THE DECEMBRISTS
A Novel
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FIRST FRAGMENT
I.
This happened not long ago, in the reign of Alexander II., in our days of civilization, progress, questions, regen- eration of Eussia, and so forth, and so forth ; at a time when the victorious Eussian army was returning from Sevastopol, surrendered to the enemy ; when all of Eussia celebrated the annihilation of the Black Sea fleet, and white-stoned Moscow received and congratulated with this happy event the remainders of the crews of that fleet, offering them a good Eussian cup of vódka, and bread and salt, according to the good Eussian custom, and bowing down to their feet. It was that time when Eussia, in the person of far-sighted virgin politicians, lamented the shat- tered dream of a Те Deum in the Cathedral of St. Sophia, and the loss of two great men, so painful for the country, who had perished during the war (one, who had been carried away by the desire to celebrate the Те Deum in the above-mentioned cathedral at the earliest time possible, and who fell in the fields of Wallachia, but who, at least, left two squadrons of hussars in the same fields, and the other, an unappreciated man, who had distributed tea,
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