On the red staircase

by Mary Imlay Taylor

“It might be far otherwise if you had been trained to tend the ill and the dying, M. de Brousson,” he rejoined quietly. “Every profession molds its neophytes. You have been taught to put people out of the world, I to help to keep them in it.”

“The nobler work,” I said courteously, although I had no thought of drawing a comparison between my sword and his lance.

“I thank you,” Von Gaden answered dryly; “but I know well what you of noble blood think of the surgeons who sew up the slashes made by your blades. But no matter. I am moved to tell you the story of Ramodanofsky. I will recount the whole affair; part of it—the last part—from my own experience, the rest I have gathered sometimes by inquiry, sometimes by accident. There were two brothers of the name, the elder Feodor, and the younger Vladimir, whom you have seen, both old men now, if both had lived. They were of different mothers. Feodor was the son of a Polish woman, the old boyar’s first wife; Vladimir is pure Russian, or Tartar, which you please. Feodor was the favorite, and inherited the estates and the wealth, while Vladimir came off but poorly. The two men hated each other; the tie of a common fatherhood never bound them; yet I believe that the Boyar Feodor Ramodanofsky was just to his half-brother, who was, in a way, dependent upon him; but you can imagine how the father’s discrimination in favor of the elder rankled with a man like Vladimir. Feodor went to France at one time, and while there, married a beautiful young Frenchwoman, of noble family, and connected, I believe, on her mother’s side with the Polish mother of Feodor. He brought home his bride, and in a year or so a child was born to them, to their great disappointment not a boy, but a girl. Vladimir was then serving in the army, fighting the Don Cossacks, at the time of Stenka Razin’s insurrection, for it was during the reign of Alexis the Debonair. When he returned, he was poorer and more reckless than ever. Whether he loved Feodor’s wife or not, it is hard to tell, but he began to make love to her whenever his brother was absent. Marie Ramodanofsky was a noble woman, I knew her; her daughter has inherited her beauty, along with her father’s spirit. She resented Vladimir’s treachery, but she dreaded to tell her husband, who was a passionate and jealous man, and who hated his brother for a hundred evil traits that he knew, without adding this one. But at last her position became unendurable, and she told her husband. There is no doubt that a bitter scene ensued, and the boyar, in the first flush of his anger and jealousy, must have falsely accused her of encouraging his brother; when he left her to go in search of the traitor, her attendants found her in a deathlike swoon. Meanwhile, Feodor followed Vladimir to the Kremlin, and finding him on the Red Staircase, a fight ensued. Feodor was the more powerful man of the two, but he was blind with rage, and it is said that Homyak, the court dwarf, who was patronized by Vladimir, seeing the fight going against the latter, tripped up the elder brother, and he fell from the top to the bottom of the Red Staircase, the blood flowing from a gash in his cheek. I was in the palace, attending the Czarevna Sophia, and was summoned to the wounded man. Vladimir had disappeared, and Homyak gave a garbled version of the fight. It had reached the ears of the czar, and Alexis was not a little angered; already I think his mind was poisoned by the tales that later ruined Feodor, for soon after this he lost favor, and it was bruited about that he was a traitor to the czar. It was fifteen months afterwards when I was summoned to take care of Madame Ramodanofsky; she died when her little son was born. The boy lived only two days, and they were buried together. Feodor felt his loss bitterly; he was then under a heavy cloud, and threatened, I knew, with exile; for I have known most of the secrets of the court for many years. No man seemed to be able to lay his finger on the boyar’s accuser, but I never doubted that it was Vladimir.

“It was the week after the wife and baby died that I was entering the courtyard of Ramodanofsky’s house. Homyak was just ahead of me; he seemed to be Feodor’s evil genius. There was quite a little crowd in the court; all the serfs were there, and in the center of the place, in a pool of blood, lay Feodor, stricken down by the hand of an unknown assassin, so they said. He was not dead, and I had him carried into the house, and bound up his wounds; I thought he would live, but I was not positive, and had to leave him still in a state of semi-consciousness. As I crossed the courtyard, Homyak plucked at my cloak. I have always hated the grinning creature, and made a motion to shake him off. ‘How is the boyar?’ he asked eagerly; ‘He will live,’ I retorted curtly. The dwarf laughed. ‘Vladimir Sergheievitch is not as good a swordsman as I thought,’ he said. ‘It was that villain, then?’ I exclaimed too eagerly, for Homyak took alarm, and rambled off into one of his fanciful tales of which one can make nothing. The next day, before I could see my patient, Vladimir Sergheievitch Ramodanofsky appeared at the palace to announce the death of his brother, and was closeted with the czar. I never saw even the corpse of Feodor. I protested as openly as I dared against the foul play that, I was sure, was taking place, but there was no room for complaints. Vladimir’s tongue is oiled, and he had the ear of the council; he laid before them certain treasonable papers purporting to be his brother’s, and the upshot was, that the dead boyar’s memory was an ill savor in the nostrils of the court, and his honors and emoluments went to Vladimir. If Feodor Sergheievitch had lived, he would have been sent into exile. His little daughter was turned over to the guardianship of the fiend who had endeavored to ruin her mother and had murdered her father. The child, fortunately, was ignorant of it all, and has grown up in her uncle’s household; and as he has no children, will probably inherit her own, in the end. She is rich even now, for the czar had the justice to see that she was not robbed of all her patrimony.”

I had listened with keen interest, because I foresaw the end of the story.

“This Boyar Ramodanofsky, then, has no children?” I said. “And the young lady with him?”

“Is Zénaïde Feodorovna Ramodanofsky,” returned Von Gaden. “She has inherited her mother’s beauty, and is more French than Russian.”

“Is it possible that she can be either happy or safe in such guardianship?” I asked, my mind full of the pale and tearful face in front of the Cathedral of the Assumption.

Von Gaden shook his head thoughtfully.

“It is impossible to read the riddle of Vladimir’s conduct towards her,” he said. “If I thought the man had a conscience, I should say it was troubled with remorse, for he has always seemed just in his treatment of his niece. You know the Russian household is peculiar, but it is more liberal than in the days when the ‘Domotróï’[4] was composed, and the Ramodanofsky home had been Polish in aspect since the days of Feodor’s mother, and his wife had made it French. Zénaïde has been far better educated than the average Russian girl, and has had a Frenchwoman with her for many years; so she speaks Polish and French as readily as Russian. Until lately, there has been apparent accord between the uncle and niece; but now that the boyar is anxious to arrange a marriage for her, I hear that she has developed her father’s spirit, and is likely to resist her uncle’s authority, as no other Russian girl would dare to do. A young maid is an ill thing to guide!” Von Gaden added, with a smile.