Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844

"'Ay, the lawyers remember themselves—never fear that the boyárin and deacon forget their fees. And what is written in thy book against royal murderers and conspirators?'

"'In our memory such case hath not arisen.'

"'Even so! you lawyers are ever writing leaf after leaf, and never do ye write all; and then the upright judges begin to gloze, to interpret, to take bribes for dark passages. The law ought to be like an open hand without a glove, (the Prince opened his fist;) every simple man ought to see what is in it, and it should not be able to conceal a grain of corn. Short and clear; and, when needful, seizing firmly!... But as it is, they have put a ragged glove on law; and, besides, they close the fist. Ye may guess—odd or even! they can show one or the other, as they like.'

"'Pardon, my Lord Great Prince; lo, what we will add to the soudébnik—the royal murderer and plotter shall not live.'

"'Be it so. Let not him live, who reached at another's life.' (Here he turned to Kourítzin, but remembering that he was always disinclined to severe punishments, he continued, waving his hand,) 'I forgot that a craven 2 2 A jeu de mots impossible to be rendered in English; Kourítza , in Russian, is a 'hen.'"—T.B.S. croweth not like a cock.' (At these words the deacon's eyes sparkled with satisfaction.) 'Mamón, be this thy care. Tell my judge of Moscow—the court judge—to have the Lithuanian and the interpreter burned alive on the Moskvá—burn them, dost thou hear? that others may not think of such deeds.'

"The dvorétzkoi bowed, and said, stroking his ragged beard—'In a few days will arrive the strangers to build the palace, and the Almayne leech: the Holy Virgin only knoweth whether there be not evil men among them also. Dost thou vouchsafe me to speak what hath come into my mind?'

"'Speak.'

"'Were it not good to show them an example at once, by punishing the criminals before them?'

"The Great Prince, after a moment's thought, replied—'Aristotle answereth for the leech Antony; he is a disciple of his brother's. The artists of the palace—foreigners—are good men, quiet men ... but ... who can tell!... Mamón, put off the execution till after the coming of the Almayne leech; but see that the fetters sleep not on the evil doers!'

"Here he signed to Mamón to go and fulfill his order."

Here is another scene with the Great Prince.

"He stopped, and turned with an air of stern command to Kourítzin.

"The latter had addressed himself to speak—'The ambassadors from Tver ... from the'...

"'From the prince, thou wouldst say,' burst in Iván Vassílievitch: 'I no longer recognize a Prince of Tver. What—I ask thee, what did he promise in the treaty of conditions which his bishop was to negotiate?—the bishop who is with us now.'

"'To dissolve his alliance with the Polish king, Kazimír, and never without thy knowledge to renew his intercourse with him; nor with thine ill-wishers, nor with Russian deserters: to swear, in his own and his children's name, never to yield to Lithuania.'

"'Hast thou still the letter to King Kazimír from our good brother-in-law and ally—him whom thou yet callest the Great Prince of Tver?'

"'I have it, my lord.'

"'What saith it?'

"'The Prince of Tver urgeth the Polish King against the Lord of All Russia.'

"'Now, as God shall judge me, I have right on my side. Go and tell the envoys from Tver, that I will not receive them: I spoke a word of mercy to them—they mocked at it. What do they take me for?... A bundle of rags, which to-day they may trample in the mud, and to-morrow stick up for a scarecrow in their gardens! Or a puppet—to bow down to it to-day, and to-morrow to cast it into the mire, with Vuiduibái, father vuiduibái ! 3 3 "When Vladímir, to convert the Russians to Christianity, caused the image of their idol Peróun to be thrown into the Dniépr, the people of Kíeff are said to have shouted ' vuiduibái, bátioushka, vuiduibái !'—bátioushka signifies 'father;' but the rest of the exclamation has never been explained, though it has passed into a proverb."—T.B.S. No! they have chosen the wrong man. They may spin their traitorous intrigues with the King of Poland, and hail him their lord; but I will go myself and tell Tver who is her real master. Tease me no more with these traitors!'

"Saying this, the Great Prince grew warmer and warmer, and at length he struck his staff upon the ground so violently that it broke in two.

"'Hold! here is our declaration of war,' he added—'yet one word more: had it bent it would have remained whole.'

"Kourítzin, taking the fatal fragments, went out. The philosopher of those days, looking at them, shook his head and thought—'Even so breaketh the mighty rival of Moscow!'"

The Almayne physician is lodged by order of the Great Prince in one of the three stone houses which Moscow could then boast—the habitation of the voévoda Obrazétz, a fine old warrior, a venerable patriarch, and bigot, such as all Russians then were. To him the presence of the heretic is disgusting; his touch would be pollution; and the whole family is thrown into the utmost consternation by the prospect of having to harbour so foul a guest—a magician, a man who had sold his soul to Satan—above all, a heretic. The voévoda had an only daughter, who, with Oriental caution, was carefully screened from the sight of man, as became a high-born Russian maiden.

"From her very infancy Providence had stamped her with the seal of the marvellous; when she was born a star had fallen on the house—on her bosom she bore a mark resembling a cross within a heart. When ten years old, she dreamed of palaces and gardens such as eye had never seen on earth, and faces of unspeakable beauty, and voices that sang, and self-moving dulcimers that played, as it were within her heart, so sweetly and so well, that tongue could never describe it; and, when she awoke from those dreams, she felt a light pressure on her feet, and she thought she perceived that something was resting on them with white wings folded; it was very sweet, and yet awful—and in a moment all was gone. Sometimes she would meditate, sometimes she would dream, she knew not what. Often, when prostrate before the image of the Mother of God, she wept; and these tears she hid from the world, like some holy thing sent down to her from on high. She loved all that was marvellous; and therefore she loved the tales, the legends, the popular songs and stories of those days. How greedily did she listen to her nurse! and what marvels did the eloquent old woman unfold, to the young, burning imagination of her foster child! Anastasia, sometimes abandoning herself to poesy, would forget sleep and food; sometimes her dreams concluded the unfinished tale more vividly, more eloquently far."

We must give the pendant to this picture—the portrait of Obrazétz himself, sitting in his easy-chair, listening to a tale of travels in the East.

"How noble was the aged man, free from stormy passions, finishing the pilgrimage of life! You seemed to behold him in pure white raiment, ready to appear before his heavenly judge. Obrazétz was the chief of the party in years, in grave majestic dignity, and patriarchal air. Crossing his arms upon his staff, he covered them with his beard, downy as the soft fleece of a lamb; the glow of health, deepened by the cup of strong mead, blushed through the snow-white hair with which his cheeks were thickly clothed; he listened with singular attention and delight to the story-teller. This pleasure was painted on his face, and shone brightly in his eyes; from time to time a smile of good-humoured mockery flitted across his lips, but this was only the innocent offspring of irony which was raised in his good heart by Aphónia's boasting, (for very few story-tellers, you know, are free from this sin.) Reclining his shoulders against the back of his arm-chair, he shut his eyes, and, laying his broad hairy hand upon Andrióusha's head, he softly, gently dallied with the boy's flaxen locks. On his countenance the gratification of curiosity was mingled with affectionate tenderness: he was not dozing, but seemed to be losing himself in sweet reveries. In the old man's visions arose the dear never forgotten son, whom he almost fancied he was caressing. When he opened his eyes, their white lashes still bore traces of the touching society of his unearthly guest; but when he remarked that the tear betraying the secret of his heart had disturbed his companions, and made his daughter anxious, the former expression of pleasure again dawned on his face, and doubled the delighted attention of the whole party."