The Green Book Part 53

"It was Zsabakoff--do you hear?--Zsabakoff! You surely have not given him the flasks yet?"

"Flasks?" retorted Araktseieff, amazed. "I've only got this one; and I can't offer you anything from it, for it's empty."

"Oh, the devil take you! The three hundred thousand flasks, I mean, that the army are to have in the Turkish War."

And now he was more astonished than ever.

"Three hundred thousand flasks? War? Give yourself time to breathe.

What have you been drinking to-day?"

The woman cursed and raved. In a medley of words she mixed up weeks and months, copecks and flasks, diamonds worth two thousand rubles, Missolonghi and Omer Brione Pasha, and stormed on so long that at length her lord and master, in a fury, flinging his empty flask at her, pushed her aside; whereupon Daimona, to recover her wounded feelings, fell upon the jeweller, and struck his head with the _corpus delicti_, the paste tiara. Why had he said that a yellow diamond was not as good as a white one? It was all his fault that the thief had stolen the real one and made off with it.

And this was the affectionate reception of the weary statesman to his home. Perhaps others have shared his experiences--who shall say?

However, at supper they made it up again; and Daimona recounted to him the history of the field-flasks.

"Well, my dear hen"--this was his pet name for Daimona--"you know more about it than I do, whose province it is, as Intendant-General, to see to the fitting out of the army. I am on leave from court--ostensibly on account of my health. This that scoundrel Zsabakoff knew, hence he got back his present to you. He knew that I am 'very' ill just now."

"But what's the matter with you?"

"The matter is, that I am a follower of the Czar."

"Try to get cured of that ailment."

"I know that I shall soon be recalled, and very soon fall back into my old ailment."

"Bungler! If only you had kept the Czar's favor until the field-flask contract had been delivered!"

"Bah! Say no more about it. Sing me something nice. It's so long since I heard a woman's voice."

Alexis Andreovitch really meant it when he said he wanted to hear Daimona sing. Now, the screech of a peac.o.c.k was a swan's song compared with Daimona's croak. Her voice was out of tune, throaty, and harsh; but if it pleased her lord, what matter? And then the words of her song, with its refrain, "Give him a taste of the knife!" In truth, an extraordinary ditty to choose; and that it should just have come into Daimona's head! Yet what so extraordinary in it, after all, for the fallen favorite's _chere amie_ to choose a revolutionary song, when he had been dismissed from court by his imperial master, and when the matter of the flasks was not settled? Surely reason enough that he who yesterday kissed the dust from off the tyrant's feet to-day should throw it back in his face!

And the fallen favorite did not interrupt her. He listened to every verse, enjoying the last so much that he chuckled with delight.

"Where did you hear that ridiculous thing?"

"You thick-head! Can't you guess? Didn't you yourself send the gypsy girl to me to be educated? We have made a thorough success of it."

"Right. Among the many pleasures that await me here is carrying on that joke to the bitter end. She drove my son to Archangel! Not a word have I heard from him yet. What have you been doing to the wench?"

"Just what you directed. If you want some fun we'll have her in."

"Nothing better just now."

Daimona sent a man in search of Diabolka. Meanwhile she whispered something to Alexis Andreovitch, her painted eyebrows dancing with fiendish glee as she did so.

Araktseieff seemed to enter fully into the joke; he laughed so loud that he made himself quite hoa.r.s.e, and, striking his fist on the table, shouted:

"Good! Excellent! By Jove! That'll be worth seeing!"

Both were looking grave when the girl came in. She was hardly recognizable. A young lady in a long dress, wearing mittens, on her head the snood of a Russian maiden. She held both hands, in national style, hidden in the long sleeves of her dress, only withdrawing them to kiss the hand of her master and mistress. Her eyes she kept modestly fixed on the ground.

"Well, dear child, and how do you like being under your mistress's protection?"

In a low whisper the girl answered:

"Thanks be to my gracious master for having sent me where I am so happy."

Araktseieff could scarce repress his laughter.

"You speak like a book."

"That is not my merit, but that of the reverend Herr Prokop, who has spared no pains to give me the benefit of his instruction."

"Ei, ei! You are quite a fine young lady, I see. You must sit down and have supper with us. Come, don't be shy! Here, you long-legged fellow, set a cover for the young lady! Here, you lout! Opposite me."

"It will be a great honor to your unworthy maid-servant to be permitted to sit at table with you; but I must ask forgiveness if I eat nothing.

Good Father Prokop has inflicted the penance on me of eating no supper for a whole year."

"For what sin?"

The girl heaved a deep sigh.

"Your Excellency! you know the great sin I have committed, and for which I never can atone." And she sank her head remorsefully.

Was she really penitent, or was it only hypocrisy?

"And what do you do while others are having their meal?"

"I read the Psalms to them."

"What! you can read already? and the Psalms into the bargain! I should like to hear that. Bring her a Psalm-book. Now sit here and read. Which one is it?"

The girl, sitting down as she was bid, rested the finger-tip of one hand daintily on the table, while with the forefinger of the other she marked the syllables as she read, "Lord, the hea-then are come in-to thine in-her-i-tance."

"Wonderful! But do you understand what you are reading about? Who are the 'heathen'?"

"The _Turks_!" The girl spat out the words, as beseems an orthodox Muscovite.

"Who is the 'Lord'?"

Rising, the girl answered:

"Our august master, the Czar."

"And what is his 'inheritance'?"

"Greece."