Six hours later, accompanied by Saunderson, our tall, thin Charge
d'Affaires, and the Embassy staff, all in our uniforms and decorations,
I entered the huge white-and-gold ballroom of the Winter Palace, where
the Russian Court, the representatives of exclusive Society, the
bureaucracy of the Empire and the _corps diplomatique_ had assembled.
The scene was perhaps the most brilliant and picturesque that could be
witnessed anywhere in the world. Beneath the myriad lights of those
huge cut-glass chandeliers, and reflected by the gigantic mirrors upon
the walls, were hundreds of gold-laced uniforms of every shade and every
style. Across the breasts of many of the men were gay-coloured scarves
of the various orders, with diamond stars, while others wore around
their necks parti-coloured ribbons with enamelled crosses at their
throat, or rows of decorations across their breasts.
And to this phantasmagoria of colour, as all stood in little groups
chattering and awaiting Their Majesties, was added that of the splendid
long-trained dresses of the women, nearly all of whom wore their diamond
tiaras, or diamond ornaments in their corsage.
It was indeed, a cosmopolitan gathering, half of Russians and half of
the diplomatic set, and around me, as I bowed over the hand of a
well-known Baroness, wife of the Minister of War, I heard animated
chatter in half a dozen tongues. The Emperor had returned, and there
would now be a month of gaiety before he retired for the summer to
Gatchina. The spring season in Petersburg had been cut short--first by
the indisposition of the Empress, and afterwards by reason of the
Emperor's tour to the distant shore of the Caspian.
Therefore at this, the delayed Court ball, everybody who was anybody in
Russia was present.
In one end of the huge Renaissance salon, with its wonderful painted
ceiling and gilded cupids, was a great semicircular alcove, with a
slightly raised dais, whereon sat the Dowager-Empress, the Grand
Duchesses and those of the blood-royal, with their attendant ladies,
while the male members of the Court lounged behind.
The opposite end of the great ballroom led to another salon with parquet
floor, decorated in similar style, and with many mirrors, and almost as
large, while beyond was a somewhat smaller room, the whole effect being
one of gorgeous grandeur and immensity.
I had paused to chat with a stout lady in cream, who wore a beautiful
tiara. Princess Lovovski, wife of the Governor-General of Finland, and
she had commenced to tell me the latest tit-bit of scandal concerning
the wife of a certain War Office official, a matter which did not
interest me in the least, when suddenly there came three loud taps--the
taps of the Grand Chamberlain--announcing the entrance of His Majesty.
As by enchantment a wide door in the side of the ballroom flew open, and
the glittering throng, bejewelled and perfumed, flashing colours amid
plumes, aigrettes and flowers, laughing and murmuring to the clink of
gala swords and sabres, was struck to silence.
His Majesty passed--a tall, commanding figure in a white uniform covered
with the stars, crosses and many-coloured ribbons of the various
European orders. Beneath the thousand lights the bare shoulders of the
beautiful women inclined profoundly.
Then again the loud chatter recommenced.
The Emperor's presence, tall, erect, muscular, was indeed a regal one.
He looked every inch a ruler and an autocrat as he advanced to the
alcove, where the whole Court had risen to receive him, and with a quick
gesture he gave the signal for dancing to commence.
I retreated to the wall, being in no humour to dance, and stood gazing
at him. He seemed, indeed, a different person to that deep-eyed,
earnest man in dark-blue serge who had sat chatting with me so affably
six hours ago. He was in that hour a man, but now the centre of that
gay patrician throng, he was ruler, the autocrat who by a stroke of the
grey quill could banish to the mines or the _oubliettes_ any of those of
his subjects who bowed before him--sweep them out of existence as
completely as though the grave had claimed them; for every exile lost
his identity and became a mere number; his estate was administered as
though he were dead, and apportioned, with the usual forfeiture to the
State, among his heirs. So that it was impossible for an exile to be
traced.
I thought of Madame Marya de Rosen and of poor little Luba. Ah! I
wondered how many delicate women and handsome, intelligent men who had
danced over that polished floor were now dragging out their weary lives
in those squalid, filthy Yakut yaurtas of Eastern Siberia. How many,
alas! had, in innocence, fallen victims to that corrupt bureaucracy
which always concealed the truth from His Majesty.
To the camarilla, a dozen or so men who were present there in brilliant
uniforms and wearing the Cross of St Andrew, with the pale-blue ribbon,
the highest Order of the Empire, bestowed upon them for their
"fidelity," that present reign of terror was solely due. It was to the
interests of those men that the Emperor should be perpetually
terrorised. Half those so-called conspiracies were the work of the
Secret Police themselves and their _agents-provocateurs_; and hundreds
of innocent persons were being spirited away without trial to the frozen
wastes of Northern and Eastern Siberia, upon no other charge than the
trivial one that they were "dangerous" persons!
Madame de Rosen and her pretty daughter had fallen victims of the bitter
unscrupulousness of that short, stout, grey-moustached man, who at that
moment was bowing so obsequiously before his Sovereign, the man who was
one of the greatest powers in the Empire, General Serge Markoff, Chief
of Secret Police.
The first dance was in progress. Pretty women, with their smart,
good-looking cavaliers, were whirling about me to the slow, tuneful
strains of one of the latest of Strauss's waltzes, when Colonel Mellini,
the Italian military attache, halted before me to chat. He had just
returned from leave, and had much Embassy gossip to relate to me from
the Eternal City, where I had served for two years.
"I hear," he remarked at last, "that another plot was discovered early
this morning--a desperate one in the Nevski. Markoff really seems
ubiquitous."