The Spinners Book of Fiction | Page 7

Perhaps had I been older--who knows? Do not look at my whiskers!
That was forty-two years ago. Well, I dreamed of the fair kind young
Russian for many a night after he left, and when my time came to
marry I would look at none of the caballeros, but nursed Rafaella's
babies and thought my thoughts. And then--in 1815 I think it was--the
good--and ugly--Dr. Langsdorff sent Luis a copy of his book--he had
been surgeon to his excellency--and alas! it told of the terrible end of
both those gay kind young men. They were always too fond of brandy;
we knew that, but we never--well, hear me! One night not so many
years after they sailed away from California, they met Dr. Langsdorff
and another friend of their American days, Captain D'Wolf, by

appointment in St. Petersburg for a grand reunion. They were all so
happy! Perhaps it was that made them too much 'celebrate,' as the
Americans say in their dialect. Well, alas! they celebrated until four in
the morning, and then my two dear young Russians--for I loved
Khostov as a sister, so devoted he was to my friend--well, they
started--on foot--for home, and that was on the other side of the Neva.
They had almost crossed the bridge when they suddenly took it into
their heads that they wanted to see their friends again, and started back.
Alas, in the middle of the bridge was a section that opened to permit
the passage of boats with tall masts. The night was dark and stormy.
The bridge was open. They did not see it. The river was roaring and
racing like a flood. A sailor saw them fall, and then strike back for the
coming boat. Then he saw them no more. That was the last of my poor
friends.
"And we had all been so gay, so gay! For how could we know? All the
Russians said that never had they seen a people so light-hearted and
frolicking as the Californians, so hospitable, so like one great family.
And we were, we were. But you know of that time. Was not your
mother Conchitita Castro, if she did marry an American and has not
taught you ten words of Spanish? It is of Concha you would hear, and I
ramble. Well, who knows? perhaps I hesitate. Rezánov was of the
Greek Church. No priest in California would have married them even
had Don José--el santo we called him--given his consent. It was for that
reason Rezánov went to obtain a dispensation from His Holiness and a
license from the King of Spain. Concha knew that he could not return
for two years or nearly that, nor even send her a letter; for why should
ships come down from Sitka until the treaty was signed? Only Rezánov
could get what he wanted, law or no law. And then too our Governor
had forbidden the British and Bostonians--so we called the Americans
in those days--to enter our ports. This Concha knew, and when one
knows one can think in storeys, as it were, and put the last at the top. It
is not so bad as the hope that makes the heart thump every morning and
the eyes turn into fountains at night. Dios! To think that I should ever
have shed a tear over a man. Chinchosas, all of them. However--I think
Concha, who was never quite as others, knew deep down in her heart
that he would not come back, that it was all too good to be true. Never

was a man seen as handsome as that one, and so clever--a touch of the
devil in his cleverness, but that may have been because he was a
Russian. I know not. And to be a great lady in St. Petersburg, and
later--who can tell?--vice-Tsarina of all this part of the world! No, it
could not be. It was a fairy tale. I only wonder that the bare possibility
came into the life of any woman,--and that a maiden of New Spain, in
an unknown corner, that might as well have been on Venus or Mars.
"But Concha had character. She was not one to go into a
decline--although I am woman enough to know that her pillow was wet
many nights; and besides she lost the freshness of her beauty. She was
often as gay as ever, but she cared less and less for the dance, and
found more to do at home. Don José was made Commandante of the
Santa Barbara Company that same year, and it was well for her to be in
a place where there were no memories of Rezánov. But late in the
following year as the time approached for his return, or news of him,
she could not contain her impatience.