REZANOV


I

As the little ship that had three times raced with
death sailed past the gray headlands and into the
straits of San Francisco on that brilliant April
morning of 1806, Rezanov forgot the bitter hu-
miliations, the mental and physical torments, the
deprivations and dangers of the past three years;
forgot those harrowing months in the harbor of
Nagasaki when the Russian bear had caged his tail
in the presence of eyes aslant; his dismay at Kam-
chatka when he had been forced to send home an-
other to vindicate his failure, and to remain in the
Tsar's incontiguous and barbarous northeastern
possessions as representative of his Imperial
Majesty, and plenipotentiary of the Company his
own genius had created; forgot the year of loneli-
ness and hardship and peril in whose jaws the
bravest was impotent; forgot even his pitiable crew,
diseased when he left Sitka, that had filled the Juno
with their groans and laments; and the bells of
youth, long still, rang in his soul once more.