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Updated: June 18, 2025
They were in the shadow, with their backs to the interior court. Opposite them were tiled roofs and an enormous rectangle of blue shadow, perforated by the sharp-pointed stars. The city lights were coloring the shadowy space with a bloody reflection. Tchernoff drank two glasses, testifying to the excellence of the liquid by smacking his lips.
Argensola, who already knew the ideas and history of the Russian, started with astonishment, and Julio persisted in his suspicion, "Surely Tchernoff is drunk." "It is true," declared the Russian earnestly, "that I do not worry about God, nor do I believe in dogmas, but my soul is Christian as is that of all revolutionists. The philosophy of modern democracy is lay Christianity.
When we backed out of the Empress's presence the peasant Ivan, who had introduced us, handed us over to the Tsar's chief valet, an elderly grey-bearded man in the Imperial livery, a man whose name we understood was Tchernoff, and who had been valet of the old Emperor Alexander III.
Julio had merely exchanged silent nods with Argensola's new acquaintance when encountering him in the vestibule; but sadness softens the heart and makes us seek the friendship of the humble as a refreshing shelter. Tchernoff, on the contrary, looked at Desnoyers as though he had known him all his life.
Prussia has retrograded to barbarism, creating for its personal use a second Jehovah, a divinity hostile to the greater part of the human race who makes his own the grudges and ambitions of the German people." Tchernoff then explained in his own way the creation of this Teutonic God, ambitious, cruel and vengeful. The Germans were comparatively recent Christians.
"And at this very minute, they are shouting with enthusiasm the same as they are doing here, honestly believing that they are going to defend their outraged country, wishing to die for their families and firesides that nobody has threatened." "Who are 'they, Tchernoff?" asked Argensola. The Russian stared at him as though surprised at such a question. "They," he said laconically.
Tchernoff thought of his neighbors, the husband and wife who occupied the other interior apartment behind the studio. She was no longer playing the piano. The Russian had overheard disputes, the banging of doors locked with violence, and the footsteps of a man in the middle of the night, fleeing from a woman's cries.
The tribune dead, at the very moment that his word as welder of the people was most needed! . . . Argensola thought immediately of Tchernoff. "What will our neighbors say?" . . . The quiet, orderly people of Paris were fearing a revolution, and for a few moments Desnoyers believed that his cousin's auguries were about to be fulfilled.
When Argensola caught a glimpse of him through the service door he would say to himself, "Ah, Friend Tchernoff is returning," and thereupon he would saunter out to the stairway in order to have a chat with his neighbor. For a long time the stranger discouraged all approach to his quarters, which fact led the Spaniard to infer that he devoted himself to alchemy and kindred mysteries.
"It will be a long time before he awakes, and while he sleeps the four feudal horsemen of the Beast will course through the land as its only lords." Tchernoff was overpowered by the intensity of his dramatic vision. Springing from his seat, he paced up and down with great strides; but his picture of the fourfold catastrophe revealed by the gloomy poet's trance, seemed to him very weak indeed.
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