"You have asked me what the devil looks like? Look at that woman; there you have the fiend in human form."
The girl, bending her head, crossed herself as she cast a frightened side glance at the dreadful woman, who was the embodiment of his Satanic Majesty. Then the Amazon, turning her own horse, and at the same time seizing the reins of that upon which the young girl was mounted, galloped back the way she had come, huntsmen and hounds following. The stag remained where it had fallen.
CHAPTER V
PLAN OF WAR AGAINST A WOMAN
On the way back to Ghedimin Palace naturally nothing was spoken of by the members of the hunt but the exciting scene to which they had just been witness.
"_Parole d"honneur_," said the clean-shaven horseman, as he struck his riding-boot with his whip, "the whole world is turned upside down! In the time of the Empress Elizabeth, if any woman had allowed herself to insult a Princess Ghedimin in that manner, she would have had her tongue cut out and have been punished with the knout."
"This is what we have to thank exaggerated philanthropy for! It was never created for us. Voltairianism will be the ruin of the nation. How can Araktseieff suffer it?"
"The woman is no Russian?"
"Perhaps some English or German here to spite us, and who has placed herself under the protection of the Emba.s.sy? By Jove! in 1816, when I was last at home, such a thing would not have been permitted!"
"These cursed foreigners! Anyway, if the president of the police does not take the matter in hand, we will administer the knout ourselves. I swear your presence alone withheld me just now, Princess Maria Alexievna!"
"Indeed! You do not know who the woman is."
"What does it matter who she is? She may even be a princess."
"She is more than that."
"Then some expatriated queen, perhaps from Georgia."
"Silence!" said the lady, as she gave a warning look in the direction of the girl riding at her other side.
"She does not understand German. So the woman is really a queen?"
At this question the lady laughed heartily.
"Really a queen! A true queen! A reigning queen--an absolute monarch! We all are her slaves; you, I, even Alexis Maximovitch. A queen who is not to be driven out of her kingdom by means of cannon, but with this!" and she held out to her companion the whistle of her shattered riding-whip.
"What! an actress?"
"Of course. What else should she be?"
"Ha, ha, ha! To whom the whistle means a revolution; whose throne is upset by hisses! Ah, Maria Alexievna, present me with this whistle. With it I will fight for you, as a knight _sans peur et sans reproche_."
The lady resigned the fatal weapon, so efficacious in the downfall of stage potentates, to her cavalier, as the latter lifted her out of her saddle in the portico of the Ghedimin Palace.
He then kissed her hand. She kissed him on the cheek, and, taking the young girl by the hand, she pa.s.sed through a treble gla.s.s door and ascended the broad frescoed staircase within.
Here the hunting-party broke up, making rendezvous at the opera that evening.
Now the silent, bestarred gentleman, who had hitherto not mixed in the conversation, slapping the clean-shorn one on the back with the flat of his hand, said:
"Nicholas Sergievitch, a word with you. Come along with me."
"At your service, Alexis Maximovitch."
And together they rode off to the Araktseieff Palace.
There are no old palaces in St. Petersburg. The whole city only dates back a century and a half. The palace of the favorite official of the Czar is situated on the Nevski Prospect, and is built more for comfort than for elegance. During the winter the whole building is heated throughout with hot-air pipes; every window has treble cases; the floors of the rooms are of parquetry.
The two huntsmen said nothing until they had refreshed themselves with hot tea seasoned with arak and a curious compound of cayenne and cantharides. A tiny portion on the point of a knife of this latter warms one"s frozen limbs. In any other climate it were poison.
The great man whom we now recognize from the name of his palace, Araktseieff, first locking the door of the room they were in, pushed up a rocking-chair to the fireplace for his guest, gave him a chibouque, and himself took up his station before the fire.
"Hark ye, Nicholas Sergievitch, put the whistle you received from the Princess just now among your treasures, and when you want to blow it go out into the woods. That is my advice to you. For if you carry out what you have sworn to the Princess you will find yourself next day on the road to Irkutsk, and, by Heaven! I can"t say when you will be coming back."
"The devil!"
"You see, the Czar is of opinion that he can create a hundred n.o.blemen such as you in an hour; but singers such as Zeneida Ilmarine are to be met with but once in the century."
"Ah! So this mysterious stranger is Zeneida Ilmarine, the far-famed Simarosa heroine? All honor to her! I take my pipe out of my mouth as I speak her revered name! When I made my promise to Princess Ghedimin, I had no idea whom it concerned. This absolves me from my oath. Against the "divine" Zeneida one may not revolt, even to please the "angelic"
Maria Alexievna. Rather raise the standard against the whole army of legitimate rulers! What a fool I was! The excessive cold must have frozen my wits like quicksilver in a thermometer. Of course, I had heard abroad that the _diva_ was a _protegee_ of the Czar and Czarina, and, moreover, the beloved of the brave Ivan Maximovitch. From the dialogue in which the two ladies indulged, I might have gathered that it was a meeting between wife and lady-love."
"Now you must devise a way to find favor with both. Favor with the wife, as with the sweetheart."
"Easy as kiss your hand. I have only to tell one about the other."
"That may succeed with the wife, for she is outspoken, straightforward, and pa.s.sionate. With the favorite, however, it may be more difficult; for she understands how to play as many parts in real life as on the stage. And your office it will be to find out which is the real one."
"That I will do--as sure as my name is Galban."
"Well, Chevalier Galban, you may imagine that it is a matter of some importance which has induced us to call you back from Versailles, where you were to us as eyes and ears are to man. You have there learned, in masterly fashion, how to unravel the most secret diplomatic webs by means of a woman"s heart, yourself the while remaining unscathed. Now you must carry out your masterwork at home."
"What, Holy Russia has secrets which her police and the priests are unable to fathom?"
"My dear Chevalier Galban, our good Chulkin has enough to do to catch thieves, and is not too successful in that department. I counsel you, if your sledge be stopped on the way home from the club at night, give the thief your purse quietly, for if you call the watch the soldiers will ease you of your fur coat into the bargain. If, on the other hand, you fall into the hands of a policeman, he will not only clear you out, but the thief too. As for the priests, they count for nothing to our people, who are atheists."
"Have we come to that?"
"Yes; to that. General Kutusoff did well to say, when our forces came back from the French War, "The best thing the Czar could do would be to drown the whole expedition in the Baltic." They were all indoctrinated to a man with liberalism, and have infected the entire army. I a.s.sure you that many a young officer carries "The Catechism of a Free Man" and "A Scheme of Const.i.tutional Monarchy" about with him in his coat-pocket."
"How do they get hold of them?"
"They must have a secret press."
"They have been allowed to play with freedom too long."