_ CHAPTER XV. THE MURDER OF A SOUL
Zara did as I requested. She seated herself upon the divan, and I sat beside her, with my arm around her. She rested her head against my shoulder, and in a low and dreamy tone she began, as if there had been no hiatus, the continuation of that story which was to thrill me as nothing else of the kind had ever done.
You must understand that she was pleading for my life, as she believed, in the relation of this bit of history which I was soon to learn had touched her so closely. She believed that my life could be saved only by means of my joining with the nihilists, in consenting to take their oath, and to become one with them. I have often, at retrospective moments, gone back again to that hour, and lived it over in thought, wondering how I could still resist her when I listened to the passion of her utterances, and to a recital of the terrible wrongs that had been visited upon those whom Zara loved, in the name of the czar.
As before, she told the story as if I had been the participant in it; as if the young woman whose history it touched most closely, had been my own sister.
In the retelling of it, I purposely render it as concise as possible, but I am utterly incapable of imparting to it the dramatic effect of her recital, heightened and added to by her warm sympathies.
"Remember," she said, "that I am representing you as the brother of this poor girl, Dubravnik. You, and your sister Yvonne, orphaned in your youth, occupied together the great palace of your father's, and were waited upon by an army of servants, many of whom had been in the employ of your family before either of you were born.
"Among your acquaintances there is another officer, one who is as great a favorite at court; and within the palace of the emperor, as you are. He is of good family, handsome, accomplished, and rich. Nevertheless, you dislike him, principally because he is in love with your sister and you know that he is, in every way, unworthy of her. She shares the aversion which you feel for this man, declining all his advances, and at last refuses to receive him. Beginning with that time, he persecutes her with his attentions, to the point where you are led to interfere; but this man has already been to the czar, and has secured his royal approval of the marriage. He laughs at you when you remonstrate. You also go to the czar, who listens attentively to all that you have to say, finally consenting that Yvonne shall not be forced into the marriage against her will. This officer, when he hears of it, is furious, and one night, at the club, he publicly insults you, so that you have no other course than to challenge him. He is a practiced duelist, and believes that he can kill you easily; thus he would leave the coast clear for his further machinations. In the affair which follows, you surprise everybody by wounding your adversary quite seriously; and during a few months that succeed the duel, you are relieved of further anxiety concerning the matter. But he recovers; he returns to his former position at the palace; and misjudging his power and influence, insults you again, almost in the presence of the emperor. For that, he is banished from the palace, and degraded in the army; and quite naturally he attributes his misfortunes to you, upon whom he vows vengeance. You hear of his threats, but laugh at them--and forget them. He does not.
"This man becomes a nihilist and a dangerous one. He plots and plans for your overthrow, and for the possession of your sister whom he continues to persecute in many ways. She does not tell you these things, fearing the consequences if you were to fight another duel. At last, however, more or less of it comes to your attention, and the consequence is that you publicly horsewhip him, for which act you are suspended from attendance at the palace for thirty days. During that interval a horrible thing occurs. It is at the time when the extremists among nihilists are rampant, and when the secret police does its deadly work unquestioned; a time five years ago. People are arrested and spirited away, from among the highest and the lowest. Victims are found in the palace as well as in the hovel. No person is sacred from these mysterious arrests; no tribunal hears a victim's defense; no official dares to interfere. Even you may at any moment become a victim of this awful method. A complaint is lodged against a wholly innocent person, no matter by whom; it may even be anonymous. In the dead of night police from the Third Section visit the house of the person complained against, a search is made, and if incriminating documents are found, that person disappears forever. Where? nobody knows save those who carry out the secret decree. I will not worry you with the useless details; in fact you have had sufficient introduction to the story already.
"Twice each week since your expulsion from the palace you are compelled to remain on duty over night, and at last the morning comes when you return to your home after one of these vigils to find yourself face to face with a horror which you knew existed, but which you had never before comprehended. Ah, it is pitiful; but listen. You find when you arrive, that all is excitement. The servants are running hither and thither; they whisper among themselves, and at first you can get no explanation from them. In vain you call for your sister. Frightened glances, sobs, and groans, are the only replies you get, and you rush to her apartment, only to find that it is empty--that she is gone. The room is in the utmost disorder. Clothing is scattered everywhere. Yvonne's most sacred treasures are strewn upon the floor. The contents of her dressing case are tumbled in confusion upon the furniture. Chairs are overturned. The cushions of the chairs and couches are ripped open. The bed is a ruin, dismembered, torn apart, and heaped in a corner. The carpet has been pulled from its fastenings, and is rolled and tumbled into a mass in the middle of the floor. The pictures are torn from the walls; vases have been overturned; even the French clock, on the mantel, has been ruined in the awful search, and the very walls of the room are dented by the hammer which has pounded them in the effort to find a secret hiding place. You know only too well what has happened, and yet you do not realize it. You are dazed. You think that you will awake and find that it is all a dream. You cannot believe that it is the sleeping room of your own sister that has been thus invaded and desecrated. At last from one of the older and more trusted servants you hear the truth, and while he speaks, you listen dumbly, wonderingly."
Zara left her place beside me on the divan, and stood facing me, near the center table, and in the intensity of her story, lowered her voice perceptibly. She bent forward a little, unconsciously throwing over me the same sort of spell that now dominated her. In my own eagerness I leaned forward, my right elbow resting upon my knee, and with bated breath, waited for her to continue. When she did resume, it was with a suppressed intensity that is indescribable.
"This is what the old servant told you: An hour after midnight there was a peremptory summons at the door, and when he opened it he discovered beyond the threshold, one of those terrible details of fiends which the Third Section sends out on its foulest errands; but he did not dream that they were after your sister; he only thought that you were in trouble. The officer in charge went straight to the door of your sister's room, as if he were as familiar with the internal arrangements of the house, as were its regular inmates. He threw the door ajar without warning, and followed by the scoundrels who accompanied him, entered the room where your sister was in bed. Sleeping innocence was aroused by a brutal command. Your sister, as pure, as sweet, as guiltless of wrong, as beautiful in spirit as the angels in heaven, was dragged from her bed by the rough hands of those human devils. Her shrieks and cries, were answered by jeers. Her piteous appeal that they would leave the room until she clothed herself, was refused with curses. She was compelled to dress in their presence, underneath the blazing glare of every light in the room, and before the eyes of those inhuman wretches whose gloating, bloodshot gaze befouled her sweet purity, as a drop of filth will befoul a limpid spring."
"If you had entered the room at that moment, and the czar had been there, would you have killed him, Dubravnik? Have you a sister? Answer! Would you have killed the czar, if he had been there? THE CZAR WAS THERE!"
Zara raised herself to her full stature as she cried aloud this statement. Her right hand was raised high above her head; her attitude was one of righteous denouncement, and the wrath of an outraged goddess glowed like living fire, in every attribute of her being. Then she came a step nearer to me, and continued:
"He was there in the spirit of the outrage. He creates and upholds the law which permitted it. Yes, you would have killed him, and you would not have called it murder. You would have given the deed another name; you would have called it retribution. I see it in your face; it flashes in your eyes. I am not telling you a romance, in order to excite your compassion, or to create sympathy. I am relating an actual occurrence. I am telling you the story that made me a nihilist."
What a woman Zara was at that moment! She seemed the embodiment of vengeance--of righteous retribution; the personification of the cause she so splendidly advocated. I looked upon her almost with awe, at the same time realizing that I was thrilled almost into active acquiescence to her demands. She continued:
"There are not words to describe the emotions that sweep over you, as you listen to the servant's story. You become benumbed, dazed. You hear it through to the end, and there is not much more.
"You learn from him that papers of incriminating character were found among your sister's effects; that a letter was there, which told that she was engaged in a conspiracy to assassinate the czar, by poison; that she, being a welcome guest at the imperial palace, had agreed to put poison in the wine that he should drink on the following day--a deadly poison--cyanide of potassium; that the poison itself was found with the letter--a harmless looking powder, but a deadly one. You are told that Yvonne was dragged away by those men, and taken--ah, the servant could not tell you where they took her; but he could tell you how she sobbed, and moaned, protesting her innocence, repudiating all knowledge of the things they had found, crying out for you, in her agony; and how one of the men struck her a brutal blow in the face, because she would not be quiet. That is all the servant could tell you. Yvonne was gone. That one truth glared at you from every hideous corner of the desecrated room. Hours--many of them--have passed since then. You laugh wildly, insanely, as you brush the servant aside, and dash from the house in pursuit.
"'The czar is my friend! He is her friend! He will save her!' That is what you cry aloud as you run along the streets towards the palace, forgetting your
britzska, in your haste, and agony. You forget that you have been suspended from attendance at the palace, and that the guards have been ordered not to admit you, but you are made to remember it when you arrive. They stop you. You cannot get past them. In vain you tell them of the arrest of your sister, and that you must see the emperor, but you only give them an added reason for keeping you out. They order you away. You refuse to go. They attempt to force you, and you strike one of them, knocking him down."
"Then all your pent up agony is loosed. You have the strength of a dozen men. You scatter the guards around you like flies, and rush past them, straight for the cabinet of the emperor, where you have always been a welcome guest. You tell yourself that he loves you--that he loves your sister; that as soon as he hears the truth, he will correct the awful wrong that has been done; that the men who outraged the sanctity of your sister's sleeping room, will be punished. Ah! You do not know the czar--that man whom you call your friend; who is God's and man's worst enemy!
"But you are soon to know him better. You are soon to discover what manner of man it is to whom you have given your soul and body, your allegiance and your worship, all the years of your life. You are soon to know--and oh, how bitter is the awakening.
"You dash unannounced into his presence. In a wild torrent of words, you pour forth the awful tale. You laugh, you cry; you implore, you demand; he only frowns, or smiles derisively. You rave; he calls the guard. You find that he
does know; that others have been there before you, and that the letter supposed to have been found in the possession of your sister, has already been read by him. With horror, you realize that he believes--that there is no hope for the sister you love so tenderly, who was placed in your arms by your dying mother; whom you swore to guard, and protect.
"That terrible man, who commits thousands of murders by proxy every year, frowns upon you, who have been almost like a son to him. He sneers at your agony. He believes all that has been told to him against your sister--he is even willing to believe that you are a party to her supposed misdeeds.
"'Forget your sister. She is dead to you, and to me,' his majesty commands you, coldly. 'I can forgive you for your present excitement. Forget her.'
"FORGET HER!! God! Forget your sister? Forget the little girl who was put into your arms when a child? Forget the glowing, gorgeous, beautiful young woman she has become? Then you loose another torrent of words. You curse your emperor. You revile the sacred person of the czar. You go mad; you even try to strike him. Ah! It is awful, your agony. The guard seizes you. The straps are torn from your shoulders. The buttons are cut from your coat. The czar himself uses his great strength to break your sword across his knee, and so far forgets his dignity that he strikes you in the face with his open hand; and then you are hustled to the palace gate, and thrust into the street, disgraced, helpless, insane." Zara paused an instant, then continued, monotonously:
"Then begins months of hopeless waiting. Every day you beg admittance to the palace. Every day you are refused. You write letters, begging that you may be told where your sister is detained, that you may go to her; that you may share her exile. They are unheeded. You know that she is in Siberia, but Siberia is a vast place--greater than all Europe. You petition men and officers who used to fawn upon you when you were in favor, for information concerning her. They will not even speak to you. They have been ordered not to do so. At last, when nearly five months have passed in this way, friendless and alone, for your property has been taken from you, you join the nihilists."
Zara crossed to the divan and seated herself beside me, clasping one of my hands in hers, and clinging to it as if she were herself in danger of being torn from my side, or of losing me. For a time she pressed my hand between hers, or stroked it gently, and when she resumed speech, it was in a softly-spoken voice.
"Then you find friends," she said, gently. "Through their agents, the nihilists ascertain where your sister has been taken. You learn that she is a prisoner on the unspeakably horrible island of Saghalien. Yes, and they tell you more, these new friends and helpers whom you have found among the nihilists. They know about the plot that sent her there. They know that the very man who pretended that he loved Yvonne, bribed one of your servants to place those awful papers among her things, that they might be found there by the police. You search for him, but he is abroad, so you seek out, and find, the servant who was bribed; and him, you strangle. After that, you disappear. The nihilists report that you are dead. St. Petersburg believes it. But you are not dead. You are on your way to Saghalien. Your new friends assist you with disguises; they aid you on your long journey; they provide you with money; and somehow--you never know how--you reach Saghalien, only to find that Yvonne is not there; that she has been transferred. Then you begin a weary search which consumes months; so many of them, that they swell into two long years. You go from prison to prison, from town to town, from hope to despair, from despair to hope, and at last--YOU FIND HER!"
Zara dropped to her knees before me. I knew that the climax of her story was at hand. Her beautiful eyes, widened, and speaking dumbly of infinite sorrow, sought mine, and held them. I bent forward, and kissed her on the forehead. Then she resumed:
"You find her in a far away prison in the north. You find her half clothed, lost to all sense of modesty, the sport, the victim, the THING of the inhuman brutes who are her guards. You find her body; her beautiful soul has fled. She is not dead, but she gazes at you with a vacant stare of unrecognition. She laughs at you when you tell her that you are her brother. She does not know you. She has forgotten her own name. She taunts you with being another brute, like the men she has known there, in that foul haunt of unspeakable vices. Then you go quite mad. You clasp her in your arms, and draw her slender body against you. When you release her, she falls at your feet, dead, for you have buried your knife in her heart. Never again will she be the sport of brutal men. You have dealt out mercy to your suffering sister, and the agony you have endured gave you the necessary strength of will. You are God's agent in the deed."
I could feel that Zara was shuddering with the horror of the scene she had described; not at the deed of that brother who stabbed his sister to death to save her, but because of the awful fate of that poor girl, which the tragic act of her brother brought to an end. I drew Zara tenderly into my arms, and held her so for a long time, while she wept softly, with her head pillowed against my shoulder; and after a time she resumed, haltingly:
"When you turned away from your tragic deed of mercy, you killed the guard who tried to stop you. You made your escape; how, you do not remember; but you found your way back here--here, to St. Petersburg. Nobody recognized you. Your hair was white, your face was the face of a corpse. You had one more purpose; the death of two men, the czar and the conspirator. And so you went again to your friends, the nihilists. Hush! I am not through yet. There is more--much more, much more!" _