At last they reached the dwelling of Petrovitch. The doors were all open. Unhindered and unannounced, they walked into the great hall. Here they found the whole family assembled. In the midst sat the patriarch, with silver hair and beard, and large, wide-open, sightless eyes. His face was as calm and almost as colourless as that of the dead; but its look expressed the steadfast high resolve of a “living soul,” the heir of a deathless immortality.
All around that calm centre there was profound agitation. Women were weeping and wringing their hands; and those “tears of bearded men” which are so rare and sad to see were flowing without restraint. One of the sons of Petrovitch—in the green uniform of a Russian grenadier, his military hat, with its long black feather tipped with white, laid beside him—was sobbing bitterly himself, while he tried to comfort a little girl whom he held in his arms. Another young soldier, almost a boy, seemed to be imploring the interference of his mother, who was sitting a little apart, her face covered with a kerchief. At one side of the old man’s chair stood his eldest son, with a look of indignant appeal and remonstrance; at the other knelt Feodor—and his face no one saw.
“Welcome, Prince Ivan!” cried Ivan Petrovitch as soon as he perceived his entrance. “Come hither and speak to our father. It may be he will listen to you, as the son of his ancient lord.”
“Is that Prince Ivan?” asked the old man. “Son of my dear lord, ever welcome in this house, yet give us leave, I pray you, for a little space, for this is a bitter hour to me and to all of us. I am bidding farewell to every one in whose veins my blood is flowing. By-and-by I will talk once more with thee.”
Ivan would have withdrawn, from a feeling that the scene was too sacred for any not immediately belonging to the family; but the eldest son of Petrovitch appealed to him once more. “Have you not a word—you whom he loved so dearly—to persuade him against flinging his life away?”
“My son, I am not flinging my life away,” the old man interposed. “That would be a sin. I am only laying it at the feet of the God who gave it. He has given me a message for these Nyemtzi, and shall I spare to deliver it?”
“But how is this, dädushka?” asked Ivan gently, as he drew nearer to the weeping group. “How is this? Do you not go, with these your beloved ones, to a place of safety?”
“I go indeed to a place of safety, but not with these. My resolve has long been made; nor is it for thee, Prince Ivan, nor for you, sons and grandsons, true and well-beloved though you are, to change it now. Here have I lived, and here will I die. The Nyemtzi shall enter holy Moscow only over my body.”[26]
“A vain sacrifice, useless as it is cruel,” said Ivan Petrovitch in a broken voice.
“My son, it is neither. I have no strong arm to fight for the Czar, but I have yet a voice with which to hurl defiance against his enemies. It is the mightiest of all voices, though it makes no sound—the voice of blood. My blood shall cry to the invader from the gate of the city I have loved: ‘It is but vain the labour that you take to conquer this land for your Prince. A land where youth and manhood arm to resist you, while old age dies beneath your feet rather than submit to your sway—such a land is unconquerable.’ Therefore, my children, no more words. They are but needless pain, and time presses. I think my soldier lads should even now be rejoining their regiments. Are you all here, my brave boys whom I have given to the Czar?”