Below the Nicholai Bridge, on the right quay of the Neva, stands the
palace of the Grand-Duke Stepan, a huge, granite structure, massive in
form and splendid in architecture.
The palace was ablaze with light. In the famous ball-room thousands of
electric bulbs twinkled and sparkled, star-shaped and dazzling. Its
lofty, dome-like vault, resting on marble columns, was encircled by a
balcony, narrow and sculptured, from which the music of the band rose
and fell, soft, entrancing, invisible, as from the clouds. The walls
were of reddish marble rounded at the corners. The floor, shining,
polished as a mirror, reflected the swaying forms of the dancers as
they whirled to and fro.
Beyond, on the grand stair-case, the guests ascended slowly in groups
of twos and threes, flecking the marble with splashes of colour,
radiant, vivid, like clusters of rose leaves strewn on the steps. The
perfume was intoxicating, languorous. Light trills as of laughter and
snatches of talk, gay and fleeting, mingled with the rhythm of the
violins.
The ball was at its height.
In an arch of the stair-case stood a young officer. He was leaning
nonchalantly against the carved balustrade; the scarlet and gold of his
uniform shone against a green background of palms, distinguishing his
broad shoulders from among the rest. The palms screened him as in a
niche.
The officer was swarthy of complexion with a short, black mustache, and
his eyes, small and near together, roamed carelessly over the throng.
As the groups approached the head of the stair-case, one after the
other, he saluted smiling, half heeding, and his eyes roved on still
more carelessly; sometimes they crossed.
Whenever they crossed, his eyes would remain fixed, intent, for a
moment, on some one advancing to the foot of the stair-case, eagerly
watching as the form came nearer and nearer. Then the muscles relaxed.
He frowned impatiently, tapping his sword against the carvings.
"Hiss-s-t--Prince Michel!"
The whisper came from behind the leaves of the palms and they swayed
slightly, trembling as from a movement, or a breath.
The officer started, turning his black eyes swiftly, fiercely on the
green, and then looked away again.
"Ha, Boris!" he muttered, hardly moving his lips, "How you come
creeping behind one!--What is it, a message?"
"Hist-st! Speak low."
The voice was like the faint murmur of crickets on a hot summer's day.
"The Duke has gone."
"Gone? What! The devil he has!"
"Sh-h!--not five minutes ago! A message came from the Tsar himself.
He has just slipped away."
The officer gazed straight ahead of him smiling, and bowed to a couple
ascending the stair-case. His lips parted as if in greeting. "Did he
send you to tell me?"
"No, the Duchess. She has made some excuse and is receiving alone. No
one suspects, not yet; but the guests must be diverted, or else--"
"Be still, Boris, be still, you shake the leaves like a bull. When
will he return?"
"By midnight, Prince. Could you start the mazurka at once?"
"Presently, Boris. Go and tell my mother I will--presently. The
Countess is late, unaccountably late! Is the snow heavy to-night on
the quay; are the sledges blocked? Hiss-st!--There she comes!"
The trembling of the leaves ceased suddenly and the young officer
leaned forward, his sword clanking, his eyes crossed and fixed on a
vague white spot in the distant foyer.
"She is coming! How slowly she moves! What a throng!--There, she
comes, white and sweet like a lily, a flower!" The Prince waved his
hand; his sword clanked again. "No, she doesn't see me; her eyes are
on the ground--and her hair, it gleams like a crown."
The two figures climbing the grand marble stair-case moved forward
slowly, step by step, mingling with the flash and colour of the crowd,
lost for a moment at the bend, then reappearing again. The man,
evidently a general, was magnificent in his uniform; his breast regal
with orders and medals, his grey head held high and his form stiff and
straight. On his arm was the Countess, his daughter.
She clung to him, her lips were smiling and her white robes trailed the
marble behind her. She was like a young queen, charming and gracious,
bowing to right and to left. As the groups drew aside to let her pass,
they whispered together, looking up at the carved balustrade; then the
crowd closed again.
At the top of the stair-case the Prince sprang forward. He greeted the
General hastily, saluting. Then the watchers behind saw how the
Countess paused, hesitated, and then, at a few whispered words from the
Prince, placed her hand on his arm and the two young figures, the white
and the scarlet, disappeared within the doorway.
The violins rose and fell in a dreamy measure. From the sculptured
gallery the sound came mysterious, enchanting, swaying the feet with
the force of its rhythm.
"Not to-night," said the Countess, "No!" She drew herself away from
the arm of the Prince and her lashes drooped over her eyes. "I am
tired--later perhaps, Prince."
Her voice, low and remonstrating, was lost in the swing of the waltz.
With a sudden, swift movement the scarlet and white seemed welded
together, whirling into the vortex of light and of motion.
No word was exchanged. They whirled, gliding, twisting in and out
among the dancers; and suddenly, swiftly, as at a signal, the music
broke into the measure of the mazurka. A cry went up from the throng.
In a twinkling the floor was cleared, the crowd pressed back against
the columns; under the reddish marble of the dome four couples
gathered, poised hand in hand.
The uniforms of the officers glowed in the light, rich and scarlet,
faced with silver and gold. The gowns of their partners were brocade
and velvet, purple and crimson, lilac and pearl. Then from the
balcony, high up, unseen, the rhythm changed again like a flash, and
with it the national dance began.
At first the movements were slow, the steps graceful; the feet seemed
scarcely to move, barely gliding over the floor. One by one the
couples retreated, the last left alone; and then interchanging. The
music grew faster. In that moment, when they were left alone, the
Prince bent his head to the slim, swaying whiteness by his side:
"Why did you come so late?" he whispered, "Where were you?"
The Countess' hand was cold like ice. She drew it away and danced on;
then she whispered back:
"The Duke! Where is he to-night? He is not here! Why is the mazurka
so early, tell me."
They interchanged again.
"Hush," said the Prince, "You noticed?--Don't speak. He has gone to
the Tsar.--What is it? Are you ill?"
"He has--gone?"
"Dance, Countess, dance. Don't stop; are you mad? Come nearer.
Hush!--The Tsar sent for him, but he will be back at midnight. No one
must know."
The figure of the mazurka grew stranger and more complicated. When
they were thrown together again, the Countess lifted her blue eyes to
the eyes of the Prince. They seemed to look at her and yet to look
past her; they were crossed. She shivered slightly and turned her
head. Her white figure, slender and light as thistledown, floated away
from him, and then in a moment she was back, their hands had touched;
they were whirling together faster and faster, the tips of her slippers
scarcely touching the floor. She closed her eyes.
"You won't tell, not a soul, I can trust you?" whispered the Prince.
"Come closer, closer. There is a plot to-night. Boris told me. The
Secret Service men are everywhere, watching. Don't be frightened,
Countess--your hand is so cold. Can you hear me? Bend your head--so!
They hope to make arrests before he returns."
"When--when does he return?"
"Sh--h! At midnight. Dance faster, faster--Let yourself go!"
The music broke into a mad riot of rhythm; the violins seemed to run
races with one another in an intoxication of sound, pulsing,
penetrating, overpowering. The white figure twirled in the Prince's
arms, her gold hair a blot against the scarlet of his sleeve, faster
and faster. Her head drooped; her eyes closed again.
The rhythm was alive, tempting, subtle, like a madness in the veins;
and as they whirled, the rubato, dreamy, sudden, caught them as in a
leash; the steps faltered, slower, more lingering; slower, still slower
until the music stopped, dying away into the dome of the vault in a
last faint echo of sound.
The Countess swayed suddenly.
Her face was white as the lace on her bosom, and her eyes grew dark and
big, with black shadows sweeping her cheeks. Others stepped forward to
the dance; their places were filled and the music commenced again.
"Lean on me," whispered the Prince, "Are you ill? Countess, lean on my
arm--so."
His voice was hoarse and excited. He was swaying a little himself from
the intoxication of the dance.
"Take me away somewhere, some quiet place," she whispered back. "Let
me rest--I am faint."
He drew her after him and the two figures, the scarlet and the white,
passed under the archway into a salon beyond. The Prince raised a
curtain: "This is the Duke's own room," he said in her ear, "Go
under--be quick!"
The curtain fell heavily behind them and the two stood alone in the
Grand-Duke's room. There was a desk in the corner littered with
papers, a lamp stood beside, heavily shaded, and back in the shadowy
recesses was a couch.
"Help me there," whispered the Countess, "And then go--go, Prince,
leave me. My head is on fire! See, my cheeks, my hands, how they
burn? Help me to the couch."
She staggered and almost fell as they approached it, burying her face
in her hands.
"I can't leave you," said the Prince. He was on his knees beside her,
kissing her hands, trying to draw them down from her face. "Kaya, what
is the matter? Don't hide your eyes--look at me. Shall I call some
one? Are you ill?"
The Countess drew back against the cushions, shuddering, pushing him
from her: "Don't call any one," she said, "Give me that water on the
table there." Her eyes were wide open now and dilated; the hair fell
disordered in golden rings and waves about the oval of her face. She
drew her breath heavily; her bosom rising and falling like waves after
a storm. One hand pressed her lace as if to clutch the pulsing and
steady it; the other held the glass to her trembling lips.
The Prince hovered over the couch. He was pale and the crossing of his
eyes was more pronounced than ever. "Drink now," he whispered
soothingly as if to a child in trouble, "Drink it slowly. It is wine,
not water, and will bring back your strength. It was the dance; ah, it
was so fast, so mad. You were wonderful! The blood beats in my veins
still; I can feel the rhythm throbbing, can you? Speak to me,
Countess--are you better?"
"Is any one here," said the girl faintly, "Are we alone?"
"Yes, yes, we are alone."
"Will the Duke come in?"
"Not yet. Put your head back against the cushions and rest. The
colour is gone from your cheeks and you are pale like a broken flower.
Listen--do you hear the violins in the distance? Your feet move like
mine; every pulse in your body is tingling and throbbing. Rest; don't
speak, and in a moment--Kaya--"
Again the Countess pushed him back, her blue eyes sparkling, flashing
on his: "Prince, hush! Don't speak to me like that. You don't know,
how can you! Poor boy--poor boy! Don't look at me; I tell you, don't
look at me. In the dusk it might be the Duke himself, his very self!
Go--Leave me a little. If he were good like you--but you will be bad
too when you are older, wicked, cruel--the blood is there in your
veins. You will be like the rest. Keep away from me, Michel. Don't
kiss my hands, not--my--hands!"
The Countess tore them away and gazed at the young officer, her eyes
wild and dilated. She gave a little cry as of pain.
"No--no! I can bear all the rest, but not this--not this! Get up off
your knees Prince. Leave me--leave me for a little while--I must
think; I must be alone and think."
Her hair sparkled and gleamed against the cushions. One hand was still
clasped to her breast. He stooped over her, panting.
"Come and dance with me, Kaya--dearest. You are well now; your cheeks
are like roses. The wine is so strong when one is giddy. Let me put
my arms about you--come! I love you. Ah, your hair is like a halo;
your lips are trembling. The tears in your eyes are like dew, Kaya."
The Countess rose slowly to her feet. "Yes, you are like your father
already," she cried, "Already you are cowardly. You are strong and you
think I am weak." Her head was thrown back; she measured him
scornfully, "Go and dance, sir. Leave me, I tell you."
The Prince held out his hands. "Leave you!" he cried, "No, Kaya, no.
Come and dance."
"Leave me--leave me."
He came nearer: "Are you still faint? Will you rest and let me come
back? When? How soon?"
"Leave me."
He took out his watch: "Nearly midnight," he cried, "then the Duke will
return. When the clock strikes, Kaya, it will be our dance. You will
waltz with me then--once more? As soon as the clock strikes?"
"Leave me."
"A quarter of an hour, Kaya, no more? I will send word to Boris. He
will guard the curtain so no one will enter, unless it is the Duke
himself. As soon as the clock strikes, you promise, we will waltz
together?"
"Go, Michel, go--I promise."
The Prince made a step forward as though to gather the shrinking figure
in his arms. He hesitated; then he moved towards the curtain;
hesitated again and looked behind him. Then the heavy folds fell and
the girl was alone.
She stood for a moment, watching the folds, then she put her hands to
her eyes and swayed as though she were falling.
"God!" she cried, "Must I do it? Is there no other--no other
instrument?" She sobbed to herself in little broken words, catching
her breath: "_I vow--I vow--without weakness, or hesitation, or
mercy--with mine own hands if--needs be._"
She staggered forward, still sobbing, and bent over the desk.
Something white fluttered and fell from her lace; she smoothed it with
her fingers; gazed at it.
"God!" she cried, "Oh, God!"
Then she clasped her breast again and drew something out, something
dark and hard. She gave a startled glance about the room, covering it
with her arms; her form shivering as though in a chill.
"_In the name of the Black Cross I swear--I swear--_"
Then she crept back to the couch and sank on the floor behind it,
covering her face with her hands. As she did so, the door on the
corridor opened a crack, then wider, slowly wider, and some one came
in. The form was that of a man. He looked about him. The room was
still, deserted, and he gave a sigh of relief, hurrying over to the
desk. When he turned up the lamp, the light revealed a bundle of
papers which he laid on the desk, examining them one after the other,
putting his face close to the lamp, studying, absorbed.
The face was that of the Grand-Duke Stepan; his beaked nose, his grey,
upturned mustache, his eyes small and crossed. They were fixed on the
sheets. All of a sudden he started violently.
Beside him on the desk, just under the lamp, was a slip of paper.
There was nothing on the paper but a Black Cross graven, above it:
_Cmeptb_.
As the Duke gazed at it, his face grew ashen, his mouth twitched, his
eyes seemed fairly to start from his head; his knees knocked together.
He glanced fearfully around, trying vainly to steady his hands.
"_Without weakness, without hesitation, or mercy, by mine own hands if
needs be, I swear--_"
Was it a voice shrieking in his ears? He cowered backwards, huddled
together, shivering.
"_I swear--_"
Suddenly there came the click of a revolver. A shot rang out; a moan.
The Duke stood motionless for a second; then he faltered, twisted and
fell on his face with his arms outstretched.