Araktseieff parted from his son without saying farewell to him. He must carry out the part of Brutus consistently, that his enemies might recognize the ancient Roman and tremble. But the Roman in him had a strong admixture of the Sarmatic. Like Foscari, he could sign with his own hand his only son's banishment; but not because he made no distinction, but out of the genuine love of a Russian subject towards his ruler, and, by making his powerful position still more powerful, to be able to pay back to his enemies the cruel vengeance they had wreaked on him.
To this he made preparation. No single one should be exempt.
On the very day his son set out on the road from which so few ever return, Magriczki came to him with the intelligence that the police had arrested Diabolka. What should be her penalty? Should he have her knouted in the open market-place, or with slit ears and nose be transported to Lake Baikal? There was cause sufficient. Her vagabond life, her immoral habits, could be brought up against her—moreover, a gypsy girl! Was not the dark skin crime enough?
"Bring her to me," said Araktseieff. "You, none of you yet know how to punish. This is a wild animal who only feels the smart of the lash while it is upon her. It were no shame to such as her to be beaten half naked in the market-place; she is brazen enough to laugh while the punishment is being inflicted. Of what use is punishment to her yet? First that sense must be awakened in her, latent in every human being, but slumbering yet—the sense of self-respect. Then we can inflict the penalty when something more than her outer skin will feel it. Send the girl in."
And soon Diabolka was standing before Araktseieff,both hands chained to her back, her unkempt hair about her saucy face, her eyes gleaming wildly through it. Her feet, too, were chained.
"So you are Diabolka, the street dancer?" asked the President of Police.
"Of course. Don't you hear my castanets?" answered the girl, striking her feet together, and making the chains clash.
"And do you know who I am?"
"Of course. The father of a street thief."
"You are right! My son is an offender; he has paid the penalty. I myself signed his sentence. Was it you who informed against him?"
"I might deny it if I chose, but I do not."
"Was it you who wrote the letter to the Czar?"
"Though I cannot write, yet it was I who wrote it."
"Then somebody guided your hand, and you wrote down the characters?"
"But you shall never know the name of that 'somebody.'"
"Were you aware what your hand was putting to paper?"
"I was."
"Then you must have been aware that not alone he whom you denounced was lost, but also you yourself, for having stolen a Vladimir order."
"But I have returned it."
"None the less, you are a thief, and must be sent to the pillory."
"Women of higher rank than mine have stood there already."
"Your shoulders will be branded with hot iron."
"My dark skin marks me already as a gypsy. I am bad from head to foot."
"Come, I don't believe that. This very day, through you, I have forever lost my only son. All night long until the sun rose I was tossing in an agony of sobs on my bed. In the early morning I went into the chapel, and there, before my Maker, I swore an oath that I would free the unhappy creature who had been my son's undoing, body and soul. At least, I will loose your outer chains."
"No need to trouble the jailer for that. If I choose and you allow, I can be rid of them myself."
The gypsy girl had extraordinarily little hands. Easily, as if she were drawing off a glove, she drew out her hands from the fetters; and as simply, without even sitting down, freed her feet. Lifting one foot in the air, she balanced herself on the other, and, in a second, stood unfettered. So she stood before Araktseieff, holding one end of her chain in her hand, looking capable of laying about her with the other end on the head of any one who came near her; and that person would have remembered the attention to his dying day.
The keeper was alone in the cage with the unchained leopard.
"Listen to what I will do with you!"
The leopard took an attitude as if about to spring.
And this time Araktseieff was not, as usual, prodding about with his sword-stick. He had no weapon of any description near to hand.
"I will find you a respectable situation, where you can both live quietly and honestly, and educate yourself, mind and body—where, in fact, you can improve yourself."
"But I don't want it. I want neither a cloister, nor praying nuns, nor hypocritical monks. I will not work, unless I am beaten and made to; and even if I am beaten, I won't pray."
"You shall not be forced to anything of that kind. I will send you neither to a cloister, nor to a reformatory, but into the country. I have a castle on my estate where a dear friend of mine is living."
There was a sudden sparkle in the girl's eyes. Throwing away the threatening chain, and shaking back the loose hair with sudden movement from her brow, she looked with joyful smile at the President of Police.
"Ah! you would send me to Daimona?"
"Yes; to Daimona."
Ah! stern Cato Censorius then had yet one tender chord in his heart, one far more tender even than that which had been wrung by the banishment of his son!
There was much talk about Daimona, but not in her favor; and what was said of her was but a shadow of truth—the woman whom the favorite of the Czar worshipped more than all the saints in heaven or earth! It was with her he spent every moment he could snatch from affairs of state. She was the sun of his life—at once his tyrant and his happiness. She was a woman so savage, so cruel and passionate, that none but an Araktseieff could have loved her. Or was it just for that that he did love her? Every one who wished to appeal to Araktseieff, or hoped to escape his vengeance, must first sue to his idol and offer his sacrifice at her feet; and costly sacrifices they must be—no make-believes. Daimona's extortions were renowned throughout the breadth of the empire.
Diabolka's pearly teeth glistened white through her coral lips.
"So you would like to go to Daimona?" asked the great official.
"Why not? She is a woman after my own heart."
"I am not sending you to her to be her servant, but to be her friend."
"Oh, we shall soon be very friendly!"
"She feels lonely; and you will know how to amuse her."
"I will divine her thoughts."
"If she takes a fancy to you, you will be happy with her. She will give you smart clothes, trinkets, and riding-horses."
"And a whip to scourge the slaves with."
"And if you get on well, and become ayoung lady, Daimona will find you a husband."
At these words the girl's face darkened. Shaking her head energetically, till the dishevelled hair fell over it again, she struck her thigh vehemently as she exclaimed, with a stamp of her foot:
"Then I will not go!"
A malicious smile curled Araktseieff's lips. Then he continued, in a paternal tone:
"I understand. You have a lover here among the gypsies."
"A 'brother'!" exclaimed the girl.
"Oh, a 'brother'! Gypsies are prudish; they only have 'brothers.' And suppose I were to send your brother, too, to Daimona's castle? He might make a good overseer of slaves."
"Would that be possible?" cried Diabolka, joyously.
"It shall be done. I will send you together to Daimona, and you shall become her confidential people."
Diabolka fell at the feet of the dreaded President and kissed them, while Araktseieff, with Christian mildness, stroked the gypsy's unkempt hair. And at the moment of this scene of foot-kissing and hair-stroking the hearts of both were filled with thoughts of direst vengeance.In the inexperienced girl's soul a scheme of as wide-spreading a nature was developing against Araktseieff as he was evolving to the torture of the girl, while she was as deft at lying, dissembling, and hiding her feelings as was the statesman. It is the advantage alike of savages and diplomats.
Which would triumph?
Diabolka and her "brother" set off that very day for Araktseieff's estates, where Daimona was already expecting them.
Araktseieff's chief care now was to divert the Czar from the influence of his, Araktseieff's, enemies. And the best means to that end was a visit to the military colonies. This atrocious idea had originated in Araktseieff's brain; he was the creator of the military colonies. Half a million soldiers, who had gone through every European war, were to be rewarded for their services by being planted as colonists, regiment by regiment, throughout the length and breadth of the empire. The peasants were to teach them to plough and sow seed, while they in turn were to instruct the peasants in drill and the use of firearms. A marvellous conception—on paper! Thus in time the state would acquire three millions of well-drilled soldiers at no cost. The scythe would pay the piper.
But one important factor in the project had been left out of his calculations by its author. The peasant did not take kindly to drill, nor did the soldier to the scythe.
The Czar took the military colony of Novgorod for his first inspection; Araktseieff was in his retinue. They returned unexpectedly; a fact mentioned in the newspapers, as showing with what marvellous rapidity the Czar travelled. He had actually accomplished the journey to the Ural Mountains in four weeks; it was a peculiarity of his to gallop night and day. Then they went on to describe the magnificent reception the imperial cortège had met with in every town of the colony, which had sprung up with magic quickness. They dilated on the triumphal arches, deputations, the gifts offered them by the people, by which they endeavored to express their unbounded loyalty to the Czar. The great military parades which had been held were also graphically described; and no one for a moment suspected but that all these things had duly taken place.
On his return from the inspection, Araktseieff went on an official mission to Warsaw. This, too, was duly announced by the newspapers, without comment of any kind or description.
With the month of June springtide returned to St. Petersburg. Sophie Narishkin's room was a mass of lilies-of-the-valley, her favorite flower. Every vase, every available space was filled with them. With the more favorable season her health seemed to be re-established. She could now walk across the room without support, and began to think more about food than medicines. She even began to speculate on being taken to court balls in the winter. One of her aunts was to chaperon her in society; perhaps she might even be allowed to dance a minuet. She was constantly sending for Bethsaba to hear what a court ball was like. The king's daughter had already attended one.
One day, after the Czar's return from the inspection, Bethsaba came to see Sophie.
"Oh, your room is quite full of lilies-of-the-valley! Who sent them to you?"
"Who else than father?"
Sophie had no secrets from Bethsaba. She openly called the Czar "father" to her.
"Has he been here?"
"Yes; all last evening. It was a very sad one. I begin to feel quite afraid of him."
"Did you do anything to vex him?"
"Oh no! It is his great love for me which makes me begin to feel frightened of him. When he stands so long, looking silently at me, my hands in his, I feel as if I cannot endure the silence; then I ask him, 'What is it, father? What is grieving you?' And he answers, 'My grief is that I have no one to whom I can tell my troubles.' 'Can so great a man as you have any trouble for which there is no help?' Then, pointing to his heart, he said, 'Here is the trouble!' Upon which I coaxed him, and begged him to tell me all his trouble. Who could tell—perhaps even my childish simplicity might find a way to heal or lessen his sorrows? Then he drew me again to his heart, laid my head on his shoulder, and said, 'I am ill, Sophie; and there is no physician in the wide world to whom I can tell my ailment. There is something weighing on my heart, and there is no confessor to whom I can confess it. By night my dreams make me tremble; by day, my thoughts. I dread solitude, and I dread mankind. I know that no one loves me; I know that I am condemned.' 'By whom?' 'By God and man. Every one flatters me; only that which beats within me tells me the truth and accuses me.' 'And does not this, too, that beats within me tell thetruth?' I cried; 'and does it not live, love, and worship you? Let those two hearts of ours fight it out together!' Then he embraced me, and whispered, 'Be it so. There is no one on whom I have wrought such ill as you. Why should I not confess to you? You are my martyr; if you can give me absolution, I am indeed absolved.' And kneeling before me, he said, oh! such sorrowful words, 'Look! I ascended the throne over my father's body.I accepted the crown at the hands of his murderers, and placed it upon my head. I wept no tears when I heard of his death; I felt relieved. I had no longer to dread his wrath, for he had parted from me in anger. On how many a battle-field have I since sought expiation! It was not for me. It was written upon my brow that the bullets that whizzed about me should not strike me; it was spoken of me that my punishment should be as my sin. As a son, my heart was cold as stone to my father. How was I to suffer in my children? I have borne them all to the grave. You are my last and only one! I am ground down to the earth under the iron hand of Fate when I think of you, when I look into your dear face. Are you, too, to be condemned for my great sin?' I tried to console him. 'I want for nothing, father dear,' I said; 'I am happy, quite happy, and mean to grow strong, and love you ever so long.' And we both burst into tears. 'It is not for myself I tremble,' he whispered. 'I see the sword hanging over me. I hear, in the watches of the night, how the knife is being sharpened against the corner-stone of my palace. I am ready.Through blood I ascended the throne; in blood I must descend it.But it is for you that I tremble! God's sentence upon me must not strike your head too!' Then I made him rise, and said such wise things to him that I quite astonished myself; I am usually such a sillychild. I comforted him in a hundred ways, so that at last I won a smile to his lips, and he said, 'Then give me absolution. Say,Christe eleison!' I was so brave that I even began to talk politics with him—actually got to matters of state! I said, 'Why torment yourself with such fancies? Your people are not as bad as those of other countries. I know something of the world! I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Germans. When they drink hard on holidays, they grow noisy and quarrelsome; but your subjects, when they drink at holiday-time, only stagger about, and laugh and embrace each other.'"
"Did not that make him laugh?"
"He only kissed me, telling me I was a wiser stateswoman than either Talleyrand or Metternich; then grew grave again. 'So it used to be in former times; and the distinction your wise little head draws did then exist. But nowadays there is something in the air which seems to infect the most peace-loving people; so that what you are sure of one day you cannot be the next. I will tell you what happened to me on my recent journey. It is not talked about, and newspapers and parliamentary reports will be dumb about it. It was growing dusk as I neared the military colony of Petrowsk; the setting sun was tinting bright crimson the fleecy clouds covering the sky. It looked like a ragged imperial mantle.' Here I, scolding him, asked who had ever seen a ragged imperial mantle? And he, answering me, said, 'Among others, Julius Cæsar.' 'I remarked that it was a sky which presaged storm. "A mere fancy," returned Araktseieff.
"'In the light of the crimson sky the triumphal arch erected in the street of Petrowsk looked like a bower of molten gold. The other triumphal arches under which we had passed had been of fir, which, taking no reflection from the sun, looked gloomy, however brightly itmight be shining. What was this made of that it shone so brightly? An immense throng surrounded it. As I drew nearer I discovered of what it was composed. Oh, I have passed through many a triumphal arch erected in welcome of me. They have been made of velvets and satins in my honor; I have seen the two side pillars formed of cannon conquered from the enemy; the arch decorated with standards wrested from them; the crown in the centre formed of the orders of fallen heroes; the glittering aureole around of the swords of the generals who were our prisoners. But the triumphal arch of Petrowsk exceeded them all.
"'That which from afar in the light of the setting sun shone golden were strips of ragged shirts and gowns; in place of flags were beggars' sacks; the crown was composed of crutches stuck through an old bottomless cooking-pot. It was a triumphal arch built up of rags and beggars' sacks. While I stood transfixed at the hideous phantom, there stepped one from the midst of the crowd—a fine, tall old man with flowing beard, holding in his hand the customary wooden vessel, in which was a crust of bread—and said:
"'"This is the bread which your soldiers have left us. Taste it! It is made from the bark of fir-trees. The usual salt we cannot offer you, for we have none but our salt tears. On this triumphal arch you will find many a token left us by your soldiers; the ragged clothing of our wives and daughters. They themselves are not here, because they could not appear naked before you. The twelve chaste virgins commanded by the Hetman we could not present to bid you welcome, because in all the neighborhood there does not exist a single chaste virgin since you have quartered your soldiers upon us."
"'At these words Araktseieff gave the command to the companies of Guard Cossacks in our suite to disperse the rebellious crowd. But they were no rebels, but despairing men. As the trumpet sounded they threw themselves down by the wayside before our horses' feet, and, with hands and face uplifted to me, implored:
"'"Deliver us from your soldiers. Take your armed men away from us. We are loyal peasants, and will work. You must ride over our bodies if you wish to go farther."
"'It was impossible to make way along the ground so densely strewn with prostrate figures. Nor angry threats, nor gracious words availed. Without intermission they cried, "Take your soldiers away from us!" Seldom has a ruler been in such a dilemma. At length came help. From the military colony appeared rank upon rank of veterans, marching in close order, at their head a drum-major, as venerable and gray-bearded as was the peasants' spokesman. I recognized them as my grenadiers. They understood how to overcome the obstacles in their way. A blast of the trumpet, and the sappers advancing seized the peasants by their hands and feet, and, heaping one upon another, made summary way for the brigade to pass. The drum-major, planting his standard on the ground, said:
"'"Sire, do not leave us in this cursed place. We served you faithfully in the battle-field for fifteen years; we fought for you against Frenchmen, Germans, and Italians; and are we now to wage war against field-mice, grasshoppers, caterpillars, and, what is worse, peasants? In our youth we learned to fight like bears; we don't want, in our old age, to learn to plough like oxen. We understand how to use our guns and sabres, but we are not handy with scythe and sickle, and mustwe be mocked at by peasants? Lead us into the enemy's country, where behind every shrub lurks an ambush; but, for pity's sake, sire, do not leave us here among your peasantry. Send us into the field against idolaters, but do not leave us here to be cursed when we ask anything; cursed when we strike them; cursed if we only look at them. Shut us up in a beleaguered fortress, where we have only the flesh of fallen horses to eat—must season it with powder instead of salt; and for drink have only the water that runs down the walls; but do not condemn us to this forsaken spot on earth, to labor for our bit of bread, envied by a set of thieving, treacherous peasants. Bury us under the corpses of our brothers on the field of battle, but do not bury us alive in the military colony. Curses on him who first thought of it!"
"'Araktseieff here commanded the trumpeter to put an end to the man's speech, but now peasants and soldiers began to make such an uproar that the trumpet notes were deadened. Tlia' (the Czar's coachman), 'without awaiting orders, turned the horses' heads, and we drove back the way by which we had come, but avoiding the hideous arch. Thus ended my triumphal progress. When I reached home I read in the papers the glowing accounts of the ovations I had received. The red sky had truly betokened storm.' This is what my poor father told me."
"It is indeed sad for so mighty a Czar, when his peoplewillnot be happy, whom he would fain make so. My father's people were happier. Why does not your father go to them? They are his subjects."
"Bethsaba! What a capital idea! Don't let me forget it. I will propose it to him as soon as ever he is in better spirits. Just now he is so depressed. After hehad said good-bye he came back to me again. 'I forgot to ask how you were?' 'That proves,' said I, 'that I must be looking well.' Looking anxiously at me, he asked if my face was always as red as then; and I, laughing, said 'Yes. But why are you so anxious? Does not the good God know how you love me; and are you not the anointed, the chosen one of Him to whom you pray for my recovery to health?' 'Yes, He knows,' he answered, gloomily, 'that I love you. But was not King David also His anointed, chosen servant? And did not the king sing all night through his despairing, penitential Psalm, and yet his child was taken from him, in punishment of his sin with Bathsheba?'"
"Who was that Bathsheba?" broke in the king's daughter. "It can only be another form for Bethsaba. Was there really any one who bore that name before me? I have hitherto searched in vain to find a namesake in society or in the Calendar. Never have I been able to find one. My godmother, Duchess Korynthia, who named me so at my christening—up to my sixth year I was a heathen—in answer to my question why I could not find it in any Calendar, told me it was another name for Elizabeth, and that St. Elizabeth's day was my name-day; and they give me presents on that day. And now the Czar has told you that there really was a Bathsheba. Who was she?"
"I do not know any more than you. I have never been taught anything about her, although I am curious to know. I asked old Helena, and got from her that Bathsheba was St. David's wife; but that was all she knew, for only the priests are allowed to read the Bible. On that account it is written in Bulgarian."
"But why, then, should she not be among the saints in the Calendar?"
"Of course, because she was a Jewess!"
"But he said she had sinned. Oh, why did my godmother give me the name of a sinful woman?" And Bethsaba was ready to cry.
"Bethsaba, dear," said Sophie, "please don't tell anybody what I have told you about the Czar's tour and the triumphal arch."
"But if my godmother asks what we have been talking about?"
"Tell her something else."
"What else?"
"Make up a fib."
"A fib! How does one do that? I have never done it."
Sophie Narishkin laughed in great amusement. She had learned to lie and fib as quite a little child. Instead of "mamma" she had had to say "madam"; and if her father brought her bonbons to tell people that "Nicolo" (la mère Cicogne) had brought them.
What old Helena told her she dared not repeat to "madam"; what she heard when with "madam" she must not breathe a word of to old Helena; what either said must not be repeated to the Czar; and what the Czar told her must be kept from every one. So she had been so inured to lying that she had once brought her doctor to the verge of despair when, on his trying to find out her symptoms, her prevarications made a diagnosis next to impossible. How the poor child had rejoiced when at last she found two beings to whom she might really open her heart, her father and her friend!
"So you always tell every one all you know?" she asked Bethsaba.
"Oh no; although I do not understand the art of lying, if any one thinks to pump me, or to catch me unawares, I have my own way of being even with him. I begin to ask so many questions that he or she is only glad enough to leave me in peace."
At which they both laughed. The music of fresh young laughter was rarely heard in that cage.
Princess Ghedimin had accorded her royal god-daughter permission to visit her friend, Sophie Narishkin, frequently. To one but partially acquainted with the Princess's secret heart, such intimacy was easily explained. As appearances forbade her personally from visiting the child, at least through Bethsaba she could obtain news of her health.
But to one in possession of the whole truth there was yet another cogent reason.
The Czar, that reserved, laconic man, who had secrets from his ministers, and did not even confess to the priests, was in the habit of telling this favorite daughter everything. When an ordinary father confides things to an idolized daughter they are matters of feeling; if that father be the Czar, what he confides are matters of state.
Every word the Czar utters to Sophie Narishkin must necessarily concern the condition of the country. Alexander I.'s words form the basis of Europe's present and future relations. The softening or hardening of his heart betokens peace or war. In that heart of his rest the mysteries of great developments or upsettings of nations.
And Sophie has no secrets from her bosom friend, Bethsaba.
"Well, dear child, how did you find your little friend to-day?" asked the Princess, on Bethsaba's return.
"She is taking her medicine more regularly; and, I think, it is doing her good; for I tasted one of her powders one day, and it was very nasty and bitter."
"Was she not talking a great deal again? Talking is bad for convalescents."
"She told me that she had had a visit from her godfather."
Bethsaba had so far learned to "fib" that she said "godfather" instead of "father."
"Did he stay long with her?"
"I do not know."
"Did he tell her anything of interest?"
"Oh yes; about King David and his wife Bathsheba. Do tell me, what was Bathsheba's fault?"
"Bathsheba's fault! What makes you ask me such a question?"
"Becausehespoke about it; and I want to know what it was. Why is no one called after her? And if she was so wicked, I don't want to bear her name either. Give me some other."
"Quiet, silly child! She did nothing wrong."
"But Sophie's godfather told her that she had committed sin with King David."
"It was love, and no sin."
"Love! What is that?"
Maria Alexievna Korynthia laughed aloud.
"Now, am I to tell you what is love? You will know soon enough, child, when you fall in love yourself."
"How shall I do that? Is love an evil which attackspeople like an illness, or is it a good thing for which people long?"
Maria Alexievna Korynthia laughed still louder.
"Both together!"
"How does it begin?"
"When a young man looks deep into your eyes."
"Into my eyes? I could not endure that; I should die outright."
"But suppose the young man wanted to make you his wife, and became engaged to you?"
"How can all that come about? I cannot imagine it."
"The young man might begin by sending the girl some special birthday present."
"And that would mean that he was in love with her? And if the girl accepted his present, would it mean that she was in love with him? Oh, how nice, how delightful! Must the girl make him a present too?"
"Only her love."
"Nothing else? Oh, how pretty, how charming! And suppose some other young man gives us handsomer presents, do we accept them too, and love him as well?"
Korynthia clapped her hands with amusement.
"Yes, of course. But only if one can keep the second lover secret from the first."
"No, no. No secret dealings. I would rather confess that I loved another too. And why not, if love is good, and no crime? For instance, when I have a husband, may I not tell him that I love strawberries?"
"Strawberries! Oh yes. That is only eating."
"May I tell him that I love Sophie Narishkin?"
"Oh yes. That is only friendship."
"And would he behead me if he knew my love for dancing?"
"Of course not."
"Then if I may love strawberries, dancing, and my friend, why not a youth, if he be good and handsome?"
"Oh, precious innocence! Do people never talk about love in your country?"
"Never."
"Are there, then, no youths and maidens?"
"Of course there are. But in our country, when a young man wants to marry a girl he settles her price with her father and takes her home. If she is loving and faithful to him, he buys her costly clothing; if not, he turns her away and buys himself another wife."
"That is not the custom here. Here a woman may only love one husband; this is commanded by our religion!"
"That is quite different. Why did you not tell me at once that love is commanded by religion? Oh, I will faithfully follow the dictates of religion! You do, too, don't you? You love your husband? Do you look deep into his eyes? I have never noticed it."
"Ah, child, life is long; and the season of love, we call the honeymoon, all too short."
"Then the honeymoon, or month, should be portioned out into minutes, and minutes into seconds, that each day of one's life should have one such second."
"You will soon find the impossibility of that."
"Now I know that Bathsheba's sin was in not loving the man whom her religion commanded her to love. Yet what had King David to do with all that?"
Yes; Korynthia, too, would fain have known how King David got mixed up in the Czar's talk. For the chattering girl had so confused her with her endless, inconsequent questions that she never thought of the prophet's words of reproof to the king.
A Russian is reticent beyond all men. None save the Czar dared to allude to the affair of the triumphal arch. Araktseieff was silent, because he did not want the fiasco connected with his military-colony scheme to spread. The detachment of Cossack guards were despatched to Kasan, and those others who had been present knew how to observe profoundest silence as to what had taken place.
The young Circassian Princess could not have been in a better school than that of Princess Ghedimin.
Korynthia might have served as a type to that Russian naturalist who, outdoing Darwin, endeavored to prove that women are degenerate cats. In vain, be it here mentioned, was it sought to soften him so far as to modify his views into their being a race of ennobled cats. He stuck to his opinion. The beautiful Korynthia could be coquettish as an Aspasia, stonily cold as a Diana. This time, however, it was not Diana, but Aspasia, who changed her lover into Acteon.
The men whom she thus distinguished with her favors, like Chevalier Galban, never succeeded in unravelling the riddle of the lovely sphinx. Korynthia allowed him to accompany her in hunts, danced with him at balls, gave him her bouquet to hold when dancing with another man, laughed at his sallies, made fun of others with him, even kissed him at parting, the while holding him as far off as a planet its satellites—and of such satellites she had more than Saturn—each and all permitted to revolve about her, none to approach her too near.
Yet when in society she fixed a man with a stony look of a goddess, acknowledging his bow with the contraction of the lips by which great ladies express, at once, disdain and reproach, he was the man for whom her heart was cherishing secret flames.
No one knew it, for he, thus signalled out, an officer of the guards, distinguished alike for his genius and his many gay adventures, was careful to keep to himself that one day a perfumed note was brought him by a mysterious messenger, and on opening the delicately tinted envelope he read: "An unknown benefactress, who is interested in your fate, is ready to pay off all your debts if you will stay away at nights from Fräulein Ilmarinen's Saturnalia."
We think we are not mistaken when we take, in connection with the above, the usurer's speech, who certainly did not volunteer it without good grounds: "There are certain young, rich, and lovely ladies in St. Petersburg who are ready to come to the aid of a young officer whom I could name."
The young Endymion's reply to the perfumed note was that night to enter the proscribed Eleusis on the box-seat of Zeneida's sledge.
Korynthia's hatred of Zeneida was not on account of her husband, but of Pushkin. Zeneida's position with regard to Prince Ghedimin was only superficial. The devotion of great nobles to prima donnas is merely a matter of fashion, and of cutting two ways. "What is allowed to you is allowed to me!" The things which rankle most in the Princess's mind are that her rival possesses a finer exotic garden than she does; that she has finer horses; and that whenever they meet hertoilets are unquestionably triumphant. And they are constantly meeting; for her fame as an artiste opens all doors to Zeneida. They meet at brilliant balls; their horses are pitted together on the turf; their carriages are in juxtaposition at reviews; and the Princess is convinced that all this luxury is derived from her husband's Siberian silver-mines, which enable their owner to indulge in the amusement of permitting two women to outrival each other in the art of squandering. Could she but come out conqueror in the strife, she could forgive the artist her extravagance; but never would she forget that she, a Princess, had had to give in to her even one hair's-breadth. Here was the second ground of her hatred of Zeneida.
There was still a third. The moment of weakness, which in her early youth had made her all his life long an important factor in the life of the Czar, was forgotten; had been long buried in oblivion. The Czarina was the object of universal admiration, sympathy, and worship; and she was seen to be visibly fading before people's eyes. Public opinion, indeed, became so strong in the matter that it was often a question in secret societies whether there should not be a repetition of what occurred in the reign of Peter III. and Catherine II., to make the Czar prisoner and proclaim Elisabeth reigning Czarina. And, withal, Princess Ghedimin knew herself to stand nearer to the Czar's heart than did the Czarina; a silken cord—Sophie Narishkin—held them together. No such silken cord of union existed for Elisabeth. Alexander's love for her as a husband had been buried forever in the grave of the last child she had borne to him. And here, once more, did Korynthia find her detested rival in her path.
While the Czar avoided her, he lavished the wealth of his favor upon Zeneida. The prima donna stood between Czar and Czarina. Both loved and petted her. They were never together save when Zeneida made a third. When listening to her singing, reading aloud, or the charm of her pleasant talk, the imperial couple would forget their mutual estrangement and draw together; when, on the contrary, the Czarina, appearing at some court festivity leaning on the Czar's arm, would come face to face with the Princess, their arms would fall abruptly apart, and they would turn away from each other. That she knew right well. And, withal, she must display her favors to those who were indifferent to her, appear haughty and disdainful to those she would fain have encouraged, seem affectionate to the husband she hated, be humble to the man on whom she had a claim, and play the magnanimous protectress to the rival of whom she was jealous. Jealousy is terrible enough when it has one head; how much more when it has three! The three heads of her jealousy were: passion, pride, and remembrance.
And to her had been intrusted the bringing up of the Circassian king's daughter! The Princess began her task by giving her at her christening a name which the world then, and now, can only have condoned for sake of the psalmist king, David.
Bethsaba was fortunate in that she united to her inexperience and innocence a considerable fund of imaginative fancy and the characteristic cunning of her people. Moreover, she remembered many a saying of her good mother, whom now she sees but once a year—on New-year's day, when some forty thousand people assemble to pay allegiance to the imperial pair in the great Throne Room. There stands her mother on oneof the steps of the throne; but her brow, instead of wearing a crown, wears furrows. And as often as Bethsaba looks upon her does she remember that her mother, to whom she may not speak, exchanged her crown for those furrows, because she stabbed the man who dared to say to her, "I love you; give me your love in return."
Then she would begin to ponder over what that "love" could be which had made it so easy for one to slay and the other to die. At one time it would seem good and sweet, and one's duty; at another, evil, full of pain, and, above all, sinful.
Krizsanowski had just ended his report of the St. Petersburg conference—to which a pale lady had lent most careful attention—when the duenna, keeping guard, entered hurriedly, and whispered, "Araktseieff has come." Then as quickly retreated.
"Oh, heavens!" sighed the pale lady, pressing her hands convulsively to her bosom.
"Now be strong as a man," whispered Krizsanowski. "The decisive moment is at hand!"
"Can it be that that brings him?" she asked, tremblingly.
"Not a doubt of it. Look well to your women, for he brings an arch spy with him. Handsome and dangerous with the sex."
Just then the sound of carriage-wheels was audible in the courtyard below, amid much noise and the harsh tones of a man's voice.
"Make haste away! The Grand Duke is coming!" the pale lady whispered to Krizsanowski.
He, rising, took her hand in his.
Again the duenna appeared, this time rushing in, and saying, breathlessly:
"The Grand Duke is back from the manœuvres. Just as they drove in at the gate one of the horses stumbled, the outrider was thrown, and the Grand Duke's pipe was so jolted that it broke one of his front teeth. He is wild with rage."
"Alas!" exclaimed the lady, and was hastening out. Krizsanowski held her back.
"You would do well just now to keep out of his way."
"On the contrary, it is just now that I must hurry to him," she answered, freeing herself from Krizsanowski's hold. "But you hasten away from here, that no one sees you."
"Well, then, be strong as a woman," he murmured, and disappeared.
Yet it was so difficult to disappear. Krizsanowski was in the palace of Belvedere, in the royal park of Lazienka, the residence of the Polish Viceroy, outside Warsaw. The park was surrounded by a great wall, guarded on all sides by armed soldiers. The castle itself a fortress, with high bastions and intrenchments, a deep moat round it, and drawbridge; every outlet was protected by an embrasure, there was no evading the sentries. Within cannon-range the noble forest-trees had been cleared away, and turf laid down adorned with tulip-beds. It is humanly impossible to go or come unperceived. And yet Krizsanowski did succeed in getting away, although Grand Duke Constantine had had the Belvedere built to his own plan, and had watched its construction with his own eyes. It was impossiblethat there should be any secret passage unknown to him—and yet, supposing one did exist? The architect had been a Pole. He was capable of constructing a secret passage by night, and so building it up again that the Grand Duke had no notion of its existence. And so it really was. Constantine might have been surprised in his bed any night were not assassination detestable to a Pole.
His wife hurried out to meet him.
The tyrant met her in the armory hall. He was exactly as his contemporaries have described. Imagination had not run riot.
The Grand Duke had reason enough to be wroth with his brothers. They had all inherited their mother's beauty and noble presence. He alone possessed his father's repulsive features and person. Czar Paul was the impersonation of ugliness, so hideous in appearance that he would allow no coin bearing his effigy to be struck throughout the whole course of his reign. And Constantine was a faithful counterpart of his father. His enormous horn-shaped nose stood out from his face as if it had no connection with his forehead; his little sea-green eyes were scarce visible under his thick, shaggy eyebrows and blinking, almost shut, eyelids. His hair, beard, eyebrows, and eyelashes were the color of hemp, his face red as Russia leather. But the most remarkable thing about him was that the one half of his face was unlike the other, as though Nature had intended to crown her master-work of ugliness by joining together two different caricatures. One corner of the mouth was turned up, the other down; the scars of small-pox, wrinkles, warts, so completed the disfigurement that the painter who would have perpetuated the face could only have attempted it in profile. In fact,the artist who would have painted him full-face would have been guilty of high-treason. So he is described by contemporary writers.
His exterior was the true picture of his inner man; his features were the slaves of his passions. To look at him was to make one shudder or deride. As was his face, so was his disposition—violent, passionate, cruel to a degree. He carried a stick always in his hand, and laid it about him freely. If it be true that his brother, the Czar, spent two thousand rubles a year in quill pens, it may be guessed what amount Constantine's yearly budget showed for smashed walking-sticks. The stick he now held in his hand was broken and split all the way up. No doubt he had been again laying it impartially about the shoulders of the several commandants of division. Their morning prayers were blows.
And there must needs come this accident. And through the confounded horse stumbling, and the postilions being thrown, the pipe, which was never out of the Grand Duke's mouth, had hurt his gum and broken him a tooth. He uttered the most horrible oaths, spitting out blood the while.
"Cursed hound! As soon as he comes to himself throw him into the water to rouse him! Bring him here. Miserable rascal! I'll break all his bones for him!" Just then he became aware of a gentleman advancing towards him. "Who is that? Chevalier Galban? No, you fools—that hound, I mean; not this gentleman! What does he want? Araktseieff has come? The devil take—Humph! It's the barber I want, and not a minister. Can't he see I've got a broken tooth? Why are you hanging about, Chevalier Galban?"
At that moment a lady, coming hurriedly up, pushed the Chevalier aside.
"For Heaven's sake, what has happened to you?" she cried, throwing herself on Constantine's breast. "My life, my dearest, are you wounded? What is it?" And she kissed his bleeding lips.
Over the monster's face dawned a sudden smile—a smile joyous as the aurora borealis, sad as the depths it was, but it transformed the Grand Duke's hideous face. It chased away his violence. The wild, rugged features became more harmonious; the brutal mouth endeavored to assume a gentle expression.
"Nothing, nothing, my love!" he replied, in the voice of a lion caressing its mate. "Now, now, do not cry. Don't be frightened!"—his voice growing lower and lower. "There is nothing the matter."
"Oh, but your lips are bleeding. Your tooth is broken."
And she tried to stanch the blood with her handkerchief.
"It is not broken clean out," growled Constantine. "Only the crown of it. And the devil take the crown!"
"Why, your Highness," put in Galban, beginning to take part in the conversation, which had assumed so much milder a tone, "do you say, 'May the devil take the crown'?"
"At present it is only the crown of my tooth that is under discussion," returned the Viceroy, emphatically, in somewhat trembling tones. "Go you to Araktseieff, Chevalier Galban, and rest awhile after the fatigues of the journey. We shall have time for our talk after dinner. Before I have eaten and drunk I am in no mood to talk over state matters. Do not spoil my appetite.Zdravtvijtjé!And as for you, bring that good-for-nothing here as soon as he has come to himself. I will try a couple of good boxes on the ear to see if his teeth are set like mine. The scoundrel! If I had not been holding my pipe pretty firmly between my teeth the mouth-piece would have pierced through my jugular—"
"Oh, don't!" stammered his wife, in superstitious dread, laying her trembling hands over the Grand Duke's mouth.
He, pressing a kiss upon the palm of her outstretched hand, threw his arm round her waist, and she, nestling up to him, they retired to their inner apartments, leaving Chevalier Galban standing in the hall.
"So you really would grieve if I were brought to you one day dead, run through the chest to my back?"
"Oh, do not say such things!" exclaimed she, making the sign of the cross over the spot to which Constantine pointed. And to smother such fearful words she shut his mouth with a long, fervent kiss.
"Child!" murmured the monster, and, taking his wife's head between his two hands, like a bear hugging the head of a lamb, he looked into her eyes. "Child! Does it not go against you to kiss my mouth? Do not the fumes of tobacco disgust you?"
With an innocent glance, she answered:
"I suppose every man's mouth emits the same smell of tobacco. I remember my father's did."
At these words the monster pressed her with such force to himself as though he would stifle her in his embrace.
"Oh, wondrous child! She knows neither the lies nor the flatteries of a court lady. She does not tell me that my breath is ambrosian. She only knows that it was so when her father kissed her, and therefore thelips of every man must be the same! Wife of mine, my father was as hideous as I am, and his wife loved him as dearly as you do me. And yet he was as repulsive as I."
"You cannot tell what you are like."
"Oh yes, I know. My mother used to tell me. She loved me best of all her children; spoiled me; allowed me my own way in everything. When my brothers and sisters used to complain about it, she would say, 'Let him alone. It is because he has his father's ugliness that I love him so.' But I am a bad man too, and that my father never was. True, he was hot-headed, and a blow was as quick as a word with him; but I am savage by instinct. I am bad because I like it."
"That is not true. Who says so?"
"I say it myself. Often when I come home with an inch of cane in my hand, having broken it on the backs of all who have come in my way, I feel as if I could break the rest of it on my own head." Here, for the first time noticing that the broken cane still hung from his wrist by the strap, he flung it hastily from him.
"No, no, dear," said his wife, "it is that bad men exasperate you to wrath. You have to do with rough people who are stupid and cunning, and that irritates you. If they were good you would treat them kindly."
The monster stroked his wife's cheeks with caressing hand.
"And you really believe that I am good? Wonderful! I should have thought I had done enough to give proof to the contrary. I thought I was a very devil."
Meanwhile his wife had coaxed the monster to her dressing-room, and, sitting him down before the toilet-table, had been busily occupied by the aid of all manner of brushes and combs in bringing hair and beard intosomething like order. Then she bathed his hot, dusty face with lily water, and stuck court-plaster over the cut on his mouth.
"Am I a pretty boy now?" said he, with the look of a child who has just had his face washed.
"That you always are to me. But to-day you will have strangers dining with you."
"True. And, moreover, grand gentlemen from St. Petersburg—from our Russian Paris. Of course they are accustomed to smart folk, so make me smart. How do we know whether these Frenchified gentlemen will like your Polish cookery? You make light of it, after the manner of women-folk, and then they'll praise it."
"Do you wish me to appear at the table?"
"Of course. Why not? Even were the Czar himself my guest! Are you not my own little wife? Come, answer; are you not my very own little wife?"
She answered a timid "Yes."
"I would not advise any one who values sound limbs in his body to presume to look down upon you, Excellency or no Excellency!" cried the Viceroy, wrathfully, menacing his own face with his fists in the glass. "True, this Araktseieff was devoted hand and foot to my father—he followed him about like a dog. Yet, for all that, I'd rather know him to be safe on the island which Kotzebue named after him, in the Yellow Sea, than here."
"Why, dearest?" asked his wife, as she tied and arranged the Grand Duke's necktie.
"Oh, women have nothing to do with state secrets," he answered, as he strove to twirl the ends of his mustache evenly—an attempt in which all his efforts were unavailing, for one side would not keep together. Woe to the private if the Grand Duke's eyes lighted on an ill-waxed mustache! "I only tell you he may esteem himself a lucky man if I have no cane at hand during our interview."
"Oh, don't terrify me, dearest!"
"I was only joking. May I not have my bit of fun? Well, are we ready now? I am hungry. I have been working all the morning like any corporal."
"We will go, then. Won't you choose out one of your sticks?"
In every room of the palace where the Grand Duke went, even in his wife's dressing-room, stood a couple of sticks; and it was as much as any one's life was worth to move them from where he placed them.
"A stick? For what? I am not lame."
"No; but to chastise the culprit, he who ran you into such danger. You might have been killed. He well deserves to be punished."
"Does he, really? Well, then, you choose one. What, this good, stout one? Ah, that won't break so easily. So you feel more for me than for the man who injured me? Come, that is a rare trait in your sex. Women usually expend their sympathy on the guilty. Now, then, let us be off."
Johanna took Constantine's left arm; the stick was in his right hand. In the armory hall the delinquent, with head bound up and swollen cheeks, was awaiting sentence. He trembled like a dog when he saw the Grand Duke in the doorway.
"You scoundrel!" snorted the monster, swishing his cane threateningly through the air. "You deserve a good sound hiding! Can you not look out when you are driving? So you have got badly hurt? There, take these five rubles—buy yourself doctor's stuff with them. Gallows bird! What, you limp! Then take the stick to walk with, you good-for-nothing!"
And he passed on with his wife.
A monster arm in arm with his good genius!
"Humph!" growled the Grand Duke. "It is odd. You have discovered the better self within me; and now it almost seems as if I, too, were sensible of it."
The two gentlemen were already in the dining-hall. There were no other guests. The Viceroy was not particularly hospitable; nor had he much occasion to exercise that virtue, for the people over whom he ruled came but seldom to the palace. But they must stand high in favor who were allowed to sit at his table when his wife, Johanna, was present.
Araktseieff was one of these privileged ones. The two men had seen each other shed tears—once only, and no other eye had witnessed it. The occasion was when first they met after Czar Paul's death. The faithful follower loved the dead man as fondly as did the monster. Others breathed a sigh of relief when the grave closed over him. The world was rid of a burden! The assassins were pardoned; some even attained to high positions as generals. Two men only never forgave them—Grand Duke Constantine and Araktseieff. When, at Austerlitz, the French surrounded General Bennigsen, Constantine charged them like a Berserker, at the head of a company of Dragoon Guards, and, with the daring of a wild animal, rescued him from their midst, only to call out later to him, "I have saved your life, and you were one of my father's assassins!" It was this common hatred which enabled him to "suffer" Araktseieff. He "suffered" him. And that meant a great deal with him. Moreover, Araktseieff was a minister who could be beaten—be sent away—and yet who always came back again.
"Zdravtazjtye!" was the Grand Duke's salutation to his guests. "One can still talk Russian with you, eh? You have not grown into full-fledged Frenchmen? Kiss my wife's hand!"
Chevalier Galban carried out this injunction with all a courtier's grace. Araktseieff, with the unction characteristic of the genuine Russian peasant, pressing the lady's hand with both of his to his lips, amid many long-winded compliments, finally ending up with an amorous sigh.
"Ah! the sight of this domestic happiness, this 'sweet home,' reminds me of my own home."
Johanna alone was unconscious of the deep affront hidden in these words. But her very unconsciousness incensed the Grand Duke the more; his face crimsoned with wrath. It was well that he had but now made a present of his cane, else it would emphatically have expressed on Araktseieff's back, "My good man, this is not Daimona!"
"Don't talk bosh!" growled the imperial host; "but toss off a glass of schnapps in good Russian style. I can't stand your foreign fads and fashions—French compliments and German maunderings. I never could learn a foreign language. I dare say you well remember, Araktseieff, the sort of school-boy I made! My poor tutor! When he used to try to impress on me to work hard, I would answer him, 'What for? You are always learning and learning, and are only an usher, after all!'"
"Better still was the answer your Imperial Highness gave to your professor of geography: 'I do not learn geography; I make it!'"
"All very fine. But you see I do not make it."
"All in good time."
"Shut up. Here comes the soup; set to work, and don't talk. And keep silence, gentlemen, while my wife says grace; she does the praying for me. And now, no serious subjects during dinner. Anecdotes are allowed, drinking is a duty, swearing is not forbidden; but he who makes a coarse speech in presence of my wife must straightway make full apology to her. If you get short commons, I must beg you, in my wife's name, to excuse it; she was not prepared for guests. That our fare is strictly national—Russian and Polish—needs no excuse. I cannot abide French cookery; their names are enough to my ears, let alone the kickshaws themselves to my digestion! And as for my wife, they are positively injurious to her!"
Chevalier Galban had his word to say:
"Oh, French cooks are swells among us just now. The family 'Robert' are quite aristocrats in St. Petersburg; it confers nobility to possess one of them in one's household. His French cook is a greater personage than the Czar himself; for he makes out the Czar's daily menu, and suffers no supervision in his domain. He is a more important man than the family physician, for he rules strong and weak alike. What he refuses to serve up is unobtainable. M. Robert does what the Polish Senate alone was empowered to do when the 'niepozwolim' was yet in fashion. If his master sends word that he desires this or that dish that day at table, M. Robert meets him with hisliberum veto, which in French implies, 'Ça n'existe pas!' Quite recently Prince Narishkin sent for his cook, that he might repeat to him by word of mouth his written refusal to prepare a blanc-mange for the dinner-table."
"What, did he give an audience to the fellow?"
"Yes; and M. Robert repeated his refusal verbally. The Prince began giving him a piece of his mind, when thechef, rising on his heels, said, 'Sir, you forget to whom you are speaking!'"
"The devil! And what was the end of the story?"
"Well, the Prince went without his blanc-mange."
"Ah, ah! That would just suit me. I should be for eating up the cook instead of his dishes."
Chevalier Galban was a capital talker; he took the chief burden of the conversation upon himself.
"A funny thing happened at St. Petersburg a few days ago, at Prince Popradoff's, who has a French cook, and a French tutor for the children. The cook was but so-so; the tutor no great pedagogue. All of a sudden the cook was taken ill, and confusion reigned. The tutor offered his services, saying he knew a little about cookery, and he was forthwith despatched to the kitchen, where he sent up seven excellent dinners. Meanwhile the sick cook offered to carry on the little prince's tuition, and he made surprising progress. To make a long story short, both confessed to have only taken their situations from necessity, and, in fact, to have changed departments."
"And the Prince had not found it out? You must tell that story to my wife, more in detail, when you go into the drawing-room. Let us now speak of more important things. How was my august brother the Emperor Alexander, Araktseieff, when you left him?"
As he named the Czar the Grand Duke had risen, in which action he was followed by the others.
"I regret, your Highness, to be unable to give a satisfactory answer to that question."
"What is the matter, then, with his Majesty my brother? Eh? Or can you not speak out before my wife? All right. You do well not to startle her. Youshall tell me when we are alone. And how is her Majesty the Czarina Elisabeth? Are there any unpleasantnesses between them? If you have no good news to give, better say nothing before my wife. Do not trouble her."
Araktseieff, in the face of this caution, found it wiser to lick his fingers and say nothing.
"It's always the case when a man marries too young!" resumed the Grand Duke, picking his teeth with his two-pronged fork. "I found that out myself, and had cause to repent it. Well, thank Heaven, that's past! I had work enough before I could obtain a separation from my first wife. But we won't talk of that before my wife. After all, it was I who was in fault; I who was to blame. A woman who could put up with me is as rare as a comet. And how does the world wag with you, Galban; have you got caught yet? Who is the unlucky woman who calls you husband? If I were the Czar I would levy a tax upon all such bachelors as you. The old-bachelor tax! Lucky for you that I shall never come to the throne."
"Your Highness! It was an understood thing that we touched upon no serious subjects at table," observed Araktseieff, deferentially.
"Yes; you are right. I was infringing the rule. To make amends, let us empty our glasses to my wife's health."
The men's three glasses clinked together, then touched the fourth, extended to them by a white hand, while the fiery Tokay moistened a delicate red lip. Dinner was over, dessert on the table. The Grand Duke only took hazelnuts, which he cracked with his teeth. The first three he laid on Johanna's plate.
For the first time since she sat down to dinner she spoke, and then but in a whisper.
"Oh, please be careful about your teeth. You might break away another crown!"
"That may be!" said the Grand Duke, leaning his elbows on the table, and darting a quick glance from under his bushy eyebrows at Araktseieff, who understood it. Then Constantine kissed his wife's forehead.
"Now leave us, darling. Have coffee served on the terrace, and take the Chevalier with you. He likes to end up dinner with his coffee in French fashion. While we, like good Poles, will sit over our wine a little longer."
On this Johanna, rising, took the Chevalier's arm, and, followed by a footman carrying the silver coffee equipage, left the dining-hall.
The two men, left alone, applied themselves to the wine, filling up their glasses a fourth time with golden Tokay.
"To the health of my august brother the Czar!"
They drained their glasses and refilled them.
"In truth, the Czar stands in sore need of that fervent aspiration!" quoth Araktseieff, with a deep sigh.
"What! is he seriously ill, then? What ails him?"
"He is suffering from the malady hardest to cure—melancholia. All the doctors' arts are of no avail. For months together the Czar gets no sleep, save a short, unrefreshing siesta at noon. By night and day he is tortured by all kinds of fancies. He is weary of life; and what wonder? Wherever he looks he sees nothing but ruin and decay in all that which he so painfully built up. The dreams he cherished are dispelled. Every institution for promoting liberty of thought and action which he called into life has he been himself compelled, one by one, to annul and abolish. And he has no spirit or energy left to pull himself together and devise new schemes. He feels that he has aroused disaffection,and has not the moral strength to become a tyrant and quell that disaffection. He knows himself to be surrounded by assassins, and has not energy to take firm hold of the only weapon which remains to him. Moreover, his domestic happiness is ruined. Your Imperial Highness knows the catastrophe. The Czar's spirit is clouded by the weight of religious depression; he looks upon himself as an irremediable sinner, condemned alike by God and man. Shudderingly surveying the fatality, he is hurrying it on. A mental condition such as this must in the end undermine the strongest constitution. The slightest indisposition might prove fatal at any moment; and he takes not the slightest care of himself. He will suffer no physician about him, and keeps his ailments secret. It is my firm belief that in his heart is the seat of disease, and that the heart is wounded to death."
"My poor brother!" muttered the Grand Duke, resting his head on his hand. "That noble, powerful fellow, by whose side I was at the victory of Leipsic, when he concluded peace with Napoleon on the island in the Niemen, and in the triumphal entry into Paris; and in Vienna, at the Congress; and wherever we went I heard people whisper, 'There he is, that splendid-looking man beside the deformed one!' Light and shadow; we were their true exponents."
"We must be prepared for the worst. The feeble flame which still feeds that light needs but a breath to extinguish it, and then the whole country will be given up to most terrible anarchy. The ground is undermined by countless conspiracies; we are menaced on all sides. Who can withstand the flood when the gates of heaven are opened? The Czar has no children. Who is to succeed him?"
"He whom the Czar appoints."
"And supposing he appoints no one? It is, indeed, impossible to get him to do so. The law, he says, speaks plainly enough—it is the Czarevitch who succeeds the Czar."
The Grand Duke burst into a loud laugh. He threw himself back in his chair in his fit of laughter; he laughed till his open jaws disclosed two rows of teeth like those of a yawning lion.
"Ha, ha, ha! That's a good one—the Czarevitch! No, my friend, he is much obliged; he would rather not sit on the throne! You don't catch me wearing Ivan's diamond crown!"
"Why not, your Highness?"
"Because I prefer to see your ribbon across your back than about my throat!"
Czar Paul had been strangled by his adjutant's ribbon.
"What are you thinking of, your Highness?"
"Of my father—and of my people. I should be a pretty fellow for the St. Petersburgers! Last year, when my illustrious brother the Czar, thinking himself in a bad way, was graciously pleased to command my presence, and I repaired to the capital, Hui! there was a panic! They began to take steps to appoint me his successor. As soon as I showed my face in the streets they were cleared in a trice. People took refuge in doorways rather than salute me. Ah! how they flocked into the churches! The sacristan had never had so many kopecs in his alms-bag as while I was in St. Petersburg. The priests almost dragged the angels by the feet out from heaven in their fervent supplications for the Czar's recovery. They sketched a caricature of my profile, with my huge nose, at every street corner, with all manner of slanders beneath it! And when it pleasedProvidence to restore my imperial brother so far that he could drive out again, there were rejoicings. The people thronged round his carriage, hardly allowing the horses room to plant their feet, and almost buried him under flowers. And all this to show their hatred to me. Not that they loved him, but because they dreaded me. You just now said that even he is surrounded on all sides by assassins; but the difference is that they would despatch him to heaven, me to hell. They believe they would find in me the son of my father—a man with iron hand for their iron necks, as was my sainted father."