-table, takes from it the title-deeds of his property, and flings them with a kind of feverish joy on the gold covering the table. The chances still remained in favour of Mr. Raily. The game had not been resumed ten minutes ere he was the master of that Promised Land, and the much desired aim had been attained. Taking up the contract which entitled him to the property and the fifty thousand roubles he had lost previously, he said, “Now, comte, I’ll play you double or quits for the rest.” The comte named the colour, and was right this time. “Take back all this,” said the Englishmen; “my night has been sufficiently well paid.” Then they parted the best friends in the world, the Russian enchanted with his prompt and generous revenge, Raily delighted at the prospect of the happiness he was to confer on his new friend. That very day the lucky gambler wrote to Féodor, sending him back his fifty thousand roubles, and informing him that he held at his disposal the title-deeds of the estate on the Volga. A few hours later Féodor stood in his presence, holding by the hand a young girl, beautiful, fresh, fair, like all the girls of the north, whom he presented to him. It was Eudoxia, she who loved him, she whom he had loved so much. Both fell at Mr. Raily’s feet. “You are our master, our father,” they said. “Give us your blessing, and finish your sublime work of regeneration.” Raily extends his hands, takes them in his arms, he himself surprised at the tears coursing freely down his cheeks. “Let him owe his happiness to you alone,” he said, addressing Eudoxia, and handing her the title-deeds of the property. “An iniquitous law, a law iniquitous even in its foresight, forbids an emancipated slave to possess property. But you are free, madame, and noble, and the same law nevertheless permits that the serf of your lands, raised to the rank of your husband, becomes also freed from this unjust exclusion. You are now a landowner in virtue of these title-deeds—take Féodor to the altar; henceforth he will bear no chains but yours.” “Monsieur,” said the young merchant, “she and I will never be strong enough to remain under the burden of such a gratitude all our lives. You must, therefore, accept some feeble tribute of our feelings towards you, for it is only on that condition that you can really make us happy.” Mr. Raily a few days before leaving Moscow received a pocket-book, which contained a million roubles, with the following words inscribed upon it: “To the free man who has made me a free man.”
CHAPTER XX
Isabey’s Study—His Picture of the Plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Vienna—The Imperial Sepulchre at the Capuchins—Recollections of the Tombs of Cracow—Preacher Werner—St. Stephen’s Cathedral—Children’s Ball at Princesse Marie Esterhazy’s—The Empress Elizabeth of Russia—The Picture-Gallery of the Duc de Saxe-Teschen—Emperor Alexander and Prince Eugène—The Pictures of the Belvedere—The King of Bavaria—Anecdotes.
One of the memorabilia of the Congress of Vienna which had the advantage of uniting all suffrages, a privilege not generally granted to all the transactions of that august Areopagus, is the historical and beautiful drawing of Isabey representing a sitting of the plenipotentiaries. The artist was then putting the last touches to it. One morning, Griffiths and I went to his house. His gallery of portraits, which contained all the celebrated personages of Europe, was already very considerable, but our attention was attracted at once by the drawing which, under the title of ‘The Congress of Vienna,’ will connect his name with the illustrious men he has portrayed there. Everybody knows that composition, representing the room of the Congress at the moment Prince de Metternich introduced Wellington.