Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 53, No. 332, June, 1843

At the commencement of September, she became the mother of a boy. I wished her to write to the mother of Alexis to announce this event; but she refused. The Countess heard of it, however, and wrote to Louise, to say that she was expecting her with her child.

Her recovery was slow, the various emotions she had undergone during her pregnancy having weakened her health. She would have left St Petersburg long before she was strong enough to do so; but the permission to join Count W– was to come through me, and I refused to apply for it till her medical attendant gave her leave to travel.

One morning the door of my apartment opened and Louise entered, her face radiant with joy. "He will escape!" cried she.

"Who?"

"He—Alexis."

"How! Escape? It is impossible."

"Read that," she said and handed me a letter in the Count's hand-writing. It was as follows:—"Dearest Louise—Place all confidence in the bearer of this letter. He is more than my friend—he is my saviour.

"I fell ill upon the road, and was obliged to stop at Perm. The physicians declared I was not able to continue my journey, and it was decided I should pass the winter in the prison of that town. As good fortune would have it, the jailer's brother is an old servant of my family and willing to aid my escape. He and his brother fly with me; but I must have means of indemnifying them for what they give up on my account, and for the risk they run. Give the bearer all the money and jewels you possess. As soon as I am in safety I will write to you to come and join me. Adieu. W–."

"Well," said I after reading the letter twice over, "what have you done?"

"Can you ask the question?"

"What!" cried I. "You have given …?"

"Every ruble I had," interrupted she.

"And if this letter were not from the Count? If it were a forgery?"

She changed colour, and snatched the paper from my hand.

"Oh, no!" said she. "I know his hand-writing. I cannot be mistaken." But, on reading the letter again, I observed that she grew still paler.

"I do not think," I observed, "that Alexis would have addressed such a demand to you."

"And why not? Who loves him better than I do?"

"Understand me rightly. For an act of friendship or devotion he would have applied to you, but for money to his mother. I tell you again, either I do not know Count W–'s character, or this letter is not written by him."

"But what will become of me? I have given every thing I possessed."

"How did the Count usually sign his letters?"

"Alexis always."

"You see this one is signed W–. It is evidently a forgery and we must immediately inform the police."

"And if we are mistaken? If it is not a forgery, by doing so I shall prevent his escape. Oh, no! Better lose the money. I can manage without. All that I am anxious to know is, whether he is at Perm."

It occurred to me, that I might easily ascertain this latter point through a lieutenant of gendarmerie to whom I gave lessons; and begging Louise to wait my return, I hastened to his quarters. I told him I had particular reasons for wishing to know whether my friend W– had reached Tobolsk, and asked him if it were possible to ascertain. He immediately sent an orderly for the non-commissioned officer who had commanded the Count's division. Ten minutes afterwards, Corporal Ivan entered the room; and, although I was not then aware of the service he had rendered the Countess and her daughters, I was immediately prepossessed in his favour, by his frank open countenance and soldierly bearing.

"You commanded the sixth division of the prisoners lately sent to Siberia?" enquired I.

"I did so, your excellency."

"Count W– was in your division?"

The corporal hesitated, and did not seem much to like the question.

"Fear nothing," said I, "you are speaking to a friend, who would sacrifice his own life for him. Tell me the truth, I beseech you. Was Count W– ill on the road?"

"Not the least."

"Did he stop at Perm?"

"Not even to change horses. I left him at Koslowo, a pretty little village on the Irtich, twenty leagues from Tobolsk."

"You are sure of what you say?"

"Quite sure. I had a receipt from the authorities, which I delivered over to his excellency the grand-master of police."

I now hastened to Monsieur de Gorgoli, and related all that had passed. When I had finished—

"Is this young girl decided to go penniless, as she now is, to join her lover in Siberia?"

"Quite decided, your excellency; and I am persuaded nothing will alter her resolution."

"Then go, and tell her from me, that she shall have the permission."

I hurried back to Louise, and informed her of the result of my two interviews. She appeared indifferent to the loss of her little fortune, but overjoyed to learn that she would be allowed to join her lover. Her only anxiety now was to obtain the requisite permission as soon as possible.

Before leaving her, I placed at her disposal what money I had, which, unfortunately, was only two or three thousand rubles; for I had, a short time previously, remitted to France all that I had laid by during my residence at St Petersburg.

The same evening I was at Louise's house, when one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp was announced. He brought her a letter of audience for the following day. Monsieur de Gorgoli had kept his word.

Early the following morning I called upon Louise, to accompany her to the palace. I found her waiting for me, dressed in deep mourning, and without a single ornament; but her pale, melancholy style of beauty, was rather improved than impaired by the simplicity and sombre colour of her attire.

At the palace gate we separated, and I awaited her return in the carriage. On presenting her letter of audience, an officer on duty conducted her to the Emperor's private cabinet, and desiring her to wait there, left the room. She remained alone for about ten minutes, during which time, she afterwards told me, she was more than once near fainting away. At last a step was heard in the adjoining apartment; a door opened, and the Emperor appeared. On seeing him, she, by a spontaneous movement, fell upon her knees, and, unable to find words, clasped her hands together in mute supplication.

"Rise!" said the Emperor kindly, advancing towards her. "I have been already spoken to on the subject of your application. You wish for permission to join an exile?"

"Yes, sire, if such a favour may be granted."

"You are neither his sister nor his wife, I believe?"

"I am his—friend, sire," replied poor Louise, a tinge of pink over-spreading her pale cheek. "He must sadly need a friend."

"You know that he is banished for life to a country where there are scarcely four months of spring, and the rest of the year is one dreary winter?"

"I know it, sire."

"Do you know, also, that he has neither rank, fortune, nor title to share with you—that he is poorer than the poorest mendicant in St Petersburg?"

"Yes, sire."

"You have doubtless some fortune, some resources of your own?"

"Alas, sire, I have nothing! Yesterday I had thirty thousand rubles, produced by the sale of all I possessed, but even that little fortune was stolen from me."

"I know it. By a forged letter. It was more than a theft, it was a sacrilege; and, should its perpetrator be detected, he shall be punished as though he had broken open the poor-box in a church. But there are means of repairing your loss?"

"How, sire?"

"Inform his family of the circumstance. They are rich, and will assist you."

"I thank your Majesty; but I desire no assistance save that of God."

"But without funds how can you travel? Have you no friends who would help you?"

"Pardon me, sire, but I am too proud to borrow what I could never repay. By selling what little property I have left, I shall raise two or three hundred rubles."

"Scarcely sufficient for a quarter of the journey. Do you know the distance from here to Tobolsk, my poor girl?"

"Yes, sire—about eight hundred French leagues."

"And how will you get over the five or six hundred leagues you will still have to travel when your last ruble is spent?"

"There are towns on the road, sire. When I reach a town I will work till I have enough to continue my journey to the next."

"That may do as far as Perm," replied the Emperor; "but after that you have the Ural mountains, and you are at the end of Europe. After that nothing but a few scattered villages; no inns upon the road; large rivers without bridges or ferries, and which must be traversed by dangerous fords, whence men and horses are frequently swept away."

"Sire, when I reach the rivers they will be frozen; for I am told that in those regions the winter begins earlier than at St Petersburg."

"What!" cried the Emperor, astonished, "do you think of setting out now—of performing such a journey in winter?"

"It is during the winter that his solitude must be most intolerable."

"It is impossible. You must be mad to think of it."

"Impossible if your Majesty so wills it. No one can disobey your Majesty."

"I shall not prevent it; but surely your own reason, and the immense difficulties of such an undertaking, will."

"Sire! I will set out to-morrow."

"But if you perish on the road?"

"If I perish, sire, he will have lost nothing, for I am neither his mother, his daughter, nor sister, but only his mistress—that is, a woman to whom society gives no rights, and who must consider herself fortunate if the world looks upon her with no harsher feeling than indifference. But if I am able to join him, I shall be every thing to him—mother, sister, family, and friends. We shall be two to suffer instead of one, and that fearful exile will lose half its terrors. You see, sire, I must rejoin him, and that as soon as possible."

"You are right," said the Emperor, looking fixedly at her, "and I no longer oppose your departure."

He rang; an aide-de-camp appeared.

"Is Corporal Ivan in attendance?"

"He waits your Majesty's orders."

"Let him come in."

The aide-de-camp bowed, and disappeared. Two minutes afterwards the door reopened, and Corporal Ivan stepped into the room, then halted, upright and motionless, one hand on the seam of his overalls, the other to the front of his schako.

"Draw near," said the Emperor, in a stern voice.

The corporal made four paces to the front, and relapsed into his former position.

"Nearer!"

Four more paces, and Ivan was close to the Emperor's writing-table.

"You are Corporal Ivan?"

"Yes, sire."

"You commanded the escort of the sixth division?"

"Yes, sire."

"You had orders to allow the prisoners to communicate with no one?"

This time the corporal's tongue seemed embarrassed by something, and his affirmative was uttered in a less steady tone than the preceding ones.

"Count Alexis W– was one of the prisoners in your division, and in spite of your orders you allowed him to have two interviews with his mother and sisters. You knew the punishment you exposed yourself to by so doing?"

Ivan grew very pale, and was forced to support himself against the table.

"Pardon, sire!" gasped he.

Louise seemed about to speak, but a motion of the Emperor's hand warned her to remain quiet. After a moment's silence—

"You are pardoned," said the Emperor.

The soldier drew a deep breath. Louise uttered an exclamation of joy.

"Where did you leave Count W–?"

"At Koslowo, your Majesty."

"You will set off again, and escort this lady thither."

"Oh, sire!" exclaimed Louise, who began to understand the Emperor's feigned severity,

"You will obey her in all respects, consistently with her safety, for which you answer to me with your head; and if, on your return, you bring me a letter from her, saying that she is satisfied with your conduct, you shall be made sergeant."

"Thanks, father," said Ivan, forgetting for a moment his military stiffness, and falling upon his knees. The Emperor gave him his hand to kiss, as he was in the habit of doing to the lowest of his subjects. Louise was going to throw herself at his feet and kiss his other hand, but the Emperor stopped her.

"You are indeed a true and admirable woman," said he. "I have done all I can for you. May God bless and protect you!"

"Oh, sire!" exclaimed Louise, "how can I show my gratitude!"

"When you pray for your child," said the Emperor, "pray also for mine." And waving his hand kindly to her, he left the room.

When Louise returned home she found a small packet that had been sent from the Empress during her absence. It contained thirty thousand rubles.

It had been arranged that I should accompany Louise as far as Moscow, a city that I was desirous of visiting, and thence she would pursue her journey under Ivan's escort. The day after her interview with the Emperor, we started in a carriage that Ivan brought, and the combined strength and elegance of which surprised me, until I observed on a corner of the pannel the mark of the imperial stables. It was an excellent travelling berline, lined throughout with fur. Ivan was provided with an order, by virtue of which post-horses would be furnished us the whole of the journey, at the Emperor's expense. Louise got into the carriage with her child in her arms; I seated myself beside her, Ivan jumped on the box, and in a few minutes we were rattling along the Moscow road.

Louise was received with open arms by the Countess W– and her daughters. The nature of her connexion with Alexis was lost sight of and forgotten in the devotion and disinterestedness of her attachment. A room was prepared for her in the Countess's house; and, however anxious the Count's mother and sisters were that he should have society and consolation in his exile, they nevertheless entreated her to pass the winter at Moscow, rather than run the risk of so long a journey during the bad season that was approaching. But Louise was inflexible. Two days were all she would consent to remain. She was forced, however, to leave her child in charge of its grandmother, for it would have been madness to have done otherwise.

I had been offered an apartment in the Countess's house, but preferred taking up my quarters at an hotel, in order to have liberty to spend my time in visiting whatever was remarkable at Moscow. On the evening of the second day I went to call upon the Countess. The ladies were making another effort to persuade Louise to defer her perilous journey till a more favourable season. But no arguments, no entreaties, could move her: she was determined to set off the following morning. I was invited to breakfast, and to witness her departure.

I had been for some days turning over in my mind a project that I now resolved to put in execution. I got up early the next morning and bought a fur coat and cap, thick furred boots, a carbine, and a brace of pistols, all of which I gave to Ivan, and desired him to place them in the carriage. I then hastened to the Countess W–'s.

Breakfast over, the carriage drove up to the door. Louise was alternately clasped in the arms of the Countess and her daughters. My turn came, and she held out her hand. I made a motion to assist her into the carriage. "Well," said she, astonished, "don't you bid me farewell?"

"Why should I?"

"I am going to set off."

"So am I."

"You!"

"Certainly. You recollect the Persian fable—the pebble that was not the rose, but had caught some of its fragrance by living near it."

"Well?"

"Well, I have caught some of your devotedness, and I shall go with you to Tobolsk. I will deliver you safe and sound to the Count, and then come back again."

Louise looked me earnestly in the face. "I have no right," said she, "to prevent your doing a good action—come."

The Countess and her daughters were in tears. "My child! my child!" cried Louise, who had remained firm up to this moment, but burst into a passion of weeping as she clasped her infant for the last time in her arms.

"Adieu! Adieu!" The whip cracked; the wheels rattled over the pavement. We were off to Siberia. On we went, day and night. Pokrow, Vladimir, Nijni-Novogorod, Casan. "Pascare! Pascare!" Quicker! Quicker! was Ivan's cry to each new postilion. The snow had not yet begun to fall, and he was anxious, if possible, to cross the Ural mountains before it set in. The immense plains between Moscow and Perm were traversed with tremendous rapidity. On reaching the latter place, Louise was so much exhausted that I told Ivan we must halt one night. He hesitated a moment, then looking at the sky, which was dark and lowering, "It will be as well," said he; "we must soon have snow, and it is better it should fall before than during our journey." The next morning his prediction was verified. There were two feet of snow in the streets of Perm.

Ivan now wished to remain till the cold increased, so that the snow might become hard, and the rivers frozen. But all his arguments could only induce Louise to wait two days. On the third morning we set off, leaving our carriage, and packed into a sort of small vehicle without springs, called a télègue.

On reaching the foot of the Ural mountains, the cold had so much increased that it became advisable to substitute a sledge for our wheels. We stopped at a miserable village, composed of a score of hovels, in order to effect this exchange, and entered a wretched hut, which did duty both as posting-house and as the only inn in the place. Eight or nine men, carriers by trade, were crowded round a large fire, lighted in the centre of the room, and the smoke of which found a vent through a hole in the roof. They paid no attention to our entrance; but when I had taken off my cloak, my uniform at once obtained for us the best place at the hearth. The landlord of this wretched hostelry met my enquires about supper with a stare of astonishment, and offered me a huge loaf of hard black bread as the whole contents of his larder. Ivan, however, presently appeared, having managed to forage out a couple of fowls, which, in an inconceivably short space of time, were plucked, and one of them simmering in an iron pot over the fire, while the other hung suspended by a string in front of the blaze. Supper over, we wrapped ourselves in our furs, and lay down upon the floor, beds in such a place being of course out of the question.

Before daybreak, I awoke, and found Ivan and the carriers already afoot, and in consultation as to the practicability of continuing our journey. The question was at last decided in favour of the march; the waggoners hastened to harness their horses, and I went to inspect our carriage, which the village blacksmith had taken off its wheels and mounted upon a sledge. Ivan meantime was foraging for provisions, and shortly returned with a ham, some tolerable bread, and half a dozen bottles of a sort of reddish brandy, made, I believe, out of the bark of the birch-tree.

At length all was ready, and off we set, our sledge going first, followed by the carriers' waggons. Our new companions, according to a custom existing among them, had chosen one of their number as a chief, whose experience and judgment were to direct the movements of the party, and whose orders were to be obeyed in all things. Their choice had fallen on a man named George, whose age I should have guessed to be fifty, but who, I learned with astonishment, was upwards of seventy years old. He was a powerful and muscular man, with black piercing eyes, overhung by thick shaggy eyebrows, which, as well as his long beard, were of an iron grey. His dress consisted of a woollen shirt and trousers, a fur cap, and a sheepskin with the wool turned inside. To the leathern belt round his waist were suspended two or three horse-shoes, a metal fork and spoon, a long-bladed knife, a small hatchet, and a sort of wallet, in which he carried pipe, tobacco, flint, steel, nails, money, and a variety of other things useful or necessary in his mode of life. The garb and equipment of the other carriers were, with some small differences, the same.

The first day's journey passed without incident. Our march was slow and even dangerous, all trace of the road being obliterated, and we were obliged to feel our way, as it were, by sending men forward with long pikes to sound the depth of snow before us. At nightfall, however, we found ourselves in safety on a sort of platform surmounted by a few pine-trees. Here we established our bivouac. Branches were cut, and a sort of hut built; and, with the aid of enormous fires, the night passed in greater comfort than might have been expected on a mountain-side, and with snow many feet deep around us.

At daybreak we were again in movement. Our difficulties increased as we ascended the mountain: the snow lay in prodigious masses, and more than once we were delayed by having to rescue one or other of our advanced guard from some hole or ravine into which he had fallen. No serious accident, however, occurred, and we had at length the satisfaction of finding ourselves descending. We had passed the highest point of the road.

We had been going downhill for some three hours, the way zig-zaging among rocks and precipices, when suddenly we were startled by a loud cracking, followed by a noise that resembled a clap of thunder repeated by many echoes. At the same moment a sort of whirlwind swept by us, and the air was darkened by a cloud of snow-dust. "An avalanche!" cried George, stopping his waggon. Every body halted. In another instant the noise ceased, the air became clear, and the avalanche continued its downward course, breaking, as it passed, a couple of gigantic pines that grew upon a rock, some five hundred feet below us. The carriers gave a hurra of joy at their escape, nor was it without reason. Had we been only half a verst further on our road, our journey had been at an end.

The avalanche had not passed, however, without doing us some harm, for, on reaching the part of the road over which it had swept, we found it blocked up by a wall of snow thirty feet thick and of great height. There were several hours' work for all of us to clear it away; but unfortunately it was already nightfall, and we were obliged to make up our minds to remain where we were till morning.

No wood was to be had either for hut or fire. The want of the latter was most unfortunate; for independently of the cold rendering it very necessary, it was our chief protection against the wolves. Doing the best we could under such unfavourable circumstances, we drew up the carts in the form of a half circle, of which the two extremities rested against the wall of snow it our rear, and within the sort of fortification thus formed we placed the horses and our sledge. Our arrangements were scarcely completed when it became perfectly dark.

In the absence of fire Louise's supper and mine consisted of dry bread. The carriers, however, made a hearty meal on the flesh of a bear they had killed that morning, and which they seemed to consider as good raw as cooked.

I was regretting the want of any description of light in case of an attack from the wolves, when Louise suddenly recollected that Ivan had put the lanterns belonging to the travelling carriage into our télègue when we changed horses. On searching I found them under the seat, each furnished with a thick wax taper.

This was, indeed, a treasure. We could not hope to scare away the wolves by the light of our two candles; but it would enable us to see them coming, and to give them a proper reception. We tied the lanterns to the top of two poles fixed firmly in the snow, and saw with pleasure that they cast their clear pale light nearly fifty yards around our encampment.

We were ten men in all. Two stood sentry on the carts, while the remainder set to work to pierce through the obstacle left by the avalanche. The snow had already become slightly frozen, so that they were able to cut a passage through it. I joined the working party as being a warmer occupation than standing sentry. For three or four hours we toiled incessantly, and the birch-tree brandy, with which I had provided myself, and which we had carefully economized, was now found most useful in giving strength and courage to the labourers.

It was about eleven o'clock at night when a long howl was heard, which sounded so close and startling that with one accord we suspended our work. At the same moment old George, who was on sentry, called to us. We ran to the waggons and jumped upon them. A dozen enormous wolves were prowling about the outside edge of the bright circle thrown by our lanterns. Fear of the light kept them off; but each moment they were growing bolder, and it was easy to see that they would not be long without attacking us.