The Circassian Chief: A Romance of Russia

As far back as his memory could carry him, no event of importance had occurred to him: ere he was sent to college his education had been placed under the direction of a very worthy but most unintellectual priest, who did not attempt to give him more than the first general rudiments of knowledge; so that from an early age he was accustomed to depend much on his own powers to attain what he sought after.

At times the Baron seemed to take an interest in his welfare, and in the progress of his studies, but he was very uncertain and variable in his behaviour towards the boy; sometimes treating him with the greatest severity, at others, with indulgence; but never with that kindness or justice which wins the love and respect of youth.

He would frequently summon him to attend at the usual field sports of the country, in which he soon learnt to excel; but when the boy could make his escape, he would prefer wandering by himself in the woods with his gun, far more occupied with his own contemplations, than in the pursuit of game; or at other times he would urge his light skiff over the surface of a neighbouring lake, then resting on his oars, would sit gazing on the waters, his thoughts wandering to regions far away.

When safe from the Baron’s detection, he would hasten to a rendezvous with his beautiful guardian and friend, and spend hours of delightful intercourse in her society.

Reclining at her feet, his recollection would revert faintly and indistinctly to scenes of a far distant, undefinable period, when he fancied he could recall to memory a picture of the bright and sunny mountains of a soft and genial clime – a cottage on the green hill’s side, in front a clear and rapid stream, bounding from rod to rock, and sparkling joyously on its way to the blue distant sea beyond; the trees of varied foliage waving in the breeze, and gay-coloured flowers filling the air with sweet perfumes. Then would appear, before the vision of his mind, a figure of commanding stature, with noble features, clad in glittering armour, who ofttimes had carried him in his arms. He remembered the very shape of his shield, and the dazzling brightness of his sword, as it was wielded before his eyes in the rays of the sun. Then a confused tumult – the loud roar of cannon – the rattle of musketry – the clashing of swords – red blood flowing around – the wild shouts of men striving in deadly combat – the shrieks of terror-stricken women – the anguish-wrought groans of the wounded and dying – rushed across his recollection.

After those scenes, if such had ever been presented to his sight, the tablet of his memory, for a lapse of time, remained a complete blank, and his first clear remembrance was of the Chateau of the Baron Galetzoff, when he found himself loved and petted by its inmates, and even treated by its haughty Lord with as much kindness as his capricious nature would allow, and with much more than he seemed to bestow on any other human being.

Once only had Ivan mentioned the obscure recollection of his infant years to his fair protectress, but she had, in a passionate flood of tears, charged him, as he valued her love and happiness, never to allude to the subject again.

With advancing years, the visions faded gradually from his mind, or if he thought of them, he considered them but as a dream of childhood, and believed himself in reality to be the son of the tyrannical Baron Galetzoff.

Volume One – Chapter Five

We left the serf Karl urging on the weary animal which drew his master’s baggage-cart towards Tver, and there he arrived without any other accident than a thorough drenching from the same storm which they had escaped under shelter of the Gipsy’s tent. He proceeded straightway to the best inn the town possessed, which was kept by one of the despised race of Israel, who are the principal innkeepers throughout the country. The inn in question was very inferior to those houses of entertainment which most of the larger cities of Russia now afford; but rapid improvements in all the conveniences for travelling have lately taken place.

The lower floor of the house consisted of two divisions; the one appropriated to the horses and equipages of travellers, the other to the culinary department of the establishment, as also to the accommodation – at that precise moment – of a motley assemblage of human beings, soldiers, mechanics, carriers, wagoners, postillions, all talking at the same time in their guttural language; smoking, drinking, and hallowing to each other, with loud laughter and jokes; yet the ear was never shocked by the profane oath, or other evidences of the fierce quarrels, which too often occur amongst a mixture of people of similar degree in other countries.

The upper part of the building was laid out in rooms for the accommodation of the better order of travellers. One of larger dimensions than the rest formed the dining-room – this was completely impregnated with the fumes of tobacco; the rest consisted of sleeping apartments.

As Karl drove into the court-yard, he seemed to have roused himself to a sense of his own importance, and the responsibility with which he was entrusted, for he endeavoured to assume an air of authority. “Help, here! help!” he exclaimed as the wheels of his cart rattled over the stones, “help here, to carry the baggage of my noble masters up-stairs! Does no one come? Help here, help, halloo!”

His calls for assistance were at last heeded by a being very similar to himself in dress and features. “Halloo, villain!” cried Karl, as the man approached, “can you not hear when a Christian calls? Here, help me to carry this baggage, will you?”

“Who art thou that speakest thus to me?” demanded the other; “art thou better than I am myself, knave? Art thou not a slave as well as I?”

“Ay, ay, truly,” answered Karl, “but I serve a noble master, whilst thou art but the slave of a base-born Hebrew innkeeper!”

“There thou liest!” exclaimed the indignant ostler, for such was his office. “I serve the innkeeper truly, and if he did not oblige me to observe his fasts, as well as those of our own holy church, the service would not be so bad; but I am no slave of his. I am the born serf of the noble Baron Ogstrofsty; he has let me out for hire, to the old Jew Levi, to pay off an old score, and when I have worked it out, I shall return to my own master.”

“That alters the case,” replied Karl, rubbing his forehead, that he might more clearly understand the knotty difference, “so now let us be friends, and lend me your aid.”

“With all my heart, now that thou art civil,” said the ostler.

Suiting the action to the word, after fastening the horse’s bridle to a ring in the wall, he assisted in taking the luggage from the cart, and led the way up a rude flight of steps, on the landing of which they were met by the landlord Levi, who had been eagerly looking out, in the hope of making considerable gain by his new guests.

“My noble master, the son of the Baron Galetzoff, and my noble master’s friend, sent me on before them to announce their coming, and to engage beds and supper. They will be here anon, so make ready for their reception: their baggage must be placed in their room that I may unpack it, for they will be rather wet, I fancy, when they arrive.”

“Your noble masters shall be well served,” answered Levi, bowing rather to the young nobles’ portmanteaus, than to the bearer of them. “This way, this way!”

And he conducted Karl into a room, boasting of but little comfort. To him, however, it appeared a luxurious apartment, and he immediately commenced unpacking the luggage. That done, he locked the door, and descended with his fellow-serf to look after his horse, and to attend to his own creature comforts.

Seating himself at the long table in the common eating-room, among the strange variety of guests, he applied himself with unwearied energy to the business of mastication, washing down his food with deep draughts of quass; and so completely was he engaged in this, to him, most grateful occupation, that he paid but little attention to what was going on around him.

When his appetite was at length thoroughly satisfied, he pushed the empty dish from before him, with a sigh, and took another long and steady draught from the jug of quass. He then resigned himself to the enjoyment of his sensations of satisfaction, when his eye-lids began to fall; re-opening slightly, they closed again, his head nodded for a minute, when he shook it to rouse himself, but it soon again fell slowly down, and he dropped fast asleep, resting his arms and shoulders on the table.

Some time had elapsed, when he was aroused by the entrance of two men, who seated themselves close to him, one of them pushing rudely against him as he took his seat at the table. The movement made Karl raise his head, and seeing two serving men in the liveries apparently of a nobleman, he endeavoured, for the sake of good fellowship, to join in their conversation; but he found it impossible to sustain his head without the support of the table. He listened, however, for some time to what they were saying, till their words grew indistinct and meaningless to his comprehension, and Karl sunk again into sleep.

“Well,” said one of the new-comers, “this is a pretty business we’ve been engaged in. First, the certainty of being knocked on the head by the Gipsies, had they caught us, of which there was every risk; then, the very clear reality of finding ourselves knocked down by two wild horsemen, who seemed to have risen out of the forest, for no other purpose than to interfere where they had no business; and then, because we could not prevent their getting up to the Count, when we did our best, to be rewarded with a thrashing and a load of abuse; and finally, to be sent, with our broken heads, scampering across the country to look after these gentlemen. And after all, what is the cause of all this fuss? – a woman – a girl – a piece of painted flesh! a baggage, no better than those who go singing about the streets of Moscow. So coy and modest too! Why the Count is mad to make such a disturbance about her. It makes me thirsty to think of it – hand the quass, Kruntz.”

“You may well say that,” answered his companion, “for I never saw our master in such a taking before. He swears he will have deadly vengeance against those who prevented him from carrying off the girl; and he says that he should know them again, whether he met them in this world or the next. I don’t think he has much chance of meeting them in a better place, do you, Groff?”

“No, no,” answered the first speaker; “our master has played too many odd tricks on earth for that. He may know them, perhaps, for he had time to see their faces; but it is too hard of him to expect that we should; for I could have sworn, when they came so suddenly upon us, that they were the wild horsemen of the woods.”

“They may be devils themselves, and still not escape our master’s vengeance,” replied Kruntz; “and, as for the girl, he will entrap her before long, or he will not act like himself. If he cannot do it by open force, he has numerous secret means to bring about his ends.”

“That I’ll be sworn he has,” said the other; “and so long as he pays me well, I am ready to serve him, though I do not much relish so hard a ride as he sent us, in a storm, on a fool’s errand. Yet if I could find out who the two young gallants were, who gave us such confoundedly hard blows, I should like to see how they felt under like treatment. Some more vodka, Kruntz, that’s the stuff; now for our pipes. Drown care first, and then smoke him dry, and he won’t trouble you; that’s the way for honest men like us to live.”

These two worthies, after enjoying their tobacco, left the room. They will be easily recognised as the myrmidons of the Count Erintoff, sent forward in great haste by their master, to trace the horsemen, who had arrested him in his flight with the Gipsy maid – a circumstance the more embittering to his pride, after his success in securing her person. He had also dispatched others in an opposite direction, with the same orders.

Karl at length awoke to find that the shades of evening had already enveloped the town in obscurity; and he rushed out in great dismay, at having overslept himself, to endeavour to gain some tidings of his young master and his friend; but in vain – he could hear nothing of them. The honest fellow now became greatly alarmed, making inquiries of every body he met, till finding that his master had certainly not yet arrived in Tver, he lay down, to await his coming, on one of the wooden benches in the eating-room, when he very soon again fell into a sleep – not the less sound from his deep potations of quass – and did not awake till long after the morning had dawned, and the inmates of the hotel were astir. He started up, rubbing his eyes, and looking around to convince himself where he was; when recollecting the events of the previous day, he instantly set off to gain intelligence of his master. With eager agitation, he questioned all who came in his way, high and low; but most people pushed the lowly unshorn serf aside, without deigning to answer him; some ridiculed him, and bade him seek a new master, if he had lost his old one, for he would never find him again. Among those whom he had casually addressed, was one of the two individuals, whose conversation he had partly overheard when sitting by his side on the previous evening.

“You are inquiring for your master and his friend,” asked Groff; “two young men, you say, whom you parted from about twenty versts off; as they rode by themselves through the forest.” By thus interrogating the honest, but simple Karl, he learned every particular he sought to know respecting Ivan Galetzoff and his companion.

Poor Karl spent the long day in great tribulation, walking to and fro in front of the inn, inquiring of everybody who arrived from the direction of St. Petersburg, if they had overtaken his master and fellow traveller; but obtaining no intelligence, he proceeded along the road for some miles in the hope of meeting them; again unsuccessful, he returned in case they should have passed by some other way. Towards evening, when he perceived the lost cavaliers approaching, his joy knew no bounds.

Running to meet them, and ere they had time to dismount, he seized their hands and covered them with kisses. He gave their horses in charge to the ostler, and conducted them to their room, where they were glad to rest, after the excitement and fatigues of the preceding day.

Their arrival had been observed by others with equal satisfaction to that felt by honest Karl, though arising from very dissimilar motives. Groff and his companion concealed within a doorway, watched them as they dismounted, and being fully satisfied of their identity, both from Karl’s description, and their own recollection of the wild horsemen, by whom they had been felled in the forest, they immediately mounted their horses to convey their information to the Count.

Ivan felt but little inconvenience from his wound; the aged Hagar having treated it so efficaciously. He was, therefore, enabled to continue on the journey to Moscow, early the next morning; notwithstanding the numerous eloquent reasons urged by their considerate landlord, to persuade them to delay it.

They crossed the magnificent Volga, by a bridge of boats. This mighty current rushing onward in its course, divides Europe from Asia; it is navigable well nigh to its very source – a distance of four thousand miles; and after bathing the walls of Astracan, finishes its career in the far distant Caspian. Its banks are peopled by the warlike tribes of Cossacks, who so unrelentingly harassed the skirts of the French army, during their disastrous retreat from Russia. On its noble waters were being transported rich cargoes of grain, the produce of its fertile banks, in boats of various sizes, rigged with a single but lofty mast, supporting an immense sail, and a long rudder, projecting far beyond the stern, which is admirably adapted to guide them, when passing the rapids.

The villages through which the travellers’ route lay, were forlorn and miserable; being generally the property of the Seigneurs, and occupied by their serfs. They consisted of a single long street, lined on either side with cottages built of rough logs: those of the more affluent being formed of the same materials, hewn and squared into more regular shape. Their gable ends projecting far into the street, discovered occasionally patches of rude carving; small holes perforated in the walls serving as windows.

In many spots along the road, were small chapels with pictures of the Panagia (the Russian appellation of the Virgin Mary,) or of some of the multitudinous saints in their calendar; these were the especial objects of Karl’s devotion, as he bowed his head to them, and crossed himself all over with the greatest reverence. They overtook many teams of small carts, sometimes forty together; carrying tallow, hides, and hemp to the cities, to be exchanged for merchandise, with which they return to the interior: their drivers were generally lying asleep on their goods, one alone at the head of the train, conducting the team. As evening closed in, they halted, forming bivouacs by the way-side, and their cheering fires served as beacons for the wayfarer.

Although but a few years have glided by, since the period to which we allude, great changes have taken place on the highway between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Not only has the road been macadamised, and become one of the best in Europe, but elegant bridges have been thrown across the rivers and streams; handsome, well-conducted post-houses have been established on the road, and public conveyances traverse it regularly.

It was towards the evening of the second day of their departure from Tver, that they approached the Phoenix-like, the resuscitated, holy, and ancient city of Moscow.

The rays of the setting sun shed a glittering lustre on the innumerable gilded domes, steeples and spires, of its churches, shooting upwards from amid the dark masses of habitations, like trees of gold in a forest of enchantment. Each tower being surmounted by the emblem of Christian faith, resplendent with gold, and connected by golden chains, which shone more brightly as they waved in the breeze.

This gorgeous scene breaking suddenly on their sight, arrested their progress; the stately city, extending over a wide space of undulating ground, encompassed by woody and cultivated heights – the hundred-crested Kremlin rising majestically above all – the magnificent palaces, churches, and convents, with their cupolas and domes of blue, and white, and gold, giving it an aspect of oriental magnificence.

Karl, animated by a spirit of devotion, threw himself from the cart, and prostrated himself on the soil, in adoration, as he beheld the Jerusalem of Russia – the city sanctified in their hearts, and so beloved by every true Muscovite. Having completed the ceremony, with innumerable genuflexions and crossings, much to his own satisfaction, he drove on to regain his master and Thaddeus, who not being imbued with the same feeling of respect for the City of the Czars, and having often viewed the spectacle, had, after a slight pause at the grandeur of the scene, proceeded on their road.

After traversing many of the irregular, winding streets of the city, the moment arrived when they were to part, to hasten to their respective homes. Exchanging pledges to meet again as soon as circumstances would permit, they then started off in opposite directions.

Volume One – Chapter Six

Missing the society of his lively companion, a shade of gloom overspread the handsome features of Ivan; his mind being thus thrown back upon itself, the sombre scenery through which he passed, as he drew nigh to the end of his journey, on the day after he quitted his friend, contributed to augment the melancholy bias of his thoughts.

On either side of his path arose a thick and dark wood, without a single opening vista, or a green glade; every part seemed impenetrable to joy and gladness. The habitations of the miserable and oppressed serfs were closed; their inmates having early retired to rest, after the ill-requited toils of the day.

Occasionally, however, he fell in with labourers returning to their homes, who, as they recognised the son of their seigneur, saluted him with respect and a look of affection. In an instant, the cloud on his brow would be dissipated as he returned their greetings, and offered a kind word to each, either in inquiries after their families, or other good-natured remarks, by which the unsophisticated peasant’s heart is so easily gained.

On approaching the chateau, even such signs of life as had previously appeared ceased to exist, and all around wore, if possible, a still more gloomy and dreary aspect.

He unconsciously shortened his rein; that action sufficed to betray that he could not regard the Baron in the light of a father. So far from having an anxious desire to hasten to receive his welcome, his languid pace proved his reluctance to enter sooner than necessary into the presence of the fierce lord of that dark domain. His heart was a blank as he drew up at the principal entrance.

No group of bustling and pleased domestics stood ready to receive him on his return, after a long absence; no fond mother or affectionate sisters, to rush forward with outstretched arms, to welcome him in a loving embrace, or to surround him as they gazed with eager and delighted eyes, their repeated inquiries lost amid the confusion of anxious tongues. All within was as silent as without, a solitary household serf alone presenting himself at Ivan’s summons; while, after considerable delay, another of the same class appeared, to lead his horse to the stables; both, however, greeted him with welcome smiles.

His heart now beat with eagerness to hasten to the presence of the revered and much loved being so mysteriously connected with him, for well he knew how anxiously she was awaiting his arrival. At the same time, a feeling of dread came over him, of misfortune having befallen her; she might be on her death-bed, perhaps – horrible thought! – extended a cold and lifeless corpse! Lost to him for ever, and her important secret known to none but her God!

This idea became almost insupportable. He dared not make any inquiries respecting her of the domestic. To visit her, ere he had appeared to the Baron, who he was informed had desired his presence immediately on his arrival, would have been attended by results equally injurious to her as to himself.

Without delay, therefore, he was ushered into the apartment where the Baron was sitting, who neither rose as the young man advanced to pay his respects, or relaxed the cold stern cast of his features.

The Baron Galetzoff seemed a man long past the prime of life, on whom age had laid its wintry marks, but still retaining the air and firm port of a soldier. His stature was rather under than above the middle height, and his figure full and unwieldy. His features might have been handsome in his youth, though now they were disfigured by an habitual scowl on his forehead, and a deep cut reaching from the left eye to the lower part of the ear; his cold grey sunken eyes retreating, as if from observation, under the shade of his coarse overhanging brows. His grizzled moustache was long and untrimmed; and this, when excited by passion – no uncommon occurrence, unfortunately for his dependants – or labouring under uncertainty as to the success of his projects, he was wont to twist and pluck at.

“So, Sir,” he exclaimed, in a tone of severity, as Ivan approached the table, “you have loitered on your way, methinks; else why this delay in your arrival? Your duty and obedience would have been better proved by a more rapid journey. How did it thus happen, Sir?”

Ivan explained that the delay arose from a violent storm, which had obliged him to take shelter under the tent of a Gipsy; but he did not choose to hazard a relation of the rest of his adventures.

The Baron’s brow lowered as he resumed —

“And is this, Sir, the bent of your disposition to herd with outcasts, and the vilest of the earth? A race I detest and abhor; and strong enough are my reasons. Rather would I have bared my head to the fiercest storm the heavens ever sent forth, than to have been beholden to such wretches for a dry crust, or the covering of their miserable tents.”

“The people you speak of, Sir,” answered Ivan, “I found as kind and hospitable in their humble way, as any of a higher rank; and I received much attention from them.”