Entry 43

43


Next day, -- it was about four, -- Pashinsky, who sticks near me thinking
I am his best friend and admirer, punched me with his elbow and said:

"Look, look. Who is coming."

The Emperor, stooping and walking with tottering steps, was passing
from the garden into the house. Dr. Botkin was with him. The Emperor's
hands were clasped behind him, his eyes were staring downwards. An
old, soiled soldier's blouse of khaki flannel was hanging on his
spare, bowed, bony body. He was walking slowly, evidently trying to
appear indifferent and calm.

I had not seen him for a year and a half or even more. There was more
gray in his whiskers, -- and to me, at this moment he never seemed to so
strikingly resemble his more fortunate English cousin.

They passed very near us. Pashinsky loudly yawned and stretched
right in the Emperor's face, who looked at him blankly; but under a
dignified and elaborate calm -- I detected a spark of wounded majesty.
Then he looked at me, -- evidently seeing in me nothing but a new
jailer, -- sighed, and turned his suffering face away. Dr. Botkin looked
at me, too; he recognized me with a start.

"Ever see the bloodsucker before? Did you see how I treat him?"

"Never saw him. Where in the hell could I?... As for you -- you
certainly are some boy!"

I was so near to the Emperor that for a moment I feared he could
recognize me. But he did not, for he glanced twice at me and -- passed
by. When they were on the stairs, Botkin said something to him, and
the Emperor turned around, his eyes resting for a moment on my figure.
I brought up my hand, -- so, that for the Emperor -- it was a salute; for
Pashinsky -- a mosquito which I killed on my forehead. Both Emperor and
Botkin immediately turned away and entered the Mansion.

"You watch him closer, Syva," Pashinsky said, "I think we'll take him
away for good pretty soon."

Today, -- during my watch hours I had time to make observations,
especially, when the evening came and the night began.

In the house silent figures were walking; these delicate shadows of
yesterday; later -- Princess Tatiana sat near the window with a book.

... (line illegible).... has not changed much. From time to time
she would stop turning the pages, -- and look -- without expression,
without moving -- down at Pashinsky and me, and at the quiet city, at
clear skies, at the distant golden crosses shining under the moon.

There was something natural, -- and yet not ordinary, in this dark
figure behind the curtain.

Did she think of our black ingratitude, she who did so much for the
wounded soldiers and for the families of those killed? Did she think
of the capricious Fate, which played with her young life so nastily?
Did she pray -- crushed, humble, and lost? Did she cry for the past, or
dream of the future?... Or, perhaps, in her mind was the present, -- and
behind those noble eyebrows, were thoughts and plans to fight
still.... Perhaps there was hope?

This dark figure and the other frightened silhouettes of the
endangered ladies in the Mansion, surrounded by their jailers, keep me
turning from side to side each night.

I see crooked smiles full of rotting teeth; I see perspiring low
foreheads and piercing oily eyes; and I know that New Russia has no
compassion.