Moscow: A Story of the French Invasion of 1812

Vera had stood still, gazing with set face from one man to the other as each spoke. Her heart swelled with indignation and hatred. This was the very arch-enemy himself; the fiend in man's likeness who had brought ruin upon her country and upon this holy city.

"Shall I then be shot down in cold blood as your Majesty has just slaughtered a body of my poor countrymen?" she said suddenly.

"Morbleu!" exclaimed Napoleon, glancing angrily at the girl. He paused a moment, then laughed, shrugged his shoulders and rode on.

"She is mad, Sire, patriot-mad!" Vera heard some one say, and the Emperor's reply reached her ears: "She has nevertheless a fine spirit".

Vera hastened homewards. She forgot the incident of her encounter with Napoleon; she took no notice of the hundreds of compliments, impudent observations and rude jests thrown at her by scores of French soldiers as she passed; Sasha Maximof was dead: this was her only thought; it absorbed her entire being; was it—she asked herself—really so all-important to her that this man was dead? She had not yet learned to love him; it must surely be a mere sentimental regret, this black heavy weight upon her heart; a sentimental regret that one who had once been nominally her fiancé had suddenly met his death; her heart had not received its death-wound—oh no! this was but a passing feeling of sympathy and sorrow; it would disappear; the shock of the sudden catastrophe had unnerved her.

Nevertheless when Vera had lain for an hour upon her bed, assuring herself that after all this calamity was not really a disaster, for her, of the first magnitude, she suddenly realised that nothing in the world could have mattered more to her than the death of this man; and turning her face to the wall she wept as though her heart were indeed broken.

CHAPTER XIX

Vera heard a banging at the front door—a sound which might have startled and even frightened her at another moment, but she was so full of her new grief that she scarcely noticed it; she felt as though nothing mattered; that she did not care what happened.

Then old Michael, one of the two servants who had remained in the house when the rest left Moscow, knocked at her door and put his head into the room.

"Golôobushka moyá," he said, "do not be frightened, a disaster has happened; the young Graf Maximof–" he paused; Vera laughed hysterically.

"Yes, yes, go on; he has been shot—he is dead—they have brought his body; you may tell me all, Michael."

"Oh, liubeemaya, not so bad as that; but he is hurt."

"What do you say—he is not dead?" cried Vera; she sprang from the bed upon which she lay. "Is he dying, is he mortally wounded, tell me quickly, has Stepan gone for a doctor?"

"But I did not say matters were so bad as that!" exclaimed old Michael, startled by her agitation. "The Count has, I think, been fighting—there is a rag bound round his wrist which is covered with blood and he is pale and faint, but–"

"But is he not shot—I thought—stop, Michael—go down and say that I will come immediately—I am not quite ready—I think I have been dreaming—do not tell the Count what I have said."

Old Michael went downstairs muttering and crossing himself. His beloved mistress could not be well if she dreamed in this fashion by daylight; what did it mean?

Vera dashed water upon her eyes and smoothed her ruffled hair; she stood a moment before her ikon and prayed; her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed; the expression of utter misery had left her face.

She found Sasha sitting dejected and pale, his arm bound up with a cloth which, as Michael said, was soaked in blood.

"What has happened—what is the matter? Are you hurt, Sasha?" she asked, assuming her usual air of composure, though her heart beat wildly with a variety of emotions.

"Vera, I am disgraced—doubly disgraced. We failed in our attempt—all my poor companions are dead—shot—I almost wish I had died with them—I feel dishonoured—shamed; see, I cannot look you in the face."

Vera leaned over and kissed his forehead; he looked up gratefully but said nothing.

"I am sure you are not dishonoured," she murmured softly; "let me first attend to your arm, and then you shall tell me all."

"I will tell you as you bind me," he said, and began at once.

"We carried out the first part of our scheme successfully; we got into the stables and set fire to straw and rubbish, but the smoke frightened the horses and there was a great commotion. We were found and dragged out by soldiers. Several young officers, quartered in the Kremlin, ran up and we were all pulled about and insulted. Among the officers were two of those who came to this house. 'Look here,' said one, on recognising me, 'look, Paul, here is your acquaintance of the other evening;' whereupon the impertinent one whom you interviewed alone that day saw me also. He called up half a dozen fellows and bade them take me to his quarters. Of course I struggled, but I soon saw it was useless and went with them. Afterwards I heard that the Emperor suddenly appeared upon the scene and asked what had happened and who were these men, meaning my late companions. When he was told he frowned and twisted his nose and called them canaille and bade the soldiers shoot them down, then and there, for which butchery I trust he may be tortured in eternal fires.

"As for me, I was taken to a house in the Kremlin in which your friend is quartered, and thither he came, presently, and found me awaiting his pleasure, which, it seemed, was to answer to him at the sword's point for my presumption in posing as your protector in Moscow; at any rate, I could learn no other reason for his particular animosity against me. You may believe that I was charmed to meet his wishes even though he had not assured me, which he did many times, that I might thank my stars I had not been left by him with my fellow conspirators; for it seems Napoleon had himself condemned them to instant death, giving the order, so your French friend said, carelessly over his left shoulder as though the talk were of drowning so many rats. Well, we fought, and there is my disgrace, for though I thought I could fence, the fellow had me at his mercy with many French tricks which I had never seen. Doubtless he could have ended me several times over, but he forbore. I am ashamed and disgraced, Vera, I have come home beaten like a dog that slinks into his kennel after a thrashing. There is excuse for me, but I do not claim it—strange, foreign swords to fight with, the shock of my companions' deaths, the uncertainty whether, if I fell savagely upon the man and bore him down by sheer stress, I should not injure a dear heart at home which perhaps held his life as a precious thing."

Vera laughed hysterically.

"Who knows," she cried, "perhaps the same generous consideration held his hand also!"

"Ah, you mock me; well, beaten and disgraced I am, and it is useless to conceal the truth. Yes, he withheld his hand, he could have given me the point a dozen times while I never touched him, not once. There is worse behind. He made me promise, under threat to send me back to his master to share the fate of my fellows, that I would give you a detestable message. Please do not blame me, Vera, I cannot help it, for the promise was given. Before giving it I fell upon him furiously, and it was thus I received this wound in my sword-arm, which incapacitated me. I was to say that he returned to you a spoilt lover, but perhaps good enough for one who could not tell a man from a moujik."

Vera's eyes flashed and her bosom heaved. "Is that all?" she asked.

"Not quite. I must say all he bade me tell you. Tell her, he said, that next time man meets moujik matters will end less happily for the moujik; she had better send him out of Moscow, there is less danger for him without than within the walls."

"If you had killed him for that speech, I could not have blamed you, my friend," answered Vera. "When I see him I will tell him something."

"I could then no longer even attempt to kill him," said Sasha, blushing hotly, "for I was helpless; we had finished fighting, and I was worsted. I thought it better to bear the disgrace of telling you this than to go back to the Red Plain in order to be shot in cold blood by Napoleon's men. I have not done with him. With God's help I will one day give him quid for his quo. Until I shall have done this I can enjoy no self-respect. With my own sword I may do better, though he has the devil's own skill." Vera considered a while, then she spoke.

"I think we will go out of Moscow; there is no longer any reason to stay here. The smoke hangs over the city in every direction; already there is more fire than all Napoleon's men can extinguish; within a fortnight the rats must make their bolt."

"We have done something, certainly, but it is not yet time to go—not for me; for you it is different; go, in God's name, Vera; I will do your work and mine. In the face of this man's insult I cannot leave Moscow."

"Yes—that is true; you cannot; we will stay, then, Sasha; I do not doubt that we shall find work to our hands. Do not search out this man, however; leave your quarrel in God's hands. Promise me you will not be rash, Sasha."

"Ah, I see you think that I have no chance against him; yet I am not a fool with the rapier, Vera, my own weapon, mind you, not his. I shall have a chance, though I admit he is very clever. If he were as clever as the prince of all the devils I must meet him."

"He is the best fencer in Paris, mon ami. What matters is your safety; oh, do not mistake me—do you think I shall esteem you less and him more because he is a little cleverer than you with tricks of the sword?" Vera laughed quite merrily. "Oh, what children men are to think so much of so small a matter," she continued; "you are not disgraced in my eyes, Sasha; I thank God for two things, the first that it occurred to Paul to vent his spite upon both of us by pricking you with his sword instead of allowing you to be shot down by the guard, and the second that his conceit was so great that he preferred sending you back with a bombastic message to giving you a fatal wound."

"Tell me truly, Vera, is this Paul he to whom you gave your heart in Paris; for God's sake, tell me truly?"

"I do not think I gave my heart in Paris. Perhaps I fancied that my heart was in danger where no danger existed. He is the man who caused me thus to search my feelings—well, I have searched them."

"And the result?" Sasha murmured.

"The result is that I can thank God I do not love a Frenchman, one of Russia's enemies."

"Then I thank God also humbly and sincerely. You know well what I would have of you, if I could. You treat me now as a brother, you are kindness itself, but I hunger for more; I will wait more patiently now that I am assured that at any rate your heart is free."

"When I love I promise that I will love a Russian," Vera smiled. "Promise me in return that you will not run foolish risks in order to prove to me how cleverly your hand and eye work together in sword play. There are greater issues at stake for us Russians than the nursing of private petty vanities. The noblest of men may yet be the clumsiest. Russia requires all the manhood of all her sons, my friend. Come, promise me!"

"Well, I promise then," muttered Sasha, "though your words are not flattering to my vanity. I wish you could have added," he sighed, "that you wanted me alive for your own sake, as well as for Russia's."

"Oh, I will say that," she laughed. "I certainly want you alive. Sasha," she added suddenly, her eyes softening wonderfully, though her voice was full of laughter, "I see that you are still far from having eschewed the follies of cadetdom; you are as vain as ever, mon ami, and as blind to—to the true proportion of things."

Sasha Maximof looked puzzled and shook his head, failing to understand the meaning of Vera's last utterance.

CHAPTER XX

During these first few days of the French occupation Moscow became a very pandemonium of pillage and violence, of smoke and fire, of orgies and of cruelties too horrible to relate. The churches and cathedrals were robbed and desecrated without distinction. Marshal Davoust could find no more appropriate place for his bedroom than the sanctuary, the very "Holy of Holies" of a cathedral, wherein he slept, guarded by a sentinel at each of the two royal doors which gave entrance to this hallowed spot. Horses were stabled in the churches. Furnaces and melting-pots were to be seen outside each of Moscow's most venerable cathedrals, where gold and silver vessels, the frames of costly ikons, ornaments, even the golden decorations of the vestments of the priests were melted down and fought over.

Soldiers on "leave of absence," which meant that they had received, each in turn, licence for a season of plundering, spent every hour of their leisure in pillage and violence, declaring—if interfered with—that the Emperor had promised them the treasures of Moscow.

The fires, meanwhile, raged on almost unnoticed. They broke out first close to the Foundling Hospital, then the Gostinnoy Dvor, the great market of the city, blazed up, and smoke rose almost simultaneously from a dozen different quarters. After two or three days a marshal was told off by Napoleon to quell the conflagration, but it was a week before Mortier's efforts produced any effect upon the flames. The Kitai Gorod was a sea of flames and the Kremlin itself was in danger; the Church of the Trinity caught fire and had to be destroyed by Napoleon's guard. The Emperor fled to the Palace of Petrofsky, accompanied by his staff, by the King of Naples and several marshals.