"You desire to marry Sophie Narishkin?" she cried, pa.s.sionately.
"Impossible!"
"I think it, on the contrary, very possible, seeing that our wedding is already fixed for the 21st of June."
"In a week? Has the betrothal been already announced, then?"
"No! A dispensation has been granted for our marriage."
Springing from her divan, the Princess gasped:
"Impossible! Impossible!"
Pushkin retained his seat. He was not easily frightened by any man--or woman either. So he answered, calmly:
"But, my dear Princess, what objection can you have to it?"
Korynthia saw that she had suffered her impetuosity to carry her too far. So, commanding herself, she resumed her seat and made as if fanning herself from the heat.
"He who advised you to this was no friend of yours!" she hissed out.
"It was the Czar!"
Korynthia, shutting her fan, put it to her lips. After a short silence she said:
"You know, then, that the Czar is Sophie"s father?"
"I have divined it."
"And have you also divined the future which awaits you in marrying a daughter of the Czar? You will be banished from the society in which you have hitherto lived; the circles into which you will try to force yourself will hold you in contempt. As long as the Czar lives you will be a prisoner in the glittering cage of the court, deprived of free-will; an unhappy man, born to enlighten others, condemned to be the shadow of a man! At the death of the Czar you may be appointed to a governorship in the Caucasus or on the Amur."
"Princess! I shall neither become a prisoner at court nor governor of Kamchatka. My wife will accompany me to my little estate of Pleskow, where I mean to be sometime farmer, sometime poet."
"You do not love the girl. Vanity alone has led you to this step."
Pushkin never took a blow unrequited--even from a woman.
"Princess, did you know her you would know that it were impossible not to love her!"
The Princess bit her lips until they bled. It was a cruel thrust.
Quickly upon it followed a second.
"Sophie has only inherited her father"s sweetness of disposition; nothing of her mother."
The Princess rose. She could bear it no longer. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous light. Going up to Pushkin, she seized his hand as she whispered:
"Has the Czar also confided to you the name of Sophie"s mother?"
"Never!"
"Have you heard it from any one else?"
"From no one who had a right to know it."
"Come, then, sit down by me," gasped the Princess, convulsively clutching Pushkin"s arm, and drawing him on to the divan beside her.
"Listen to me! I will make a confession to you. What I have hitherto told to none but the Patriarch I will confess to you." Sobs choked her voice; then violently tearing the lace handkerchief with which she had dried her tears, she continued, "Even to my husband I have never dared to say what I now tell to you: _I am Sophie Narishkin"s mother!_"
Pushkin, of course, appeared to be intensely surprised at this discovery.
"You be my judge," continued the Princess, as she threw back the gossamer covering from her shoulders. She drew a long breath. "I was but a child, scarce sixteen; my parents dead. I met a man whom all conspired to worship. The aunt who brought me up was a vain, ambitious woman, and had made me equally so. Every one about me counselled me to return his love, telling me that he was unhappy for cause of me. They sought out old records of how Czars who had not loved their wives had sent them into convents, and had raised others, more beloved, to share the imperial throne. Flattery, ambition, inexperience, youthful fancy, turned my head, and I--fell. Ah, how low I fell! So low that my whole life since has been one expiation! Still, I never relinquished hope; I ever believed that the man who had wronged me would come one day to raise me from shame to splendor. I implored him; I knelt in the dust at his feet. Then he published the ukase that only the daughters of reigning families might be raised to the throne of Russia--that was the answer to my dreams! In the depths of my despair a man in my own rank of life came and asked my hand. True, he had no love to give me, but he gave me his name; I, too, had no love to give him, but I have borne his name honorably and spotlessly before the world. And now there suddenly breaks upon me the dreaded catastrophe which for sixteen long years has been my nightly terror: Sophie Narishkin will marry, and people will be asking, "But who is this Sophie Narishkin? Who is her father--who is her mother?"
"You may make yourself at ease on that score, Princess. The wedding will be conducted in all privacy by the Patriarch of Solowetshk in the Chapel of Peter the Great on Petrovsky Island. After the wedding not a soul will see the young couple in St. Petersburg, or speak about them."
This consolation was poison to the heart of the Princess. Would she see Pushkin no more, then?
"But why this feverish haste? The girl is but a child, scarce sixteen years old!"
"Princess," returned Pushkin, mournfully, "we do not reckon time by years, but by the griefs we endure; and by that computation Sophie has already lived a long life. Sixteen years of confinement, banishment, unrecognized by any one--sixteen years without knowing a loving word or ray of brightness should count for age enough! It is just this dream of happiness that is keeping the poor child in life. Sophie is a somnambulist on this earth. To awaken would be to kill her!"
"So it is a spirit of magnanimous self-sacrifice which binds you to her--you are not in love with her?"
"I worship her; am hers forever."
"I see. Permit me to meditate over the subject. This news has taken me so by surprise that I can give you no answer at present. Can this marriage not be delayed?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"The Czar is going on a journey--it may be a long--very long journey. He will shortly hold a great review of the guards, and then start. But of this Prince Ghedimin can inform you better than I. At any rate, it is the Czar"s pleasure that our marriage takes place before he leaves."
"Then at least allow me to defer my answer to the last moment. I have so much to say to you; do give me as long a time as you can. Come again on the twentieth, and even then not until dusk, so that your coming may not attract attention. In order to enter unperceived--you will readily understand why I should not wish a visit from Sophie"s bridegroom, on the very eve of his wedding-day, to be publicly known--take this key. It belongs to the door of the veranda which opens on to the park. Thence, by a spiral staircase, you ascend direct to my apartments. We can then talk over various matters undisturbed, which you ought to know."
Pushkin put the key intrusted to him in his pocket, and, kissing the Princess"s hand, took leave, Korynthia giving him the farewell kiss on his lips and accompanying him to the door of her room.
From this we glean that the Russian scientist was right in his remarks upon "degenerated cats"--at least, as far as this woman is concerned.
CHAPTER x.x.x
A MOTHER"S BLESSING
In the villa shaded by aromatic pines the bride elect awaited the happy day. No longer a prisoner, condemned to lifelong imprisonment. For the hardest imprisonment of all is sickness; one is made to hear at every step, "Oh, don"t run! Don"t sing! You must not drink water! Keep your shawl about your throat! Do not eat this! Mind you don"t take cold!
Don"t get overheated!"
Even the doctor stays away. The panacea has done wonders.