Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/76

66 One incident of his first winter in Moscow shocked Ivan considerably, though it made scarcely any impression upon those around him. Coming out at midnight with the Wertsches from a sumptuous entertainment at the palace of a friend, they found their little postilion lying dead in the snow, close to the horses' feet, with the reins still wound around his stiffened arm. The child—a mujik of twelve years old, chosen for his beauty—had fallen from his seat overcome by cold and fatigue, and the coachman, himself half frozen, did not know what had happened until too late to help him. Such accidents were of daily occurrence, Ivan was told, during the frosty weather. No one seemed to think much about it; he was only a mujik, one of the "black people," in the eyes of the fashionable world little better than beasts of burden. But Ivan was haunted for weeks with the dead face of the pretty boy, to whom he had often given a few kopecks to buy sweetmeats. Another face came before him too with a reproachful, accusing look—the face that he had seen bending compassionately over the senseless form of Stefen Alexitch. Ivan often looked for that face in public places, in fashionable assemblies, in church; but it is needless to add that he looked for it in vain.

About two years after his arrival in Moscow, Ivan made an expedition to Nicolofsky to visit his old friends. Although scarcely sixteen, he already considered himself, and was considered by others, quite grown up. The young Russian of that day ripened early into manhood: fifteen was a usual age for entering the army, and education was then considered complete. Still, though he thought himself old enough for any adventure, Ivan might have postponed his journey for another year, had not the proprietor of a neighbouring estate, who was going to spend the summer at his country house, obligingly offered him a seat in his carriage.

He had provided himself with gifts for all his friends, and ransacked the "Silver Row" in the Great Bazaar for the