But a bitter hour came at last. One night the debts scored against him upon the gaming-table grew and grew, until the total became absolutely alarming. Of course he was plied with the usual arguments, “Go on; your fortune will change,—you will retrieve all;”—and, of course, he yielded. The fascination of companionship was upon him, and the yet more potent spell of champagne completed his infatuation. So far as he was able to reflect at all, the very thoughts that ought to have checked his madness only stimulated it. He could not bear that his associates should taunt him with cowardice, but it was still more intolerable that they should suspect him of poverty. The fear made him desperate, and he went on wildly and recklessly, lavishly increasing his stakes, lest any one should surmise the truth—that he was risking more than he possessed. But at last that very fear arrested him when on the brink of ruin. Seeing him so heavy a loser, his friends came forward with offers of assistance, which they urged, nay, even pressed upon him. But he rejected all. Not to these would he become a debtor; for what hope could he entertain of repaying them? There was only one in all the world to whom he could turn for real help in the hour of need.
It was not until the next morning that he fully realized his position. He awoke unrefreshed from a short feverish sleep, and drank the tea his valet brought him, but could not eat Fortunes ten times larger than the whole sum of his debts changed hands continually over the card-tables of Moscow and St. Petersburg. But all things go by comparison, and what would have been little indeed to the lord of broad lands and toiling serfs, was much to the “merchant’s pensioner,” as Ivan bitterly called himself. He had no alternative but to go to Petrovitch, confess his folly, and throw himself upon the generosity of his kind old friend. This, to a youth of his spirit and temper, was a cruel humiliation. All his manliness, all his independence of character revolted from the task; and it was equally abhorrent to his pride. Both the good and the evil in him were at war with the necessities of his position; but both had to give way. He dressed himself quickly, left the Wertsch mansion without speaking to any one, hailed the first drosky he saw, sprang in, and gave his directions,—choosing the longer route to the merchant’s house, that he might avoid the ferry with its possible delays. The driver, as he settled himself in his seat and grasped more firmly the long ropes that served him as reins, leaned over and asked him, “Gospodin,[13] have you heard the news?”
“Curse the news!” said Ivan petulantly. “Drive quickly, isvostchik,[14] and I’ll double thy fare.”
Yet absorbed as he was in his sordid, selfish trouble, he could not fail to see that some extraordinary change had passed over the city. At the street corners and in the thoroughfares persons of all classes were gathering in groups, talking and gesticulating. A few had letters or printed papers in their hands; but those who could read were a small minority, and by far the greater number were discussing what they had heard from the lips of others. Now and then Ivan wondered languidly what had happened; but his thoughts always slipped back to subjects of more pressing interest. What should he say to Petrovitch? and what would Petrovitch say to him?
It was a glorious morning at the end of June,
“The very city’s self was filled
With the breath and the beam of heaven.”
Fair shone the gilded cupolas of the Kremlin, brightly gleamed the silver Moskva, and the gardens and terraces were blooming with a thousand flowers. Never had the old city looked more lovely, with the strange peculiar charm of its quaint barbaric magnificence toned and softened by those sweet influences of sun and air that touch the responsive earth like the benediction of Heaven. On that day Ivan scarcely noticed its beauty; but in after years the memory often returned to him,—like the last happy, untroubled look we have seen on some beloved face, ere it is dimmed by those shadows of disease and pain that prelude the darker shadow of the grave.
At length he reached the house of Petrovitch, dismissed his drosky, and walked in. He was accustomed to enter the old man’s presence unannounced, to be recognized by the sound of his footsteps, and affectionately welcomed.
It was now almost four years since Petrovitch had become totally blind. God’s hand had touched him gently, and the touch softened and ennobled him. The interests of commercial life, the buying, selling, and getting gain, which once occupied him so intensely, had faded from him now; and if still he ruled his household with a strong hand, it was less by fear and more by love. Feodor had learned to read on purpose to while away the long hours for him, though there were not many books in the Prussian language likely to interest him. For romances in the French style, whether translated or imitated, he cared nothing at all; history, which he would have greatly enjoyed, had still to be naturalized in Russia; and, unhappily, the best Book of all was then locked away from the Russian in a casket of which the key was well-nigh lost—the old Slavonic tongue, more unintelligible to Petrovitch than the English of Chaucer would be to us. But a friend of his, Pope Yefim, a priest of much more than average intelligence and seriousness, used often to visit him, and to tell him Scripture narratives, and repeat for him prayers or passages from the Psalter. “I can no longer raise my eyes to the holy pictures,” Petrovitch was wont to say, “so I must learn to lift up my heart to God.”
To-day Ivan found him surrounded by several members of his family. His eldest son stood before him; two or three others, sons or grandsons, were at hand; and Feodor, now a fine lad of sixteen, had perched himself as usual upon one of the arms of his chair.