Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/140

 CHAPTER XIII.

SERF AND BOYAR.

T was evening. Ivan Pojarsky sat alone in the saloon of the Wertsch family mansion. The costly furniture with which it was strewn had that indescribable air of neglect and forlornness which household goods assume when death, or sorrow deep as death, broods over their owners. There was disorder too: chairs had been dragged carelessly about, and their rich and delicate coverings soiled and crumpled; while a beautiful climbing plant, laden with rare flowers, lay unheeded on the floor beside the broken shaft that had been its support. A costly buhl table near Ivan's chair had the remains of his last meal upon it.

Within the apartment all was still,—Ivan sat motionless and silent, his head resting on his hands,—but without there was a hoarse, continuous, never-ending murmur, made up of many sounds. There was the tramp of armed men, heavy and monotonous. There was the roll and rumble of ten thousand wheels—wheels of every sort and description, from those of the ponderous waggon laden with the goods of an entire household to those of the light telega, from which every now and then a scout was imparting to the breathless crowd his tidings that the standards of Napoleon had been seen at such or such a