VIII: THE GREAT CZAREVNA
WHEN we entered the room the Czarevna Sophia remained seated, and the light from a window at her side fell full on her face and figure, revealing them sharply. She was twenty-five years old at this time, but already very stout, with an enormous head, and a homely fat face, with small, keen eyes that were alert and searching. She still wore deep mourning for her brother Feodor, and her black robe falling loose and straight, after the prevailing fashion, only increased her apparent bulk. Her plump, short-fingered hands were, however, extremely white, as they lay on her black draperies, and, unquestionably, there was something in her glance and bearing that was imperial. The woman was a power, and we felt it as soon as we came in contact with her. She bent a singular look upon us as we advanced and made our salutations, and as we drew nearer I discovered that she was holding some object concealed in her hands. I had not long to wait before I learned what it was. She addressed Maître le Bastien, taking no notice of me, evidently putting me down as an apprentice.
“So, master goldsmith, you’ve come at last,” she said in Russ, her tone as acid as vinegar. “I find that you have not been idle in Moscow.”
Le Bastien, as cautious as an old fox, felt his ground.
“I have endeavoured to labour diligently, your highness,” he said suavely, “and I think I may venture to say that I have accomplished something. The great vase is now nearly completed, if your highness will but come to view it, and here is a model I have been making of a figure of our Lady of Kazan, to be executed in gold and jewels.”
As he spoke he signed to me to advance, and display the model, which I did with the more alacrity because I wanted a nearer view of the princess, but I was so awkward in handling the image that the goldsmith took it himself and displayed it. But Sophia looked at it with a cold eye; it was plain that her thoughts were elsewhere.
“In gold with jewels; it would cost too much,” she said severely, “and we have not paid our soldiers. I know not why the Czarina Natalia should encourage such extravagance.”
Maître le Bastien, accustomed to consideration from all the great men of France, and the patronage of our munificent monarch, flushed hotly at her tone and handed the image back to me.
“The conception was altogether mine, madame,” he said, in dignified displeasure. “In my country princes delight in all the elegancies of art; pardon me for not considering merely the question of cost.”
He meant a rebuke, but it was lost on her highness; she merely shrugged her shoulders. She had no conception probably of the greatness of France, seeing nothing beyond her own horizon but the edge of the world; the pride of these Muscovites is something truly amazing.
The display of the model coming off so poorly, the goldsmith stood silent and, for the moment, the interview seemed a flat enough matter, and then the czarevna suddenly struck to the root of it. She held out her hand, and in the palm of it lay the Princess Daria’s jewelled pear. We both started, and Maître le Bastien turned from white to green; the good man seemed for the time chicken-hearted.
“You have recently handled the locket, master goldsmith,” Sophia said slowly, “and for whom?”
I could hold my tongue no longer; I feared his loss of nerve.
“Tell her it was left in your absence,” I said, very low and in French.
She darted a tigress look at me, but remained silent, waiting on Maître le Bastien. He repeated my lesson by rote.
“Who was in your house to receive it?” she demanded sharply, then suddenly pointing at me, “that man?”
“I suppose so,” faltered the goldsmith, the cold perspiration starting in beads on his forehead.
“Can you speak Russ?” she asked, turning on me.
“A little,” I replied, afraid to leave it in Maître le Bastien’s hands.
She held up the pear. “Who brought this to your master’s house?”
“A man, I think,” I replied stupidly, rubbing the back of my head like a clown.
She uttered an exclamation of impatience.
“What man?” she cried fiercely. “Are there not hundreds and thousands of men? What manner of man, stupid, and of what condition? A varlet or a gentleman? A serf or a freedman?”
“He might have been one, and he might have been the other,” I stammered slowly, as if the Russ tied my tongue. “I do not rightly remember, your highness.”
She rose from her chair at this and stamped her foot at me, calling me,durak, which may be interpreted as “ninny,” and then she swept up to Maître le Bastien and opened the locket so sharply before his face that he started back as if she had snapped a pistol under his nose. She held up the trinket, displaying the beautiful face of the Princess Daria.
“How dared you take mine out for this?” she thundered, fixing her little eyes on him with the fierceness of a tigress, ready to spring.
“Tell her that it was a mistake,” I whispered in French, “that it was intended for another setting.”
“Hold your tongue, varlet,” said the czarevna, casting a fierce glance at me, though she understood not a word.
“Many things are brought to me, madame,” said Le Bastien slowly; “this miniature must have been put in the wrong locket. I have two apprentices, and sometimes, between us all, errors are made.”
“Where, then, is my portrait?” she demanded, fastening her eyes on his face, as if she meant to read his very soul.
Here, in spite of her rebuke, I interposed, bowing profoundly.
“Pardon me, your highness,” I said blandly; “I think I know where the picture lies safely at Maître Bastien’s quarters, if we may be permitted to look for it.”
She turned on me sharply. “You know where it is, then?” she said. “Ah, I perceive, it was you who had the pear and hid it from the Boyar Kurakin.”
Saint Denis! it was M. Kurakin then! Like a flash I saw how we had been betrayed; but how had she got the trinket? There was the riddle.
“The pear was brought for us to mend, madame,” I said simply.
She scowled at me, black as a thunder-cloud; she was far too keen not to suspect us, but she had no means of pinning us to the wall.
“I am determined to know how this miniature was substituted for mine,” she said in a more even tone, though her small eyes glittered like two knife points; “if either of you trifle with me or deceive me, you shall receive first thepravezhand then——” She drew her hand across her throat with a significant gesture.
Then, for the first time, Maître le Bastien fully recovered his composure. Her speech had made my blood boil, and it brought his to his cheek.
“Serene highness,” he said proudly, “you forget that we are both Frenchmen, and subjects of the greatest monarch upon earth, his most Christian Majesty, Louis, King of France, and we are here under the safe conduct of the Russian government.”
She shot a look at him that defied all law and all authority but her own; it was the look of the royal tigress at bay.
“We are in Moscow, master goldsmith,” she said tartly, “the King of France rules not here.”
“His arm is long, madame,” retorted Le Bastien coldly.
She laughed, and it was such an unpleasant laugh that I saw the goldsmith wipe the perspiration off his forehead. There were torture rooms in the Kremlin, and he knew it.
“If I may be permitted to return to my lodgings,”he said, “I will undertake to restore the miniature to your highness—to rectify the mistake.”
“You are under arrest,” she replied shortly, and stood looking at him much as I have seen a cat watch a mouse.
“Perhaps she will let me go,” I suggested in French.
“Will your highness allow my apprentice to go for the miniature?” Le Bastien asked, in a dignified tone.
She hesitated. I think she began to suspect me more than the grave, elderly goldsmith, but she was determined, and she did not believe in the story of the mistake. She took two short turns across the room, stopping once to look out of the window, and then she touched a bell on the table. Immediately my fat friend, the chamberlain, appeared, as if she had conjured him from the subterranean regions.
“Vasili Ivanovitch,” she said to him, “you will accompany this goldsmith,” she pointed at me, “back to his lodgings; you will wait there until he makes a search for a picture of me; you will bring him back, with or without the picture. You will not let him escape.”
“It is well, Sophia Alexeievna,” replied the chamberlain, bowing profoundly.
She turned a strangely malicious glance upon me. “You may go,” she said calmly.
I made my obeisance, but I could have laughed at the irony of fate. The miniature was in the keeping of the Princess Daria, and what in the world could I do with this fat old fool at our quarters? Verily, my falsehood seemed likely enough to stick in my throat and be the ruin both of Maître le Bastien and of me. I cast a look at him and saw that he was as pale as ashes, but I could give him no comfort,—there was none to give,—though I went out behind my portly friend, with thoughts of such a nature that, had he divined them, he would scarcely have walked in front of me, even on the Red Staircase.