Tales From Jókai

by Mór Jókai

But Heinrich sent the compromising documents to Eskimov by the first post, together with Casimir's academical certificates.

He himself continued his journey to Vienna without interruption. On arriving at the imperial metropolis he announced himself wherever Casimir's letters of introduction gained him an entry as Count Casimir Moskowski. His refined, distinguished appearance, social charm, and brilliant accomplishments made the fraud easy. The acquaintance with the Starosta and his whole environment, but especially his intimacy with Casimir, had placed him in possession of the deepest family secrets which justified the false part he was playing. His chivalrous bearing, moreover, completely won the heart of the young princess. The engagement between them contracted from afar through other hands, became a veritable love-match, and it soon won powerful supporters in Court circles. He took part in all the court festivities, for he had no lack of money wherewith to maintain a splendour corresponding with his dignity. He quickly mounted the rungs of the ladder of rank. He was free-handed with his money or rather with the Starosta's. In a very short time the false Count Moskowski was one of the most fêted, one of the most envied personages at the Imperial Court.

He had nothing to fear from anyone. In the whole empire none knew anything of Heinrich Klausner. Who was he? Nothing at all! Empty air. Those who looked at him did not see him. The deception could not be unmasked. The old Starosta could not come from Bialystok to Vienna on any account. Gout and corpulence would not let him. He himself could not cross the Russian border with his consort to visit his father, for he was proscribed and an exile, and even if he could get an amnesty, a Polish refugee prefers to hate the Russian at a distance and avoid his territory.

But how about the genuine Casimir Moskowski? Well, he has very good reasons not to come to Vienna. Even if he has not already died beneath the blows of the knout, he may calculate upon lifelong imprisonment in the mines of Siberia or on the endless snowfields, and while his good comrade is making his fine charger caracole to the delight of the lovers of sport at the Imperial Court, or guiding countesses through the mazes of the minuet at Court balls, or receiving the congratulations of foreign envoys, or responding to the toasts of his noble colleagues on his name-day, and living out his days in an earthly paradise in the arms of the loveliest woman in the world and choosing aristocratic names for his children—in the mean time, the nameless man from whom he has filched his family name, is known by no name at all, but simply by a number fastened to or painted on the jacket which he wears on his back—No. 13579. Why on earth should convict No. 13579 think of visiting Vienna? All that he sees before him is a huge piece of rock which he has to break up in order to get at the vein of gold within. And even if they release him from that, it will only be to conduct him still further into the depths of Siberia, to the colonies of the skin-hunters. There he will have to collect sufficient sable and ermine skins to enable him to get permission to settle down somewhere by the banks of the river where he may plough the land and wring bread from the earth by the labour of his own hands, and in winter time tan leather and carve little human figures out of walrus tusks for the Samoyedes. Perhaps also he may get a consort from the chief of one of the tribes of these nomadic tent-dwellers, a short-legged, tubby, seal-like beauty, with whom he may taste the joys of family life. Find out the name of this new princess if you can, but don't look for it in the Almanach de Gotha. Yes, the true Casimir Moskowski has been very well disposed of.

But suppose the White Tsar were one day to utter words of mercy and grant an amnesty to the rebels deported to Siberia? Well, even then, there will be no cause for anxiety. To those who receive permission to return from Siberia to Russia is always assigned a particular town in which they have to dwell, a good distance from the capital as well as from their own homes. And this town they must never leave, nor are they permitted to go abroad.

Then, too, the Starosta cannot live for ever; he is bound to have a stroke some day. Heinrich felt quite secure. He need fear nobody. Yet stay; there was one man he did fear. He did not feel sure of his own dear father. It might occur to the clergyman one day to take a journey to Vienna to see his own son.

But this eventuality was also provided for. The false Moskowski had provided on purpose for it a modest little lodging in the suburbs poorly furnished, where the doctor might be able to receive his old father in an austere environment. A special costume was held in reserve for that occasion—should it ever occur.

And if, perhaps, which was more than probable, Gottlieb Klausner wished to see his distinguished patron in the Sonnenburg Castle, against that danger also Heinrich had provided an antidote. In the later letters to his father he had tried to make the old man believe that for some little time he had good cause to be angry with his dear friend, Casimir, and, in fact, things had come to such a pass between them that he had been forbidden the Prince's door. If, on the other hand, the clergyman went by himself to see the Princess, he knew very well that his consort would not receive him. He had already explained to her pretty clearly that Heinrich Klausner was the traitor whose treachery was the cause of his exile, and consequently he was quite sure that the Princess would tell her servants to show the father of the treacherous comrade the door.

Meanwhile he kept up his correspondence with the Starosta, having learnt to imitate Casimir's handwriting most exactly, and in all these letters he was constantly complaining of Heinrich. So skilfully did he enwrap himself in a spider's web of lies that it was impossible to catch a clear glimpse of him through it.

There was only one thing he had never thought of—that his picture might be painted for the Starosta without his knowledge. And this was the very idea which had occurred to his father.