[b]St. Petersburg[/b]

[i]Late August, 1836[/i]
[hr]
	[color=silver]Saint Petersburg stood as the Pearl of the Baltic, doubly as the Tsar's most important city. She was a hub of commerce since the days of Varangians and Teutons, Swedes and Urgians, and for a city so busting in life and love did she harbor their tales amiably. Like cities so antique as her, she had held many names and had many betrothed unto her, for her divorce from her hands unto yet another happened such many times. And that's exactly what made it so nerve-wracking to be a Petersburger in days such as these.

	[i]Gospodin[/i] Jura Pasternak was a reasonably successful businessman hailing from a small town in the Volynian Governate. He spent most of his life studying in Warsaw, learning the family trade from his forefathers before him, under the auspices of many of his glaring contemporaries. His lineage had descended years before unto the history of the Old Commonwealth, where his father had run the small town banks with many his friends and all until their identities long eclipsed them as the years went on - his mother was Jewish, proud and headstrong, fierce of temperament and hailing from Vilna. His travels brought him to the Capital with great frequency, connecting the accounts from across the Baltics and throughout the western reaches of the Empire. [/color]

	[b]"[i]Gospodin![/i]"[/b] [color=silver]A quaint, familiar voice called out from a muffling crowd. A middle-aged woman, brown of hair and demure of stature, rushed up to him. Jura Pasternak recognized her; Mrs. Emma Konstantinova Gagarin. Widowed. 

	Pasternak had presided in Saint Petersburg for about five years now, and had only made Mrs. Gagarin acquaintance from her late husband and his departed friend. He was shot after the war riots in 1834. [/color]

	[b]"Oh! Mrs. Gagarin!"[/b] [color=silver]He greeted, removing his hat for his introduction. Her face seemed rushed, flushed and red from a lack of air. Jura tilted his face, offering up a comforting smile.[/color]

	"How are the state of things?" 

	[b]"[i]Things?[/i]"[/b] [color=silver]Emma Gagarin responded, aghast as she barely caught her breath just with the one-word response alone.[/color] [b]"'Things', good [i]gospodin?[/i]"[/b]

	[color=silver]Mr. Pasternak was taken aback by her sudden display. His feet shuffled about, finding their way even through the awfully crowded street behind them while people buzzed and bemused their ways about their day.[/color]

	[b]"Yes, madame - how are you? I mean, madame: What are these [i]things[/i] that cause you such flight?"[/b] 

	[b]"Oh, great and terrible things, [i]Gospodin[/i],"[/b] [color=silver]the woman exclaimed,[/color] [b]"The Revolutionaries are coming. Mister Voroshilov tells me he even saw the Jacobins organize in broad daylight." [/b]

	[b]"Vtorak is being held for trial."[/b] [color=silver]She panted. A worried pause followed, looking her companion dead in the eye,[/color] [b]"And the Tsar [i]will[/i] kill him."[/b] 

	[color=silver]His brow cracked in amazement at her news. Jura was perplexed - deadly so, the gravity pulling along his weary face until his cheeks drooped to the cobblestone street.[/color]

	[b]"Vtorak?"[/b] [color=silver]he pushed an intrigued look upon his face. He seemed familiar, the name calling him like a mother to her child. She looked back at him, dumbfounded and irate.[/color]

	[b]"Yes, [i]Gospodin[/i]: Alexei!" [/b]

	[color=silver]His eyes shot back up at the repetition. [/color]

	[b]"[i]Alexei[/i] Vtorak? He was hanged last week - was he not?"[/b] [color=silver]His words were exclaimed and rushed, like the blinding sunlight as one opened the door too quickly. Mrs. Gagarin hurriedly nodded.[/color]

	[b]"And he is...being hung again?"[/b]

	[b]"No: The Tsar has ordered him to be shot by six men in the Square of Fotanka."[/b]

	[b]"Oh...i'm so sorry, [i]Gospodina[/i]."[/b] [color=silver]he offered,[/color] [b]"...if it is any consolation - and it may be crude to say madame - but with that shall his suffering be slight-"[/b]

	[b]"No! It cannot!"[/b] [color=silver]Her words were frantic, hurried and stern like a bull too young to kill, and too quick to stop,[/color][b] "Vtorak has had his trial; He was hung before the mass! And he yet lived!"[/b]

	[color=silver]It all flashed back to Mr. Pasternak, now: The soon-to-be late Alexei Vtorak was once a well-respected author of local report, a frequent patron of the Griboedov Bank, he recalled. The tsar's men had found him guilty of insurrectionist activity and ordered him to be hung with the rest of the Decembrists. 

	Vtorak was strung up tightly on that fated day - the 31st of July - neatly in tow with his brothers in coffins, and when he was dropped to the ground, his rope came neatly down with him. Alexei had hit the ground, much worse for wear, and neatly laying beside him was the snapped noose before him, and the screaming of five bewildered executioners.[/color] 

	[b]"[i]Gospodin -[/i]"[/b] [color=silver]Emma's words were stern, serious, cracking and on the verge of tears almost religious in its experience,[/color] [b]"The Tsar has dolled his punishment unto Vtorak, and he has lived. [i]God himself[/i] has ordained this man to stay on Earth - can you not see?!"[/b]

	[color=silver]And in everything went unsaid, she spoke in a soft tone, hushed beneath the busy pattering of feet around her:[/color]

	[b]"And what shall it say in these days should the Tsar go against the will of God...?"[/b]

	[color=silver]Jura couldn't hear her speak - and he heard her words move across her lips as she spoke through that congested Saint Petersburg avenue. 

	He could not - or, perhaps always felt more clearly, [i]would not[/i] - do anything to Vtorak once. But perhaps, now, now there was still the chance for justice to be had. 

	But for the grace of God. [/color]