‘And you – what do you think?’ asked Nicholas sharply, detecting Chernyshóv’s intention of presenting Vorontsóv’s decision in an unfavourable light.
‘Well, I should have thought it would be safer to deport him to Central Russia.’
‘You would have thought!’ said Nicholas ironically. ‘But I don’t think so, and agree with Vorontsóv. Write to him accordingly.’
‘It shall be done,’ said Chernyshóv, rising and bowing himself out.
Dolgorúky also bowed himself out, having during the whole audience only uttered a few words (in reply to a question from Nicholas) about the movement of the army.
After Chernyshóv, Nicholas received Bíbikov, General-Governor of the Western Provinces. Having expressed his approval of the measures taken by Bíbikov against the mutinous peasants who did not wish to accept the Orthodox Faith, he ordered him to have all those who did not submit tried by court-martial. That was equivalent to sentencing them to run the gauntlet. He also ordered the editor of a newspaper to be sent to serve in the ranks of the army for publishing information about the transfer of several thousand State peasants to the Imperial estates.
‘I do this because I consider it necessary,’ said Nicholas, ‘and I will not allow it to be discussed.’
Bíbikov saw the cruelty of the order concerning the Uniate20 peasants and the injustice of transferring State peasants (the only free peasants in Russia in those days) to the Crown, which meant making them serfs of the Imperial family. But it was impossible to express dissent. Not to agree with Nicholas’s decisions would have meant the loss of that brilliant position which it had cost Bíbikov forty years to attain and which he now enjoyed; and he therefore submissively bowed his dark head (already touched with grey) to indicate his submission and his readiness to fulfil the cruel, insensate, and dishonest supreme will.
Having dismissed Bíbikov, Nicholas stretched himself, with a sense of duty well fulfilled, glanced at the clock, and went to get ready to go out. Having put on a uniform with epaulettes, orders, and a ribbon, he went out into the reception hall where more than a hundred persons – men in uniforms and women in elegant low-necked dresses, all standing in the places assigned to them – awaited his arrival with agitation.
He came out to them with a lifeless look in his eyes, his chest expanded, his stomach bulging out above and below its bandages, and feeling everybody’s gaze tremulously and obsequiously fixed upon him he assumed an even more triumphant air. When his eyes met those of people he knew, remembering who was who, he stopped and addressed a few words to them sometimes in Russian and sometimes in French, and transfixing them with his cold glassy eye listened to what they said.
Having received all the New Year congratulations he passed on to church, where God, through His servants the priests, greeted and praised Nicholas just as worldly people did; and weary as he was of these greetings and praises Nicholas duly accepted them. All this was as it should be, because the welfare and happiness of the whole world depended on him, and wearied though he was he would still not refuse the universe his assistance.
When at the end of the service the magnificently arrayed deacon, his long hair crimped and carefully combed, began the chant
After Mass he went to the Empress and spent a few minutes in the bosom of his family, joking with the children and his wife. Then passing through the Hermitage,21 he visited the Minister of the Court, Volkonski, and among other things ordered him to pay out of a special fund a yearly pension to the mother of yesterday’s girl. From there he went for his customary drive.
Dinner that day was served in the Pompeian Hall. Besides the younger sons of Nicholas and Michael there were also invited Baron Lieven, Count Rzhévski, Dolgorúky, the Prussian Ambassador, and the King of Prussia’s aide-de-camp.
While waiting for the appearance of the Emperor and Empress an interesting conversation took place between Baron Lieven and the Prussian Ambassador concerning the disquieting news from Poland.
‘
The Ambassador expressed a fictitious surprise that it should be so.
‘
‘
