Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/191

Rh again. Even now I look back upon what I said with amazement. Evidently Count Rostopchine has been generous, and has spoken highly of my services in his letter. His Majesty observed that heroism and fidelity appear to be hereditary in my family; and asked me whether I was not the representative of the great Prince Pojarsky, the deliverer of Moscow. I answered, 'Sire, I am his descendant; I know not whether I am his representative.' He inquired my meaning, and thus it came to pass that I talked to him about my father."

"About your father!" Adrian repeated in great astonishment. "You amaze me! You and I have lived together for six years, and never have I heard you so much as name him."

"No; never to any one around me—scarcely even to dear old Petrovitch. Yet to my sovereign, in one hour, the whole secret of my life flashed out, I know not how. I told all;—how ever since I heard the story of my birth in early boyhood, I dreamed of that exiled father, dwelling forlorn and solitary in the frozen desert of Siberia; how I longed to seek him out and comfort him, and even dared to cherish the hope that one day I might win his pardon and restore him to his home. But, even as I spoke thus, a sudden overwhelming sense of the presence in which I stood swept over me. I was confounded, struck dumb, paralyzed with the sense of my own boldness. At last I stammered, by way of excuse, 'I implore of your Majesty to pardon me; you can understand how the sad fate of a father must shadow the life of a son!'"

Adrian uttered a groan of dismay. "Most luckless of men!" he cried. "Never in all your days did you make a blunder until that moment. My friend Ivan, it is clear you are no courtier; you may as well give up the game at once and come back to the camp with me."

"Why so?" asked Ivan, terribly disconcerted. "What have I said amiss? I don't understand—"

"You don't understand! Have you forgotten the fate of