Chapter XV: The Imperial Prisoner

Fortunately for Balgonie, there was a chaplain, or priest, of the Russian Greek Church, attached to the fortress; and his society, at times, tended to alleviate what he endured from having to associate with such a human bear as Colonel Bernikoff,--an annoyance from which he would only be relieved by the longed-for return of General Weymarn and the Regiment of Smolensko to St. Petersburg.

The ceremonies of religion retain in Russia all their pristine influence, and afford the miserable and unlettered serf a short season of relaxation from labour and severity during festivals, when he may enjoy his can of fiery vodka and revel in intoxication. Unlike many of the Russian clergy, who adopt the cowl merely as the means of evading slavery in civil life, or slavery added to peril in the army, and also as a chance of attaining to power and nobility, Father Chrysostom, the Chaplain of Schlusselburg, was a humane, gentle, and learned old priest, whom the Commandant had been depraved enough to strike with his clenched hand on more than one occasion; but prior to doing so, he had always contrived, oddly and superstitiously enough, to have the chief badge of the father's sacred office, his baretta abstracted and hidden.

Through the good offices of the Chaplain, with the permission of the Governor, which was yielded very unwillingly, Balgonie (whose curiosity and commiseration were greatly excited) was presented one evening to the deposed Emperor Ivan, and the particulars and incidents of that interview made a deep and sad impression upon him.

The entrance-door of the central tower was small, arched, and of great strength. Above it were carved the Russian arms, first adopted by Ivan Basilovitch in the sixteenth century: a spread-eagle, having on its breast an escutcheon bearing St. Michael and a dragon, with three crowns in chief for Muscovy and the two Tartar kingdoms of Kazan and Astracan.

On passing through a little paved court, grated over with iron, where the royal recluse was permitted to breathe the external air, while a sentinel trod to and fro above his head; another door-way, secured by a portcullis grooved into the wall, gave access to the narrow stair which led to his apartments. These were two in number: their windows and doors were all grated with iron; and sentinels, with loaded arms, watched every avenue by day and night.

His sitting-room was plainly, even neatly furnished: its chief ornaments being a pretty Madonna and some gaudy pictures of Muscovite saints; and it had one window, which opened towards the vast expanse of the Lake of Ladoga.

Pale, handsome, and resigned, gentle in eye and manner, the poor young Prince had grown to manhood in total ignorance of the outer world and of all he had lost. He knew only the four walls of the prison, the changing hues of the waves and clouds, the wild swans and the waters of Ladoga.

As related in our fifth chapter, the Prisoner of Schlusselburg was the eldest son of the Princess of of Mecklenburg, Elizabeth-Catharine, niece of the Empress Anne. His father was Anthony Ulric, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, whose whole family was banished Russia by the usurping Empress Elizabeth.

The infant Ivan had been dethroned, after being a king for exactly one year.

During the reign of the Empress Catharine, he was detained in Schlusselburg "under the denomination of a _Person Unknown_, and it was given out that his senses were impaired, though it is pretty well understood that this is without foundation." "His fate has been particularly lamentable," continues a newspaper of the period; "torn from the bosom of his family, he has now passed twenty-three years in close captivity. The late Empress Elizabeth, towards the latter end of her life, seemed disposed to treat this noble captive with clemency and favour, either from sentiments of justice and compassion, or to render two great personages more circumspect and submissive."

These personages were her successors, the unfortunate Peter III. and Catharine II.

Ivan's mother is said to have died of grief; but Duke Anthony Ulric and his four other children were all confined for life in a house at Horsens, a town of Jutland, at the extremity of the Baltic, where they had a precinct of a mile English; but it was surrounded by high palisades, beyond which they dared not venture under pain of death; and there the Duke, old and blind, passed the last years of his melancholy life.

His youngest daughter, Elizabeth, "was a woman of high spirit and elegant manners," according to Coxe, the traveller, who visited her; "she possessed portraits of her father and mother, and even contrived to procure a rouble of her brother Ivan, struck during his short reign. It is difficult to conjecture how she could obtain a coin, the possession of which was more than once punished by the Empress Elizabeth as high-treason, and it is still more difficult to imagine how she could secret it from the knowledge of her guards during her long imprisonment."

Confinement had rendered Ivan's features unnaturally pale and delicate; and, by years of systematic constraint and oppression, his fine, clear, and very beautiful dark eyes had a soft, subdued, and chastened expression, that was singularly touching and winning.

The tone of his voice was also gentle and alluring.

"Hospodeen," said he, presenting his hand to Balgonie, "I rejoice to meet you, if one who leads a life so strange as mine can be said to rejoice; but you are one to whom I may talk a little without danger--eh, Father Chrysostom? And he has told me, Hospodeen, that you are not a Russian, but a native of some island that is far away in the sea. What are you? A Tartar--a Tcherkesse? Oh no, you cannot be either. I know them; for they guard me," he added, with a little shudder.

"I am your friend, believe me, Ivan Antonovitch," replied Balgonie, who was touched by the childlike simplicity of the poor recluse, who was plainly attired in a caftan of fine green cloth, edged with a narrow trimming of yellow fur; the square crowned cap, which he only wore when in the grated court, was of the same materials. A small gold cross was at his neck, a rosary of amber hung at his right wrist, and a little pipe, the only luxury allowed him, was dangling from one of his breast buttons.

When in his presence, Balgonie always thought with horror of the cruel tenor of the dispatch he had brought, and trembled for the result of his friends' conspiracy.

To teach Ivan anything, even to read or to write, was treason; yet he had gleaned a little of his own history, and that of his family, from the casual remarks of his guards and from the Chaplain, during the long, long years of his captivity, the reason for which he failed to understand, but the system of which had become as a second nature to him; and the little he learned, made a deep, rather than a bitter impression upon him.

The whole energies of each successive Chaplain had been given to preparing him for another and a brighter state of existence, and to turning his hope's and wishes towards it, rather than to this world, of which he was well-nigh weary if not utterly ignorant; and so much was he impressed by the uncertainty of human life in general, and of his own in particular, that daily, for years, he had seen the sun rise from the waters of Ladoga in doubt whether he would see it set; and nightly had he laid down his head without the assurance of being a live man in the morning.

Life had no charm--death no terror for Ivan.

In his visits, which were frequent, as the young Prince had conceived a great regard for him, Charlie Balgonie knew not upon what topics to converse; for he experienced great difficulty in fashioning his sentences and observations to suit a listener whose knowledge of the external world and of all the machinery of life was so limited. In those visits, Balgonie was always accompanied by the Chaplain, or Captain Vlasfief, as the watchful and suspicious Bernikoff would by no means permit them to have an interview alone.

"I am so glad to have you for a friend, Ivanovitch Balgonie," the Prince would say sometimes; "though Father Chrysostom assures me that kings may have peers and soldiers, serfs and slaves, but, alas! they can never have a friend! I have heard my guards say that I was once a King--an Emperor; but I cannot remember when. It must have been long, long ago, as Russia has had four monarchs since. I have not even a dream of it--an Emperor? Yet I shall too probably die even as Demetrius did. I cannot remember even my mother; for they tell me that she died of sorrow, when I was brought here from a place called Moscow. Do you, Hospodeen, remember yours?"

"When I was but a child she died, to my sorrow. Had she lived, I might not have been here in Russia to-day," replied Balgonie.

"Well--but you may remember," persisted the young Prince.

"True, your Highness; memories I have of a soft fair face that bent over my little bed at night; of one who kissed and hushed me to sleep; but those memories are faint or vivid, broken and uncertain, according to my mood of mind; and strange it is that they come to me more in dreams by night than thoughts by day, especially as I grow older."

"I should like to have some such dreams, but then I have nothing to remember; I know not even my own age or when I came here," said Ivan thoughtfully. "If I do dream, by night, I seem to hear only what I hear by day--the voices of the Cossack sentinels, the screams of the sea-birds, the dashing of the waves when the wind crosses the lake, or the clanging of the castle bell. Then there are times when I dream that I see Demetrius, and then I awake in a cold perspiration. Tell me of the things that are being acted in the great world that lies beyond the Lake of Ladoga, for Father Chrysostom speaks to me only of Heaven."

"It is said that the King of Prussia has agreed to the proposal of--of--the Empress, about the county of Wirtemberg, in Silesia."

"How, agreed?"

"Count Biron is to have the estate as Duke of Courland, on paying eight thousand guineas to Field-Marshal Count Munich," said Balgonie.

The Prince sighed with a bewildered air, for all those names were quite new to him.

"And who is Count Biron?" he asked.

"A friend of the Empress," said Father Chrysostom rather hastily, to anticipate the reply of Balgonie.

"Tell me something more. Nay, Father Chrysostom, don't chide us, pray," said he, seeing that the white bearded chaplain looked uneasy and rose to retire.

"Conversation of this kind is strictly forbidden," said he; "and if Captain Vlasfief was here----"

"Oh!" exclaimed the Prince, with a shudder, but not of anger (he seemed too gentle for that emotion), "don't talk of Vlasfief I implore you. Pray tell me more news, Hospodeen; I shall learn all the names in time, and try to remember them."

"There are strange tidings from Warsaw," replied Balgonie, who began to get bewildered and knew not on what to converse, if the most simple topics of the day were forbidden; "a battle has been fought at Slonim, between Prince Radzivil and the Russians, who defeated him after a five hours' engagement, and the Princess Radzivil, who is newly married and remarkably beautiful, fought on horseback among the Polish troops."

"Ah, Demetrius fought on horseback too," said the Prince, as if speaking to himself, and a gesture of undisguised impatience escaped the chaplain; "pray tell me something more, for no one ever speaks of such things to me."

"A new theatre has been opened at St. Petersburg," replied Balgonie (who thought to himself, "the devil is in it, if I cannot speak of _that_!"), "and there was represented an opera, entitled _Charles the Great_."

"Ah, I don't quite understand all that; say it again."

Indeed, Balgonie might as well have spoken of carbonic gas or the Atlantic cable, had he ever heard of such things; for the mind of the young Prince could not comprehend the most simple matters of every day-life. This was merely the result of his entire seclusion; but the adherents of the Empress, her favourites and lovers, industriously circulated through Russia the report that he was in a state of idiotcy.

"And this place that you spoke of?" he resumed enquiringly.

"The theatre?"

"Yes, Hospodeen; who lives in it?"

"One of the actresses performed a magnificent cantata, in honour of the Empress."

"Ah! 'tis she, I understand, who keeps me here," said the Prince, with a sad smile; and now in real terror, and quite repenting the introduction he had brought about, Father Chrysostom rose to hurry Balgonie away.

As they were retiring, the Prince said:--

"Hospodeen, you have dropped something."

It was the locket with Natalie's hair.

"What is in this?" asked Ivan, with childlike interest.

"A lock of hair, your Highness."

"How odd! and you wear it, just as I wear my cross?"

"It is the gift, the souvenir of a lady I love, and who loves me: a countrywoman of your own."

"A woman?" said Ivan, ponderingly.

"Yes, Excellency."

"I have never looked upon a woman's face, and know not what it is like, though the Empress (whom God long preserve!) visited me when a child, as I have been told. I have heard that they are not bearded like men. I shall never see one, it is forbidden; yet--yet--as I often tell Father Chrysostom, I have dreams by day--dreams of something else than wild swans and bearded Cossacks--of something to cling to, some one to love and be loved by. It must be this kind of love you speak of--oh yes, it must!" said Ivan, as he gazed with stupid, but reverent wonder at the lock of hair, ere he returned it to Balgonie.

"Poor young Prince!" exclaimed the latter, as the chaplain hurried him away, and the portcullis clanged behind them in its grooves of stone.

The priest now urged upon Balgonie, that if his visits were to be continued, the affairs of the outer world must in no way be referred to, or the result might be most disastrous for all concerned.

"The seclusion in which the prisoner is kept, has, I fear, impaired his understanding," said Balgonie.

"Hah! do you think so?" grunted Colonel Bernikoff, who overheard the remark, as they issued from the tower of Ivan. "You must know, that your genuine Russian is like a tiger, as some writer has it--a tiger who licks the hand of his keeper, so long as he is chained; but who tears him asunder when loose. The Empress quite understands this!"

"How is it that you intrust me so freely to visit your prisoner?" asked Charlie, who began to fear that Bernikoff might be laying some snare for him, by according this hitherto unwonted permission.

"Do you really wish to know?"

"Yes, Colonel--why I in particular--I only?"

"Because you are the safest man in Russia to have this liberty."

"How?"

"As a soldier of fortune,--a stranger among us,--you can have no sympathy with anything but the strict and steady execution of your duty; and the line of that," added Bernikoff, darting a keen glance at the Scot, "as with us all, lies in fidelity to the Empress."

"True," replied Balgonie, with something of sadness in his tone, and very little of enthusiasm.

"Thus, were I to order you to blow Ivan Antonovitch from the mouth of a cannon, I should expect you to obey!"

"I trust that no such test of my obedience will ever be necessary," replied Balgonie, with a hauteur which Bernikoff was somewhat unused to see among his subordinates.

"We shall have some other and more troublesome prisoners in Schlusselburg ere long," said the Governor, with knitted brows.

"Whom do you mean?"

"Old Count Mierowitz and his family. Warrants have been issued by the Chancellor to arrest them all."

"All!" said Balgonie, in a faint voice.

"Yes, women as well as men: an escort of the Regiment of Smolensko arrived at St. Petersburg yesterday with the Count and the Hospoza Mariolizza. His daughter, who seems to be deeply involved in some plot, has for the time effected her escape. But they will soon be all before the Secret Chancery, and then the knout and the wheel will be at work with a vengeance!"

The reader may judge how these and similar remarks affected poor Charlie, while the Governor, as if pleased that he could thus inflict pain, walked away with a malicious smile on his sombre visage, cramming tobacco into the bowl of his pipe.

There were times, however, when the captive Prince, after his acquaintance with Balgonie, was a little less resigned, and had strange longings to see something of the great world that lay beyond his prison walls, and the waves that lashed them; to see other faces than those of the fierce and bearded Tchernemoski and Volga Cossacks who guarded him; a longing even to do something great and daring, to be remembered in after years with love and reverence; to be remembered, as he said, "in tradition, like Demetrius." Then, feeling all the utter hopelessness of such new aspirations, he would strive to be contented, to repeat with fresh energy the daily prayers set for him by Father Chrysostom, and to be grateful for life, lest he should die even as Demetrius died.

"Who is this Demetrius, of whom he constantly speaks, and whose fate he fears so much may be his own?" asked Balgonie one day.

"It is an old, but a strange and terrible story," replied the chaplain. "When Ivan Basilovitch died about the end of the sixteenth century, his widow was banished to Northern Russia by the new Czar Feodor, whose Prime Minister urged that he could never reign in peace or security unless he imitated the Turks by sacrificing all who were nearly allied to the throne; so he exiled his mother, as I have said, and ordered an officer to assassinate his younger brother Demetrius.

"The officer, being a humane man, was filled with horror on receiving an order so barbarous; but fearing alike to disobey, or to leave the terrible task to be fulfilled by one less scrupulous, he took the child with him to a remote district, travelling many days' journey from Moscow. Then he wrote some words indelibly on the skin of the little Prince, tied a cross of brilliants about his neck, laid him at the door of a peasant's hut, and galloped away.

"To the tyrant Feodor he gave a circumstantial detail of how and where he had killed the infant Prince, and sought the promised reward.

"'Receive it _thus_!' replied Feodor, who plunged a sword into his heart, the further to suppress all proof of guilt.

"The young tyrant died of a poison administered by his Chancellor, and others inherited his crown; but all to perish miserably in succession. And no less than four pretenders all appeared, each calling himself Demetrius, to contest for the throne; and all the land was deluged with blood.

"Some twenty years after the alleged death of the brother of Ivan, a young Cossack of the Volga was bathing in that river with some of his companions, who saw with surprise that he had chained round his neck a cross of brilliants, and that certain words in the old Muscovite character were pricked upon his back. They were examined by a neighbouring priest and found to be---

'_This is Demetrius, son of the Czar._'

"Then all exclaimed that the true Demetrius had been found at last, and that a miracle from Heaven had saved him. His life was soon in peril, so he fled to Holstein, the Duke of which, after keeping him long in prison, sold him to the Emperor Michael, by whom he was savagely quartered alive. And it is the fate of this hapless heir of Russia, whose story he thinks in some points resembles his own (although he really knows but little of his own annals), that haunts the unfortunate Ivan in his gloomiest hours."