tobolsk, though a siberian metropolis, is really a very pleasant place to pass a winter in. like the western american cities, where everybody has made his money easily and spends it easily, it positively bubbles over with bad champagne, cheap culture, advanced thought, french romances, and all the other most recent products of human industry and ingenuity. everybody eats paté de foie gras, quotes hartmann and herbert spencer, uses electric bells, believes in woman's rights, possesses profound views about the future of asia, and had a grandfather who was a savage samoyede or an ignorant buriat. society is extremely cultivated, and if you scratch it ever so little, you see the tartar. nevertheless, it considers itself the only really polite and enlightened community on the whole face of this evolving terrestrial planet.
the davidoffs, however, who belonged to the most advanced section of mercantile society in all tobolsk, were not originally siberians, or even russians, by birth or nationality. old mr. davidoff, the grandfather, who founded the fortunes of the family in st. petersburg, was a welsh davids; and he had altered his name by the timely addition of a slavonic suffix in order to conciliate the national susceptibilities of orthodox russia. his[pg 165] son, dimitri, whom for the same reason he had christened in honour of a russian saint, removed the russian branch of the house to tobolsk (they were in the siberian fur-trade), and there marrying a german lady of the name of freytag, had one daughter and heiress, olga davidoff, the acknowledged belle of tobolskan society. it was generally understood in tobolsk that the davidoffs were descended from welsh princes (as may very likely have been the case—though one would really like to know what has become of all the descendants of welsh subjects), if indeed they were not even remotely connected with the prince of wales himself in person.
the winter of 1873 (as everybody will remember) was a very cold one throughout siberia. the rivers froze unusually early, and troikas had entirely superseded torosses on all the roads as early as the very beginning of october. still, tobolsk was exceedingly gay for all that; in the warm houses of the great merchants, with their tropical plants kept at summer heat by stoves and flues all the year round, nobody noticed the exceptional rigour of that severe season. balls and dances followed one another in quick succession, and olga davidoff, just twenty, enjoyed herself as she had never before done in all her lifetime. it was such a change to come to the concentrated gaities and delights of tobolsk after six years of old miss waterlow's establishment for young ladies, at the laurels, clapham.
that winter, for the first time, baron niaz, the buriat, came to tobolsk.
exquisitely polished in manners, and very handsome in face and bearing, there was nothing of the tartar anywhere visible about baron niaz. he had been brought up in paris, at a fashionable lycée, and he spoke french with perfect fluency, as well as with some native sparkle and genuine cleverness. his taste in music was unimpeachable: even madame davidoff, née freytag, candidly[pg 166] admitted that his performances upon the violin were singularly brilliant, profound, and appreciative. moreover, though a buriat chief, he was a most undoubted nobleman: at the governor's parties he took rank, by patent of the emperor nicholas, as a real russian baron of the first water. to be sure, he was nominally a tartar; but what of that? his mother and his grandmother, he declared, had both been russian ladies; and you had only to look at him to see that there was scarcely a drop of tartar blood still remaining anywhere in him. if the half-caste negro is a brown mulatto, the quarter-caste a light quadroon, and the next remove a practically white octoroon, surely baron niaz, in spite of his remote buriat great-grandfathers, might well pass for an ordinary everyday civilized russian.
olga davidoff was fairly fascinated by the accomplished young baron. she met him everywhere, and he paid her always the most marked and flattering attention. he was a buriat, to be sure: but at tobolsk, you know——. well, one mustn't be too particular about these little questions of origin in an asiatic city.
it was at the governor's dance, just before christmas, that the baron got his first good chance of talking with her for ten minutes alone among the fan palms and yuccas in the big conservatory. there was a seat in the far corner beside the flowering oleander, where the baron led her after the fourth waltz, and leant over her respectfully as she played with her chinese fan, half trembling at the declaration she knew he was on the point of making to her.
"mademoiselle davidoff," the baron began in french, with a lingering cadence as he pronounced her name, and a faint tremor in his voice that thrilled responsively through her inmost being; "mademoiselle davidoff, i have been waiting long for this opportunity of speaking to you alone, because i have something of some importance—to me at least, mademoiselle—about which i wish to[pg 167] confer with you. mademoiselle, will you do me the honour to listen to me patiently a minute or two? the matter about which i wish to speak to you is one that may concern yourself, too, more closely than you at first imagine."
what a funny way to begin proposing to one! olga davidoff's heart beat violently as she answered as unconcernedly as possible, "i shall be glad, m. le baron, i'm sure, to listen to any communication that you may wish to make to me."
"mademoiselle," the young man went on almost timidly—how handsome he looked as he stood there bending over her in his semi-barbaric tartar uniform!—"mademoiselle, the village where i live in our own country is a lonely one among the high mountains. you do not know the buriat country—it is wild, savage, rugged, pine-clad, snow-clad, solitary, inaccessible, but very beautiful. even the russians do not love it; but we love it, we others, who are to the manner born. we breathe there the air of liberty, and we prefer our own brawling streams and sheer precipices to all the artificial stifling civilization of paris and st. petersburg."
olga looked at him and smiled quietly. she saw at once how he wished to break it to her, and held her peace like a wise maiden.
"yes, mademoiselle," the young man went on, flooding her each moment with the flashing light from his great luminous eyes; "my village in the buriat country lies high up beside the eternal snows. but though we live alone there, so far from civilization that we seldom see even a passing traveller, our life is not devoid of its own delights and its own interests. i have my own people all around me; i live in my village as a little prince among his own subjects. my people are few, but they are very faithful. mademoiselle has been educated in england, i believe?"
"yes," olga answered. "in london, m. le baron. i[pg 168] am of english parentage, and my father sent me there to keep up the connection with his old fatherland, where one branch of our house is still established."
"then, mademoiselle, you will doubtless have read the tales of walter scott?"
olga smiled curiously. "yes," she said, amused at his na?veté, "i have certainly read them." she began to think that after all the handsome young buriat couldn't mean really to propose to her.
"well, you know, in that case, what was the life of a highland chieftain in scotland, when the highland chieftains were still practically all but independent. that, mademoiselle, is exactly the life of a modern buriat nobleman under the russian empire. he has his own little territory and his own little people; he lives among them in his own little antiquated fortress; he acknowledges nominally the sovereignty of the most orthodox czar, and even perhaps exchanges for a russian title the tartar chieftainship handed down to him in unbroken succession from his earliest forefathers. but in all the rest he still remains essentially independent. he rules over a little principality of his own, and cares not a fig in his own heart for czar, or governor, or general, or minister."
"this is rather treasonable talk for the governor's palace," olga put in, smiling quietly. "if we were not already in tobolsk we might both, perhaps, imagine we should be sent to siberia."
the baron laughed, and showed his two rows of pearly white teeth to the best advantage. "they might send me to the mines," he said, "for aught i care, mademoiselle. i could get away easily enough from village to village to my own country; and once there, it would be easier for the czar to take constantinople and bagdad and calcutta than to track and dislodge alexander niaz in his mountain fortress."[pg 169]
alexander niaz! olga noted the name to herself hurriedly. he was converted then! he was an orthodox christian! that at least was a good thing, for so many of these buriats are still nothing more than the most degraded schamanists and heathens!
"but, mademoiselle," the young man went on again, playing more nervously now than ever with the jewelled hilt of his dress sword, "there is one thing still wanting to my happiness among our beautiful siberian mountains. i have no lovely chatelaine to help me guard my little feudal castle. mademoiselle, the buriat women are not fit allies for a man who has been brought up among the civilization and the learning of the great western cities. he needs a companion who can sympathize with his higher tastes: who can speak with him of books, of life, of art, of music. our buriat women are mere household drudges; to marry one of them would be utterly impossible. mademoiselle, my father and my grandfather came away from their native wilds to seek a lady who would condescend to love them, in the polite society of tobolsk. i have gone farther afield: i have sought in paris, berlin, vienna, st. petersburg. but i saw no lady to whose heart my heart responded, till i came back once more to old tobolsk. there, mademoiselle, there i saw one whom i recognized at once as fashioned for me by heaven. mademoiselle davidoff,—i tremble to ask you, but—i love you,—will you share my exile?"
olga looked at the handsome young man with unconcealed joy and admiration. "your exile!" she murmured softly, to gain time for a moment. "and why your exile, m. le baron?"
"mademoiselle," the young buriat continued very earnestly, "i do not wish to woo or wed you under false pretences. before you give me an answer, you must understand to what sort of life it is that i venture to invite you. our mountains are very lonely: to live there[pg 170] would be indeed an exile to you, accustomed to the gaieties and the vortex of london." (olga smiled quietly to herself, as she thought for a second of the little drawing-room at the laurels, clapham.) "but if you can consent to live in it with me, i will do my best to make it as easy for you as possible. you shall have music, books, papers, amusements—but not society—during the six months of summer which we must necessarily pass at my mountain village; you shall visit tobolsk, moscow, petersburg, london—which you will—during the six months of holiday in winter; above all, you shall have the undying love and devotion of one who has never loved another woman—alexander niaz.... mademoiselle, you see the conditions. can you accept them? can you condescend of your goodness to love me—to marry me?"
olga davidoff lifted her fan with an effort and answered faintly, "m. le baron, you are very flattering. i—i will try my best to deserve your goodness."
niaz took her pretty little hand in his with old-fashioned politeness, and raised it chivalrously to his trembling lips. "mademoiselle," he said, "you have made me eternally happy. my life shall be passed in trying to prove my gratitude to you for this condescension."
"i think," olga answered, shaking from head to foot, "i think, m. le baron, you had better take me back into the next room to my mother."
