Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/451

Rh to do and much to suffer, but which could never more be kindled by the light of morning, by the glamour of romance. All was changed, and changed for ever.

He laid before him on the table two memorials of the past which he always wore&mdash;the Moscow medal, and the golden coin Alexander's hand had given him long ago by the Oka. The medal he looked at with a sigh and put down quietly, the coin he pressed once and again to his lips. Clearly, as though it were but yesterday, he saw the noble form of "his boyar"&mdash;the stately head, the young face, so full of manly beauty and deep concern&mdash;bending compassionately over the mujik's prostrate form. Then, unawares, the vision changed. The low, distant chant of sweet voices in the chapel, performing the midnight Easter service, fell upon his ear, and turned aside the current of his thoughts, though it could not break the isolation of his sorrow. Instead of the banks of the Oka he saw the vine-clad plains of France, and heard the thrilling harmony, almost awful in its solemn majesty, of that thanksgiving service in the Plaine des Vertus. In what joy and glory had his Czar walked that day&mdash;so grand and peerless amongst men&mdash;so full of lowly, reverent gladness before his Saviour and his God!

A flood of bitter pain swept over him. "O God!" he cried, "why didst thou not take him thus to thyself?" If a heroic, triumphant death had stopped him in the midst of his career of victory, Ivan almost felt as though he could have borne the blow. Or if God had made him to prosper in all he put his hand to, had given him to see the glad fruition of all his hopes and dreams, and then gently taken him, full of years and honours, from an earthly to a heavenly crown, Ivan could have comprehended his ways with his servant; he could have said, "Thy will be done."

He did not say it now. His soul rose up in rebellion, and from its seething depths there came the bitter cry, "Was this thy word unto thy servant, upon which thou didst cause him to