Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849
Presuming Dr Wagner's statement of Russian rations to be correct, it is a puzzle how the soldier preserves the condition of his thews and sinews. The daily allowance consists of three pounds of bread, black as a coal; a water-soup, in which three pounds of bacon are cut up for every two hundred and fifty men; a ration of wodka, or bad brandy, and once a-week a small piece of meat. The pay is nine rubles a-year, (about one-third of a penny per diem,) out of which the unfortunate private has to purchase his stock, cap, soap, blacking, salt, &c., &c. Any surplus he is allowed to expend upon his amusement. "Our soldiers are obliged to steal a little," said a German officer in the Russian service to Dr Wagner; "their pay will not purchase soap and blacking; and if their shirts are not clean, and their shoes polished, the stick is their portion." "Stealing a little," in one way or other, is no uncommon practice in Russia, even amongst more highly placed personages than the soldiers. Officials of all kinds, both civil and military, particularly those of the middle and lower ranks, are prone to peculation. Dr Wagner was deafened with the complaints that from all sides met his ear. "Ah! if the emperor knew it!" was the usual cry. The subjects of Nicholas have strong faith in his justice. It is well remembered in the Caucasus, especially by the army, how one day, at Teflis, the emperor, upon parade, in full view of mob and soldiers, tore, with his own hand, the golden insignia of a general's rank from the coat of Prince Dadian, denounced to him as enriching himself at his men's expense. For several years afterwards, the prince carried the musket, and wore the coarse gray coat of a private sentinel. The officers pitied him, although his condemnation was just. "Il faut profiter d'une bonne place," is their current maxim. The soldiers rejoiced; but in secret; for such rejoicings are not always safe. A sentence often recoils unpleasantly upon the accuser. Dr Wagner gives sundry examples. A major in Sewastopol fell in love with a sergeant's wife; and as she disregarded his addresses, he persecuted her and her husband at every opportunity. In despair, the sergeant at last complained to the general commanding. He was listened to; an investigation ensued; the major was superseded; and from his successor the sergeant received five hundred lashes, under pretence of his having left his regiment without permission when he went to lodge his charge. Corporal punishment, of frequent application, at the mere caprice of their superiors, to Russian serfs and soldiers, is inflicted with sticks or rods, the knout being reserved for very grave offences, such as murder, rebellion, &c., and preceding banishment to Siberia, should the sufferer survive. Dr Wagner's description of this dreadful punishment is horribly vivid. Few criminals are sentenced to more than twenty-five lashes, and less than twenty often kill. Running the gauntlet through three thousand men is the usual punishment of deserters; and this would usually be a sentence of death but for the compassion of the officers, who hint to their companies to strike lightly. If the sufferer faints, and is declared by the surgeon unable to receive all his punishment, he gets the remainder at some future time. "Take him down" is a phrase unknown in the Russian service, until the offender has received the last lash of his sentence.
Severity is doubtless necessary in an army composed like that of Russia. Two-thirds of the soldiers are serfs, whose masters, being allowed to send what men they please – so long as they make up their quota – naturally contribute the greatest scamps and idlers upon their estates. The army in Russia is what the galleys are in France, and the hulks in England – a punishment for an infinity of offences. An official embezzles funds – to the army with him; a Jew is caught smuggling – off with him to the ranks; a Tartar cattle-stealer, a vagrant gipsy, an Armenian trader convicted of fraud, a Petersburg coachman who has run over a pedestrian – all food for powder – gray coats and bayonets for them all. Jews abound in the Russian army, being subjected to a severe conscription in Poland and southern Russia. They submit with exemplary patience to the hardships of the service, and to the taunts of their Russian comrades. Poles are of course numerous in the ranks, but they are less enduring than the Israelite, and often desert to the Circassians, who make them work as servants, or sell them as slaves to the Turks. No race are too unmilitary in their nature to be ground into soldiers by the mill of Russian discipline. Besides Jews, gipsies and Armenians figure on the muster-roll. It must have been a queer day for the ragged Zingaro, when the Russian sergeant first stepped into his smoky tent, bade him clip his elf locks, wash his grimy countenance, and follow to the field. For him the pomp of war had no seductions; he would far rather have stuck to his den and vermin, and to his meal of roast rats and hedgehogs. But military discipline works miracles. The slouching filthy vagabond of yesterday now stands erect as if he had swallowed his ramrod, his shoes a brilliant jet, his buttons sparkling in the sun – a soldier from toe to top-knot.
The right bank of the Kuban, from the Sea of Azov to the mouth of the Laba, (a tributary of the former stream,) is peopled with Tchernamortsy Cossacks, who furnish ten regiments, each of a thousand horsemen, for the defence of their lands and families. These cavalry carry a musket, slung on the back, and a long red lance: their dress is a sheepskin jacket, except on state occasions, when they sport uniform. They are much less feared by the Circassians than are the Cossacks of the Line, who wear the Circassian dress, carry sabres instead of lances, and are more valiant, active and skilful, than their Tchernamortsy neighbours. The Cossacks of the Caucasian Line dwell on the banks of the Kuban and Terek, form a military colony of about fifty thousand souls, and keep six thousand horsemen ready for the field. There is a mixture of Circassian blood in their veins, and they are first-rate fighting men. Their villages are exposed to frequent attacks from the mountaineers; but when these are not exceedingly rapid in collecting their booty, and effecting their retreat, the Cossacks assemble, and a desperate fight ensues. When the combatants are numerically matched, the equality of arms, horses, and skill renders the issue very doubtful. The Tchernamortsies and Don Cossacks are less able to cope with the Circassians. In a mêlée their lances are inferior to the shaska. The rival claims of lance and sabre have often been discussed; many trials of their respective merits have been made in English, French, and German riding-schools; and much ink has been shed on the subject. Unquestionably the lance has done good service, and in certain circumstances is a terrible arm. "At the battle of Dresden," Marshal Marmont tells us, "the Austrian infantry were repeatedly assailed by the French cuirassiers, whom they as often beat back, although the rain prevented their firing, and the bayonet was their sole defence. But fifty lancers of Latour-Maubourg's escort at once broke their ranks." Had the cuirassiers had lances, their first charge, Marmont plausibly enough asserts, would have sufficed. This leads to another question, often mooted – whether the lance be properly a light or a heavy cavalry weapon. When used to break infantry, weight of man and horse might be an advantage; but in pursuit, where – especially in rugged and mountainous countries – the lance is found particularly useful, the preference is obviously for the swift steed and light cavalier. In the irregular cavalry combats on the Caucasian line, the sabre carries the day. Unless the Don Cossack's first lance-thrust settles his adversary, (which is rarely the case,) the next instant the adroit Circassian is within his guard, and then the betting is ten to one on Caucasus. Moreover, the Don Cossacks, brought from afar to wage a perilous and profitless war, are unwilling combatants. They find blows more plentiful than booty, and approve themselves arrant thieves and shy fighters. Relieved every two or three years, they have scarcely time to get broken in to the peculiar mode of warfare. The Cossacks of the Line are the flower of the hundred thousand wild warriors scattered over the steppes of Southern Russia, and ready, at one man's word, to vault into the saddle. Their gallant feats are numerous. In 1843, during Dr Wagner's visit, three thousand Circassians dashed across the Kuban, near the fortified village of Ustlaba. A dense fog hid them from the Russian vedettes. Suddenly fifty Cossacks of the Line, the escort of a gun, found themselves face to face with the mountaineers. The mist was so thick that the horses' heads almost touched before either party perceived the other. Flight was impossible, but the Cossacks fought like fiends. Forty-seven met a soldier's death; only three were captured, and accompanied the cannon across the river, by which road the Circassians at once retreated, having taken the brave detachment for the advanced guard of a strong force.
The word Kasak, Kosak, or Kossack, variously interpreted by Klaproth and other etymologists as robber, volunteer, daredevil, &c., conveys to civilised ears rude and inelegant associations. Paris has not yet forgotten the uncouth hordes, wrapped in sheepskins and overrun with vermin, who, in the hour of her humiliation, startled her streets, and made her dandies shriek for their smelling-bottles. Not that Paris saw the worst of them. Some of the Uralian bears, centaurs of the steppes, Calibans on horseback, were never allowed to pass the Russian frontier. Their emperor appreciated their good qualities, but left them at home. Since then, a change has occured. Civilisation has made huge strides north-eastward. Near Fanagoria, Dr Wagner passed a pleasant evening with a Cossack officer, a prime fellow, with all unquenchable thirst for toddy, and an inexhaustible store of information. He had made the campaigns against the French; had evidently been bred a savage, or little better; but had acquired, during his long military career, knowledge of the world and a certain degree of polish. Amongst other interesting matters, he gave a sketch of his grandfather, a bloodthirsty old warrior and image-worshipper, the scourge of his Nogay neighbours, and a great slayer of the Turk; who in 1812, at the mature age of ninety, had responded to Czar Alexander's summons to fight for "faith and fatherland," and had taken the field under Platoff, at the head of thirteen sons and threescore grandsons. Whilst the Cossack major told the history of the "Demon of the Steppes," as his ferocious ancestor was called, his son, a gay lieutenant in the Cossacks of the Guard, entered the apartment. This young gentleman, slender, handsome, with well-cut uniform, graceful manners, and well-waxed mustaches, declined the punch, "having got used at St Petersburg to tea and champagne." He brought intelligence of promotions and decorations, of high play at Tcherkask, (the capital of the Don-Cossacks' country,) and of the establishment at Toganrog of a French restaurateur, who retailed Veuve Clicquot's genuine champagne at four silver rubles a bottle. He was fascinated by the French actresses at St Petersburg, and enthusiastic in praise of Taglioni, then displaying her legs and graces in the Russian metropolis. Dr Wagner left the symposium with a vivid impression of the contrast between the bearded barbarian of 1812 and the dapper guardsman of thirty years later; and with the full conviction that the next Russian emperor who makes an inroad into civilised Europe, will have no occasion to be ashamed of his Cossacks, even though his route should lead him to the polite capital of the French republic.
THE CAXTONS. – PART X
CHAPTER XLVI
My uncle's conjecture as to the parentage of Francis Vivian seemed to me a positive discovery. Nothing more likely than that this wilful boy had formed some headstrong attachment which no father would sanction, and so, thwarted and irritated, thrown himself on the world. Such an explanation was the more agreeable to me, as it cleared up all that had appeared more discreditable in the mystery that surrounded Vivian. I could never bear to think that he had done anything mean and criminal, however I might believe he had been rash and faulty. It was natural that the unfriended wanderer should have been thrown into a society, the equivocal character of which had failed to revolt the audacity of an inquisitive mind and adventurous temper; but it was natural, also, that the habits of gentle birth, and that silent education which English gentlemen commonly receive from their very cradle, should have preserved his honour, at least, intact through all. Certainly the pride, the notions, the very faults of the wellborn had remained in full force – why not the better qualities, however smothered for the time? I felt thankful for the thought that Vivian was returning to an element in which he might repurify his mind, – refit himself for that sphere to which he belonged; – thankful that we might yet meet, and our present half intimacy mature, perhaps, into healthful friendship.
It was with such thoughts that I took up my hat the next morning to seek Vivian, and judge if we had gained the right clue, when we were startled by what was a rare sound at our door – the postman's knock. My father was at the Museum; my mother in high conference, or close preparation for our approaching departure, with Mrs Primmins; Roland, I, and Blanche had the room to ourselves.
"The letter is not for me," said Pisistratus.
"Nor for me, I am sure," said the Captain, when the servant entered and confuted him – for the letter was for him. He took it up wonderingly and suspiciously, as Glumdalclitch took up Gulliver, or as (if naturalists) we take up an unknown creature, that we are not quite sure will not bite and sting us. Ah! it has stung or bit you, Captain Roland! for you start and change colour – you suppress a cry as you break the seal – you breathe hard as you read – and the letter seems short – but it takes time in the reading, for you go over it again and again. Then you fold it up – crumple it – thrust it into your breast pocket – and look round like a man waking from a dream. Is it a dream of pain, or of pleasure? Verily, I cannot guess, for nothing is on that eagle face either of pain or pleasure, but rather of fear, agitation, bewilderment. Yet the eyes are bright, too, and there is a smile on that iron lip.
My uncle looked round, I say, and called hastily for his cane and his hat, and then began buttoning his coat across his broad breast, though the day was hot enough to have unbuttoned every breast in the tropics.
"You are not going out, uncle?"
"Yes, yes."
"But are you strong enough yet? Let me go with you?"
"No, sir; no. Blanche, come here." He took the child in his arms, surveyed her wistfully, and kissed her. "You have never given me pain, Blanche: say, 'God bless and prosper you, father!'"
"God bless and prosper my dear, dear papa!" said Blanche, putting her little hands together, as if in prayer.
"There – that should bring me luck, Blanche," said the Captain, gaily, and setting her down. Then seizing his cane from the servant, and putting on his hat with a determined air, he walked stoutly forth; and I saw him, from the window, march along the streets as cheerfully as if he had been besieging Badajoz.
"God prosper thee, too!" said I, involuntarily.
And Blanche took hold of my hand, and said in her prettiest way, (and her pretty ways were many), "I wish you would come with us, cousin Sisty, and help me to love papa. Poor papa! he wants us both – he wants all the love we can give him!"
"That he does, my dear Blanche; and I think it a great mistake that we don't all live together. Your papa ought not to go to that tower of his, at the world's end, but come to our snug, pretty house, with a garden full of flowers, for you to be Queen of the May – from May to November; – to say nothing of a duck that is more sagacious than any creature in the Fables I gave you the other day."
Blanche laughed and clapped her hands – "Oh, that would be so nice! but," – and she stopped gravely, and added, "but then, you see, there would not be the tower to love papa; and I am sure that the tower must love him very much, for he loves it dearly."
It was my turn to laugh now. "I see how it is, you little witch," said I; "you would coax us to come and live with you and the owls! With all my heart, so far as I am concerned."
"Sisty," said Blanche, with an appalling solemnity on her face, "do you know what I've been thinking?"
"Not I, miss – what? – something very deep, I can see – very horrible, indeed, I fear, you look so serious."
"Why, I've been thinking," continued Blanche, not relaxing a muscle, and without the least bit of a blush – "I've been thinking that I'll be your little wife; and then, of course, we shall all live together."
Blanche did not blush, but I did. "Ask me that ten years hence, if you dare, you impudent little thing; and now, run away to Mrs Primmins, and tell her to keep you out of mischief, for I must say good-morning."
But Blanche did not run away, and her dignity seemed exceedingly hurt at my mode of taking her alarming proposition, for she retired into a corner pouting, and sate down with great majesty. So there I left her, and went my way to Vivian. He was out; but, seeing books on his table, and having nothing to do, I resolved to wait for his return. I had enough of my father in me to turn at once to the books for company; and, by the side of some graver works which I had recommended, I found certain novels in French, that Vivian had got from a circulating library. I had a curiosity to read these – for, except the old classic novels of France, this mighty branch of its popular literature was then new to me. I soon got interested, but what an interest! – the interest that a nightmare might excite, if one caught it out of one's sleep, and set to work to examine it. By the side of what dazzling shrewdness, what deep knowledge of those holes and corners in the human system, of which Goethe must have spoken when he said somewhere – (if I recollect right, and don't misquote him, which I'll not answer for) – "There is something in every man's heart which, if we could know, would make us hate him," – by the side of all this, and of much more that showed prodigious boldness and energy of intellect, what strange exaggeration – what mock nobility of sentiment – what inconceivable perversion of reasoning – what damnable demoralisation! I hate the cant of charging works of fiction with the accusation – often unjust and shallow – that they interest us in vice, or palliate crime, because the author truly shows what virtues may entangle themselves with vices; or commands our compassion, and awes our pride, by teaching us how men deceive and bewitch themselves into guilt. Such painting belongs to the dark truth of all tragedy, from Sophocles to Shakspeare. No; this is not what shocked me in those books – it was not the interesting me in vice, for I felt no interest in it at all; it was the insisting that vice is something uncommonly noble – it was the portrait of some coldblooded adultress, whom the author or authoress chooses to call pauvre Ange! (poor angel!); – it was some scoundrel who dupes, cheats, and murders under cover of a duel, in which he is a second St George; who does not instruct us by showing through what metaphysical process he became a scoundrel, but who is continually forced upon us as a very favourable specimen of mankind; – it was the view of society altogether, painted in colours so hideous that, if true, instead of a revolution, it would draw down a deluge; – it was the hatred, carefully instilled, of the poor against the rich – it was the war breathed between class and class – it was that envy of all superiorities, which loves to show itself by allowing virtue only to a blouse, and asserting that a man must be a rogue if he belong to that rank of society in which, from the very gifts of education, from the necessary associations of circumstances, roguery is the last thing probable or natural. It was all this, and things a thousand times worse, that set my head in a whirl, as hour after hour slipped on, and I still gazed, spell-bound, on these Chimeras and Typhons – these symbols of the Destroying Principle. "Poor Vivian!" said I, as I rose at last, "if thou readest these books with pleasure, or from habit, no wonder that thou seemest to me so obtuse about right and wrong, and to have a great cavity where thy brain should have the bump of 'conscientiousness' in full salience!"
Nevertheless, to do those demoniacs justice, I had got through time imperceptibly by their pestilent help; and I was startled to see, by my watch, how late it was. I had just resolved to leave a line, fixing an appointment for the morrow, and so depart, when I heard Vivian's knock – a knock that had great character in it – haughty, impatient, irregular; not a neat, symmetrical, harmonious, unpretending knock, but a knock that seemed to set the whole house and street at defiance: it was a knock bullying – a knock ostentatious – a knock irritating and offensive – "impiger" and "iracundus."
But the step that came up the stairs did not suit the knock: it was a step light, yet firm – slow, yet elastic.
The maid-servant who had opened the door had, no doubt, informed Vivian of my visit, for he did not seem surprised to see me; but he cast that hurried, suspicious look round the room which a man is apt to cast when he has left his papers about, and finds some idler, on whose trustworthiness he by no means depends, seated in the midst of the unguarded secrets. The look was not flattering; but my conscience was so unreproachful that I laid all the blame upon the general suspiciousness of Vivian's character.
"Three hours, at least, have I been here!" said I, maliciously.
"Three hours!" – again the look.
"And this is the worst secret I have discovered," – and I pointed to those literary Manicheans.
"Oh!" said he carelessly, "French novels! – I don't wonder you stayed so long. I can't read your English novels – flat and insipid: there are truth and life here."
"Truth and life!" cried I, every hair on my head erect with astonishment – "then hurrah for falsehood and death!"
"They don't please you; no accounting for tastes."
"I beg your pardon – I account for yours, if you really take for truth and life monsters so nefast and flagitious. For heaven's sake, my dear fellow, don't suppose that any man could get on in England – get anywhere but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island, if he squared his conduct to such topsy-turvy notions of the world as I find here."
"How many years are you my senior," asked Vivian sneeringly, "that you should play the mentor, and correct my ignorance of the world?"
"Vivian, it is not age and experience that speak here, it is something far wiser than they – the instinct of a man's heart, and a gentleman's honour."
"Well, well," said Vivian, rather discomposed, "let the poor books alone; you know my creed – that books influence us little one way or the other."
"By the great Egyptian library, and the soul of Diodorus, I wish you could hear my father upon that point! Come," added I, with sublime compassion – "come, it is not too late – do let me introduce you to my father. I will consent to read French novels all my life, if a single chat with Austin Caxton does not send you home with a happier face and a lighter heart. Come, let me take you back to dine with us to-day."
"I cannot," said Vivian with some confusion – "I cannot, for this day I leave London. Some other time perhaps – for," he added, but not heartily, "we may meet again."
"I hope so," said I, wringing his hand, "and that is likely, – since, in spite of yourself, I have guessed your secret – your birth and parentage."
"How!" cried Vivian, turning pale, and gnawing his lip – "what do you mean? – speak."
"Well, then, are you not the lost, runaway son of Colonel Vivian? Come, say the truth; let us be confidants."
Vivian threw off a succession of his abrupt sighs; and then, seating himself, leant his face on the table, confused, no doubt, to find himself discovered.
"You are near the mark," said he at last, "but do not ask me farther yet. Some day," he cried impetuously, and springing suddenly to his feet – "some day you shall know all: yes; some day, if I live, when that name shall be high in the world; yes, when the world is at my feet!" He stretched his right hand as if to grasp the space, and his whole face was lighted with a fierce enthusiasm. The glow died away, and with a slight return of his scornful smile, he said – "Dreams yet; dreams! And now, look at this paper." And he drew out a memorandum, scrawled over with figures.
"This, I think, is my pecuniary debt to you; in a few days, I shall discharge it. Give me your address."
"Oh!" said I, pained, "can you speak to me of money, Vivian?"
"It is one of those instincts of honour you cite so often," answered he, colouring. "Pardon me."
"That is my address," said I, stooping to write, to conceal my wounded feelings. "You will avail yourself of it, I hope, often, and tell me that you are well and happy."
"When I am happy, you shall know."
"You do not require any introduction to Trevanion?"
Vivian hesitated: "No, I think not. If ever I do, I will write for it."
I took up my hat, and was about to go – for I was still chilled and mortified – when, as if by an irresistible impulse, Vivian came to me hastily, flung his arms round my neck, and kissed me as a boy kisses his brother.
"Bear with me!" he cried in a faltering voice: "I did not think to love any one as you have made me love you, though sadly against the grain. If you are not my good angel, it is that nature and habit are too strong for you. Certainly, some day we shall meet again. I shall have time, in the meanwhile, to see if the world can be indeed 'mine oyster, which I with sword can open.' I would be aut Cæsar aut nullus! Very little other Latin know I to quote from! If Cæsar, men will forgive me all the means to the end; if nullus, London has a river, and in every street one may buy a cord!"
"Vivian! Vivian!"
"Now go, my dear friend, while my heart is softened – go, before I shock you with some return of the native Adam. Go – go!"
And taking me gently by the arm, Francis Vivian drew me from the room, and, re-entering, locked his door.
Ah! if I could have left him Robert Hall, instead of those execrable Typhons! But would that medicine have suited his case, or must grim Experience write sterner recipes with her iron hand?