The Green Book Part 48

"Sire!"

"What is it? Make short work of it!"

The enemy's cannon are already thundering upon the attacking column.

"Sire," says the officer, "d.u.c.h.ess Sophie Narishkin has just delivered up her n.o.ble soul to Eternity."

The Czar instinctively put his hand to his heart. It was there that he was struck! And yet the cannon were only firing blank ammunition.

The sword he was wielding sank in one hand--the Czar covered his face with the other.

"_It is the punishment for my faults!_" he uttered, in a faltering voice.

What a change had come over the brilliant hero--the semi-G.o.d! In his place sat a bowed figure; a man bowed down to the earth by fate.

However deafening the hurrahs--however much the earth may vibrate under the tramp of warlike horses and hors.e.m.e.n--their leader's soul is fettered by the words "Sophie is dead."

Miloradovics, the general in command, sent to ask instructions from the Imperial Commander-in-Chief for the next movement.

"Call them back!" was the answer. "Send the troops back to barracks. The review is over."

And, turning his horse, the Czar rode back to his tent with bowed head.

They who saw him return hardly recognized his white face. The generals of division had great work to disentangle their troops and get them into position again. A murmuring arose among the men, as though a battle had been lost.

The Czar, not even awaiting the march past of the regiments, who were wont to defile past him with pipe and drum, left the whole command to the Grand Duke, and, throwing himself into his troika, drove back to the Winter Palace.

There he hastened to his study. On it were spread important, weighty doc.u.ments, containing epoch-making decisions for people and nations, only awaiting his signature. The Czar's eyes rested sadly upon them, reading in them, not what was written upon them in ordinary characters, but the _Palimpsest_ with which fate ever crosses the carefully thought-out plans of mankind.

Then, seizing all the doc.u.ments--painstaking labors of many a night--he made them into a roll, and, throwing them on to the fire, watched them, a prey to the flames. They were all to have been Sophie Narishkin's dowry.

Soon they were a heap of ashes.

Then, sitting down, he wrote a letter. It contained but two words--"Come back."

The envelope was addressed to Araktseieff.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE RENDEZVOUS

There is something marvellous in the summer nights of the extreme North.

Foreigners find it harder to accustom themselves to them than they do to the long winter nights with their cruel severity. The evening glow lasts till midnight, and then begins the dawn. It seems endless until the first stars appear in the still, clear sky, and under them the brilliant planets Venus and Jupiter, burning in the firmament like diamonds on the surface of a golden lake. The pale moon describes its short orbit, a superfluous luminary; and on the Feast of Masinka the half-hour of actual night is impatiently awaited, in order to let off fireworks on the forty islands of the Neva. (For by daylight it is no use to send up rockets!) Street lamps are not lit in St. Petersburg at all during this month. Nor in the apartments of Korynthia's villa are lights needed on the evening of this 20th of June. The sky diffuses light enough until 11 P.M., and a little twilight will not seriously disturb those of whom we are about to speak.

Korynthia, in some agitation, has strayed--who can tell how often in the course of that evening?--on to her veranda, and let her eyes rove over the surface of the mighty river below. It, too, is golden in the evening light, and, like the Russian pictures of saints, on a golden ground is reflected in its sheen the capital, with its rows of palaces, the dome and columns of St. Isaac's, the florid architecture of the Exchange, the bridge of Holy Trinity, the scattered islands from amid whose wooded heights the varied forms and shapes of country-houses peep, with roofs red, blue, green, gilded, and paG.o.da-like. And among the islands are darting boats, gondolas, canoes, of every kind and description. Some rowed by twelve boatmen, others by a solitary dreamer; the one flas.h.i.+ng along at lightning speed, the other letting himself drift on with the stream. The song of the boatmen is in the air.

In the uncertain light their figures stand out like black silhouettes.

Korynthia asks herself which of the gondolas is bringing to her him she is expecting--which is the silhouette of his figure?

To the watcher the last half-hour seems longest. Korynthia turns from the balcony to the interior of her room, and gazes once more at herself in her mirror. You are beautiful, very beautiful, says her mirror; that white costume lends you quite a youthful appearance, leaving, as it does, the rounded marble of the arms bare to the shoulder. Your wealth of fair hair is not stiffly arranged, but floats in two thick tresses.

No ornament of any kind, bracelet or earring, enhances your charms. The confident champion enters the battle-field without helmet or s.h.i.+eld.

Even the wedding-ring is absent. You are beautiful indeed--says her mirror.

And beside the mirror hangs a picture, set in a thick gold frame. It is the picture of a young girl in the garb of a mythical shepherdess--tender and delicate as a dream. Korynthia had received it some years ago, a present from the Czar. She may possibly have divined even then that it was no fancy picture, but a portrait; she may even have guessed whom it represented. Within the last few days she knows for certain. She has met the original. It was the portrait of Sophie Narishkin.

Certainly she might long since have known it from Bethsaba--have seen portrait and original often enough, had she asked her. But although lying was foreign to the nature of the Circa.s.sian king's daughter, she knew how to be silent, and had that much Armenian blood in her veins not to answer when not directly questioned.

So the reflection in the mirror and the portrait in the frame were in close proximity. And comparison left the living reflection victor.

You pale child with your dreamy eyes, your lips seeming to open in lament; your tender, shadowy frame, how can you think to rival the divine presence of a woman? What power can you have, melancholy dream-picture of another world, against this earthly woman whose beauty arouses and quenches pa.s.sion, kills and inspires life? Do you possess an Aleko, he chooses himself a gypsy maid; and that is not you. Is he not himself a true gypsy, leading a vagabond, adventurous life? In a word, is he not a poet?

Time went on slowly. Korynthia opened the windows looking on to the park. A concert of nightingales came from the bushes. A b.u.t.terfly--the night peac.o.c.k's eye--flew in at the open window; taking her for a flower, it flew about her, not about the portrait. Then flew in another night moth, differing from others in that it emits a sound--an unpleasant, shrill, yet melancholy hum. Its name is _Sphinx Atropos_.

Why has it been called by the name of that one of the Parcae which severs the thread of life? Because its back and head are the exact counterpart of a death's-head. Ss--h! The lady brushes away the weird moth; but it had found a refuge; it had flown across to the picture and had settled in a corner of the frame.

At length the twilight deepens. A few impatient employes let off the first rockets from the pleasure gardens in the islands. Bengal lights are beginning to show on Kreskowsky Island.

Ah, of course! It is Zeneida's birthday. The court calendar has found a place for her among the saints; there are great doings to-night in her palace. And something more, perhaps--a sitting of the Szojusz Blagadenztoiga. Under every possible guise and excuse, it holds its meetings at the singer's house.

When Prince Ghedimin left home that evening he had told his wife that he was commanded to the Czar, and would be away all night discussing important matters of state. It is therefore certain that he will be spending the night at Zeneida's, and Korynthia need not fear to be disturbed; it is a case of t.i.t for tat. Any moment may now bring him--the one so impatiently expected.

For as soon as the fireworks on the islands begin they attract all the servants and watchmen yet awake. There is no one to keep guard on the winding paths of the park. The great clock strikes eleven; every quarter of an hour four bells ring a carillon. At the last stroke of the clock she seems to hear the sound of approaching footsteps on the gravel. Who else can it be? An aristocrat's step is so different from that of a mujik. She is right.

The new-comer, stopping at the door of the garden veranda, opens it with a key. His footsteps now announce his coming, as they hurriedly ascend the spiral staircase. Korynthia has studied the pose in which she will be surprised. Leaning over the window-sill, her face resting on her hand--a dreamy figure so absorbed in the song of the nightingales that she does not perceive some one approach her, bend over her, and breathe a soft kiss upon her lovely shoulder.

The Princess seems to rouse from her reverie with a start, as, with an air of smiling reproach, she turns to the stealer of the kiss, "Ah, how late you are!" But as she sees him, she starts in reality. The kiss has been no theft. The perpetrator had but taken what was his own. It was her husband, Prince Ghedimin. Korynthia stammered out, "How early you have come home!"

"You just said how late I was."

"I was dreaming. I did not know what I was saying. How did you get in?"

"By the garden veranda. You know that I have the key."

And now it occurs to Korynthia that that other, to whom she had given the duplicate, may even now be coming.

"Did you fasten the door?"

"No, for in five minutes I must be off again."

"But I beg you to fasten the door, and leave your key on the inside. You know how terrified I am of thieves."

"All right. I'll go back and close it."

During his brief absence Korynthia wrapped herself in a thick shawl. She did not need the pretext of cold; she was s.h.i.+vering with agitation.

The Prince returned.