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Updated: June 5, 2025
He was struck especially by the difference between the way that the people of this house treated Boris and himself, and the attitude that had been noticeable in those who had served his uncle, Mikail Suvaroff. Mikail was decidedly a greater figure than Boris's father. Yet it was not devotion that he seemed to inspire.
A gnarled old woman sat on the edge of the bed; a female consoler was on either side. At the sight of Suvaroff the mourner rose and stood trembling before him, rolling a gaudy handkerchief into a moist bundle. "My good woman," said Suvaroff, kindly, "do not stand; sit down." "Kind gentleman!" the old woman began. "Kind gentleman " She got no further because of her tears.
He had an absurd feeling that he had come away from somewhere and left behind a vital part of his being. "Suvaroff! Suvaroff!" he would repeat over and over to himself, as if trying to recall the memory of some one whose precise outline had escaped him. He caught a glimpse of his figure in the mirror of a shop-window. He went closer, staring for some moments at the face opposite him.
They would not look at Silistria, ruined, but strong in heroic memories; they avoided Rasgrad, Schumla, and the Black Sea fortresses; Sophia, Philippopolis, and Adrianople made no resistance. The earthworks of Plevna, vicious as they were in many characteristics, they found impregnable. I think Suvaroff would have carried them; I am sure Skobeleff would if he had got his way.
He rose in his seat, and suddenly quite suddenly, without warning he began to laugh.... The shadow halted in its flight across the wall. Suvaroff circled the room with his gaze. In the center of the wine-shop stood Flavio Minetti. Suvaroff sat down. He was still shaking with laughter. Presently Suvaroff was conscious that Minetti had disappeared. The fire in his brain had ceased to burn.
If he be Suvaroff or Skobeleff or Gourko he may win great battles; if he be Mendeleieff he may reach some epoch-making discovery in science; if he be Derjavine he may write a poem like the "Ode to God"; if he be Antokolsky he may carve statues like "Ivan the Terrible"; if he be Nesselrode he may hold all Europe enchained to the ideas of the autocrat; if he be Miloutine or Samarine or Tcherkassky he may devise vast plans like those which enabled Alexander II to free twenty millions of serfs and to secure means of subsistence for each of them; if he be Prince Khilkoff he may push railway systems over Europe to the extremes of Asia; if he be De Witte he may reform a vast financial system.
Though he did feel that very strongly, he was able now to frame a thought that had come to him more than once after he had become certain that it was Prince Suvaroff who had caused his arrest. And that was that Suvaroff had seemed far too big and important a man to do a small, petty thing. "He's got a wrong idea of me, some way," Fred decided.
He wearily put the cork back in the bottle of brandy. The fat bartender came forward. Suvaroff paid him and departed. He went to the wine-shop the next night and the next. He began to have a hope that if he persisted he would discover a shadow grotesque enough to make him laugh. He sat for hours, drinking abominable brandy. The patrons of the shop did not interest him.
The careful, deliberate fire of twelve ships upon two could have but one result; the Oslabia and Suvaroff both received a most fearful punishing; the unprotected portions of their hulk were blown to ribbons, dense columns of dark smoke poured from the Oslabia, and presently it was seen that she and the Suvaroff were on fire and burning furiously.
He took advantage of every bit of cover for he had no wish to be seen, at least as yet. Soon he reached the vantage spot he sought. From it he commanded a view of the village, and of the entrance to the great Suvaroff house on the hill as well. The dismal procession from the village had already begun. The place, in fact, was already almost entirely deserted.
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