And the people? These poor wretches, resigned to rags and misery, working day by day to keep body and soul together. Seventy thousand mujiks, representatives of the oppressed of the four corners of the earth—not the Russian people, but the dregs of all imaginable Slav races—Finnish, Lithuanian, Lapp, and Wallachian—who do not speak each other's tongues, who are only united by their common misery. And their leaders? A set of runaway French adventurers. What do they understand by Freedom? The wrecking of a brandy-store or plundering palaces and shops. A mutinous word sets them on fire like straw, and a charge of grape-shot scatters them like chaff before the wind.
His soul could find no guiding thought. He went hither and thither, and could rest on no single idea. In the course of his wanderings he came upon Ryleieff, in whose face were reflected his own feelings. The poet sadly grasped his hand.
"The time was not ripe," he whispered in his ear, and hurried away.
In another street he met Colonel Bulatoff in mufti. Bulatoff had been chosen as military leader of the rebellion, and here was he, going abroad in frock-coat and tall hat. They did not wish to recognize each other, so passed hurriedly by, one on one side, the other on the opposite side of the street.
Less than all had he the courage to go to Zeneida's palace. He dreaded more to look into her face than into the mouth of a cannon. She defied danger, while he, who had dragged her into it, fled from it. At last, however, he could no longer delay seeking her. He must cross Moika bridge. But the toll-keepers would see him; the canal was frozen, so, descending the steps of the stone quay, Ghedimin prepared to cross the ice in order to reach the other side.
Scarce had he gone two steps before he heard his name whispered behind him. Startled, he turned. From under one of the arches peeped a well-known face—that of Duke Odojefski, a bloodthirsty braggart, who but that morning would have mown men down right and left; now all his courage had oozed out, and he was hiding under the arch of a bridge!
"Don't venture near Zeneida's! Her palace is surrounded!" whispered he, and crept back into his hiding-place again.
What a sight! Odojefski in hiding! The colonel, whose battalion is even now fighting on Isaacsplatz; the duke, whose palace is among the grandest of the capital, whose family name is renowned in history, who himself has claimed a place between Brutus and Riego—in hiding behind a snow-drift! And what is he about there? Scarring his face with a stick of caustic to render himself unrecognizable.
Ghedimin lost his head completely. Turning back by the other bank, he hurried home. There arrived, he wrote on a visiting-card, "I entreat you, for Heaven's sake, to come across to my grandmother's house. I have important secrets to confide to you."
This card he sent up by his house-porter to Korynthia. He himself then repaired to his grandmother's. It was his last refuge.