Beneath the Czar

Summary

In the frost-laced twilight of Romanov absolutism, a lantern-jawed nihilist’s daughter—her pupils still echoing with the crackle of her father’s shoulder being dislocated on a dungeon rack—swallows her own name and becomes the Okhrana’s reluctant bloodhound. Cloaked in borrowed ermine, she infiltrates Prince Cyril’s chandeliered salon where anarchist manifestos masquerade as after-dinner gossip; yet every mazurka step is a penance, every stolen caress a betrayal. When she plunges through a trapdoor into a candle-dripped catacomb, the camera itself seems to hold its breath: a single tear, phosphorescent as radium, slips from her cheek onto the incriminating folio she must spirit to the gallows-makers. The ensuing chase—hooves drumming across steppes the color of dried cranberries, sabers sparking against starlight—culminates in a cellar where the fuse of dynamite and the fuse of her conscience burn in perfect synchrony, blowing the empire’s foundation to red dust while she, the Prince, and a Cossack turncoat sail toward an uncertain Atlantic dawn.

Synopsis

The story revolves about a young woman who is forced to enter the Russian Secret Service on the threat that if she did not do so her father, an active Nihilist, would be put to death. Before her own eyes he is tortured in the prison and to stop these inhuman tortures, she falls in with the plan to rout out the Nihilist organization. In the furtherance of their designs, the Secret Service authorities introduce her into the home of Prince Cyril, who is suspected of being in sympathy with the Revolutionists. She unwillingly does her task, which is made very easy by Prince Cyril's admiration for her personally and his sympathy with her father's plight. He introduces her into his circle of radicals, but before very long a dramatic scene develops that places her under suspicion. During a meeting of the radicals, she disappears in the secret recesses of their subterranean meeting-place and the most vigorous search for her proves of no avail. After the meeting breaks up and the conspirators leave in a spirit of unrest, she emerges from her hiding-place in a well and guided by an image of her father suffering in his prison, she purloins evidence for the Government. In the meantime, Prince Cyril, guided by traces she had left, follows her to her home and persuades her to return the incriminating papers. However, when Government officials arrive and are told that she had been unsuccessful in her attempt to aid them, her servant, who is spying on her, betrays Prince Cyril's visit. They bind her and leave her in charge of two soldiers, while the others in haste gallop off after the Prince. In the meantime, one of the soldiers, who is secretly in league with the Revolutionists, aids her in making escape. Prince Cyril, after a very sensational chase, is captured and imprisoned. With the aid of this soldier she is able later on to meet the Government General, who, completely disarmed by her innocent charms, falls a victim to her scheme to liberate her father and the Prince. However, before she succeeds in this plan, she undergoes considerable suffering and agonizing suspense. The Cossacks trace her and those whom she had liberated from prison to their subterranean hiding-place, but by vigilance and careful planning they make their escape to America after blowing up their former abode with bombs planted by the Russian soldiers.