Excerpts from Atherton's Russian Novels

The Doomswoman

Fort Ross

The fort was surrounded by a stockade of redwood beams, bastions in the shape of hexagonal towers at diagonal corners. Cannon, mounted on carriages, were at each of the four entrances, in the middle of the enclosure, and in the bastions. Sentries paced the ramparts with unremitting vigilance.

Within were the long row buildings occupied by the governor and officers, the barracks, and the Russian church, with its belfry and cupola. Beyond was the town, a collection of huts accommodating about eight hundred Indians and Siberian convicts, the workingmen of the company. All the buildings were of redwood logs or planed boards and made a very different picture from the white [Spanish adobe] towns of the South. The curving mountains were sombrous with redwoods, the ocean growled unceasingly.

Rotchev house at Fort Ross

Here all was luxury, nothing to suggest the privations of a new country. A thick red carpet covered the floor, red arras the walls; the music of Mozart and Beethoven was on the grand piano. The furniture was rich and comfortable, the long carved table covered with French novels and European periodicals.

Alexander Rotchev and Princess Elena Gagarin Rotchev

And at that moment a door opened, and the governor [Alexander Rotchev] and his wife [Princess Elena aka Princess Helena, Princess Hélène Pavlov Gagarin Rotchev] entered and greeted Estenega with cordial hospitality. The governor was a fine-looking Russian with a spontaneous warmth of manner; the princess a woman who possessed both elegance and vivacity, both coquetry and dignity; she could sparkle and chill, allure and suppress in the same moment. Even here, rough and wild as her surroundings were, she gave much thought to her dress; tonight her blonde harmonious loveliness was properly framed in a toilette of mignonette greens, fresh from Paris.

From Rezanov

A Spanish officer’s impression of Rezanov

A few moments later they were still more deeply impressed by the appearance of their distinguished visitor as he stood erect in the boat that brought him to shore. In full uniform of dark green and gold lace, with cocked hat and the splendid order of St. Anne on his breast, Rezanov was by far the finest specimen of a man the Californians, themselves of ampler build than their European ancestors, had ever beheld. Of commanding stature and physique, with an air of the highest breeding and repose, he looked both a man of the great world and an intolerant leader of men. His long oval face was thin and somewhat lined, the mouth heavily moulded and closely set, suggestive of sarcasm and humor; the nose long, with arching and flexible nostrils. His eyes, seldom widely opened, were light blue, very keen, usually cold. Like many other men of his position in Europe, he had discarded wig and queue and wore his short hair unpowdered.

Rezanov on Concepcion Arguello

Rezanov was uneasy on more scores than one. He was annoyed and mortified at the discovery – made over the punch bowl – that the girl he had taken to be twenty was but sixteen. It was by no means his first experience of the quick maturity of southern women – but sixteen! He had never wasted a moment on a chit before, and although he was a man of imagination, and notwithstanding her intelligence and dignity, he could not reconcile properties so conflicting with any sort of feminine ideal….

In his world the married woman reigned; it was doubtful if he had ever had ten minute’s conversation with a young girl before, never with one whose face and form were as arresting as her crystal purity. He was fascinated, but more than ever on his guard. As he rode over the sand hills to the Mission she clung fast to his thoughts and he speculated on the woman hidden away in the depths of that lovely shell like the deep color within the tight Castilian buds that opened so slowly. He recalled the personalities of the young officers that surrounded her. They were charming fellows, gay, kindly, honest; but he felt sure that not one of them was fit to hold the cup of life to the exquisite young lips of Concha [Concepción] Arguello. The very though disposed him to twist their necks.

Rezanov’s death

The snow rarely falls in Krasnoyarsk. It is a little oasis in the great winter desert of Siberia. Rezanov, his face turned to the window, could see the red banks on the opposite side of the [Yenisey] river. The sun transformed the gilded cupolas and crosses into dazzling points of light, and the sky above the spires and towers, the stately square and narrow dirty streets of the bustling little capital, was as blue and unflecked as that which arched so high above a land where Castilian roses grew, and one woman among a gay and thoughtless people dreamed, with all the passion of her splendid youth, of the man to whom she had pledged an eternal troth. Rezanov’s mind was clear in those last moments, but something of the serenity and the selfishness of death had already descended upon him. He heard with indifference the sobs of Jon [his valet], crouched at the end of his bed. Tears and regrets were a part of the general futility of life, insignificant enough at the grand threshold of death.