The Sowers | Page 2

a day, although your figure is still

youthful, your hair untouched by gray, your face unseamed by care.
You may look in your mirror and note these accidents with satisfaction;
you may feel young and indulge in the pastimes of youth without effort.
But you are thirty-five. We know it. We who look at you can see it for
ourselves, and, if you could only be brought to believe it, we think no
worse of you on that account.
The man who rode beside Karl Steinmetz with gloomy eyes and a
vague suggestion of flight in his whole demeanor was, like reader and
writer, exactly what he seemed. He was the product of an English
public school and university. He was, moreover, a modern product of
those seats of athletic exercise. He had little education and highly
developed muscles--that is to say, he was no scholar but essentially a
gentleman--a good enough education in its way, and long may Britons
seek it!
This young man's name was Paul Howard Alexis, and Fortune had
made him a Russian prince. If, however, anyone, even Steinmetz,
called him prince, he blushed and became confused. This terrible title
had brooded over him while at Eton and Cambridge. But no one had
found him out; he remained Paul Howard Alexis so far as England and
his friends were concerned. In Russia, however, he was known (by
name only, for he avoided Slavonic society) as Prince Pavlo Alexis.
This plain was his; half the Government of Tver was his; the great
Volga rolled through his possessions; sixty miles behind him a grim
stone castle bore his name, and a tract of land as vast as Yorkshire was
peopled by humble-minded persons who cringed at the mention of his
Excellency.
All this because thirty years earlier a certain Princess Natásha Alexis
had fallen in love with plain Mr. Howard of the British Embassy in St.
Petersburg. With Slavonic enthusiasm (for the Russian is the most
romantic race on earth) she informed Mr. Howard of the fact, and duly
married him. Both these persons were now dead, and Paul Howard
Alexis owed it to his mother's influence in high regions that the
responsibilities of princedom were his. At the time when this title was
accorded to him he had no say in the matter. Indeed, he had little say in

any matters except meals, which he still took in liquid form. Certain it
is, however, that he failed to appreciate his honors as soon as he grew
up to a proper comprehension of them.
Equally certain is it that he entirely failed to recognize the enviability
of his position as he rode across the plains of Tver toward the yellow
Volga by the side of Karl Steinmetz.
"This is great nonsense," he said suddenly. "I feel like a Nihilist or
some theatrical person of that sort. I do not think it can be necessary,
Steinmetz."
"Not necessary," answered Steinmetz in thick guttural tones, "but
prudent."
This man spoke with the soft consonants of a German.
"Prudent, my dear prince."
"Oh, drop that!"
"When we sight the Volga I will drop it with pleasure. Good Heavens! I
wish I were a prince. I should have it marked on my linen, and sit up in
bed to read it on my nightshirt."
"No, you wouldn't, Steinmetz," answered Alexis, with a vexed laugh.
"You would hate it just as much as I do, especially if it meant running
away from the best bear-shooting in Europe."
Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders.
"Then you should not have been charitable--charity, I tell you, Alexis,
covers no sins in this country."
"Who made me charitable? Besides, no decent-minded fellow could be
anything else here. Who told me of the League of Charity, I should like
to know? Who put me into it? Who aroused my pity for these poor
beggars? Who but a stout German cynic called Steinmetz?"

"Stout, yes--cynic, if you will--German, no!"
The words were jerked out of him by the galloping horse.
"Then what are you?"
Steinmetz looked straight in front of him, with a meditation in his quiet
eyes which made a dreamy man of him.
"That depends."
Alexis laughed.
"Yes, I know. In Germany you are a German, in Russia a Slav, in
Poland a Pole, and in England any thing the moment suggests."
"Exactly so. But to return to you. You must trust to me in this matter. I
know this country. I know what this League of Charity was. It was a
bigger thing than any dream of. It was a power in Russia--the greatest
of all--above Nihilism--above the Emperor himself. Ach Gott! It was a
wonderful organization, spreading over this country like sunlight over a
field. It would have made men of our poor peasants. It was God's work.
If there