Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/408

398 us! They are flooding with light even those dark places of the earth which used to be the habitations of cruelty."

"But is there not something else still to be wished for, Ivan? Those free Bibles you speak of, should you not wish to see them read and loved by free peasants?"

"That is coming too," said Ivan, with rapt look and confident voice. "Every one who knows the Czar knows that his cherished dream—his favourite, his ruling idea—is now, as it has ever been, the emancipation of the serfs. Through the facilities he has afforded and the encouragement he has given, many have been freed already. Count Sergius Romanzoff, for instance, has given liberty to all his serfs."

"And why not Prince Ivan Pojarsky?" asked Clémence in a low voice, as she laid her hand on his arm and looked earnestly into his face.

"You utter the voice of my own heart, Clémence. Often have I thought of this. But—" He broke off his unfinished sentence, and began to pace the room with rapid footsteps.

Clémence took up the last word. "But there are many difficulties," she said.

"One is quite sufficient, for the present," Ivan pursued. "The people of Nicolofsky are not fit for greater freedom than they have now; they would not know how to use it. Let us train them for it," he added as he stopped before her chair.

"Which already we are trying to do, are we not?" asked Clémence.

"Yes," he said. "That is God's work for us. Part of it. There is work here, too—noble, blessed work. How good it is of our Father in heaven to cast our lot in such times as these, Clémence. Surely they are the last times, when 'the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall