"But suppose the young man wanted to make you his wife, and became engaged to you?"
"How can all that come about? I cannot imagine it."
"The young man might begin by sending the girl some special birthday present."
"And that would mean that he was in love with her? And if the girl accepted his present, would it mean that she was in love with him? Oh, how nice, how delightful! Must the girl make him a present too?"
"Only her love."
"Nothing else? Oh, how pretty, how charming! And suppose some other young man gives us handsomer presents, do we accept them too, and love him as well?"
Korynthia clapped her hands with amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Yes, of course. But only if one can keep the second lover secret from the first."
"No, no. No secret dealings. I would rather confess that I loved another too. And why not, if love is good, and no crime? For instance, when I have a husband, may I not tell him that I love strawberries?"
"Strawberries! Oh yes. That is only eating."
"May I tell him that I love Sophie Narishkin?"
"Oh yes. That is only friendship."
"And would he behead me if he knew my love for dancing?"
"Of course not."
"Then if I may love strawberries, dancing, and my friend, why not a youth, if he be good and handsome?"
"Oh, precious innocence! Do people never talk about love in your country?"
"Never."
"Are there, then, no youths and maidens?"
"Of course there are. But in our country, when a young man wants to marry a girl he settles her price with her father and takes her home. If she is loving and faithful to him, he buys her costly clothing; if not, he turns her away and buys himself another wife."
"That is not the custom here. Here a woman may only love one husband; this is commanded by our religion!"
"That is quite different. Why did you not tell me at once that love is commanded by religion? Oh, I will faithfully follow the dictates of religion! You do, too, don"t you? You love your husband? Do you look deep into his eyes? I have never noticed it."
"Ah, child, life is long; and the season of love, we call the honeymoon, all too short."
"Then the honeymoon, or month, should be portioned out into minutes, and minutes into seconds, that each day of one"s life should have one such second."
"You will soon find the impossibility of that."
"Now I know that Bathsheba"s sin was in not loving the man whom her religion commanded her to love. Yet what had King David to do with all that?"
Yes; Korynthia, too, would fain have known how King David got mixed up in the Czar"s talk. For the chattering girl had so confused her with her endless, inconsequent questions that she never thought of the prophet"s words of reproof to the king.
A Russian is reticent beyond all men. None save the Czar dared to allude to the affair of the triumphal arch. Araktseieff was silent, because he did not want the fiasco connected with his military-colony scheme to spread. The detachment of Cossack guards were despatched to Kasan, and those others who had been present knew how to observe profoundest silence as to what had taken place.
CHAPTER XVIII
KORYNTHIA
The young Circa.s.sian Princess could not have been in a better school than that of Princess Ghedimin.
Korynthia might have served as a type to that Russian naturalist who, outdoing Darwin, endeavored to prove that women are degenerate cats. In vain, be it here mentioned, was it sought to soften him so far as to modify his views into their being a race of enn.o.bled cats. He stuck to his opinion. The beautiful Korynthia could be coquettish as an Aspasia, stonily cold as a Diana. This time, however, it was not Diana, but Aspasia, who changed her lover into Acteon.
The men whom she thus distinguished with her favors, like Chevalier Galban, never succeeded in unravelling the riddle of the lovely sphinx.
Korynthia allowed him to accompany her in hunts, danced with him at b.a.l.l.s, gave him her bouquet to hold when dancing with another man, laughed at his sallies, made fun of others with him, even kissed him at parting, the while holding him as far off as a planet its satellites--and of such satellites she had more than Saturn--each and all permitted to revolve about her, none to approach her too near.
Yet when in society she fixed a man with a stony look of a G.o.ddess, acknowledging his bow with the contraction of the lips by which great ladies express, at once, disdain and reproach, he was the man for whom her heart was cherishing secret flames.
No one knew it, for he, thus signalled out, an officer of the guards, distinguished alike for his genius and his many gay adventures, was careful to keep to himself that one day a perfumed note was brought him by a mysterious messenger, and on opening the delicately tinted envelope he read: "An unknown benefactress, who is interested in your fate, is ready to pay off all your debts if you will stay away at nights from Fraulein Ilmarinen"s Saturnalia."
We think we are not mistaken when we take, in connection with the above, the usurer"s speech, who certainly did not volunteer it without good grounds: "There are certain young, rich, and lovely ladies in St.
Petersburg who are ready to come to the aid of a young officer whom I could name."
The young Endymion"s reply to the perfumed note was that night to enter the proscribed Eleusis on the box-seat of Zeneida"s sledge.
Korynthia"s hatred of Zeneida was not on account of her husband, but of Pushkin. Zeneida"s position with regard to Prince Ghedimin was only superficial. The devotion of great n.o.bles to prima donnas is merely a matter of fashion, and of cutting two ways. "What is allowed to you is allowed to me!" The things which rankle most in the Princess"s mind are that her rival possesses a finer exotic garden than she does; that she has finer horses; and that whenever they meet her toilets are unquestionably triumphant. And they are constantly meeting; for her fame as an artiste opens all doors to Zeneida. They meet at brilliant b.a.l.l.s; their horses are pitted together on the turf; their carriages are in juxtaposition at reviews; and the Princess is convinced that all this luxury is derived from her husband"s Siberian silver-mines, which enable their owner to indulge in the amus.e.m.e.nt of permitting two women to outrival each other in the art of squandering. Could she but come out conqueror in the strife, she could forgive the artist her extravagance; but never would she forget that she, a Princess, had had to give in to her even one hair"s-breadth. Here was the second ground of her hatred of Zeneida.
There was still a third. The moment of weakness, which in her early youth had made her all his life long an important factor in the life of the Czar, was forgotten; had been long buried in oblivion. The Czarina was the object of universal admiration, sympathy, and worship; and she was seen to be visibly fading before people"s eyes. Public opinion, indeed, became so strong in the matter that it was often a question in secret societies whether there should not be a repet.i.tion of what occurred in the reign of Peter III. and Catherine II., to make the Czar prisoner and proclaim Elisabeth reigning Czarina. And, withal, Princess Ghedimin knew herself to stand nearer to the Czar"s heart than did the Czarina; a silken cord--Sophie Narishkin--held them together. No such silken cord of union existed for Elisabeth. Alexander"s love for her as a husband had been buried forever in the grave of the last child she had borne to him. And here, once more, did Korynthia find her detested rival in her path.
While the Czar avoided her, he lavished the wealth of his favor upon Zeneida. The prima donna stood between Czar and Czarina. Both loved and petted her. They were never together save when Zeneida made a third.
When listening to her singing, reading aloud, or the charm of her pleasant talk, the imperial couple would forget their mutual estrangement and draw together; when, on the contrary, the Czarina, appearing at some court festivity leaning on the Czar"s arm, would come face to face with the Princess, their arms would fall abruptly apart, and they would turn away from each other. That she knew right well. And, withal, she must display her favors to those who were indifferent to her, appear haughty and disdainful to those she would fain have encouraged, seem affectionate to the husband she hated, be humble to the man on whom she had a claim, and play the magnanimous protectress to the rival of whom she was jealous. Jealousy is terrible enough when it has one head; how much more when it has three! The three heads of her jealousy were: pa.s.sion, pride, and remembrance.
And to her had been intrusted the bringing up of the Circa.s.sian king"s daughter! The Princess began her task by giving her at her christening a name which the world then, and now, can only have condoned for sake of the psalmist king, David.
Bethsaba was fortunate in that she united to her inexperience and innocence a considerable fund of imaginative fancy and the characteristic cunning of her people. Moreover, she remembered many a saying of her good mother, whom now she sees but once a year--on New-year"s day, when some forty thousand people a.s.semble to pay allegiance to the imperial pair in the great Throne Room. There stands her mother on one of the steps of the throne; but her brow, instead of wearing a crown, wears furrows. And as often as Bethsaba looks upon her does she remember that her mother, to whom she may not speak, exchanged her crown for those furrows, because she stabbed the man who dared to say to her, "I love you; give me your love in return."
Then she would begin to ponder over what that "love" could be which had made it so easy for one to slay and the other to die. At one time it would seem good and sweet, and one"s duty; at another, evil, full of pain, and, above all, sinful.
CHAPTER XIX
THE MONSTER