Moscow: A Story of the French Invasion of 1812

"Markof, my friend, go to the village and find the Count Maximof," said Vera. "I will come very soon. See that I am shown the right house without delay when I arrive."

Vera took the flask which lay at Paul's feet; she administered a drop or two of its contents to the swooning man. He opened his eyes and smiled.

"This is the irony of fate, Mademoiselle Vera—two splendid lovers, and both to lie dying. I am glad to see you again. Mon Dieu, how I loved you in Paris! I have never yet loved faithfully, but in you I thought I had at length found my destiny."

"Monsieur, can I ease your pain, is there anything I can do for you?" said Vera.

"Ma mie, I am past praying for; tell me, were you near loving me in Paris? Sapristi, but for this war I believe we should have come together. You are lucky, Mademoiselle, to have escaped me. I am not one of the constant ones. Perhaps Maximof is different, he is slow and stolid and perhaps faithful, not like us Frenchmen—we are like the bubbles in champagne—we come and go—I pray that Maximof may live." Paul's head drooped again and his eyes closed. Vera thought he was dead. She bent and kissed his forehead, preparing to depart. De Tourelle opened his eyes again.

"Was that a kiss?" he murmured. "Ah, I was right—you might have loved me, but for my ill-fortune when you overheard me ask for Clotilde—ha ha! do you remember? That was accursed bad luck, indeed! To go to the house of the beautiful, the chaste Vera Demidof, not knowing it was hers, and to ask for Clotilde!"

Paul spoke very faintly; his words came slowly and more slowly.

"Was it a kiss, or did I dream?" he murmured. "Mademoiselle, I—I did my best to protect Maximof as he lay here—it was for your sake—will you reward me with a kiss? I shall not live to tell of you."

Vera bent and put her lips to his forehead. Paul smiled.

"It is paradise," he murmured. "I die content."

They were his last words. Vera waited a moment or two, then she knelt and prayed, made over the dead man the sign of the cross and departed.

In the village she found a peasant awaiting her. "This is the way, lady," he said, in the obsequious manner of the moujik who expects largess. "It was I that found and brought in the gentleman. Lord, he is handsome—and heavy also!"

Vera gave the man money. "Is he alive—is he alive?" she said—"speak quickly!"

"Alive? Lord, yes!" said the moujik, "doing well. We have found a doctor for him and we have not ceased to pray—assuredly he will live, Barishnya!"

The moujik returned to the battlefield, where he spent the night reaping a glorious harvest, with other vultures of his kidney, from the unfortunate dead and dying.

Vera entered the hut.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Marie Havet, née Dupré, was much surprised and somewhat concerned on the evening of the day upon which Louise had found, to her almost uncontrollable joy and relief, that Henri was still alive and in Paris when her sister, looking very grave and with signs of tears and past agitation upon her face, drew her aside for a conversation, which, said Louise, must be held absolutely in private. Marie's conscience instantly smote her. She was going to be scolded for saying nothing about the Baron's visit.

"Marie," Louise began, "you may have observed that I returned from the war depressed, not joyous and elated as one returning home after many perils and who has received certain honours and rewards might be expected to be. Did it never occur to you and to my father that this was so?"

"It occurred to both of us, sister, that you were naturally depressed, that your career of success and glory should be already over and that you must return to the ordinary dull routine of home and of the sex to which you belong."

"You were mistaken in the reason, sister. I am tired to death of my uniform, and of masquerading as a man. I shall thank God to be a woman once more as the Seigneur created me. But that is another matter. My depression was due to reasons very different. You may remember to have seen here a certain Baron Henri d'Estreville."

Marie flushed and sat down. Her scolding was coming, then; Louise had somehow heard of the Baron's visit. This was a matter Louise would not easily forgive.

"Yes, I remember him. He came with Monsieur de Tourelle, the finest fencer in Paris, who nevertheless was unable to have the better of our little Louise."

"Bah!—let that pass. With this D'Estreville I fell in love, Marie—why, there is no reason to look surprised. We are women both, you and I; you were not ashamed to love and to marry, why should not I have loved?"

"It is true—it is true," Marie murmured.

"More strange is the fact that the Baron should have returned my love; the darling of Paris, he had been called, Marie; every woman adored him; yet he condescended to feel for me a different sentiment, a pure and deep affection such as no other woman had hitherto inspired in him; imagine it, Marie!"

"Dear Louise, it does not surprise me," said Marie, touched.

"Me, it surprises—delights—transforms. By this circumstance I have been made to see clearly how poor a thing it is that a woman should desire to masquerade as a man; so clearly that now—even though my love-dream is over—I must return to my own sex. I shall never see Henri again, Marie; he lies buried beneath the snows of Russia; I am widowed before I am a wife."

"Louise, what are you saying? Do you imply that D'Estreville is dead, that he died in the war? that–"

"Alas, there is little doubt. Why look you so, Marie? You have not heard otherwise—alas! that is impossible—can you wonder that I returned dejected from the war?"

"Poor Louise!" said Marie, and stopped to think very earnestly. Here was a very difficult question set for her decision. Louise knew nothing, after all, of Henri's visit; was not even aware that he was alive. Would it be better to leave her in ignorance, for her career's sake, or for her heart's sake tell her the good news? There was no doubt as to which alternative old Dupré would choose were he to be asked for his opinion. Marie was proud of her sister's career as a soldier and honestly sorry that it should end, thus, at its beginning. The Emperor would see to it that a new war should follow quickly upon the disastrous campaign just ended; Louise would have plenty of opportunity to rise.

But Louise seemed to have wearied of "masquerading"; she desired to be a woman once more; she had become transformed by love. Would this phase pass and ambition for a soldier's glory dawn again at the first bugle call?

"You will forget your sorrow, maybe," she ventured, "when the trumpet sounds for a new war, which will be soon enough; you will desire to return where glory awaits you."

"Not so, sister; I have done with glory; it is love that I want. I will tell you a secret; when I became substitute for Karl it was indeed in part for your sake, that you might be spared the pain of separation; but there was another motive besides, for I desired to go where Henri went—ah! I deceived you, Marie; forgive me; it is a devilish thing when sisters deceive one another!"

Marie felt very uncomfortable.

"Sometimes it is not possible—for the sake of others to tell the whole truth," she stammered. "We both have my father to consider, Louise. You could not well have confessed to him this other motive."

"No, you are wrong; it is cowardly to deceive thus; it would have been better if I had braved my father from the first, as you did, sister; you were braver than I and more honest; you made no pretence in the matter of your love for Karl; I think it is not in your nature to deceive. If Henri had lived I should have married him, Marie, and you should have assisted me to persuade my father to forgive me." Louise looked keenly at her sister; Marie felt her eyes penetrate to her very soul.

"Louise, you kill me with these words, say not another one, it is needless. I am on your side, sister. It is true that we withheld the truth from you—oh yes, I perceive that you know all; like my father, I was proud of your success and thought only of your career, also—before Heaven I thought and hoped you had forgotten Henri; if it is not so and you still love him–"

"Yes, I still love him, Marie—what would you have, does one forget love so quickly? I would exchange all the military glory in the world for one kiss from his lips. My father is mad and you were mad, sister; do you think Henri could be alive and in Paris and I not know? You shall help me to prepare my father's mind, Marie, for whether he approves or disapproves, I must go my own way in this matter!"

"But I deceived you, Louise—am I forgiven?" cried Marie, ashamed and distressed to realise how poor a part she had played in this comedy.

Louise took her sister in her arms and kissed her—the first embrace these two had exchanged for many a year. "There," she laughed; "you see how true it is that I am a woman again; as for forgiving—bah!—there is a great deal of my father's madness in you, sister; in your heart of hearts you are as anxious as he for my career and as disappointed as he will be that I have so fallen away from your high ideals as to have fallen in love. Be comforted, Marie—you deceived me with the best motives, no harm has come of it, and you have confessed in time to save your soul and preserve my respect—eh bien! all is well!"

Nevertheless Marie approached her father with considerable trepidation when the moment came to speak of this matter of Louise; for Marie had stipulated that, as punishment for her offence, the task should be left to her.

"Father," she said, "we have been mistaken, you and I. We had hoped and we believed that my sister Louise ceased to exist from the day of conscription, but alas! I have discovered that Louise lives, it is Michel Prevost who has ceased to exist."

"What mean you?" said the old man, frowning.

"It is this Baron d'Estreville, she has seen him, my father; it has been as you feared. She has spoken to me of him. She loves him."

"Sapristi! it is impossible! That any one should love a man more than honour and glory and a career—cent mille diables!—it is impossible!"

"It is true—she is a woman, what would you have? it is better to recognise the fact, father; it is not her fault. I too found that I was a woman, and you forgave me."

"That was different. You were always a fool, Marie; but here was one after my own heart, a woman, by misfortune of birth, but able to put the best of men to shame. And a fine career well begun! We will argue with her, Marie, she shall be wise. Stay—yes, that is better—I will pick a quarrel with this fool, and call him out. Sapristi! my old arm is still strong enough to slice the rogue; let him but show his face here once again—he shall be taught that–"

"It is useless, my father; Louise will have her own way; she is man enough for that! What matters is that we have deceived the Baron and that she will know it."

"Mon Dieu, let her know it—what then? Am I ashamed that I would defend her from that which strikes at her true advantage? God forbid. Let him know also or not know, what care I?"

"They have met and it is certain that she knows we have hidden the truth from him."

"Good! let him know it also. If he is an honourable man he will not sit still under so vile a deception. Sapristi, I have lied to him; let him call me out!" Old Dupré laughed aloud, delighted with his own astuteness. His eyes were aflame with the light of battle. "Thanks be to Heaven!" he said, "I shall fight one more duel before I die!"

From this bellicose attitude Marie found herself quite unable to move her father. On the contrary, he seemed so delighted with the situation in which he now found himself that he would speak to her of little else than this, and Marie found that she had, after all, rendered her sister no more signal a service than to place within the category of possible things that which assuredly neither of them would until this day have contemplated as in any degree likely, a duel between old Dupré and the lover of his daughter. Moreover, to the astonishment of his assistants, old Pierre forthwith arrayed himself for the arena and practised his fencing with each in turn until his limbs were so stiff with the unwonted exercise that he could hold his foil no longer.

"Mais, Monsieur!" exclaimed Havet, perspiring with the exertion to which the old man's unexpected activity had condemned him, "you are as skilful and as nimble as a youth of thirty."

"Aha! you find me so? Sapristi, that is well, mon ami. After a few days you will find me invincible, and that is well also, for, entre nous, there is hope that I shall be called out. Imaginez, mon enfant! another fight before I die! Truly, Heaven is kind to me!"

Old Pierre did not think Heaven quite so kind on the morrow, however, when he discovered that his limbs were so stiff that he was unable to get out of his bed. But this circumstance did not in the least affect his spirit or quench the enthusiasm with which he looked forward to the fight which he had now persuaded himself to regard as inevitable.

CHAPTER XXIX

Michel Prevost met D'Estreville by appointment at a café. "There is no one I can talk to about certain matters so readily as yourself," the Baron had said, and Michel replied, laughing, "Oh, if you are going to sigh and mourn over this little Dupré I think I will leave you to lament alone!"

Nevertheless D'Estreville begged him to come, and he went.

The attitude of old Dupré had put Louise into a doubly awkward position. "What shall I do, Marie—help me!" Louise had entreated her sister. "Henri must be told that I am alive, that is certain; yet when he learns that my father deceived him he will be so angry with my father that I do not know what may happen."

"Bah!" said Marie, "he will be so happy to learn that you are alive, that he will forget everything else. Moreover, he is not so foolish that he would take my father seriously."

"But father takes himself so seriously; he is determined to quarrel. Moreover, when Henri learns that I am alive he must also learn that I have masqueraded as a man, among men, and that is what I dare not tell him. It is an impasse."

"As you have put it, it is an impasse. But why dare you not tell him?"

"I am ashamed. There was a tale told in Moscow of a young Russian woman who had taken part in every battle in the campaign, her name was Nadejda Doorova. The soldiers in my regiment said horrible things about her. It is not likely that Henri would think well of my performance. It is not every one who is like my father and yourself, who have his blood in your veins."

"Bah! he will, as I say, be so thankful to find you alive that he will forget all this. Shall I go to him, sister, and tell him your story?"

"Heaven forbid, do nothing; no one shall tell him my tale but I myself."

"Tell him of this Russian girl and see what he says to the story," Marie suggested.

"But what if he disapproved of it and said something so cruel about her that I dare not tell him afterwards of my own escapade? I wish now I had not done it, Marie, indeed I do, except that your Karl was left to you instead of being carried off to the war."

"If he loves you he will forgive ten times more," said Marie. "Go to him boldly, sister, go as Michel Prevost; say, 'Here, mourn no more for me, my friend, I am Louise and my old father is not to blame for the deception, for obviously no person can be two persons at the same time, and while I was Michel there could be no Louise. Now Michel has finished and Louise steps once more into being.'"

Louise laughed. "It sounds very foolish," she said, "but something of the kind must be done."

But when Michel Prevost found Henri d'Estreville at the rendezvous appointed she had evolved no clear plan for his enlightenment.

Henri began to speak of his trouble almost immediately. The more he thought about the matter, he said, the more amazed he was that a little love affair should have so transformed him that he could think of nothing else. "It is unlike me, therefore the experience is obviously a peculiar one: ergo, I conclude that I was for once seriously in love; which being so, what an atrocious trick fortune has played me. It is the last time, my friend, that I shall look at a woman!"

Michel contrived to direct the subject of conversation to the career of Nadejda Doorova, the Russian girl who had fought throughout the war as a Cossack soldier. Henri had not heard of her and displayed but little interest in her adventures.

"Bah!" he said, "she is an eccentric. It is the kind of thing old Pierre Dupré would have liked his daughters to do; old Pierre is mad. A woman must be wanting in modesty to unsex herself thus."

"Oh!" exclaimed Michel involuntarily; his heart sank. "Let us be just to her," he murmured; "who knows, she may have had some good reason of which we know nothing, this Nadejda; her lover, maybe, went to the war and she could not bear to be parted."

"That would perhaps excuse her to a certain extent," said Henri wearily. He was not in the least interested in the conversation.

In despair, Louise tried another tack. She had determined to come to an understanding this day, nothing could be done without risk.

"D'Estreville—will you promise not to be angry if I make a communication to you—it is about Louise Dupré?"

Henri was all attention in a moment.

"About Louise?" he repeated. "What can you have to say about her—and why should I be angry? I wish you to talk of her."

"It may be different this time. I shall hope that you will not be angry. You may have observed, my friend, that when you told me your story a few days since I was greatly astounded to hear of her death, Louise Dupré's death."

"Naturally, I hope you were shocked, if only for the sake of your friend, who loved her."

"Monsieur, prepare yourself for a surprise greater than my own. You have been deceived."

"Deceived?" Henri started from his chair. "How deceived, by whom?"

"Be calm, dear friend, and sit down. It is about Louise. I have come this day to tell you the truth; Louise did not die as you were told." Henri sat down suddenly; his face paled, then flushed.

"Stop—she did not die—is she then still alive? for God's sake speak plainly, Michel."

"She is not dead."

"Then to what end was I deceived? For whose sake was I to be kept in ignorance? Is it for yours, Michel? I remember that you said there was no woman worth breaking one's heart over, if she should prove false or die. What have you done, Michel—what have you done?"

"You rave, D'Estreville," said Louise, growing a little frightened.

"No, I am sane; I know what I say; did you not tell me you believed that I was dead? Believing this you delivered my message to Louise and that was the beginning. Since then the false wench has learned to prefer Michel living to Henri dead—is it not so? Come, confess, Michel."

"You are very swift to find fault with the woman you profess to love, Monsieur le Baron," said Louise, somewhat alarmed at the turn the conversation had taken, yet indignant withal.

"Ah, you prevaricate! I have guessed rightly. So this is your friendship for me, Monsieur Michel Prevost—a worthy friend in truth and indeed!"

"Monsieur le Baron jumps to conclusions," said Louise. "Moreover, seeing that the message was to be delivered to the lady in case of your death, and seeing that you were believed to be dead, should I be to blame even though it were so as you have said?"

"Ha! you assured yourself very quickly of my decease; and she, too, by all the Saints she has wasted no time!"

"Monsieur le Baron is so angry that he will not listen to reason. It is easy for him to see this lady."

"Not I!" cried Henri; "I will see her no more."

"But what if you suspect her unjustly?"

"Then why was I deceived and told that she was dead? She was 'dead to me,' that is the explanation. She is not dead to others—to you, for instance, her new lover—oh Lord, Michel, a pretty messenger thou hast been!"

"A worse than the Baron supposes," Michel laughed nervously, "for his message was never delivered."

"What! though you believed me dead? Then indeed, my friend, you have been little better than a traitor."

"It seems you are determined to quarrel with me, say what I will; if I delivered the message it was in order to found a courtship of my own upon it; if I did not I am a traitor. Nevertheless I will not quarrel, my friend. It was not I that deceived you, remember, but I that undeceived you. Was it not Monsieur Dupré who declared that his daughter was dead? Then why am I to be quarrelled with?"

"Because, my friend, I believe you to have been a party to the deception, for a certain end of your own which I have indicated."

"Then your wrath is expended upon wind, for I swear to you that though, I confess, this lady is more to me than any woman in the world–"

"Aha! listen to him!" Henri raved.

"And though I am well aware that she is not wholly indifferent to my virtues–"

"By Heaven, Michel, you are a bold man!" cried Henri, fingering his sword hilt; "finish your sentence; I will judge whether our rapiers shall settle this matter."

"Yet I would not marry the girl for all the wealth of India, nor she me. Moreover, I promise that Louise shall confirm my words. Henri, my friend, it is as her messenger I come this day. 'Bid him come to me'—that is her message."

"If it be so, Michel," began the Baron, his face instantly relaxing, "you shall bid me do penance for my suspicions; but if–"

"Nay, I weary of arguing, my friend; come to her quickly."

CHAPTER XXX

Henri d'Estreville lost no time in complying with the request conveyed in the message which Michel Prevost had brought him. He hastened to present himself at old Dupré's establishment, where he knocked—in his eagerness—with unnecessary vigour, rousing old Dupré from a nap as he lay in bed, still a victim to the stiffness of his joints, brought about by his practice with the foils in preparation for an imaginary duel.

Marie opened the door.

"Mon Dieu! it is Monsieur le Baron!" she exclaimed, flushing.

"Yes, it is I," replied Henri; "I have found that on my last visit, Madame, I was disgracefully deceived as to the pretended death of your sister; I have come to see Mademoiselle Louise, and also to receive an explanation of the deception to which I was made a victim."

"Monsieur, I will fetch Louise, let her explain," Marie murmured; "there are circumstances which Louise will explain better than I; Monsieur will understand and forgive."

"Good; I will see Louise—fetch her quickly."

Henri waited in the salon. He was strangely agitated. He did not half comprehend all that Michel had said; for Michel's connection with Louise seemed mysterious and incomprehensible; he professed to love Louise, yet, he had declared, he did not desire to marry her. "Either the fellow is mad," Henri reflected, "or he has discovered that Louise already loves me, in which case she might have chosen another messenger! Soon I shall know whether Louise indeed loves me. Mon Dieu, if she does not, after all this, I know not what shall happen." Henri strode up and down the room, scarcely able to contain his excitement, it was most inconsiderate of Louise to keep him waiting so long—what did it mean?

"She adorns herself; that is what it means!" Henri reflected; "it is only natural that she should desire to look her best; it is only what every woman would do."

In this conjecture Henri was not far wrong.

Upstairs in old Dupré's bedroom there had been scarcely less excitement than below in the salon.

"Well, who was it that knocked so loudly?" cried old Dupré, as Marie presently appeared after opening the front door to admit the visitor.

"Mon père, do not be agitated, it is the Baron d'Estreville," said Marie, hesitating.

"Ah—ah! I thought it! I knew it! and he has demanded satisfaction of me, and awaits me below, is it not so?" The old man struggled to get out of bed, but his daughters restrained him.

"Calm yourself, my father," said Marie; "he has not demanded satisfaction. He has, however, discovered that Louise is still alive and desires explanations of the deceit of which he was a victim."