For God and the Czar! [A tale.] ... Fourth thousand

Front matter

BY J. E. MUDDOCK, AUTHOR OF " Stormligkl," " As the Shadows Fall," " The Dead Man's Secret," " Stones Weird and Wonderful," "From the Bosom of the Deep,'' "Maid Marian and Robin Hood," <5rV. FOURTH THOUSAND LONDON : GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED, SOUTHAMPTON STREET AND EXETER STREET, STRAND. 1892. [All rights reserved.) £>cfcication. To Jew and Gentile alike this book is humbly dedicated, in the hope that even the feeble attempt which I have made, under the guise of fiction, to lay bare the rottenness of Russia may not be without some good effect, and that honest men and women throughout the world, who believe that all races and creeds find acceptance in God's sight, will raise t/ieir voices against a system of government which is at once a disgrace and an outrage. The exile system peculiar to Russia, and the power that is p>laced in the hands of illiterate and stupid subordinates, would not be tolerated in any other civilized country where the people claimed to be free.

But surely the day is not Jar off when the down-trodden millions of Russia will resent this, and, bursting their shackles with a mighty wrench, will shake the world with their cry of Freedom. I, who love freedom and just laws, pray that God, the Father of all mankind, may hasten the coming of that day. CONTENTS. PAGE

Chapter I. In The Gostinnoi-dvor

" Here will I build a window through which I can look into Europe," exclaimed the imperious monarch Peter the Great, when he beheld the dreary and desolate marshes through which flowed the sluggish Neva, and where the heron and the bittern piped and boomed in the keen Arctic blasts. And, in accordance with the Imperial edict, there arose the stately city of St. Petersburg, the stage on which this drama of passion and plot commences. Peter was an autocratic despot, and thousands of his poor subjects died in rearing his city, and the suffering and the misery were unutterable. But it was all endured in silence, for the people toiled and died " For God and the Czar." St. Petersburg is a strange city, full of contradictions, and if one sought for a simile to typify it, not an inapt one would be — a casket, gilt and fair seeming on the exterior, but full of rottenness and corruption within, v. Generations have passed since the founder of the marsh city went down into the dust from whence he sprang, but his " window " remains, and it is in St. Petersburg that the pulse of all the Russias beats.

"The voice of the Lord cried aloud upon the waters, saying: 'Come hither and receive the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, and of the fear of the Lord of Christ, who is manifested unto us.'" Thus chant the priests when on the festival of Epiphania they go to bless the Neva, which for thirteen miles winds its way through the Imperial city, and every true Russian believes that it is in St. Petersburg that the " spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, and the fear of the Lord of Christ " abideth. Presently we shall see to what extent the belief is justified. Come we now to this City of the Marshes. It is an early June day, and the boreal winter still grips the earth, as if reluctant to let go its hold. But there is hope in the westering sun, which, slowly sinking, casts long slanting shadows across the rip pling waters, and the grim pile, so full of bitter memories, and known as the fortress of St. Peter and Paul, with its gilt spire, its towers, its .chimneys, and its embrasured battlements, stands out like a painted picture, as all its angles and outlines are brought into sharp relief against the pale green sky which is such a marked feature of the strange Russian climate.

Some day, in the not far-distant future, the crushed people will rise in their might and sweep this accursed place from the face of the land, even as the angry multitude in France hurled the Bastile to the ground. St. Peter and Paul is the Russian Bastile. The groans of its victims go up to the Throne of Grace, and its stones are reddened with the blood of those who have been done to death in the name of God and the Czar. Through the Gostinnoi-dvor, or Great Bazaar, walks in stately pride Aaron Arama. He has been transacting business, and thoughtful and contem plative he is returning to his home, where a welcome awaits him, and where beauty shines like a northern star of the first magnitude on a night of frosty splendour. " Who is that man ? " asks a stranger to the city of a companion, as Aaron passes them.

" A Jew," is the contemptuous answer, accompanied by an expectoration, as if the mere utterance of the word " Jew " had defiled his mouth. " By St. Peter, that is manifest in his bearing," exclaimed the questioner ; " and one that hath wealth, I'll warrant, and who squeezes the poor even as he would drain a sponge." " Aye, truly, it is so," answered the speaker's companion. " It is strange that our Little Father, the all powerful Czar, permits these accursed Jews to find shelter in Holy Russia," continued the first man, "Were I the Czar, I would command that throughout the Empire 'Death to the Jews' be a watchword, and these unbelievers should be smitten hip and thigh." Aaron Arama, who had overheard the conversation, paused in his walk, and turning, faced the speakers. He was a picturesque, almost majestic figure.

Tall and straight, with a noble head and a face full of dignity and beaming with intelligence. A long, flowing white beard gave him a patriarchal appear ance, and from the edge of the black skull-cap he wore his grey locks depended to his shoulders. He was attired in a caftan or long cloak edged with fur, for though it was June the air was still raw and cold during the afternoons and evenings. " Wherefore should my race be smitten ? " he asked in a commanding voice, that was full and resonant as a deep-toned bell. " For eighteen hundred years my people have suffered and been tortured by you Christians, who prowl about us like wolves, thirsting for our blood. We have been patient under our afflictions, silent in spite of our torture ; yet have you persecuted us. Our sobbing and our tears, and the wail of our women and our children, might have wrung pity from statues ; but men who, like ourselves, are flesh and blood, and created by God, have in the name of the All Powerful inflicted upon us wrongs and sufferings at which Heaven itself has wept.

Shame on you. Go you to your homes and pray that you may be forgiven." He paused for a moment ; then raising his hands he cried, with startling impressiveness, " God of vengeance, wherefore doth Thy wrath sleep ? How long shall our people groan beneath their wrongs ? What are the crimes that we have committed that we should thus be ground into the dust, and our blood spilt as if it were water ? Answer, O Lord, for long have we suffered, and we wait for a sign." " Dog of a Jew ! " sneered the man who had answered his friend's question. " Preach not to us ; we are Christians " " And barbarians," added Aaron Arama. " A curse on you," cried the second man, passionately, and making a menacing movement towards the Jew. " You pollute the land, and should be swept from its face." " Down with the Jew !

" cried several angry voices in the crowd that had collected around, attracted by the altercation, and the mob began to press upon Aaron with the evident design of hustling him ; but raising his right hand heavenward, he exclaimed : — " He who respects not the grey hairs of honourable age will assuredly be accursed. The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac will protect me. Back, I say, lest your arms fall palsied at your side, and your mocking tongues grow dumb for ever, as the wrath of the Lord is hurled against you." He spoke like one inspired, and his dark eyes were filled with the anger-fire of indignation and wounded pride. Some of those who crowded about him were so impressed by his stately bearing and commanding manner that they seemed awed, and recoiled away. But others again jeered and laughed, calling them cowards, and asking : — " Wherefore are you afraid of a Jew ?

Know you not that in our Little Father's land a Jew hath not so much value as a swine? If you kill a swine that belongs not to you the judges will exact a fine, but what judge will fine you for killing a Jew?" This argument told, and the angry swelling of the voices of the jostling crowd was like the moan of the sea in the rising wind ; it presaged mischief. The people closed about the old man, and one plucked his beard, and another snatched off the cap that covered his head. " Shame on you, children of ignorance and stupidity," he cried, as calm and defiant he towered above his tormentors. " Know you not that for thirty-five years I have lived in this city as an honourable citizen : lived in peace and harmony with all my fellows, Christian and Jew alike, and I have molested no man ? " " You have taken usurer's interest," cried one.

" 'Tis false," answered Aaron. " I lend not my moneys. I am a trader." " And cheat the Christian," put in another. " False again," said Aaron, " for I am honest and trade fair." " How comes it, then, that you have made a fortune ? " demanded a big, burly fellow, clad in a greasy sheep skin, and wearing a large fur cap on his head ; and as he pressed forward he flourished his great fist in the Jew's face. " O, man of gross passion and pitiable ignorance," exclaimed Aaron, contemptuously ; " when you have slept I have toiled. When you have been steeped in besotted stupidity through indulgence in vodka, I have had a clear head and a brain to think. I have out raged not Nature's laws, but have humbly striven to live the life of an upright man, whom God made in His own image." His answer, justified though it was perhaps, and which was characteristic of the fearless independence of Aaron Arama, was in no way calculated to allay the aroused passions of those who heard it.

Aaron was a well-known figure in St. Petersburg, and was distinguished no less for his learning and great intelligence than for his kindliness of heart and generous nature. But his race and religion had ever been objects of hatred with the people in whose midst he lived, and the most ignorant and drunken loafer of the bazaars felt and believed that he was fully privileged to insult and sneer at a Jew. The man who had been addressed as a "man of gross passions and pitiable ignorance " was stirred into wrathful anger, and, turning to the fellows about him, he cried, appealingly : — " Little fathers, is it thus that we are to be preached at by a dog of a denying Jew ? Are we to be told that we are men of gross passions and pitiable ignorance, and yet remain patient and quiet as if we had no voices, and no feelings, and no hearts ?

" "No, no," cried many. "It shall not be. Down with the accursed Jew." " Aye, down with him, and all his tribe," shouted the man, growing bolder as he saw that the mob was in sympathy with him. " Let us beat him, and break his bones, and strip his fine caftan from him." The fellow made a desperate clutch at the Jew's cloaki tearing away its fastenings, but he had calculated too much on Aaron's age and patience, for the old man seized him with a suddenness that astonished him, and a vice-like grip that brought the paleness of craven fear into his greasy face. But the crowd roared, and jostled, and surged, like a pack of raven ing wolves struggling for prey ; the man was wrested from the grip in which he was held, and there is no doubt it would have gone hard with Arama had not the people been stayed in their intentions by a loud and angry voice crying out, " Stoi, stoi !

" (stop, stop !) The authority with which the words were uttered exerted so much influence over the crowd that they paused, and then a stalwart, handsome young man forced his way into their midst, exclaiming : — " Back, dogs and fools, and leave this gentleman alone, or you shall suffer in purse and body. I have spoken. Beware I " In the new-comer who thus courageously cham pioned the Jew some of the people recognised Ivan Alexieff, the only son of the chief of the St. Peters burg police ; but as Ivan was known to be a Christian, and the son of a Christian, great was the astonishment that was expressed that he should thus take Aaron's part. " Pajoust catinska " (as you please), growled the man who had assaulted Arama, as he retreated before the threatening Ivan, " but I have a grievance against this Jew, and I will treasure it."

Ivan Alexieff took no notice of the threat, but, turning to Aaron, he said, " Follow me." Then, by a vigorous use of his elbows, he pushed the crowd on one side, and he and Arama were free. " It were well not to linger here," he said, " these fools are angry, and an angry fool hath no discretion." " I owe you a debt," answered Aaron, " but since I recognise you not, tell me your name, I pray, that it may be honoured in my family." " By your family I would have it so honoured," replied Ivan. "Know me, then, as Ivan Alexieff, son of Peter Alexieff." " The recently-appointed Chief of the Police ? " " The same." " How comes it, then, that you have taken my part ? For, if report belies him not, your father is an uncompromising hater of my race." I " That is true," answered Ivan, " but father and son do not always think alike."

" You are a noble youth, a noble youth," said Aaron, "and the Lord will prosper you. I would know you better, and would value your friendship. Therefore, the door of my house will ever be open to you, and my wife and my daughter will greet you at all times with a welcome." "Rest assured that I shall put that to the test," Ivan said, with a display of eagerness that escaped Arama's attention, or he might have been curious to know the cause. In a few minutes they parted, as their roads lay in opposite directions ; and as Ivan went on his way he was very thoughtful, and his thoughts were of the Jew's daughter. Ivan Alexieff was still little more than a youth, for he was only in his twenty-third year, and Nature had endowed him with physical attributes than won for him the respect and envy of his fellows.

He was a young giant in strength ; and women had spoken of him as being "handsome as Apollo." He had been pampered and spoilt and had run wild, so that between him and his kinsmen much friction had resulted, and his father had at one time threatened to disown him. For two or three years Ivan had been out of the country. He had visited France and England, and had but recently returned, somewhat more restless in spirit, and with his views and ideas more undecided than they were when he went away. His father was a time-server, a place-hunter ; an unscrupulous player for the prizes in life. He was ambitious and craved for power, and to satisfy his cravings he would stop at nothing. Tolerance and human brotherhood found no place in his creed. The only love he knew was love of self — and by nature he was a crafty despot, a pitiless tyrant.

For years he had been secretary to Count Nicholas Suvorof, and through that nobleman's influence he had recently been installed in position as Chief of the Police, a position that had been rendered vacant by the assassination of Alexieff's predecessor. Such was the father. The son was unlike him in many respects. His mother was noted for her beauty, and was a woman of deep sympathies and of a religious turn of mind. Ivan had been much under her influence, and his character, whatever it was, had taken its colouring to some extent from her. But in many respects Ivan was an original. He thought and acted for himself. In matters of love no one could guide him. He had looked upon Rachel, the daughter of Aaron Arama, and his heart had gone out towards her, although no opportunity had occurred for him to tell her his love. But it was the influence of her beauty that had led him to protect Aaron from the anger of the mob in the Gostinnoi-dvor.

Chapter II. The Madness Of Passion

Rachel Arama was a type — the very highest type — of Jewish beauty. It was the beauty of the night, for she was as dark as a raven, and her eyes were like two scintillating stars. The glory of the rose's colour had dyed her lips, and the olive's clear ness tinted her cheeks. In a mould of faultless grace and perfection had she been cast, and it seemed as if Nature, in this her sweet handiwork, had resolved that there should be neither fault nor flaw. Rachel Arama was beautiful. She was a vision of beauty — a dream of loveliness — the embodiment of the poet's and artist's ideal when they seek to express the beauty of heaven in woman's form. An only daughter, she was as the apple of her father's eye and the pride and joy of her mother, also a beautiful woman. Rachel had completed her twenty-first year, and in order to mark the occasion her parents gave a ball, to which some of the leading members of society, Christian and Jew alike, were invited.

Russia has been described as a country of sublime sadness, and yet the joyous feelings of the people find expression on every possible occasion in social gatherings, in music, in singing, and in dancing. Aaron Arama was a man of high importance amongst his co-religionists in St. Petersburg, and even the more enlightened Christians regarded him with respect and tolerance. He was rich, and riches go for much in a land where poverty is the rule ; and his wife and daughter were counted amongst the most beautiful women in the city. But it was on Rachel that the interest centred. Her own sex envied her, and men, without respect of creed or caste, gazed upon her with longing, and were dazzled, even as he who looks upon the sun is dazzled, so that when he turns away all else is dark. But the favoured one was Moshka Umanski, a young man of great promise, a little older than she was, and who seemed peculiarly fitted in every way to become her mate.

Moshka was the son of one of the Chief Rabbis of Moscow, and he himself had aspired to enter the church of his people, and for that purpose had studied. But at last, by his father's desire, he had given up thoughts of the church, and had taken to the law, in which he promised to distinguish himself. Very happy indeed was Moshka when he thought of Rachel the beautiful, who was to be his bride ; and he had said to her : — " God is good and the world sublime. We shall live a life of unclouded happiness, for love can beautify life, and we love each other as man and woman never loved before." Rachel assented to this, and so they dreamed as lovers always dream, and they saw nothing of the dark shadows that were gathering ahead, and out of which the lightning was to come and smite them. It was in the Petersburgskaia Storona, which is the northern and oldest part of the town, that Aaron Arama lived with his family.

The citadel stands in this quarter, and round about it cluster huge houses, which are for the most part inhabited by those of the Jewish faith. Externally this section of the town is the shabbiest and most squalid-looking, but probably there is more wealth collected there than is to be found in any area of the same extent in the whole of the vast town. To this quarter longing and greedy eyes were often turned as to an El Dorado ; and not infrequently had threats been uttered that some day it should be given to the flames, the Jews driven out, and their property confiscated. In one of the most ancient, but one of the most picturesque of the houses, dwelt Aaron Arama in peace and contentment. He had been a good citizen, fulfil ling his duties to the State in the strictest sense ; and he had endeavoured with might and main to sweep away some of the prejudice that existed amongst the Christians against his race and creed.

To the ball, Ivan Alexieff was invited, for how could Aaron forget the service the young man had rendered him in the Bazzar ? — and the opportunity that Ivan had so long sighed for was thus at last his. He knew that the beauty of Rachel was as a tale amongst the people, and he had gazed upon her often, but never a chance had been given him to exchange sentiments with her. But now he was under the same roof ; now was he privileged to address her, and conscious of his own natural attrac tions, he was strongly hopeful that he could so impress her, in spite of the difference in their faith, that she would give him ear. The scene was a brilliant one, for Aaron had been lavish in his expenditure, and the Russian love of colour was displayed in the decoration of -.he rooms, the gay dresses of the ladies, and the uniforms of the officials and military men who had accepted the rich Jew's invitation to partake of his hospitality and to celebrate the coming of age of Rachel.

There were many beautiful women present, but Rachel was the most distinguished of them all. Her radiant beauty eclipsed all the others, and her irresistible fascination drew men to her even as moths are drawn to the flame. Ivan Alexieff was blind to all else but her — deaf to everything but the music of her voice ; and he felt that to win her he would dare the torture of Hades itself. Unable longer to remain silent, he seized a moment when she stood alone to approach her, and he said in low tones : — " Give me, I crave, a few minutes' speech with you. I am Ivan Alexieff, son of Peter Alexieff, Chief of the Police, and I have had the supreme good fortune to render some slight service to your father." " I know, I know," she answered quickly, and with a trace of trepidation, for instinctively she guessed what he would say to her, and her olive cheeks became suffused with red.

" My father has spoken very highly of you," she continued, " and need I say that his friends are welcome here ? " These words gave Ivan hope and courage, for he was not aware at this time that she was betrothed to Moshka Umanski, and he said : — " Presuming upon my welcome, then, I pray you give me your arm, and let me lead you into the corridor." She hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment, and then, remembering how highly her father had spoken of the young man, she complied with his request, and laying the tips of her gloved hand on his arm, she allowed him to lead her to the corridor, a huge stone passage, as in most Russian houses, and now decorated for the nonce with evergreens and rare plants. Then, with the impulsiveness that was part of his nature, he said, abruptly : — " Rachel, I have seen you often, and love for you has grown up in my heart, until it seems to me as if the world without you would be a howling wilderness."

" But you are a Christian," she exclaimed, drawing a little away from him, and looking very astonished. "And what of that? Love levels all. Love has no creed ; it sweeps away every barrier of race and faith. But for your sake I would renounce everything, and will become your slave." " Hush, you must not speak like that," she answered, trembling a little with the excitement his words caused her. " I admit that love is all-powerful, but, though I hope to have your friendship, I cannot give you love ; it is impossible." " Impossible ! " he echoed. " Yes." " Wherefore impossible ? " " Because I am already betrothed and pledged to a co-religionist." This announcement seemed to cause Ivan to stagger. Fire came into his eyes and his cheeks reddened, while his voice was quivering as he said : — " Betrothed and pledged !

No, no, say not that. I have dreamed of you. Let me not awake to find that I have been mocked by a phantom. Betrothed and pledged ! Nay, though it be so, I will hope to win you. I know not my rival ; but I am as good as he, as brave as he, as strong as he, and I will be his deadly enemy, even to the Jaws of Death." " Oh, how strangely you talk," Rachel exclaimed, with a shudder. " Wherefore do you speak like that? It is not kind. It is not manly." c " Not manly," cried Ivan, with a laugh of bitterness. " Not manly to hate one's rival, and to wish to slay him ? The lower animals brook no rivalry. Is man less than the animals ? Love that is thwarted becomes madness, and madness is reckless of con sequences. I tell you, Rachel, I love you, and if any man stands between us, let him beware ! " Over Rachel's beautiful face there swept a look of fear and pain that was quite foreign to it, and, gazing tearfully on Ivan, who addressed her in language that she had never heard before in all her life, she said : — " Talk not like that.

You frighten me, and I shall flee from you as from one who would do me harm and destroy my happiness. I tell you that my love and pledge are already given. How, then, can I bestow them on you ? " " I confess I have been hasty," he answered, apolo getically. " But I have nursed my admiration for you so long in silence that now, when the opportunity is given me to speak, I feel as if many words would but waste time. Again I say to you, Rachel, that the world to me without you will be a blank, and my life will be purposeless." " Oh ! why do you distress me," she moaned, " by talking thus ? You have no claim upon me. There can be nothing in common between us. Our paths lie wide asunder. A man must not aim at the impossible ; he should not leap at the stars, and it is sinful for him to attempt to sap the happiness of a woman.

Up to now my life has been without one discordant note. Why should you now sound a discord ? To Moshka Umanski I am pledged, and Moshka Umanski will become my husband. He is one of my people, he is the choice of my parents, he is the heart of my heart. For me to listen to words of love under these circumstances would be a deadly sin. If you desire my friendship you shall have it. Here is my hand in pledge thereof. But more than friendship I can never give you." She had spoken hurriedly, and with some display of excitement ; but with an evident intelligent grasp of the situation. Alexieff seized her hand with an amount of nervous energy that quite startled her, and with blazing eyes he looked into her exquisitely beautiful face, that was pale now with fear and mis giving. She tried to draw away, but he held her fast, and said with a certain subdued fierceness : — " To look on you is to forget everything else.

I have looked on you, and all the world has faded from my gaze. If I turn my eyes from you I shall be blind, even as a sun-gazer is. Bid me live, bid me hope, bid me rejoice. Tell me to grovel in the dust at your feet and I will do it. There is no request you can make that I will not comply with, save to go from you in despair." " Ivan Alexieff, release me ! " she cried, with grow ing anger, which flushed her face once more, and caused her eyes to glow until they flashed like the stars that sparkle in frosty splendour in the Arctic heavens. But her anger only enhanced her unspeak able beauty ; and those wondrous eyes burned into his very soul, making him bolder, more reckless, more determined. "You must give me hope!" he said passionately. " It cannot be ; it is impossible !" "Impossible! There is no such word.