The man who has lived upon horseflesh for many days is a good judge of any kind of cooking, and I could not but think, as I sat at the table, of that unhappy mendicant who had said to Louis XV., "Sire, how hungry I am!" and had been answered with the quip, "Lucky devil."
To me this Was a Gargantuan feast such as had never been surpa.s.sed in all my years.
We had the fine sturgeon in which the Russians delight, their own caviare, excellent mutton, and chickens which were matchless, and all washed down with the wines of Burgundy, and upon that with draughts of our own magnificent brandy. When we had finished we were even offered a little preserved fruit and some of the tobacco which the Russians smoke rolled in slips of paper. His Majesty condescended to try one of these, but made little of it, and presently it became apparent to me that he was anxious, and that his anxiety no longer brooked the control of silence.
"Madame," he asked without warning, "where is your daughter Kyra?"
The question had been expected, and madame lifted her wise eyes when she heard it.
"Ah!" she exclaimed in French, "so you are anxious to speak to Kyra again."
"Why not?" says His Majesty. "She told me many things I wished to hear; is that not a reason?"
"And your Majesty found them true?"
For an instant the Emperor seemed to be dreaming. Then, tapping the table lightly with his fingers, he said:
"In the main they were true. She told me that Moscow would be burned."
Madame Zchekofsky--for such I discovered the lady"s name to be--feigned great pity.
"Ah, what a dreadful thing--and so many of your poor soldiers who suffered! Little did I think when I heard the child speak that such wisdom was in her keeping, but so it is, as your Majesty admits."
"Most willingly. I expected to hear more of it to-night. Is your daughter ill, or is she merely absent?"
Madame Zchekofsky shook her head.
"She is ill, sire; it is the bitter cold of this terrible winter.
Otherwise she would have been by your Majesty"s side to-night."
"Ah!" cried the Emperor, with a gesture Of disappointment; "then I must not see her?"
"I fear not. These visions are not to be encouraged, as I am sure Dr.
Constant will tell you. Those who command them suffer much afterwards.
Is it not so, doctor?"
I hardly knew how to answer her. It had come to me suddenly that this old woman was playing with both of us, and there flashed upon me the disquieting thought that His Majesty"s life might even be in danger.
Could the Russians have laid hands upon him at such a moment and carried him a prisoner to Petersburg, then indeed were the fortunes of my country imperilled, and a blow struck at the Empire from which it might never recover. Yet what was I to do? The Emperor was as good a judge as I of the situation, and it would have been the mere effrontery of a subordinate which would have reminded him of its dangers.
"Madame," said I, "these things do not concern men of common sense.
When I go to bed at night the only vision that I look for is that of the morning sun. If your daughter be a prophetess, I am sorry for you both, for it has never seemed to me a profitable occupation.
Discourage her if you can--that is my advice."
She shook her head.
"And yet you heard His Majesty say that she foretold the burning of Moscow?"
"A guess at hazard," said I. "What is more, madame, she may have known that your Emperor was about to burn it. These things are not done by one or two people, but by many thousands. It is quite probable that she should have heard of the intentions."
His Majesty smiled at this, yet the old hawk regarded me with some malice. What her object was--whether to push the fortunes of her house with the Emperor, or merely to advance his interest in her daughter--I could not then imagine; but I know now that she had intended to follow us to Paris and there to establish herself if she could.
My pessimism evidently angered her; she had looked for me to support His Majesty in this amiable humour.
"Well," said she, rising abruptly, "it is easy to put the matter to the proof. Kyra should not leave her room, but His Majesty may go there if he will. He shall then tell me if it were a guess or no. Do you desire that, sire?"
I could see that the Emperor was greatly pleased; he rose at once and waited for her to show him the way. In that brief interval I stepped to his side and begged to be permitted to follow him.
"A whim, if you like, sire. Perhaps I am also a prophet," said I, and we exchanged a glance I shall never forget.
The Emperor knew that he was in peril, then. Did he also know the nature of it? If so, he were wiser than I, who followed him merely upon an impulse for which I could not account.
V
We mounted a wide flight of stairs and stood for an instant before a great carved door at the head of them. The house was very silent, and the lackeys had disappeared. I could hear the distant sounds in the village and from the high road the rumble of cannon and the blare of bugles. But these were fitful and easily to be explained. What I did not like was the uncanny silence in the dwelling itself. We entered a great ante-room on the first floor, and from that pa.s.sed to a little bedroom such as a young girl might have occupied. It was empty, but madame knocked at the door which led from it, and, receiving no immediate answer, we all sat down and waited in the darkness.
"The child sleeps," said the Emperor.
The old woman muttered something I could not distinguish.
"Of what nature is her illness?" His Majesty asked next.
"It has been a fever," says madame; "but she is better of that, and now suffers only from weakness."
"In which case we must wait until she awakes. Do you not suggest a better place than this, madame?"
Madame rose at this rebuke.
"I will go in myself," she said; but before she could take a step the door of the adjoining room was opened and Mademoiselle Kyra herself appeared.
Her dress was a long white robe tied with a girdle. Her hair was like her mother"s, but more silken in texture, and fell, as the hair of many Russian women does, almost to her feet. I thought her amazingly beautiful--by far the prettiest woman I had yet seen in this d.a.m.nable country, and, in truth, I envied His Majesty such good fortune. He, however, seemed in no way impressed by the child"s looks, but only by her att.i.tude, which was that of one who walked in her sleep and might not be awakened without danger. Stepping back, with his finger on his lips, the Emperor let the girl go slowly from the room to the great antechamber beyond, we following upon tiptoe, as though we spied upon this unlooked-for apparition.
For a moment I thought that Mademoiselle Kyra was about to descend the stairs to the dining room we had left, but she crossed the landing at the stairs head, and, opening a door upon the far side, entered another bedroom, and from that a s.p.a.cious apartment furnished like a chapel.
Here the Emperor followed her, but madame forbade me to go. I had an instantaneous vision of a picture of the Madonna and a lamp burning before it. Then I saw the girl stumble and appear about to fall, but His Majesty caught her in his arms, and madame immediately closed the door upon them.
"You can wait," she said, and, closing the door of the bedroom and drawing a heavy curtain over it, she left me standing sentinel in that black, dark room.
VI
It was an odd situation, I must confess.
The army is well acquainted with more than one such expedition in which His Majesty has figured, and I was not the first officer, by many, who had watched a house wherein he pursued an adventure of this kind.
But here the circ.u.mstances were very different.
The girl was not as other women of whom we spoke in merriment. She had come from her apartment in sleep, and was sleeping, I believe, when she entered the chapel. The impulse which drove His Majesty appeared to me to be curiosity rather than love. I have heard that he was somewhat given to omens and the occult sciences, and while pretending to be an absolute disbeliever in them, would nevertheless lend a willing ear to any charlatan who had a tale to tell. Mademoiselle Kyra had forewarned him of certain happenings upon his march to Moscow, so what could be more natural than that he should desire to hear what she had to say of his retreat?
These thoughts were uppermost in my mind when I found myself alone in the room. I could hear no sound whatever from the chapel, not even that of a woman whispering. The house itself had fallen again to a silence quite remarkable. I tried to look from the window of the bedroom, but found it so frosted that not a thing could be seen beyond.