VI
Sooner or later the news of the Governor’s assassination had crept into the palace, but here they took it with an extraordinary indifference. As the close presence of the strong man in his full powers hindered their knowledge of the fact that this death meant his death! … they regarded it only as a temporary hallucination. Toward the middle of September, the household returned to town, at the urgent request of The Pike who had convinced Maria Petrovna that the country was not safe. And there life took on its accustomed aspect … the routine of many years.
Kosloff, the aide, who loathed the dirt and the banal decorations of the Governor’s mansion, had personally supervised its refurnishing. He bought fresh hangings for the walls and reception-rooms, had the ceilings retinted, and ordered new furniture … green oak in the style of the Decadence! He quite took upon himself the supervision of the house, to the delight of all; from the servants who were infused with his energy, to Maria Petrovna, who hated all domestic cares, in spite of its roominess the palace was most inconveniently arranged. The bathrooms were next to the reception-rooms, and the lackeys had to carry their dishes down a long cold corridor past the windows of the dining-hall, where one could see them quarrelling and nudging each other as they went. All this Kosloff wished to change, but he had to postpone his plans till summer.
“He will be pleased,” he said to himself, meaning the Governor—but strangely enough this image did not call forth in his mind Peter Iljitch, but some other! Yet in his eager bustle of reform he was not at all conscious of this thought.
As usual Peter Iljitch was the centre of his family, and the expressions, “His Excellency ordered it,” “His Excellency wishes …” “His Excellency would be angry …” were now as ever the household words; and yet, had they set up a puppet in his place, dressed in the Governor’s uniform, and let it speak a few words, it would have made no difference—so much of the office was but empty form!
If he fell into a rage and shouted at a man, and that man trembled, it looked as though the rage and the trembling both were simulated, and that nothing of the sort had really taken place. Even had he committed a murder in these days, that very death would have seemed counterfeited. As far as concerned himself, he still lived; but to the others he had already died, and they handled the dead carelessly, and felt the cold and the gloom that emanated from him without quite understanding what it meant.
Thought can kill in time! Drawing its strength from the Eternal Sources, it is mightier than engines, weapons, or powder! It robs men of their will, and makes even the instinct of self-preservation blind. It clears a free space for its deadly stroke; as the forest underbrush is cleared about the tree that must be felled! So this thought was killing the Governor! … As the child, when the time of its fruition is complete, struggles from its mother’s womb, this imperious death-dealing thought—till now giving evidence of its being only by the muffled beating of its heart—strove irresistibly toward the light, and began to lead an individual life. Imperiously it called up those from the dark who should do the deed, and hailed them as saviour!
Unconsciously the people held themselves aloof from the one dedicated to death, and robbed him of that invisible but mighty shield that the life of the mass forms for the life of the individual.
After the first anonymous letter calling the Governor “Butcher …” a few days passed without any such missives. Then, as if with silent accord, they began literally to shower upon him, as though they had poured from a slit in the postbag; and each morning the stack of envelopes on his desk grew higher. In different quarters of the town, out of different postboxes, these letters were segregated from the other mail by different people; gathered into a heap, and brought to their common destination—this one man! Formerly the Governor had received anonymous letters, sometimes with abuse and veiled threats, mostly denunciations and complaints, but he had never read them. Now, however, he felt himself impelled to read them; as he was forced, too, to think constantly of his own death. … And reading and reflection both required solitude! …
Seldom through the day, but oftener towards evening, he sat at his disordered desk with a glass of tea untasted by his side, shrugged his broad shoulders, put on his strong, gold-rimmed spectacles, examining the envelopes of the letters as he opened them. He had learned to know them at a glance. For, in spite of differences in writing, paper, and postmarks, they had something in common—like the dead in the engine-house! … and not only he, but the lodge-keeper, who took in Peter Iljitch’s private correspondence, recognised them unerringly.
The Governor read each letter attentively—earnestly—from beginning to end; and if any words were illegible, he puzzled over them long, as to their meaning. Uninteresting ones, or those that contained only filthy abuse, he destroyed; also those which gave him friendly warning of his coming assassination. All others he numbered and filed, for some reason unknown to himself. In general their contents were wearisomely monotonous. Friends warned, foes threatened—and the matter dwindled into a series of inconclusive “Ayes” and “Noes.”
From constant repetition he was quite used to the words “Murderer” on the one hand … and “Steadfast Defender of Order” on the other, and to a certain extent had accustomed himself to that other thought … that friend and foe alike believed in the inevitable approach of his death! … A cold shudder ran over him. He would gladly have warmed himself, but there was nothing to warm him. … The tea was cold! … they always brought him cold tea lately, for some reason! … and even the high tiled stove was cold! … Long ago—soon after he had come here—he had intended to build a fireplace, but he had put it off, and the old Dutch oven gave very little heat, no matter how much coal you burned! … In vain he hugged the lukewarm tiles, then paced the floor up and down, saying, in his deepest regimental tones: “I’ve grown to be a perfect hothouse plant!” … Then he sat down to his letters again, looking for something important or decisive.
“Your Excellency!—You are a General, but Generals are mortal too. Some Generals die a natural death, and some by violence. You, your Excellency, will die a violent death!
“I have the honour to subscribe myself, your Excellency’s most obedient servant. …”
The Governor smiled—at that time he could still smile—and was about to tear the carefully written page when he bethought himself, made a marginal note: “No. 43, Sept. 22, 190‒,” and filed it.
“My Lord Governor! (or to be more correct, My Lord Turkish Pasha!)—You are a thief and a hired assassin! …
“I’d swear to God you turned a pretty penny on that transaction when you murdered the working men. …”
The Governor turned purple, crumpled the note in his fist, pulled off his spectacles and roared, with the roll of a big bass drum:
“R-r-r-r-apscallion!”
Then he dug his hands into his pockets, stuck out his elbows and began to pace the floor in a feverish rage … keeping time with the rhythm of: “This-is-the-way-the-Gov-ern-ors walk!”
When he had quieted himself he smoothed out the letter, read it to the end, numbered it with an unsteady hand, and filed it carefully. “He must certainly see that,” he said, thinking of his son.
That same evening Fate sent him another letter. It was signed “A Labourer.” Apart from the signature, however, nothing in the letter denoted the brawny craftsman—miserable and uneducated—which was the Governor’s conception of “labourer.”
“Here in the works, and in town, they say that you are to be killed soon. I don’t know precisely who will do it, but I think it will not be the agents of any organisation; but rather a volunteer from among the citizens, who are roused by your brutal proceedings against the workmen on August 17th. I frankly say that I and some of my party are against this resolution, not because we pity you—had you yourself any pity on the women and the children that day?—and I think that no one in the place has any pity for you! … but simply because I am opposed in principle to any violent death. I am against War, Capital Punishment, Political Execution … and against murder in general!
“In the battle for our ideals—Liberty, Fraternity and Equality—we should make use only of such weapons as do not contradict these ideals. Death is a weapon of that evil, old-world order whose device is Slavery, Privilege and Enmity. Good can never come from evil, and in the battle where force is the weapon, the victor can never be ‘the Right,’ but ‘Might’; that is, the one is more pitiless, more inhuman … no respecter of persons, and not above using any weapons—in one word, a Jesuit!
“If a scrupulous man were forced to shoot, he would certainly either shoot in the air, or else commit some folly that would get him into trouble; because his soul would revolt at the work of his own hands. I hold that many of the well-known unsuccessful political assassinations have been wrecked on this point, because the victims have been rogues capable of taking every advantage, while the instruments have been men of honour, who have perished for the cause. You may be sure, my Lord Governor, that if all the people who attempt the lives of your kind were rascals, they would surely find such loopholes and methods as would not enter into an honest man’s head, and you would all long since have been dispatched.
“From my point of view the Revolution can merely be a propaganda of ideas—in the sense in which the Christian Martyrs were revolutionists. For even if the labourers did win a battle, the Rascals would only pretend to be beaten to gain time for new trickery, and to get back at their foe. We must conquer with our heads, not with our fists; for as regards the head, the Rascals are rather weak! For this reason they even hide books from the poor man, condemning him to darkness of ignorance because they fear for their existence. Do you know why they won’t allow the workmen the eight-hour labouring day? Do you think the gentlemen did not know themselves that in eight hours of intelligent work the production would be no less than in eleven now? But the thing is this—that with the eight-hour law, the men would have time to learn as much as their masters, and would take the work out of their hands. These people only think they are wise, because they have made all the others stupid—against a really clever man they would not be worth a sou!
“I have gone so deeply into the discussion of these questions, in order that you should not misunderstand my first words against your assassination, and consider me a traitor to the common cause of all other honourable men. I must furthermore add that I and my mates who share my convictions were not in the Square on the 17th, because we knew very well what the end would be, and did not care to stand there like the fools who believed that Justice was to be had from one of your kind!
“Now, naturally the others agree with us and say: ‘If we go there again we won’t ask, we’ll strike!’ According to my mind that’s equally foolish … because, as I say: why go there at all? You yourself will come to us soon enough with friendly words and bows—and then we’ll show you! …
“Honoured Sir, Forgive my boldness, that I should have come to you with my workingman’s talk—for I have learned by myself all I know out of books—but it seems strange to me that an educated man who is not such a rascal as all the rest, could act so to the miserable working men who trusted him … that he could order them shot! … Maybe you will have a guard of Cossacks, a detachment of the Secret Service, or take a trip somewhere—and so save your life; and then my words may be of some use, and point out to you the right way to serve the true interests of the nation.
“They say here in the works that you were bought by Capital! … but I don’t believe that, for our employers aren’t so stupid as to throw away their money … and besides that, I know you can’t be bribed … and are no thief either, like the others in the service who need the money for their chorus-girls and champagne and truffles. I might even say that in the main you are a man of honour. …”
The Governor laid the letter carefully upon the table, triumphantly took his moist spectacles from off his nose, polished them ceremoniously with the corner of his handkerchief, and said, with stately deference:
“I thank you, young man.”
Slowly he walked down the room and turned to the cold tile stove, saying impressively: “You may take my life, it belongs to you. … But my honour—”
He did not end the phrase, but held his head high, and stalked back to the writing-table, a trifle absurd in his ponderous dignity. …
“I might even say that in the main you are a man of honour … in the main a man of honour … in the main a man of honour—who wouldn’t hurt a chicken without cause, but how could you, an honourable man, be responsible for such an order? That is the question, honoured sir! The people are not chickens! The people are sacred! And if you could understand the masses and their sufferings, you would go out into that same Square, bow yourself humbly to the earth and beg for forgiveness.
“Think, from generation to generation—from kindred to kindred, since that time of the first slaves, who, at the bidding of their tyrannical princes built the Pyramids, we have led this existence! As there are among you hereditary nobles—that is, oppressors—so among us there are hereditary labourers, hereditary slaves. And consider further, that in all these ages we have been only beaten and oppressed, and as far back into the past as I can trace my ancestry I see nothing but tears, despair, ill-treatment. And all this is stamped upon the soul—and all this has been kept as the sole heritage, from father to son, from mother to daughter. Attempt to look into the soul of a simple peasant or labourer—a shuddering horror! While we are yet unborn we have suffered a thousand wrongs. When we finally crawl forth into life we stumble into a sort of cavern, where we are nourished on wrongs and clothe ourselves in our wrongs!
“They tell me that somewhere, five years ago, you ordered the knout for the peasants—do you realise what you did then? You thought you had only flayed their backs. No, you stripped their souls, enslaved for ages. You flogged the dead, and the yet unborn! And though you may be a General and an Excellency—yet I make bold to say you are not fit to lay your lips in adoration on one of those sacred peasant backs, much less to lay the lash!
“And when the workmen came to you, who was it, do you think, who came? … Those were the slaves who built the Pyramids—they rose and came with their thousands of years of chafings and groans, to ask for kindness, for help, for counsel! Came to you, as to an enlightened and humane man of the twentieth century. And how did you treat them? Ah! You! … Your forefather perhaps was an overseer over these same slaves and beat them with stripes, and then handed down to you this foolish hatred for the working classes!
“Honoured Sir! The masses are awakening. At present they are only turning in their sleep, and already the pillars in your house are tottering; but wait till they are quite awake. These words of mine are new to you—think them over! … Furthermore, I ask your pardon that I have troubled you so long, and in the name of the ‘Brotherhood,’ I hope they may not kill you.”—
“They will kill me, though,” thought the Governor, as he folded up the letter. For an instant the picture of old Jegor, with his steel-grey hair, rose in his mind, only to vanish in the boundless darkness of its void.
No vestige of thought was left in him, nothing either of contradiction or of assent. He stood by the burnt-out stove—on the table the lamp glowed under its green silk shade—in another room his daughter was playing the piano; someone seemed to be teasing her Excellency’s pug, for he began to bark viciously—and still the lamp burned. …
The lamp burned!