At the end of the second Carlist war a Spanish officer, Don Miguel
Saldana, had found himself, as a result of the defeat, banished forever
from his own country and condemned to a life of poverty and obscurity.
The Madrid papers, without prefixing his name with any slanderous
adjectives, called him simply "the rebel chief Saldana." This courtesy,
doubtless, was intended to distinguish him from the other party chiefs
who in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, had waged a campaign of pillage
and executions for five years. Among his own people he was known as
General Miguel Saldana, Marquis of Villablanca. The pretender, Don
Carlos, had given him that title because Villablanca was the name of the
town where Saldana had practically annihilated a column of the Liberal
army. The topographical information of Saldana's Chief of Staff--a local
priest who had spent his whole life in doing nothing except saying mass
on Sundays and spending the rest of the week hunting in the mountains
with his dog and gun--gave him an opportunity to take the enemy by
surprise, and he won a notorious victory.
When he crossed the frontier as a fugitive, through refusing to
recognize the Bourbons as the constitutional rulers, "the rebel chief
Saldana" was twenty-nine years of age. A second son in a proud and
ruined family, he had been obliged to resist the traditions of his house
which presented for him an ecclesiastical career. When his studies at
the Military School at Toledo were just finishing, the Revolution of
1868 caused him to renounce a commission to escape being under orders
from certain generals who had participated in overthrowing royalty.
When Don Carlos took up arms, Saldana was one of the first to volunteer
his services; and having gone through a military school, and received a
good education, he at once became conspicuous among the guerrillas of
the so-called Army of the Center, made up, for the most part, of country
squires, village clerks, and mountain priests.
Besides, Saldana distinguished himself for a reckless though rather
unfortunate bravery. He always led the attack at the head of his men and
consequently was wounded in the majority of his fights. But his wounds
were "lucky wounds" as the soldiers say. They left marks of glory on his
body without destroying his vigorous health.
Finding himself alone in Paris, where his only resource was the
admiration of a few elderly "legitimist" ladies of the aristocratic
Faubourg Saint Germain, he left for Vienna. There his king had friends
and relatives. His youth and his exploits gained him admission as a hero
of the old monarchy to the circle of archdukes. The war between Russia
and Turkey tore him away from his pleasant life as an interesting
hanger-on. Being a fighting man and a Catholic, he felt it his duty to
wage war against the Turks; and with recommendations as a protege of
some influential Austrians, he went to the Court at Saint Petersburg.
General Saldana became a mere Commander of a Squadron in the Russian
Cavalry. The officers conversed with him in French. His horsemen
understood him well enough when he placed himself in front of his
division, and, unsheathing his sword, galloped ahead of them against the
enemy.
Various successful charges and two more "lucky wounds" won him a certain
celebrity. At the end of the war he had gained numerous friends among
officers of the nobility, and was presented in the most aristocratic
drawing rooms. One evening at a ball given by a Grand Duchess, he saw
close at hand the most fashionable and most talked of young woman of the
season: the Princess Lubimoff.
She was twenty-two, an orphan, with a fortune said to be one of the
largest in Russia. The first to bear the title of Prince Lubimoff, a
poor but handsome Cossack, unable to read or write, succeeded in winning
the attention of the Great Catherine, who made him the favorite among
her lovers of second rank. During the years that her imperial caprice
lasted, the new Prince was forced to seek his fortune far from the
Court, since the favorites before him had gained possession of all that
was near at hand. The Czarina allowed him to make his selection on the
map of her immense Empire; distant territories beyond the Urals, which
the new proprietor was, like the majority of his successors, never to
see. With the introduction of the railroad, enormous riches came to
light in these lands chosen by the Cossack; in some, veins of platinum
were discovered; in others, quarries of malachite, deposits of lapis
lazuli, and rich oil wells. Besides, tens of thousands of serfs,
recently freed by the Czar, continued to work the land for the Lubimoff
heirs, just as they had before the emancipation. And all this immense
fortune, which nearly doubled each year with new discoveries, belonged
entirely to one woman, the young Princess, who considered herself as one
of the Imperial family owing to the relationship of her ancestor, and
had more than once given the sovereign cause for worry through the
eccentricities of her character.
She was an aggressive young woman, capricious and inconsistent in both
words and deeds, a puzzle to everyone through the sharp contradictions
in her conduct. She mingled with the officers of the Guard, treating
them as comrades, smoking and drinking with them and taking a hand in
their exercises in horsemanship; and then suddenly she would shut
herself up in her palace for whole weeks, on her knees most of the time,
before the holy ikons, absorbed in mystic fervor, and loudly imploring
the forgiveness of her sins. She looked on the Emperor with veneration,
as the representative of God. At the same time she was known to
sympathize with the Nihilists.
The courtiers were scandalized whenever they told how she had
accompanied a girl, whom the police were watching to a wretched house on
the outskirts of the capital, and had there mingled with the
revolutionary rabble composed of workmen and students. With them she had
entered a narrow room, and joined the line passing before a coffin that
was constantly in danger of being upset by the pushing of the gloomy
curious crowd. The dead man's name was Fedor Dostoiewsky. The princess
had scattered a bouquet of the most costly roses on the protruding
forehead and monkish beard of the novelist.
And in her moments of anger this same Nadina Lubimoff beat the servants
in her Palace, as though they were still serfs, and forced her maids to
grovel at her feet. Her irritability and fiery temper turned everything
upside down, to such an extent that a certain elderly Prince, who by
Imperial order had been chosen as her guardian, desired, in spite of the
fact that it would mean to him loss of the management of an immense
fortune, to see her married as soon as possible.
Nadina Lubimoff inspired a feeling of dread in her suitors. They were
all afraid that she would answer their request for her hand with a cruel
jest. Twice she had announced her engagement to gentlemen of the Court,
and at the last moment she herself had begged the Czar to refuse his
consent. By this time no one dared propose, for fear of laughter and
comment. Yet in spite of the freedom and unconventionality of her
conduct, no one doubted the uprightness of her character.
On seeing her, Saldana thought of a naiad of the North, rising from an
emerald river, in which cakes of ice were floating. She was tall and
majestic, with a somewhat massive figure, like the divinities painted in
frescos for ceilings. Her skin was of radiant whiteness. The pupils of
her gray eyes gave out a greenish light, and her silky hair was a faded
washed-out red. Owing to the marvelous whiteness of her complexion, her
flesh appeared somewhat soft, but a fresh fragrance emanated from it,
"the fragrance of running brooks," to use the words of her admirers. Her
nostrils were rather wide, and in the stress of emotion they quivered,
like those of a horse, thus recalling her glorious ancestor, the virile
Cossack of the Czarina.
The ball was nearly over before she noticed the Spaniard. There were so
many officers constantly at her heels, greeting her cruel jokes and
vulgar expressions with a smile of gratitude!--Suddenly Saldana, who was
standing between two doorways, was startled by a clear but commanding
female voice.
"Your arm, Marquis."
And before he could offer it to her the young Princess took it, and led
him off to the buffet in the drawing room.
Nadina drank a good sized glass of vodka, preferring this liquor of the
people to the champagne which the servants were pouring out in large
quantities. Then smiling at her companion she drew him into the
embrasure of a window where they were almost hidden by the curtains.
"Your wounds!... I want to see your wounds!"
Saldana was dumfounded at the command of this great lady accustomed to
carrying out her most whimsical ideas. Blushing like a soldier, who had
lived all his life among men, he finally drew up the left sleeve of his
uniform, revealing a brown, hairy forearm, with large tendons, and
deeply furrowed by the scar of a bullet wound received back in Spain.
The Princess admired his athletic arm, with its dark skin, cut by the
jagged white of the new tissue.
"The other--the others! I want to see the rest of them!" she commanded,
gazing at him fiercely, as though she were ready to bite, while her
lips, moist and shining, curved sharply downward.
She had seized his arm with a hand that trembled, while with the other
she tried to undo the gold cords on the officer's breast.
Saldana drew back, stammering. "Oh! Princess!" What she desired was
impossible. It was impossible to show the other wounds to a lady....
He felt on the one visible scar the contact of two lips. Nadina, bowing
her proud head, was kissing his arm.
"Hero!... Oh! my hero!"
Immediately afterward she drew herself up again, cold and distant, with
no other sign of emotion than a slight quivering of her nostrils. No
longer was she tormented by the desire to see immediately those
frightful scars of which she had heard from some of the comrades of the
brave adventurer. She was sure of being able to see them to her heart's
content whenever she pleased.
In a few days the rumor began to circulate that the Princess Lubimoff
was to be married to the Spaniard. She herself had started the news
going, without bothering to ascertain beforehand the inclination of her
future husband.
The arguments with which she justified her decision could not have been
more weighty. She was blond and Saldana was dark. They had both been
born at outermost limits of Europe. These considerations were
sufficient to make a happy marriage. Besides, the Princess was
convinced that she had always been fond of Spain, although she would not
have been able to place it accurately on the map. She recalled certain
verses of Heine mentioning Toledo, and others by Musset addressing
Andalusian Marquises of Barcelona; and she used to hum a love song about
the oranges of Seville.... Her hero must surely be from Toledo, or,
better yet, an Andalusian from Barcelona.
In vain certain people of the court spoke of the Czar's not allowing the
match. A great heiress marrying a foreign soldier banished from his
country!... But the Princess by her very conduct, gave the sovereign to
understand her will.
"Either I marry him, or I start out as a dancer in a Paris theater."
It was rumored that Saldana was about to be deported.
"So much the better: I will go and join him, and be his sweetheart."
The old Prince, her guardian, lamented this obstinacy on the part of the
Court. If it had not been for this opposition, Nadina's caprice for
Saldana, like so many of her whims, would have lasted only a few days.
It was said that perhaps the Emperor, in order to break her will, would
dispossess her of her vast estates in Siberia. The grandchild of the
Cossack shrieked in reply that she would kill herself rather than obey.
At last the ruler prudently allowed her to fulfil her desire. In getting
married she would give up her eccentricities perhaps, and the Russian
court, so rich in scandals, would have one less.
The wedding journey of the Princess Lubimoff lasted all her life. Only
twice, for reasons relating to her great fortune, did she return to
Russia. Western Europe was more favorable than the court of an autocrat
to her love of freedom. In the first year of her marriage, while in
London, she had a son, who was to be the only child. She allowed him to
be called Michael, like his father, but insisted that he should have a
second name, Fedor, perhaps in memory of Dostoiewsky, her favorite
novelist, whose character inspired in her a feeling of sympathy, through
a certain resemblance to herself.
No one succeeded in ascertaining with certainty whether or not Don
Miguel Saldana felt happy in his new position as Prince Consort, which
permitted him to enjoy all the pleasure and magnificence of immense
wealth. According to Spanish customs, he started out to impose his will
as a husband and a man of character, to curb the eccentricities of his
wife. Vain determination! The very woman who at times could be
sentimental and moan at the thought of social inequalities and the
suffering of the poor, could, by her fiery impetuosity, reduce the
stoutest and most firmly steeled will.
In the end Saldana relapsed into silence, fearing the aggressiveness of
the daughter of the Cossack. To keep his prestige as a great noble,
anxious for the respect of the servants and for the consideration of his
guests, he feared violent scenes that filled the drawing rooms and even
the stairways of his luxurious residence with feminine shrieks. He did
not care more than once to see the Princess with one kick send the oaken
table flying against the dining room wall, while all the porcelain and
crystal service smashed into bits with one catastrophic crash.
When the Paris architects had carried out the orders of the Princess,
the family left the castle they were occupying in the vicinity of
London. A group of rich Parisians, Jewish bankers for the most part,
were covering the level grounds around the new Park Monceau, with large
private dwellings. The Princess Lubimoff had an enormous palace, with a
garden of extraordinary size for a city, built in this quarter. She even
set up a tiny dairy behind a grove of trees, and without leaving her
place she could enjoy the role of a country woman, whipping cream and
churning butter, in imitation of Marie Antoinette, who likewise played
at being a shepherdess in the Petit Trianon.
At times a wave of tenderness swept over her, and she adored and obeyed
her husband, pushing her humility to extremes that were alarming. She
told her visitors about the General's campaigns, and his daring exploits
back in Spain, a land which inspired in her a romantic interest, and
which for that very reason she did not care ever to see. Suddenly she
would cut her eulogies short with a command:
"Marquis, show them your wounds."
As proof of her tenderness, she refrained from getting angry when her
husband refused.
She always called him "Marquis," perhaps in order to keep the princely
title for herself alone, perhaps because she felt that he should not be
deprived of a rank he had gained with his blood. The Marquis never paid
any attention to this breach of etiquette. His wife had already
committed so many!
A year after their marriage, when the news reached London that Alexander
II had been killed by the explosion of a Nihilist bomb, the Princess ran
about her apartments like a mad woman, and took to her bed after an
extraordinary fit of anger.
"The wretches! He was so good!... They've killed their own father."
And thereafter when Saldana entered the luxurious dwelling in Paris, he
often came across strange visitors, at whom the lackeys in breeches
stared in amazement. They were uncouth girls with spectacles, and
cropped hair, carrying portfolios under their arms; men with long hair
and tangled beards, whose eyes contained the startled expression of
visionaries; Russians from the Latin Quarter under police surveillance,
terrorists, who appealed not in vain to the generosity of the Princess,
and used her money perhaps to make infernal machines which they sent
back to their country and hers.
When the Prince Michael Fedor recalled his childhood memories, he could
see his father holding him on his knees and caressing him with his firm
hands. The child would gaze up at the dark face and large mustache that
joined Saldana's closely cropped mutton chop whiskers. He could not be
sure whether the moisture in those black, commanding eyes came from
tears; but after he learned Spanish he was sure that the Marquis had
often murmured, as he smoothed the tiny brow:
"My poor little boy!... Your mother is mad!"
When Michael reached the age of eight, the problem of his education
caused the Princess to show her motherly concern for a few weeks. One of
those visitors, who so greatly worried the servants, brought his books
and his frayed garments from a narrow street near the Pantheon, and took
up his abode in the lordly dwelling of the Lubimoffs. He was a silent
young man, given to the study of chemistry, and forbidden to return to
his country. The very day of his arrival, a secret service agent came
and questioned the porter of the palace.
"I want my son to know Russian," said the Princess. "Besides, he will
learn a great deal from Sergueff. Sergueff is a real man of learning,
and worthy of a better fate."
Saldana insisted that he should likewise have a Spanish teacher, and she
raised no objections. All the members of her family had possessed to an
unusual degree the talent of the Slavs for learning languages easily.
"Prince Michael Fedor," said his mother, "is the Marquis of Villablanca,
and ought to know the language of his second country."
On this account the General once again sought out his former companions
in arms who were still scattered in various parts of Paris. The fame of
his enormous wealth had brought him many requests, even from persons of
whom he had formerly stood in awe. But although the Princess, who was
generous to a fault, allowed him the management of her fortune, Saldana,
with chivalrous unyielding integrity, felt that he had no right to her
money, and gradually came to avoid the insistent suppliants. Besides, a
great change had come over this silent man during his travels through
Europe. The former soldier of the absolute monarchy was now an admirer
of England and her constitutional history.
"You see things differently when you travel about," was all he said. "If
all my fellow countrymen had only seen the world."
One day the new teacher presented himself at the palace. He was twelve
years younger than Saldana. He had been under the latter's command
toward the end of the war, and instead of calling him by his title of
Marquis or Prince he addressed him proudly, at every opportunity, as "my
General."
The General had not the slightest recollection of him; but the fact that
he could give exact details of the last campaign, and had been
recommended by various friends, did not permit of any doubt as to his
veracity. He must have been one of those lads who had run away from home
and joined the Carlist bands, making up those forces of irregulars whom
Saldana, unable to tolerate their frequent atrocities, more than once
threatened with execution en masse. The teacher claimed that the General
himself had given him a subordinate's commission in the last months of
the war, owing to his having a better education than his ragged
comrades.
Thus Marcos Toledo entered the palace of the Lubimoffs.
The solemn husband of the Princess laughed with boyish glee upon hearing
the story of Toledo's first experiences as an _emigre_ in Paris.
During the first few months, since he did not know French, he used to
stop the priests in the street, to talk with them in Latin. He eked out
a miserable existence, giving lessons on the guitar, and lecturing in a
Polyglot Institute, where the auditors did not pay the slightest
attention to the subjects discussed, but tried simply to accustom their
ears to his Spanish pronunciation.
Seven francs and a half, for talking an hour and a half! But Toledo made
up for the smallness of the compensation in the pleasure it gave him to
orate about the happy days of Philip II, so much superior to "these days
of liberalism."
"At present, I have only one ambition, General," he ended by saying,
"and that is to dress well."
The passion for luxurious display came from his youthful days as a
guerrilla, when he would steal red and yellow petticoats from peasant
women in order to make uniforms for himself. In Paris, he did not feel
so keenly the lack of nutritious food, as he did the fact that he was
obliged to wear clothes that did not belong to any known fashion.
When he was given quarters on the top floor of the palace, like the
Russian teacher, and the General had selected various garments for him
from his large wardrobe, Toledo felt he had realized all the dreams that
he had elaborated while running about Paris as a persistent agent for a
thousand unsaleable things.
His fellow countrymen, former comrades in poverty, admired him on
seeing him all dressed up like a rich man, and often riding in the
carriage of a Prince. It scarcely seemed honorable that he, a former
fighter, should occupy a position as a teacher, and he used to say in an
apologetic manner:
"I am now General Saldana's _aide-de-camp_. I don't think it will be
long before we take to the mountains again."
Young Prince Michael admired his Russian teacher, because his mother
affirmed that he was a great scholar. The boy felt a certain fear in the
presence of this melancholy sage. On the other hand, Michael Fedor
treated the Spaniard with an air of friendly and patronizing
superiority. Toledo made his father laugh, and that was enough to cause
the son to consider him an inferior being, but one worthy of esteem
nevertheless, because of his docility and patience.
"Say: is it true that you were going to be a priest?" Michael Fedor used
to ask Toledo. "Is it true that after you left the seminary you were a
druggist's clerk?"
"Prince," the teacher replied with dignity, "I am Don Marcos de Toledo.
My name tells my nobility, in spite of everything that envious people
may say, and I have a right to use the 'Don' since I am an officer and
your father, the Marquis, gave me my commission."
In a short time the pupil was speaking Spanish correctly. It seemed that
he had learned it as rapidly as possible in order to be better able to
poke fun at his _hidalgo_ teacher.
The father also contributed to the education of the heir of the
Lubimoffs the one thing he was able to teach. Every morning, after the
lessons given by the Russian, which left the little fellow with a solemn
face, Saldana would wait for him in a large room on the ground floor.
"Prince, on guard!"
And he, who had been the best blade in the Carlist army, and had on his
conscience the slashing of a skull to the jawbone in a duel during the
Turkish campaign, smiled proudly when he saw how this eleven year old
boy stood his ground during the fencing lesson, parrying the hard blows
and returning them successfully at the least unguardedness on his
father's part. Michael Fedor was going to be a splendid fighting man, a
worthy descendant of the Cossack of Russia, and of the guerrilla of the
Spanish mountains.
But Saldana was not to enjoy this satisfaction for long. Among his
various "lucky wounds," which only bothered him slightly with the
changing of the seasons, there was one which from time to time inflicted
periods of acute pain. For many years he had carried in his body a
Spanish bullet which the sawbones of his guerrilla band had been unable
to extract. When the surgeons of London and Paris attempted the
operation it was too late.
One morning the General's valet, on entering the room, found him dead.
Michael Fedor never forgot the sorrow he had felt on that occasion, nor
the sumptuous funeral which the Princess had ordered, equal to that of a
king deceased in exile. But what he remembered most clearly was the
extraordinary grief of his mother. She too wanted to die. Her Russian
maids were once obliged to snatch from her hands a phial of laudanum,
receiving for their pains a few more blows than usual. Then, with her
hair streaming down her back, she ran about wailing like a madwoman in
front of all the portraits of the General. Oh! Her hero! Now she really
knew how much she loved him....
For several months she received her visitors in a drawing room with
black furnishings and curtains. Wearing loose mourning garments, she
half reclined on a sofa in front of a full length portrait of Saldana.
His swords, his uniforms, and even a Russian saddle were on exhibition
in the drawing room, which had been converted into a sort of museum of
the deceased.
"He died like the man he was!" moaned the widow. "He was killed by his
wounds."
At this period began the ultimate stage in the rise of Don Marcos
Toledo. The Russian scholar receded into the background. A part of the
dead man's glory passed to his humble fellow countryman who had
witnessed his great exploits. One evening, the Princess, while engaged
in conversation in the drawing room museum with some noble relatives who
had arrived from Russia, wept so copiously at the memory of her husband,
that she decided to leave the room for a moment.
"Colonel, your arm."
Toledo was present in company with his pupil, and looked around with an
expression of bewilderment. The Princess had to repeat her command in a
more imperious voice. "Colonel, your arm!" She was speaking to him! For
some time Don Marcos thought that the new title was a whim of the
Princess and that some day when he was least expecting it his commission
as "Colonel" would be withdrawn.
But when the first months of mourning had passed and the widow, tiring
of solitude, started to resume her social calls, she insisted on being
accompanied by Toledo, and on introducing him to her acquaintances in
the aristocratic world.
"He is the aide-de-camp of the dead Marquis," she explained.
The very title he had invented to give himself an air of importance in
the eyes of his half-starved companions in poverty! Toledo no longer
questioned the validity of his promotion. Now that the Princess was
presenting him as her husband's aide-de-camp, he might well be a
Colonel. And a Colonel he was, even for the young Prince, who at first
had given him the title to make fun of him, but finally came to call him
"Colonel" by force of habit.
Toledo's dreams of splendid and showy toggery were now realized
magnificently. With the Princess he did not need to fear the scruples
sometimes shown by Saldana, who hated extravagance and mismanagement.
The great lady even felt disdain for those who were niggardly in
availing themselves of her generosity. Don Marcos was enabled to change
his attire several times a day, and held long conferences with famous
tailors. He sought personal elegance. He wished to dress like a
gentleman of distinction, but at the same time to wear clothes of a cut
that would plainly show that he was accustomed to uniforms: He had in
mind something like a Napoleonic Marshal obliged to wear a dress suit.
Through his barber, likewise, he effected a great transformation. He
imitated the manner in which the General had worn his hair, with a part
that started at his forehead and ended at the back of his neck, and with
stray locks hanging down at the temples. His mustache was taught to
mingle with his side whiskers, in the Russian fashion. In accompanying
the Princess, he learned to kiss ladies' hands with the grace and ease
of an old courtier. He also learned to carry on long conversations
without saying anything, to keep himself in the background, practically
unseen, while his superiors were talking.
When the Princess, after the first year of mourning, resolutely returned
to her box at the Opera, Don Marcos attended her, remaining discreetly
in the rear, like the Chamberlain of a Queen. One evening, during an
intermission, on passing to the front of her box, the Princess heard
the Colonel telling an old French general, a friend of the house, about
the battle of Villablanca.
"And the Marquis said to me: 'Now it's your chance, Toledo: Let's see
how you can make out with a bayonet charge.' So I bared my sword, and at
the head of my regiment...."
"He's a true soldier," interrupted the Princess, "a worthy companion of
my hero.... The Marquis often talked to me about him."
And at that moment she was really sure she had heard the silent Saldana
relate the gallant deeds of his aide-de-camp.
The Russian teacher, regarded by Toledo as an unpleasant person who
would bear watching, soon left the Lubimoff palace. Perhaps he was
jealous of the Colonel's growing influence; perhaps mysterious reasons
needed his attention far from Paris. The Princess did not mind in the
least the disappearance of the scholar. She had forgotten her rebellious
looking Russians; she stopped giving them money. At present she had
other interests.
She suddenly evinced a desire to live for some time in London, and for
this reason, she granted her son's request to be allowed to travel alone
throughout Europe.
"You're a man now; you will soon be fourteen. Travel, and don't stop at
expense; always remember that you are Prince Lubimoff.... The Colonel
will go with you. He will be your aide, as he was for the heroic
Marquis."
His first trip was to Spain. Michael Fedor wanted to see his father's
native land. Toledo thought it in point for the young Prince to show
great admiration for Spain. Michael must remember they were in the
enemy's country. Toledo was a Carlist Colonel who had refused amnesty,
and had declined to recognize the reigning dynasty! But they traveled
for three months in Spain, without being noticed except for the
largeness of their tips. It is quite true that Toledo avoided coming in
contact with any of his former comrades. He felt that he now belonged to
a different world. Inwardly he felt the same change the General had.
As soon as Michael Fedor had recovered from his first enthusiasm for
bull fighting, they continued their travels across the continent as far
as Russia, arriving considerably later than the numerous letters of
introduction sent by the Princess Lubimoff to her relatives. The Prince
remained there a year, visiting his less distant estates, and making the
acquaintance of all the great families in his mother's circle of
friends. The Colonel talked grandiloquently about everything related to
war with various generals who received him as an equal. Was he not the
aide and companion in heroic deeds of Saldana, whom they had known in
the war against Turkey, when they were mere subalterns?
The former friends of the Princess Lubimoff told her son some unexpected
news. His mother had announced her forthcoming marriage to an English
gentleman. She had written to the Czar asking his authorization. This
news startled no one save Michael Fedor. The times of the wild Nadina
had long since passed. Her actions aroused no further interest. Other
young Princesses had effaced her memory with adventures that caused even
greater commotion. No one save a few of the ladies of the old court,
when they forgot their cares and interests as mothers, would bring to
mind the Princess Lubimoff, recalling days of vanished youth, which for
old people are always more interesting than the present.
When the young man returned to the Paris palace, he found his mother as
much of a Princess as ever, but married to a Scotch gentleman, Sir Edwin
Macdonald.
"Some day you will leave me," she said with a tragic note in her voice
she used on great occasions. "A Prince Lubimoff should live at the
court, serve his Emperor, be an officer in the Guard; and I need a
companion, some one to lean on. Sir Edwin is the personification of
distinction; but don't ever think that I shall forget your father.
Never!... My hero!"
Michael Fedor saw a gentleman who, indeed, was "the personification of
distinction"; attentive to everyone, very precise in his bearing, a man
of few words, who shut himself up for long hours--studying, according to
the Princess. English politics was his preoccupation, and his one great
dream was to return to Parliament, which he had been forced to leave by
defeat at election.
This cold man, with a pale smile and extreme insistence on good form
even in the most trivial actions, neither displeased Michael as a
step-father nor appealed to him as a friend. He was an inoffensive,
somewhat stuffy person, whom Michael grew accustomed to seeing every day
in his father's former place, and whom he had expected to see sooner or
later anyhow.
This marriage brought other people to the Lubimoff palace, with all the
intimacy inspired by relationship.
One of Sir Edwin's brothers had been obliged, like all the second sons
in wealthy British families, to go out in the world and earn his living.
After a life of adventure, he had finally settled down in the United
States, near the Mexican border, and had soon found himself, through a
marriage with an heiress of the country, much richer than his elder
brother.
His wife was a Mexican. She owned famous silver mines in the interior
and vast ranches on the border. She had only one daughter; and the
latter was in her eighth year when Arthur Macdonald died as a result of
a fall from his horse. The widow, with her little Alicia, moved to
Europe. She wanted to live in London, to be near her brother-in-law, Sir
Edwin, then a member of Parliament, and much admired by the Mexican
woman as one of the directors of the world's affairs. Later she
established herself in Paris, as the capital most to her taste, and as
the place where she could meet many people from Mexico.
The Princess Lubimoff treated her relative well, although her friendship
suffered sudden changes, often going from extreme affection to sudden
coldness.
She and Dona Mercedes could talk about mines and vast estates, although
neither of them had any accurate knowledge of their respective fortunes.
They estimated their wealth only by the enormous quantities of
money--millions of francs a year--which their distant business agents
sent them, and which they spent without knowing just how. There was
another thing which attracted the Princess, in her moments of good will,
to Dona Mercedes: she herself was blond, while the Spanish Creole still
kept traces of Hispanic-Aztec beauty, with a dark, somewhat olive
complexion, large, wide-open, almond eyes, and hair astonishing for its
blackness, brilliancy, and length.
But an instinctive rivalry frequently embittered the relations of the
two multi-millionaires. The Princess was sure that her own wealth was
far the greater. When Dona Mercedes talked about Mexican silver, she
mentioned Russian platinum! "What is silver worth compared to platinum!"
And in order completely to floor her opponent, the Princess would bring
out her family history. Beginning with the remote Cossack ancestor, who
almost became the legitimate husband of Catherine the Great, she
paraded before her Mexican rival generals, marshals of the Emperor's
household, hetmans, followed by their retinues of half savage horsemen,
princes and ambassadors. Sir Edwin's wife talked as though she belonged
to the reigning house, letting it be understood that her famous ancestor
had played a part in the establishing of one of the Czars. For this
reason she had always been shown special consideration at court.
Dona Mercedes, inwardly jealous of so much greatness, nevertheless
smiled a sweet enigmatic smile, as though she were to say, "That is all
very far away--and perhaps a lie."
Then immediately she would begin talking in her rapid whimsical French,
a French which she had never been able to free from numerous Spanish
locutions that still clung tenaciously.
"Mama was an intimate friend of Eugenie.... Don't you know who Eugenie
is? The Empress, the wife of Napoleon III. When Madame Barrios--that was
my mother's name--was announced at the Tuileries, the doors were opened
wide. Papa was one of the men who made Maximilian emperor."
Over against the aristocratic grandeur of the Saint Petersburg court she
set the image of the Mexican court, of the brief Empire which had ended
in the execution of the Archduke Maximilian, and the madness of his
bride, Carlotta. The Emperor endeavored to establish the musty old
etiquette of the Austrian Court, but the Mexican matrons, when they
called on the young Empress, said in the frank maternal fashion of the
colonies: "How is everything, Carlotta?... How do you like the country,
my dear?"
Moved by a similar frankness, Dona Mercedes would end her discourse by
saying carelessly:
"Papa, seeing that the Empire was going badly, recognized Juarez as the
head of the government, and joined the side of the Republic. He did it
to save our mines."
Then she would talk on for a long time about the Barrios, who, according
to her, were descendants of the most ancient aristocracy of Spain. All
the nobles of Madrid were therefore relatives of hers. Everybody knew
that! As a child she had seen at home a lot of papers which proved her
right to the title of Marchioness; but owing to the revolutions in her
country, and her travels, she no longer knew where to find them.
If the Princess referred to the splendor of her palace, the Creole would
immediately mention her elegant private mansion in the Champs Elysees.
The arrival of Colonel Toledo, as a valorous adornment giving the
princely residence military prestige, did not intimidate Dona Mercedes.
She too had a Spaniard, an Aragonese cleric, who acted as a sort of
royal private chaplain, and whom she considered a man of science,
because, bored by his sinecure in her employ, he had taken up elementary
astronomy, and had set up a telescope on the roof of her house.
Whenever the Mexican lady dared to imitate her entertainments, her
carriages or her clothes, the Princess Lubimoff would audibly lament the
fact that Paris was not in Russia, where she might call on the chief of
police to force this low-bred Creole to show the respect due to her
superiors. But after these bursts of anger she would feel a sudden wave
of tenderness for Dona Mercedes. "In spite of your illiteracy," she
would say, "you are a woman of natural talent and the only one with whom
I can talk for an hour at a stretch."
Between these two declining beauties, who had seen themselves the center
of attraction and adoration in former years, there was a common bond,
something which moved them both like far off lovely music, like the
cherished memory of youth: It was the daughter of Dona Mercedes, the
vivacious Alicia Macdonald.
Dona Mercedes seemed to see her own beauty, renewed with fresh vigor, in
her child. But in this she was mistaken. Alicia added to her dark
southern splendor the slenderness and slightly boyish freedom of
movement of her father's race. The Princess, observing the girl's
independent character, thought she saw herself back once more in the
days when she was beginning to shock the Imperial Court. This too was a
mistake. She herself had been able to follow all her most wilful
impulses, without fear of gossip. She possessed everything. Besides her
immense wealth, she had the advantages of birth, enabling her to elevate
any man whatsoever to her own level, no matter how far beneath her he
might be. Alicia had one ambition; to unite her fortune with a great
title of the old aristocracy in order to be presented at court. Since
her fifteenth year this desire had been fixed, calculating design,
dissimulated under apparent recklessness. From her fairy-story days, her
mother had talked to her about wonderful marriages, and of princes who
in former times used to marry shepherdesses, but who were in search
nowadays of millionaires' daughters.
Michael Fedor felt somewhat embarrassed at meeting this girl in his
palace. She looked at him so boldly, with such a dominating expression,
as though everything and everyone should bow before her!
She had beauty of a type more fascinating than conventional. Her
complexion, slightly tinged with a strange golden orange color, her
large eyes a trifle slanting, her luxuriant hair, which, fleeing its
bondage of hairpins, seemed alive and coiling like a cluster of snakes,
gave her an exotic charm. The rest of her body revealed a modern
physical education. Her limbs were firm and agile from continued
exercise and play.
Dona Mercedes seemed to urge Alicia and Michael toward each other from
the first meeting.
"Don't stand on formality," she said in a motherly way. "You are
cousins."
Although Michael didn't succeed in making out this relationship, he
endeavored to treat the young girl in a friendly manner, while the
Creole mother smiled as she already pictured Alicia with the coronet of
a princess, bowing before the Czar. Princess Lubimoff was in one of her
kindly moods; for the moment she did not believe in caste and
privileges, to the extent that she would again have given money to the
long-haired individuals who used to visit her. She accepted her friend's
ambitious projects tolerantly and without comment.
The Prince, meanwhile, was telling the Colonel his impressions.
"Too much of a young lady! I like the others better."
Don Marcos, having been Michael's companion in wide and joyous travels,
knew whom the boy meant by "the others"; for Prince Lubimoff had begun
very young to nibble at the grapes of life.
On other occasions it irritated him that, with her unabashed demeanor of
a foolish virgin, she should seem so much like "the others."
"She's worse than a boy. If you only knew, Colonel, the things she says
to me!"
As for Alicia she was not wholly satisfied with the young Prince. She
was accustomed to seeing other men make an effort to be gracious and
show her flattering attentions, while Michael manifested a haughty
character, like her own, arguing with her, and even daring to contradict
her.
Occasionally, accompanied by Toledo, they went out together for a gallop
in the Bois de Boulogne. All this was torture for Don Marcos, who had
been a mountain warrior! But his present position called for certain
duties. So he rode along as well as could be expected from a colonel of
infantry.
Alicia was a tireless rider. At the residence in the Champs-Elysees,
Dona Mercedes had frequently been obliged to look for her in the
stables, where she made herself at home among the hostlers and coachmen,
and talked with professional authority as she supervised the grooming of
the horses. Afterwards, when she came back into the drawing room her
hair would have a decidedly horsey odor. Back in her native land she had
mounted a horse and clung to it before she knew how to walk. In Paris
she boldly made her way among the vehicles, knocked down the passersby
occasionally, and often found her mad gallops intercepted by the police.
The Colonel endeavored to keep up with her. He never said anything, but
his heart was heavy. The Prince protested against her racing in this
fashion, which might have been all very well on her native plains. The
girl's retorts widened the breach between them, with feelings of
hostility. "No one is going to talk to me like that, not even my
mother," she said. "I'm old enough to know what I ought to do." She was
fifteen.
One morning in the Bois, coming to a cross road that happened to catch
her fancy, Alicia started her horse for the Avenue without consulting
her companion.
"No, this way," Michael called in a commanding voice.
"I don't like that; this is the way!" she answered aggressively.
The Prince made an effort to cut her off by crossing ahead of her, and
she spurred her horse against Michael's with a shock that brought the
two animals to their knees. The Colonel, who was behind them, caught an
exchange of angry glances, and harsh words. Alicia raised her whip, and
struck the Prince across the shoulders.
"You do that to _me_!" shouted Michael furiously.
The face of this scion of the old Cossack Lubimoff underwent a rapid
series of expressions, finally taking an aspect of extreme ugliness and
savagery. His nostrils seemed to dilate even more than usual. He raised
his whip and struck, but Toledo had put his horse between the two,
receiving the tip of the lash on his cheek, which began to bleed. The
sight of blood and the thought that the blow was intended for her, drove
the young woman mad with rage.
"Brute! Savage!... Russian!"
This seemed too mild, and she stopped for a moment, to think up a
greater insult. Her childhood memories helped her; the legend she had
heard from the half-breeds back in her own land inspired her with a new
affront, as if Michael Fedor were Fernan Cortes.
"Spaniard!... Murderer of Indians!"
And fearing a new lashing after that supreme insult, she fled at a mad
pace without stopping until she reached the Arch of Triumph.
After this incident Dona Mercedes lost all hope of her daughter's
becoming a Lubimoff.
"A Russian Princess!" she said scornfully. "Why, everyone is a Prince in
Russia!... A mere English baron is better, or a French or Spanish
count."
Michael was in a mood no more conciliatory when the Colonel lectured
him.
"I don't want to hear anything more about that wench!" said he.
And the Princess, in one of her petulant moments averred that she
considered this word the proper one. These relatives of Sir Edwin had
always seemed to her very ordinary people. Likewise it seemed to her
very natural that her son should think of going back to Russia to fill
his station as a Prince. The life of caste and privilege there was more
suitable to his rank than the democratic ways of Paris, where certain
American Indians, because they had millions, could imagine they were the
equals of the Lubimoffs.
Prince Michael remained in Russia until he was twenty-three. His
military studies were passed brilliantly, according to Toledo, and the
boy succeeded in distinguishing himself among the most famous cavalry
officers of the Guard. He took prizes in exhibitions of horsemanship.
With his revolver he could pot coins held up at fifty paces by his
comrades. He wielded the sabre with a skill that his Cossack ancestor
and General Saldana would have admired. Every morning in the courtyard
of his Petersburg palace he found awaiting him a life-sized dummy made
of the firm sticky clay used by sculptors. He would stay for half an
hour in front of it, going through his exercises. It was not enough to
be able to strike one's enemy. The important thing was to strike well,
with the greatest possible depth and force. And the head and limbs of
the dummy went flying, severed by the steel blade. The study of military
science was all well enough for those in the infantry or the
artillery--sons of clerks and merchants!
At first the Colonel was astonished at the magnificence and extravagance
of Russian life. Finally he came to take it all quite naturally, as
though he had been accustomed to something similar from his earliest
boyhood. "My son, remember the name you bear," the Princess used to
write to the Prince. "Do not disgrace it. Spend according to what you
are." And the son, without asking her for anything, followed her advice
faithfully by coming to a direct understanding with the Russian
administrators. Don Marcos figured that the Lieutenant in the Guard was
spending something over three millions a year. His racing stables were
the most celebrated in the capital. Many famous beauties of the court
and the theaters were on good terms with Prince Michael Fedor. His
supper parties in the Lubimoff palace or in the fashionable restaurants
were sought after by all the young men of the aristocracy. To be invited
to one of them was an extraordinary honor, something like being a member
of an academy of supermen. It often happened that toward morning on
nights of such parties celebrated women finished by dancing naked on the
tables, so that the host "might not be displeased."
Sometimes these celebrations ended in drunken brawls, where wine mingled
with blood. The Colonel had seen one of these suppers result in a duel
between two of the guests. It took place in the palace garden, just
before dawn. One of the men was killed. His best friends carried the
corpse to the quay of the Neva, and placed a revolver in his hand to
make it look like a case of suicide.
No: Don Marcos did not care much for those nocturnal feasts. He
considered them dangerous. On one occasion, a youthful Grand Duke,
absolutely drunk, amused himself by daubing the Colonel's whiskers with
caviar, until, tired of such brazen familiarity, the Spaniard in turn
put his hand in the dish and smeared the other man's august face with
green. The duke hesitated for a moment whether or not to kill him, but
finally embraced him, covering him with kisses and shouting aloud, "This
is my father."
Toledo preferred his own honorable and quiet friendships with General
Saldana's former companions in arms; solemn personages who talked to him
about world politics and future wars. Besides, the Prince's generosity
permitted the Colonel secret pleasures, less noisy, and agreeably
unostentatious.
One night, returning to the Lubimoff palace after two o'clock, he saw
there was a supper party in the great dining hall used on gala
occasions. Some fifty guests had assembled, and in the course of the
night many more had arrived. It seemed that the news had spread
throughout all the pleasure resorts of the capital, attracting all the
youthful libertines.
Opposite the Prince was seated a Cossack officer, short, lithe as a
panther, dark skinned, with Asiatic eyes. His wrinkled uniform showed
signs of recent traveling. Michael Fedor showed him the greatest
attention, as though he were the only guest. Toledo, being acquainted
with all the friends of the house, was unable to place this uncouth
Cossack, who looked as though he had come from some remote garrison in
Siberia. Some one offered to relieve his uncertainty. He was startled on
learning that it was the brother of a court lady who just at that moment
was being much talked about on account of her extreme familiarity with
Michael Fedor. The two men looked at each other with keen interest,
exchanging silent toasts in huge glasses of champagne. At the other end
of the hall arose the ceaseless wail of gypsy violins. Several dark
skinned girls with striped aprons of many colors were dancing about the
tables. But in spite of that, Don Marcos, glancing about, felt
instinctively a note of gloom.
"Leon, the sabres!"
The Prince, after looking at his watch, had arisen and given this order
to his body servant, who was standing behind him. All the guests rushed
for the doors forming a jam, like a crowd, pushing and shoving, at the
entrance to a theater. There was no reason now to conceal their real
feelings. They were eager for the promised spectacle. The Colonel
finally found some one who could talk intelligibly.
"He came last night, to ask the Prince to marry his sister. A
thirty-eight day trip.... The Prince refuses.... It isn't often you'll
see a match like this.... He's the best swordsman in Siberia."
The garden was covered with snow. It was night, and the uncertain moon
illumined it with slanting rays, lengthening immeasurably the shadows of
the trees. More than a hundred men formed in two black masses on the
borders of the walk. The Colonel noticed the arrival of several
servants. One was bringing swords; the rest were carrying large trays
with bottles and glasses.
Michael Fedor bowed to his enemy, his eyes shining with kindliness and
drink.
"Would you like another glass of something?"
The Cossack thanked him with a gesture, and immediately Toledo saw him
remove his long coat, the breast of which was adorned with cartridge
pouches. Then he took off his shirt, and finally remained in nothing
save his trousers and high boots. Then he stooped, and seizing two
handfuls of snow, began to rub his wiry body and muscular arms.
The Prince, like many of the spectators, shivered slightly with surprise
and cold; but nevertheless that the condition of the combat might be
equal, Lubimoff felt it imperative that he should follow the example of
his hardy adversary. While he was removing the upper part of his uniform
several torches were lighted and began to blaze like red stars in the
semi-darkness of the moonlit garden.
Don Marcos could see the two men face to face. They were bare from the
waist up. Their breasts shone from the moisture of the recent massage.
In their hands quivered sabres as sharp as razors.
"Ready!"
Some one was directing the fight.
"Why this is barbarous!" thought the Spaniard. "These men are savages."
He did not dare say it aloud because he was a soldier, and more than
that, a Colonel; but during the rest of his life he never could forget
that scene.
They crossed swords, parried, attacked, the Prince with firm poise, the
other with catlike agility. Toledo could see that their bodies were
blood red, but at the moment he thought it an effect of the torchlight.
As they drew near him, circling about in their deadly play, he realized
that they were actually red with blood. Their bodies seemed covered with
a purple vestment that was torn to shreds and the shreds quivered at the
ends as the blood dripped off. Standing out against that warm moist
garment rose their white arms. The Prince was getting the worst of it.
Toledo suddenly saw a deep gash appear in his brow; a moment later he
thought he saw one of his ears hang half severed from the skull. But
that wild cat from the steppes always sprang free from every sabre
thrust. No one dared intervene; it was a duel without quarter, without
rest, with no condition save the death of one or the other combatant. At
times they came together, forming a single body bristling with white
flashes in the shadow of the trees; a moment later they appeared apart,
seeking each other in the fiery circle of the torches.
Suddenly Toledo heard a wild cry of pain, the howl of a poor animal
caught unawares. The Prince was the only one still standing. A straight
thrust had slashed his adversary's jugular. Lubimoff stood there a
moment motionless. Then his superhuman strength, which had sustained him
until then, left him. With the loss of blood, all the weariness of the
struggle came over him like a shot. He too tottered and fell, but into
the arms of friends. There was not a single doctor among the
spectators. No one had thought of that. They considered the presence of
one unnecessary in an encounter that could end only in death.
All the curiosity seekers left the garden, following the unconscious
Prince. A few servants stayed behind, gathered about the body of the
Cossack. He was lying face downward. With respectful awe they watched as
his legs quivered for the last time, as the blood slowly emptied itself
from the neck, and spread out across the snow, in a black stain that was
beginning to take on a bluish tinge in the livid light of dawn.
At the court, which had already shown frequent alarm over the Prince's
notorious adventures, this event caused a great stir. Lubimoff's duels,
his love affairs, his scandalous entertainments, annoyed the young
Emperor, who had taken it upon himself to improve the morals of his
associates.
In aristocratic gatherings, the freakish whims of the almost forgotten
Nadina Lubimoff were brought to memory and discussed again. The young
Cossack was related to people of influence, and his death contributed to
the complete disgrace of his sister.
Michael Fedor had not yet entirely recovered from his wounds, when he
received the order to leave Russia. The Czar was banishing him, and for
an indefinite period. He might live in Paris with his mother.
"That's all right; so long as they respect his income," was the
Colonel's only comment.
Arriving in Paris, the Prince was convinced of his mother's insanity.
That was something he had suspected for some time, from her letters. Sir
Edwin had died, rather suddenly, three years before, in England,
following defeat in an election. The palace in the Monceau quarter had
suffered an interior transformation that represented a cost of several
millions. The Princess was devoting all her time to it. The Arabic,
Persian, Greek, or Chinese drawing rooms, the construction and
decoration of which had made the fortune of two architects and several
dealers in doubtful antiques, had just disappeared; while furnishings
acquired years before as extremely rare pieces had been scattered to the
four winds as though they were mere rubbish of no value. The palace
remained the same as before on the outside; but the interior, beginning
with the stairway, was rebuilt in imitation of a medieval castle. Not a
single window remained without its stained glass, not a room but was
shrouded in the vague half light of a cellar. All the conventional
Gothic known to modern contractors was employed by order of the Princess
in the restoration of the house. Three stories and one entire wing had
been torn down to form the nave of a cathedral.
Michael saw advancing toward him a tall austere woman, with long
transparent fingers, and large, staring, uncanny eyes. She was dressed
in black, with loose sleeves that almost touched the ground, and with a
white bonnet fitting close to the head beneath her mourning veils. In
spite of the fact that she had a rosary at her wrist and talked with the
air of a martyr, her son imagined that he was looking at an opera
singer.
The expulsion of the Prince from Russia had caused her neither surprise
nor sorrow.
"Those Romanoffs have always disliked us. They cannot forget that your
illustrious ancestor, so they say, used to beat Catherine when he caught
her with anyone else."
Her thoughts rose above all such worldly considerations. She had never,
as a matter of fact, taken any stock in religion; but now she declared
herself a Catholic. She had made no public declaration of conversion, to
be sure, but she felt she must adopt the belief. Her new and final
personality demanded it.
"Your father approves of my new stand. Often in the night I have talked
with my hero. He is glad to see me in the path of truth."
No sooner had Michael Fedor and the Colonel arrived, than they noticed
the strange visitors who were frequenting the palace. The long haired
terrorists had been succeeded by numerous fortune tellers, soothsayers,
clairvoyants, and solemn professors of occult sciences. A plain old
lamp-stand, which looked as though it might have walked upstairs by
itself from the concierge's quarters, was jumping about and rapping, at
all hours, in the bedroom of the Princess.
One day she decided to tell her son the great secret of her life. At
last she knew who she was; the spirits had revealed to her the knowledge
of her true personality. In one of her many previous existences she had
been the most unfortunate and beautiful, the most "romantic", of queens.
The soul of the Russian princess, Nadina Lubimoff, centuries ago had
dwelt in the body of Mary Stuart.
"That is why I always had a special liking for the story of the unhappy
queen. And now I know why, when I saw Sir Edwin in London, I fell in
love with him on the spot, in the most irresistible fashion. His
ancestors were Scottish."
Such reasons were to her as unanswerable as all the others which had
guided her actions. And to pay homage to the queenly soul which was,
according to all her mystic attendants, reincarnated in her, she was
going to live like the beheaded sovereign of Scotland, copying the
Queen's clothes as she had seen them in pictures, converting her palace
into a mediaeval castle, and eating from antique plates nothing but
Renaissance delicacies, the recipes for which she had employed a
history professor to discover in ancient chronicles.
Carriages now rarely entered the Court of Honor of the palace. The grand
stairway was growing mossy between its steps. Not so the delivery
entrance. There, each day, the professionals of "the beyond" appeared,
poorly dressed and suspicious looking men and women, who were exploiting
the Princess, generous as a queen--and was she not one?--under the guise
of aiding her in the manipulation of the lamp table, and conjuring up
historic phantoms which, to prove their presence, moved the carpets,
made the pictures fall from the walls, changed the positions of the
chairs, and committed other childish deviltries.
Dona Mercedes avoided visiting the Princess. Her simple faith caused her
to be frightened at queens that last for centuries, and at those halls
with old furniture that seemed to palpitate with mysterious life. She
preferred the quiet wholesome conversation of the priests whom she was
supporting for herself. The Aragonese vicar had allowed himself to be
snatched away in triumph by another devout millionaire. He had grown
tired, no doubt, of the excessive ease and idleness afforded him by his
penitent, and was bored with astronomical observations on the roof of
the dwelling in the Champs-Elysees.
At present she was offering her hospitality to a Monsignor, a Bishop _in
partibus_, who directed the widow's money into various pious charities
of his own invention.
Alicia had married a French Duke, twenty years her senior, and after a
few months of marriage was causing herself to be very much talked about.
Dona Mercedes, offended, was punishing her by seeing her very seldom, in
hopes that such coldness would cause the Duchess de Delille to follow
the example of her mother. In the meantime, the latter was concentrating
all her family affection on the Monsignor, a saint, and a man of the
world, who in the evening, to avoid a discordant note, took off his
cassock and sat down at table in a tuxedo, while a flock of mechanical
birds sang and flapped their wings in the large gilded cage in the
Creole's dining room.
Michael Fedor saw Alicia twice in the Lubimoff palace. She did not feel
there the uneasiness her mother experienced, and even declared the
manias of the Princess very original and interesting. Afternoons when
she was bored, and paid the Princess a visit, she too seemed to believe
in the lamp table and in the "Queen's" proteges with the mystic
gestures.
She too consulted them to find out whether she would be happy, and
especially whether she would be greatly loved, although she never told
who it was that was supposed to love her. On other occasions she asked
the oracle, with a note of jealous anxiety in her voice, what a certain
unknown person was doing at that particular time. The name of the person
was kept secret, but some months he would be dark and at other times he
would be blond. She and the lamp table understood each other perfectly.
"I always said that girl was cleverer than her mother," the Princess
affirmed.
When Alicia first met the Prince, on his return home, she burst out
laughing, and almost embraced him.
"Do you remember how we used to hate each other? Do you remember that
day in the Bois when we whipped each other?"
She looked at him with an air of interest, scrutinizing him from head to
heel without detecting anything of the displeasing youth of former
times. She knew of his adventures in Russia, his loves, his duels, his
expulsion. An interesting man! A Byronic fellow! Besides, she had heard
that he was a bit of a brute with women.
"Come and see me. We must be friends. Remember we are relatives."
Michael scrutinized her also, but with a certain seriousness. He had
heard a great deal about her since arriving in Paris. During her three
years of married life the Duke had tried twice to divorce her. It
weighed on his mind to think that he should be enjoying immense wealth
just in return for allowing her to bear his name. When he shook hands
with a friend, he was never sure of the latter's relations with his
wife. But Alicia had married the Duke in order to be a Duchess, and in
the end the couple came to a practical agreement. Half of her income was
to go to the Duke, who was to travel, or, if he wished, reside in Paris
with a former mistress. Alicia might live as she pleased in her splendid
white mansion in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and display a ducal
coronet on her underwear, on her silver, and on the doors of her motor
cars.
The little horsewoman of the Mexican plains, trained to morning gallops,
had been transformed into a woman of proud and arrogant beauty. To
Michael she looked like a California orange, golden, gleaming, wafting a
strong sweet fragrance.
Inwardly he winced at the gaze of those dark eyes, so enticing and
fascinating, so provoking and commanding, in full consciousness of
power.
But no. He remembered that various men whom he disliked, had, according
to common gossip, already preceded him in falling under Alicia's spell.
And for the time being he was interested in a French actress, whom he
had met on the train returning from Russia.
Besides, he suddenly beheld her again in his imagination as she was
years before. Perhaps she had not changed. She was used to managing men
with a firm hand, to changing from one to another, as though they were
post horses. He and Alicia would quarrel at their second meeting. They
might easily end by coming to blows.
He saw no more of her. New preoccupations changed the direction of his
thoughts. One day in the street he met a Russian who seemed old and ill.
It was Sergueff, his former teacher. Sergueff must now have been some
forty years of age. He looked as though he were in his seventies, with a
dirty white beard, grayish skin, and a wrinkled almost motheaten face,
with no sign of life save in the two green holes that marked his eyes.
From Saint Petersburg they had sent him to a prison in Siberia. He had
escaped, crossed half of Asia on foot and alone, as far as a Chinese
seaport, and there he had taken ship for the United States. The story of
this tour of the world was told in a few words, as though it were a
single walk on the boulevards.
Michael Fedor took him to the palace. The Colonel seemed dismayed by
Sergueff's presence, and drew back into his shell. He must remember his
own connections with nobles of the Russian court! Some of them were
former generals of police!
The son of Princess Lubimoff talked for several days with the fugitive.
The memory of his own expulsion from the court caused Michael vaguely to
sympathize with this man who was likewise an exile. Besides, in the
depths of his mind something of his mother's character was stirring,
with all its inconsistencies and hazy vague desires. The officer of the
Guard listened as attentively as a scholar to the doctrines of the
revolutionist.
"Why, those men are right!" he exclaimed with the passionate enthusiasm
that the Princess herself expressed for every novelty.
For the first few days he felt a yearning for martyrdom, a deep desire
for renunciation, the mystic abnegation of the man of his race. He
thought of many princes like himself, educated at court, with high
social positions, who had given away their wealth to live among the poor
and dedicate their lives to the triumph of truth and justice. He would
do the same. He would reawaken to true life, and he was sure that his
mother would approve. General Saldana had given his blood to
rehabilitate the past; he would give his to overcome all obstacles in
the pathway of the future. Times change. The past consists of a certain
number of centuries; the future is infinite.
But Lubimoff was not a true Russian. No sooner had he decided to carry
out his mystic determination, than the Latin love of pleasure reawakened
in him. Life is good, and offers many pleasant things! For him the tree
of life was still overflowing with sap; there still remained for him so
many leafy springs, so many fruitful summers! Later, perhaps, when only
the dry wood remained....
The one positive and immediate result of this resurrection was Michael's
sense of his own ignorance and of the emptiness of his life. There was
something in the world besides knowing languages, wielding rapiers, and
riding horses. Man should seek the realization of his greatness in more
serious enterprises than love making, duels and betting. Fate, in giving
him wealth, had exempted him from the harsh necessity of work. But that
was no reason why he should renounce making his mark in the world, as he
passed through it, just as thousands of his predecessors had done, and
as millions of men to come would continue to do.
For the first time in his life Michael sought the comradeship of books,
and this initial reading stirred him with a new desire. He made up his
mind to know the world, to see strange countries, to struggle with the
blind forces, which form the pulsing of the planet, and to live the
coarse rough adventures of men who go from port to port. His father had
told him of remote ancestors of the Saldana family, who had gained
titles and fortunes by setting sail from humble Spanish harbors,
swooping out like sea gulls across the gloomy Ocean, in the track of
Columbus and the Pinzons, in search of new lands of mystery. An ancestor
of his, disembarking with the aged Ponce de Leon in Florida, in search
of the famous "Fountain of Youth," had been one of the discoverers of
the present United States. The first Saldana to be a noble had obtained
his title of "don" by founding a city in the neighborhood of Panama. Why
should he not be a navigator like his forebears, a wanderer of the seas,
enjoying exotic pleasures, and perhaps succeeding in wresting some
secret from the blue deep?
Life in that palace which his mother's mania had rendered ugly, was
becoming uncomfortable and distasteful, and was impelling him to flee.
The Princess did not make the slightest objection, when informed that
her son desired to buy a yacht to navigate the seven seas. Let him do
so, by all means! It was a princely pastime, quite worthy of a Prince
Lubimoff. They were constantly growing richer. The oil, the platinum,
all the precious ores of their properties and the products of their
lands, as large as nations, made up an enormous income. The preceding
year it had reached the sum of seventeen million francs: a million a
month! For a single private family it meant unbelievable wealth, and the
Princess Lubimoff, who had temporarily regained her sanity, modestly
added:
"But for a queen it isn't much."
In England Michael purchased a sailing yacht, with a sharp bow, bold
masts, and an auxiliary engine, and gave it the Spanish name for the sea
gull, the "Gaviota."
His idea was to continue on the ocean the life he had led on land,
selecting, however, only its most interesting phases. For that reason he
decided to take Sergueff along. The teacher seemed melancholy, as though
the comforts and the liberal sums of money which the Prince bestowed on
him weighed on his conscience like remorse. He had something more urgent
to do in the world than voyage idly hither and thither in a luxurious
boat. He disappeared one day, to return to Russia, as though the gallows
had a fascination for him. Or was it that he preferred, in case of
better luck than that, to travel once again around the world, but in his
own manner?
The Colonel, as the aide de camp of the Prince, felt obliged to embark.
He had never yet left "his boy's" side! But, oh, he was not blessed with
sea legs, and, much less, with a sea stomach! He was a hero of the
mountains! They were obliged to send him back to Paris from a port in
Brazil.
The voyage of the _Gaviota_ lasted for five years. In the second year
Michael Fedor thought his career as a navigator was about to be
interrupted. The war between Russia and Japan had just broken out and he
cabled from a Pacific port, asking for his former place in the Guard.
The reply was a long time in coming. The Czar was still angry with him
and kept him in exile.
"So much the better!" Michael finally said to himself in a voice choked
with anger. He guessed what was going to happen; what was to be the
final fate of those brave Russians of the sharp sabers, when they came
to face the astute little yellow men who had silently gone on
appropriating the most scientific occidental arts of killing.
His adventures in the various ports, his relations with women of every
race and color, were sufficient to fill his life.
"I am studying geography," he wrote Don Marcos, after inquiring about
his mother's health. "I am studying the geography of love."
It was not long before he was obliged to interrupt his cruise to return
to the Princess. The physicians had ordered her away from the Paris
palace, with its gloomy decorations so stimulating to her obsessions.
They were sending her to the Riviera to drink sunlight and open air.
And poor Maria Stuart, absolutely _incognito_, went from one large hotel
to another, occupying entire floors with her retinue of much beaten
Russian servants and much adored soothsayers and witch doctors. She was
the despair of the hotel keepers, who were always glad to see her
depart, though she alone paid more than all the other guests put
together.
Her son found her looking like a specter in her flowing mourning garb.
She was weaker and thinner, and her eyes had taken on an alarming, fixed
stare, which gave one the creeps. Her complexion had lost its former
whiteness, gradually growing darker as though burned by an inner fire.
For the moment her sole preoccupation was the construction of a palace
on the Blue Coast. On French territory, in sight of Monte Carlo, she had
bought a small promontory, a spur of land and rocks jutting out into the
sea, a ridge covered with century-old olive trees and gnarled pines. She
was kept busy quarreling with a stubborn old couple, an aged peasant and
his wife, who were refusing to sell her the extreme point of the
headland. She had already spent many thousands of francs on the plans of
the future palace. Architects, painters, and landscape gardeners were
constantly working for her, making studies of the historic past, in the
endeavor to view of the Mediterranean an enormous Scottish castle
express her imaginings. Her idea was to erect in full as Scotch as could
possibly be imagined; in short, according to the Princess, it was to be
"a novel of Walter Scott, done in stone."
Michael was frightened. The sumptuous dungeon in Paris was to be
repeated in the face of that luminous sea, in one of the most smiling
landscapes of the earth. Behind his mother's back he talked with all the
men who were working on the future Villa Sirena, the "Villa of the
Sirens." The Princess had selected this name, in the conviction that on
moonlight nights the daughters of the briny deep would come and visit
her, singing on the reefs beneath her window. That was the least they
could do for her!
Each day the veil of mystery was opening more widely before her eyes,
allowing her to see things which for others were invisible.
Don Marcos, who, deserted by his former pupil, had gone back to the
Princess, likewise received instructions from Lubimoff. He was to
prevent the unhappy lady from perpetrating such a sacrilege on the
Mediterranean. But what could the poor Colonel do with that madwoman who
spent whole weeks without speaking to him, as though she did not know
who he was!
The Prince returned to his yacht, and a year later being by chance in
upper Norway on his return from an expedition to the Arctic Ocean, he
received the sad but expected news. His mother had died, just as she saw
rising from among the olive trees and pines of the rosy promontory, the
beginning of huge stone walls artificially blackened like the painted
panels in the antique shops, and which looked as though they were about
to fall in ruins from mere age, as soon as they had risen from the
ground.