"I fancy that she will be making somebody very, very unhappy."
"So do I."
"Then the fight between us can begin afresh."
"I think not. I renounce any claim to console the unhappy."
"Oh, you do not want to make me believe that you are acting without personal feeling."
"Certainly not. But what will result from this evening"s work will be a monster needing two mothers. The one revenge; the other love."
"And you choose revenge?"
"I give you the second, Princess."
"I have not yet forgotten the diplomatic saying that two only make a compact together in order that one may deceive the other."
Meanwhile Prince Ghedimin had come up to conduct his wife to her carriage. Seeing Zeneida, he started.
"Do just see," exclaimed the Princess, in an affected tone, "how low-spirited he is! He has grown quite melancholy. For days together I cannot drive him from my side; he will not stir from me. If only he had something to talk about! But all he can do is to knit his brows and ruminate. I do beg of you, Fraulein Ilmarinen, in consideration of our alliance, to do me a favor. You are a perfect enchantress--just say one word to him. I am convinced it will cheer him."
"Do you really desire it?"
The look Prince Ghedimin cast upon Zeneida expressed both fear and uneasiness. He was "the chosen dictator." If Zeneida uttered the words "I sing," he must forthwith draw his sword out of its scabbard, exclaiming "I fight!"
Zeneida attempted the magician"s feat of curing the Prince"s melancholy with one word.
"The summer has quite left us, Prince, has it not? Winter is upon us."
A sufficiently commonplace remark! Imagine talking about the weather!
Prince Ghedimin acquiesced.
"And I fear we shall have a very unpleasant winter if we "too" do not go to the Crimea or the Caucasus to luxuriate in a second summer."
A very ordinary speech! But that little word "too" had electrified the Prince. He seemed a changed man. His face brightened, his figure grew elastic; surely a miracle had happened to him!
"Come, my love," he said to the Princess, and, to her amazement, began humming an air from the overture of the _Czarenwalzers_ as they went down the stairs.
That woman is surely the devil in person! She says the most commonplace nothings, and, doing so, brings a dead man back to life.
And yet the Princess has carefully weighed every word spoken by Zeneida.
Which can have been the magical one? There was none. The little word "too" had escaped her attention.
And it was from that one word that the Prince knew that the Czarina would go to the Crimea, and with her the Czar. His breast was relieved of a heavy load.
Chevalier Galban escorted the ladies to their carriage, and Bethsaba, leaning out of the carriage-window, looked back at him.
"I have caught her!" thought Chevalier Galban to himself.
CHAPTER XLIII
UNDER THE COMETS
In the summer of the year 1825 no oil was needed for the streets of St.
Petersburg, the nights were so light. The first lighting of the lamps falls on the day the court leaves Peterhof for the Winter Palace. The lighting of the lamps, on this occasion, was looked forward to by many.
A great plan was in course of operation among the lower strata of society, which they had imparted neither to the _matadores_ of the _Szojusz BlaG.o.denztoiga_ nor to the _Szojusz s.p.a.cinia_.
A succession of gloomy, rainy days came with the new moon. When on the fourth day a keen north wind blew away the clouds from the sky, people were astonished to see near the silver sickle of the moon yet another wonder, like a fiery sword--a comet. So quickly had it come that it was only perceived when in its full blaze of glory.
What is a comet?
Scientific men themselves do not know; how, then, can poor ordinary mortals?
A comet is the herald of pest, of war, of downfall! Let him who does not believe this show reason why he is unbelieving. In wine-growing countries it is true that a comet year is said to promise a good wine year. But that does not affect the people of St. Petersburg, where they only make brandy. And a comet has no influence upon the increase of brandy. On the contrary, when there is any trouble brewing in the empire there is always but little brandy consumed. It is a peculiarity of the Russian that he does not drink when in great trouble. When the head of the police learns that in St. Petersburg, instead of a daily consumption of five thousand casks of brandy, only two thousand are being consumed, he redoubles the patrols.
The appearance of the comet only heightened the general feeling of excitement. A comet is the prophet"s material symbol concerning which he can cry, "Look! the fiery sword has appeared too in the heavens!"
When Czar Alexander was leaving Peterhof he gave orders that the Lord Chamberlain should precede the Czarina, to see that her apartments were in order on her arrival.
It was evening when the Czar, with a small retinue, neared the capital.
Arrived at Alexander Nevski Monastery, he called a halt, and, going into the church, commanded that a ma.s.s for the dead should be read the next day. As he left the church, standing on the terrace, he cast one long look at the capital, lying before him veiled in mist. The distant sounds came up to him like the roar of the sea; the traffic in the streets, the murmur of voices mingled together like the buzz of a beehive.
He stood there a long time, lost in meditation. The giant conflicts of a quarter of a century rose before his eyes out of the sea of mist, and he experienced that agony almost beyond human endurance--the consciousness of an approaching end, the mighty tasks of his life still unaccomplished. He had risen so high that he had half thought himself a G.o.d; he had fallen so low that there was not a man who would have changed places with him. Napoleon and he had been the dominating personalities of that quarter of a century.
Nor did that lonely figure on St. Helena look with other feelings on the ocean surrounding him than does Czar Alexander on the mist falling thickly over his capital. This mist is vaster than the ocean, because it is formed by the breath of man; and as many breaths, so many curses against him--against him, once so idolized.
The only difference between them is that Napoleon"s people ardently yearn to have their conquered hero back, while this conquering hero has become a weariness to his country.
And that comet in the sky is like an illuminated pen with which an invisible hand is writing the fate of empires and their rulers amid the stars. Alexander"s spirit was ever inclined to mysticism. He was filled with forebodings and terrors. He was a believer in fate and its portents. Comet and moon had both sunk beneath the horizon of the thick sea of mist.
The Czar had an old coachman, known to every one by his long, gray beard, which reached down to his girdle. This coachman always drove the Czar long distances; he was the most faithful servant he had. As, on returning to his three-horsed troika, Alexander asked:
"Ilias, did you see the comet?"
"I saw it, your Majesty."
"Do you know that the comet is the forerunner of misfortune and mourning? Ah, well! The Lord"s will be done!"
And he gave orders to drive to the noisy city.
People told each other that the Czar was about to take a long journey; whither was not known. He intended taking the Czarina away from the inclement climate of the capital to more genial skies; whither he had as yet told no one. He was himself going first, to secure quarters.
Whenever he undertook a long journey it was his custom to hear the _Veni Sancte_ in the Church of the Holy Virgin of Kasan. It was his own church; he had built it, and had had it consecrated, and from its threshold he would get into his travelling carriage. The entire body of the clergy would await him there betimes, wearing their richest vestments; his favorite choir, too, would be in attendance, to sing the collects. And the murmuring capital whispered to itself, when once priests, Czar, and Grand Dukes were collected together in the Church of the Holy Virgin of Kasan: suddenly, at the invocation, "Come, Holy Ghost!" a determined man would start up from the crypt below, and, presenting a loaded pistol, would say, "Come down, then, to him!" And straightway church, holy images, Czar, Grand Dukes, priests, and choristers would be blown into the sky. An awful thought!