Vlasfief smiled sourly, and his cunning eyes twinkled.
"You are a Scot, like Balmain," said he disdainfully; "and as the Turks—those accursed unbelievers—say, but truly, 'Those who have never seen the world think it is all like their father's house.' Pass the bottle—'tis Cracow wine this, and not worth four ducats the flask. In short, the—the two ladies of the Count's family, in the wildness of their grief,—Mariolizza especially,—on hearing of the death of Mierowitz, permitted their tongues to run riot, and to say such things of Her Imperial Majesty and some of her favourites, such as Count Orloff, Lanskoi, the Grenadier, and so forth, as no woman would pardon, you understand; so they are to be given in succession to le maître d'entre les épaules—the master of the shoulders," added Vlasfief, with a species of laugh at the strange expression which he saw gathering in Balgonie's face.
"Explain, I implore you, explain!" asked the latter, with quivering lips, as he set down a crystal goblet of Hungarian wine untasted on the table.
"Mademoiselle Mariolizza—but you don't drink fairly, Ivanovitch—has received six blows of the knout. The torturer is a new man, and mangled her cruelly. She has had her tongue cut out, and her forehead branded with the executioner's mark;* and she goes to Siberia as soon as she recovers: but she will never reach it alive, even if she escapes the fever that has now seized her; for as the whole family has been degraded,—declared infamous and without protection,—being tongueless, she will become the prey of the Cossacks en route. Once beyond the Volga, we never know what happens. The Count's daughter will undergo exactly similar punishment; and, if she survives it, they will be mercifully permitted to travel together: and there ends the House of Mierowitz, which boasts of its descent from Ruric of Kiev—Ruric the Varagian of Old Ladoga!"
* The latter punishment is abolished now.
With wonderful coolness of manner, over his wine and pipe, almost with an occasional jest, the cruel and snakelike Vlasfief—who, as a parvenu of the foundling hospital (the son of a goat), hated the hereditary aristocracy—detailed these matters; and Balgonie felt as if a black cloud enveloped him. He heard the Captain talking; but his mind and thoughts were far, far away; and, after a time, he found himself alone.
Vlasfief had mounted and ridden off; and mechanically, like an automaton, Balgonie had bidden him adieu at the portico of the café, and returned to finish his wine, as one in a waking dream: nor was it until the bell of St. Isaac's tolled midnight, when the lights were burned low, the fire in the peitchka had died away, the decanters were empty, and he saw a drowsy waiter hovering near him, that he rose to depart; for to him, now, all places seemed alike.
In the street a shower of tears revived him; and he wept unseen, like a great boy, while grinding his teeth and twisting his mustaches like a furious and desperate man. Russia, her laws, her rulers, her very air, he loathed and detested. But what was he to do?—which way was he to turn?—was he to permit these horrors, and live?
He had been present when the Regiment of Smolensko guarded the punishment of Madame Lapouchin, one of the most beautiful women of the Imperial Court, where she shone like a planet, was loved, admired, and more than once was fought for. An alleged conspiracy brought her to the knout in all her nude loveliness, in the light of open day; and Charlie remembered that sickening scene, before the eyes of assembled thousands, and how, as the Abbé d'Anterroche records, "in a few moments all the skin of her tender back was cut away in small slips, most of which remained hanging on her shift. Her tongue was cut out immediately after; and she was banished into Siberia."
"Oh Natalie, Natalie!" he could but repeat, while he wrung his hands; and thus the dawn of day found him.