CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE
EMPEROR’S CANDLESTICKS
CHAPTER I.
Gay, chic Vienna was _en fête_. What would you? Shrove Tuesday is
the very last day, allowed by our Holy Mother the Church for revelry,
before the long austere forty days of Lent, and if we do not make use
of her full permission to enjoy ourselves, to the full extent of our
capacity, we shall have nothing to atone for to-morrow, when the good
fathers place the cross of ashes on our foreheads, and bid us remember
that dust we are, to dust return.
Therefore Vienna was drinking the overflowing cup of pleasure to-day;
had been drinking it in its gaily lighted streets and boulevards, and
was now enjoying its last drops at the opera ball, the climax to a
carnival that had been unusually brilliant this year.
And in the hall, where but two nights ago the harmonious discords of
Wagner’s “Niebelungen” had enchanted and puzzled a seriously-minded
audience, to-night Pierrots and Pierrettes, Fausts and Marguerites,
nymphs, fairies, gnomes, and what-nots chased each other with merry
cries and loud laughter, to the sweet tunes of Strauss’ melodious,
dreamy waltzes; while the boxes, each filled with spectators eager to
watch, though afraid to mingle in the giddy throng, showed mysterious
dominoes and black masks, behind which gleamed eyes rendered bright
with suppressed excitement at the intoxicating spectacle below.
“Come down, fair domino, I know thee,” whispered a richly dressed
odalisque, whose jewelled mask could not outshine the merry twinkle of
her black eyes beneath. She had placed one dainty hand on the ledge of
a pit tier box, in which two black dominoes had sat for some time,
partially hidden by the half-drawn curtains, and had watched the gay
throng beneath them for some half-hour or so, apparently unnoticed.
The taller of the two dominoes bent forward, trying to pierce the
enterprising houri’s disguise.
“Nay! if you know me, fair mask, come up to me, and let me renew an
acquaintance that should never have been dropped.”
But she had once more disappeared as swiftly as she had come, and the
black domino, whose curiosity was aroused, tried vainly to distinguish
her graceful figure among the glitter of the moving crowd.
“I wonder our sober dresses succeeded in drawing that gay butterfly’s
attention,” he said, turning to his companion, “and what her object
was in speaking to me, if she did not mean to continue the
_causerie_.”
“Oh, it is the usual way with these gay Viennese _bourgeoisies_,”
replied his companion; “your Imperial Highness has been sitting too
much in the shade of that curtain, and the odalisque thought your
obvious desire to remain hidden, an object of interest.”
The taller domino now leant forward in the box, his opera-glass glued
to his mask, eagerly scanning the crowd; but, though numerous Moorish
and Turkish veiled figures passed backwards and forwards, he did not
recognise the enterprising odalisque among them.
“Look not for the good that lies far away when the best is so close at
hand,” whispered a mocking voice, close at his elbow.
The black domino turned sharply round, just in time to catch hold of
the little hand, which had crept round the column, that separated the
box in which he was sitting, from the adjoining one.
“The best is still too far,” he whispered; “is it unattainable?”
“Always strive to attain the best,” replied the mocking voice, “even
at the risk of scaling the inaccessible walls of an opera-box.”
“I cannot get to thee, fair mask, without momentarily letting go this
tiny hand, and it is never safe to let a bird, even for a moment, out
of its cage.”
“Black Domino, we often must risk the lesser to obtain the great,”
said the odalisque maliciously.
“I entreat your Imperial Highness to remain here,” said the second
domino imploringly; “you are here incognito: I am the only one in
attendance on your Highness, and----”
“All the more reason why it should be possible for one brief moment,
for a Tsarevitch to do as he likes,” retorted the taller domino
laughingly.
And, before his companion had time to add another word of warning, the
young man had, with the freedom which King Carnival always allows at
such a time and in such places, climbed the ledge of the box, and
scrambled with youthful alacrity into the one that contained his
mysterious bright-eyed houri.
But alas! for the waywardness and fickleness of the daughters of the
East, no sooner had the black domino safely reached _terra firma_ once
more, after his perilous climb, than the swift opening and shutting of
the door told him but too plainly that the will-o’-the-wisp wished to
evade him yet again.
What young man is there, be he prince or peasant, who would have
allowed so mocking a game to be carried on at his expense. Nicholas
Alexandrovitch, son and heir of the Tsar of all the Russias,
remembered only that he was twenty years of age, that he had come to
the opera ball, accompanied by that dry old stick Lavrovski, with the
sole purpose of enjoying himself incognito for once, and… he started
in hot pursuit.
The passage behind the boxes was quite empty, but in the direction
leading to the _foyer_, some fifty yards distant, he distinctly caught
sight of a swiftly disappearing figure, and the heels of the prettiest
pair of Turkish slippers it had ever been his good fortune to see.
The _foyer_ was, at that late hour of the night, a scene of the most
motley, most picturesque confusion. Assyrian queens were walking arm
in arm with John Bulls, Marguerites were coquetting unblushingly with
gallants of some two centuries later, while Hamlets and Othellos were
indulging in the favourite Viennese pastime of hoisting their present
partners on to the tallest pillars they could find, with a view to
starving them out up there, into a jump some ten or twelve feet below,
when they would perforce land into the outstretched arms of their
delighted swains.
And very pretty these tall pillars looked, thus decorated with living,
laughing, chatting figures of vivandières, Pierrettes, aye--and of
sober Ophelias and languishing Isoldes. But the black domino heeded
them not; darting hither and thither, taking no notice of cheeky
sallies and rough _bousculades_, he pushed his way through the crowd
towards one spot, close to the entrance, where a special little
jewelled cap was fast disappearing through the widely open portals,
that led out into the gaily lighted place beyond.
The odalisque had evidently either repented of her audacious
adventure, or was possessed of an exceptionally bold spirit, for
without a moment’s hesitation she ran down the stone steps, taking no
further heed of the jesting crowd she was forced to pass through, or
of the two or three idle masks who accosted her, and also started in
pursuit.
Having reached the bottom of the steps she seemed to hesitate a
moment, only a second perhaps--was it intentionally?--but that second
gave Nicholas Alexandrovitch the chance he had for some time striven
for; he overtook her, just as she laid her hand on the door of a
_fiaker_ which had drawn up, and lifting her off the ground as if she
were a feather, he placed her inside, and sat down in front of her,
hot and panting, but victorious, while the coachman, without
apparently waiting for any directions, drove off rapidly through the
ever noisier and gayer crowd.