The Vultures Part 41

"It is not," he said, "that you a.s.sume a reserve which one might think unfair. It is merely that there are so many things which you do not think worth saying, or wise to speak of, or necessary to communicate, that--well--there is nothing left but silence. And silence is sometimes dangerous. Not as dangerous as speech, I allow--but dangerous, nevertheless."

Cartoner looked at him and waited. Across the little table the two schools went out to meet each other--the old school of diplomacy, all words; the new, all silence.

"Listen," said the Frenchman. "I once knew a man into whose care was given the happiness of a fellow-being. There is a greater responsibility, by-the-way, than the well-being of a whole nation, even of one of the two greatest nations in the world. And that is a care which you and I have had upon our shoulders for a brief hour here and there. It was the old story; for it was the happiness of a woman. G.o.d knows the man meant well! But he bungled it. Bon Dieu--how he bungled it! He said too little. Ever since he has talked too much. She was a Polish woman, by-the-way, and that has left a tenderness, nay, a raw place, in my heart, which smarts at the sound of a Polish word. For I was the man."

"Well," asked Cartoner, "what do you want to know?"

"Nothing," answered the other, quick as thought. "I only tell you the story as a warning. To you especially, who take so much for said that has not been said. You are strong, and a man. Remember that a woman--even the strongest--may not be able to bear such a strain as you can bear."

Cartoner was listening attentively enough. He always listened with attention to his friend on such rare occasions as he chose to be serious.

"You know," went on Deulin, after a pause, during which the waiter had set before him a battered silver dish from which he removed the cover with a flourish full of promise--"you know that I would give into your care unreservedly anything that I possessed, such as a fortune, or--well--a daughter. I would trust you entirely. But any man may make a mistake. And if you make a mistake now, I shall never forgive you--never."

And his eyes flashed with a sudden fierceness as he looked at his companion.

"Is there anything I can do for you, my friend?" he asked, curtly.

"You have already promised to do the only thing I would ask you to do in Warsaw," replied Cartoner.

Deulin held up one hand in a gesture commanding silence.

"Not another word--they cost you so much, a few words--I understand perfectly."

Then with a rapid relapse into his gayer mood he turned to the dish before him.

"And now let us consider the railway beef. It promises little. But it cannot be so tough and indigestible as the memory of a mistake--I tell you that."

x.x.x

THE QUIET CITY

The most liberal-minded man in Russia at this time was the Czar. He had chosen his ministers from among the n.o.bles who were at least tolerant of advance, if they did not actually advocate it. Much as he hated to make a change, he had in one or two instances parted with old and trusted servants--friends of his boyhood--rather than forgo one item of his policy. In other cases he had appealed to the memory of their long friends.h.i.+p in order to bring his n.o.bles not to his own way of thinking, for he could not do that, but to his own plan of action.

"I do not agree with you, but I will serve you," had answered one of these, and the Czar, who did not know where to turn to find the man he needed, accepted such service.

For a throne stands in isolation, and no man may judge another by looking down upon him, but must needs descend into the crowd, and, mingling there on a lower level, pick out for himself the honest man or the clever man--or that rare being, the man who is both.

Kings and emperors may not do this, however. Despots dare not. Alexander II. acted as any ordinary man acts when he finds himself in a position to confer favors, to make appointments, to get together, as it were, a ministry, even if this takes no more dignified a form than a board of directors. He suspected that the world contained precisely the men he wanted, if he could only let down a net into it and draw them up. How, otherwise, could he select them? So he did the usual thing. He looked round among his relations, and, failing them, the friends of his youth.

For an emperor, popularly supposed to have the whole world to choose from, has no larger a choice than any bourgeois looking round his own small world for a satisfactory executor.

Coming to the throne, as he did, in the midst of a losing fight, his first task was to conclude a humiliating peace. He must needs bow down to the upstart adventurer of France, who had tricked England into a useless war in order to steady his own tottering throne.

Alexander II., moreover, came to power with the avowed intention of liberating the serfs, which intention he carried out, and paid for with his own life in due time. Russia had been the only country to stand aloof on the slave question, thus branding herself in two worlds as still uncivilized. The young Czar knew that such a position was untenable. "Without the serf the Russian Empire must crumble away," his advisers told him. "With the serf she cannot endure," he answered And twenty-two millions of men were set free. In this act he stood almost alone; for hardly a single minister was with him heart and soul, though many obeyed him loyally enough against their own convictions. Many honestly thought that this must be the end of the Russian Empire.

It is hard to go against the advice of those near at hand; for their point of view must always appear to be the same as one's own, while counsel from afar comes as the word of one who is looking at things from another stand-point, and may thus be more easily mistaken.

Alexander II., called suddenly to reign over one-tenth part of the human race, men of different breed and color, of the three great contending religions and a hundred minor churches, was himself a nervous, impressionable man, suffering from ill-health, bowed down with the weight of his great responsibility. His father died in his arms, broken-hearted, bequeathing him an empire invaded by the armies of five European nations, hated of all the world, despised of all mankind. Even to-day there is a sinister sound in the very name of Russian. Men turn to look twice at one who comes from that stupendous empire. It is said that an hereditary melancholy broods beneath the weightiest earthly crown. History tells that none wearing it has ever reached a hale old age. Soldiers still hearty, still wearing the sword they have carried through half a dozen campaigns, bow to-day in the Winter Palace before their sovereign, having taken the oath of allegiance to four successive Czars.

Half in, half out of Europe, Alexander II. awoke with his own hand the great nation still wrapped in the sleep of the Middle Ages, only to find that he had stirred a slumbering power whose movements were soon to prove beyond control. He poured out education like water upon the surface of a vast field full of hidden seed, which must inevitably spring up wheat or tares--a bountiful harvest of good or a terrific growth of evil. He made reading and writing compulsory to the whole of his people. With a stroke of the pen he threw aside the last prop to despotic rule. Yet he hoped to continue Czar of All the Russias. This tall, pale, gentle, determined man was a man of courage. When the time came he faced the consequence of his own temerity with an unflinching eye.

"What do you want of me?" he asked, the very moment after he had been saved almost by a miracle from a.s.sa.s.sination. For he knew that he was giving more than was wise. It is said that he was puzzled and thoughtful after each attempt upon his life.

The war with Turkey was the first sign that Russia was awakening--that the soldiers knew how to read and write. It was the first time in history that the nation forced a Czar to declare war, and Servia was full of Russian volunteers fighting for Christian Slavs before the Emperor realized that he must fight--and fight alone, for no nation in Europe would help him. He had taught Russia to read; had raised the veil of ignorance that hung between his people and the rest of civilization.

They had read of the Bulgarian atrocities, and there was no holding them.

To rule autocratically what was then the vastest empire in the world was in itself more than one brain could compa.s.s. But in addition to his own internal troubles, Alexander II. was surrounded by European difficulties. England, his steady, deadly enemy, despite a declaration of neutrality, was secretly helping Turkey. Austria, as usual, the dog waiting on the threshold, was ready to side with the winner--for a consideration. No wonder this man was always weary. It is said that all through his reign he received and despatched telegrams at any hour of the night.

No wonder that his heart was hardened towards Poland. The most liberal-minded Czar had his mean point, as every man must have. There are many great and good men who will write a check readily enough and look twice at a penny. There are many who will give generously with one hand while grasping with the other that which is really the property of their neighbor. Alexander's mean point was Poland.

On the occasion of his first imperial visit to Warsaw he said, in the cold, calm voice which was so hated and feared: "Gentlemen, let us have no more dreams." Eleven years later he reminded an influential deputation of Polish n.o.bles of the unforgiven and unforgotten words, commending the caution to their attention again. He paid frequent visits to Warsaw on one excuse or another. This dreamer would have no dreaming in his dominion. This mean man must ever be looking at his h.o.a.rd.

The chief interest in the study of a human life lies around the inexplicable. If we were quite consistent we should be entirely dull. No one knows why this liberal autocrat was mean to Poland.

From Warsaw, the city which has been commanded to stand still, Cartoner travelled across the plains of endless snow towards the north. He found as he progressed a hundred signs of the awakening. The very faces of the people had changed since he last looked upon them only a few years earlier. These people were now a nation, conscious of their own strength. They had fought in a great and victorious war, not because they had been commanded to fight, but because they wanted to. They had followed with understanding the diplomatic warfare that succeeded the signing of the treaty of San Stefano. They had won and lost. They were men, and no longer driven beasts.

It was evening when Cartoner arrived at St. Petersburg. The long northern twilight had begun, and the last glow of the western sky was reflected on the golden dome of St. Isaac's, while the arrowy spire of the Admiralty shot up into a cloudless sky.

The Warsaw Railway Station is in a quiet part of the town, and the streets through which Cartoner drove in his hired sleigh were almost deserted. It was the hour of the promenade in the Summer Garden, or the drive in the Newski Prospect, so that all the leisured cla.s.s were in another quarter of the town. St. Petersburg is, moreover, the most s.p.a.cious capital in the world, where there is more room than the inhabitants can occupy, where the houses are too large and the streets too wide. The Catherine Ca.n.a.l was, of course, frozen, and its broken surface had a dirty, ill-kept air, while the snow was spotted with rubbish and refuse, and trodden down into numberless paths and crossings. Cartoner looked at it indifferently. It had no history yet.

The streets were silent beneath their cloak of snow. All St. Petersburg is silent for nearly half the year, and is the quietest city in the world, excepting Venice.

The sleigh sped across the Nicholas Bridge to the Vasili Island. The river showed no signs of spring yet. The usual pathways across it were still in use. The Vasili Ostrov is less busy than that greater part of the city which lies across the river. Behind the academy of Arts, and leading out of the Bolshoi Prospect, are a number of parallel streets where quiet people live--lawyers and merchants, professors at the university or at one or other of the numerous schools and colleges facing the river and looking across it towards the English Quay.

It was to one of these streets that Cartoner had told his driver to proceed, and the man had some difficulty in finding the number. It was a house like any other in the street--like any other in any other street.

For St. Petersburg is a monstrous town, showing a flat face to the world, exhibiting to the sky a flat expanse of roof broken here and there by some startling inequality, the dagger-like spire of St. Peter and St. Paul, the great roof of the Kasan Cathedral, the dome of St.

Isaac's--the largest cathedral in the world.

When the sleigh at length drew up with a shrill clang of bells the door-keeper came from beneath the great porch without enthusiasm. His was a quiet house, and he did not care for strangers, especially at this time, when every man looked askance at a new-comer and the police gave the dvorniks no peace. He seemed to recognize Cartoner, however, for he raised his hand to his peaked cap when he answered that the gentleman asked for was within.

"On the second floor. You will remember the door," he said, over his shoulder, as Cartoner, having paid the driver, hurried towards the house, leaving the dvornik to bring the luggage.

Cartoner's summons at the door on the second floor was answered by a clumsy Russian maid-servant, who smiled a broad, good-natured recognition when she saw him, and, turning without a word, led the way along a narrow pa.s.sage. The smell of tobacco smoke and a certain bareness of wall and floor suggested a bachelor's home. The maid opened the door of a room and stood aside for Cartoner to pa.s.s in.

Seated near an open wood-fire was a man with grizzled hair and a short, brown beard, which had the look of concealing a determined chin. He was in the act of filling a wooden pipe from a jar on the table, and he stood up, pipe in hand, to greet the new-comer.

"Ah!" he said. "I was wondering if you would come, or if you had got other work to do."

"No, I am at the same work. And you?"

"As you see," replied the bearded man, dragging forward a chair with his foot and seating himself again before the fire. "I am here still, where you left me"--he paused to make a brief calculation--"five years ago. I stayed here all through the war--all through the Berlin Congress, when it was not good to be an Englishman in Petersburg. But I stayed. Tallow!

It does not sound heroic, but the world must have its tallow. And there is a simplicity about commerce, you know."

He gave a short laugh--the laugh of a man who had tried something and failed. Something that was not commerce, for his voice and speech had a ring of other things.

"Can you put me up?" asked Cartoner. "Only for a few days, perhaps."

"As long as you stay in Petersburg you stay in these rooms," replied the other, gravely.