And now for my second adventure.
On my way back from Preobrajensky one evening I met a man and a woman on
horseback, both scolding one another at full voice--so loudly, indeed,
that I could not fail to hear every word said as we met and passed.
It appeared that the man, who was the older, refused to permit the
woman, who seemed scarcely more than a young girl, to take some course
which she was resolved to pursue. When I had discovered this much their
voices became inaudible, and I should have forgotten all about the
matter but that I happened to find a lady in trouble in the forest next
day, and in conversation with her recognised her voice as that of the
scolding maiden of yesterday.
She was standing, when I first came upon her, in riding dress, and
disconsolately gazed through the trees as though looking for someone she
had lost, or whom she expected to arrive.
She started round when I rode softy up, and I now saw that I had to do
with a most beautiful woman, one of the most beautiful I had ever seen.
She asked me somewhat angrily whether I had seen her horse.
‘The fool shied at a hare that ran across his path,’ she said, ‘and as I
was thinking of other things I was surprised and thrown--for which he
shall feel my whip when I find him!’
‘A hare to cross your path is bad fortune,’ I laughed. ‘It is to be
hoped you are not engaged upon any enterprise in the success of which
you are greatly concerned, for, if so, it is likely to fail!’
‘Maybe I am,’ she replied, ‘but it shall not fail--that is, if the issue
depends upon myself.’
‘But maybe it depends upon the will of someone--a father or an uncle,’ I
hazarded, remembering the sobbing of the previous evening.
She started.
‘Are you a wizard or a guesser?’ she said.
‘Certainly not the first; as to the last, I guess that you are she whom
I overheard last night quarrelling with a man who might well be your
father, since he appeared to be endeavouring to exercise authority,
which you--with the licence of a daughter who is also a beautiful
girl--resisted.’
‘Well, you have made a close guess. My father and I--if it was really
ourselves you overheard--had disagreed. You remember voices well.’
‘Such a voice as yours, once heard, is no more to be forgotten than is
your face, once seen.’
‘Oh, by the saints, if you are of the flattering order of cavaliers, we
shall not long be friends. Come, have you seen my horse?’
‘No, I have not,’ I laughed; ‘but there is mine to be had for the
asking.’
‘You would not be best pleased if I accepted the offer--though I thank
you for making it. I was riding away--I know not whither, perhaps a very
long journey--when my horse threw me: if I took your horse you might not
see him again!’
‘That would be an irreparable loss only if he carried you away with him
beyond return.’
‘Well, I mean to return, and that is why I am escaping.’
‘A riddle!’ I exclaimed, laughing. ‘Why are you escaping, if I may use
the word--you who have only just arrived?’
‘How know you that?’ she asked sharply.
‘That requires little guessing! If you had been long in Moscow I should
have seen you. I can guess a little more if I be allowed.’
‘Guess on, then!’
‘You have come for the bride-choosing of the Tsar Ivan, but you have
seen him and taken fright; and in spite of your father’s commands or
desires, you are attempting to escape from the fate you fear. And,
indeed, if you do not wish to be Tsaritsa, either for this on another
reason, you are wise to escape, for by all the saints I think there is
only one among the maidens to equal you, and assuredly none to vanquish
you if the prize go by looks!’
She laughed merrily.
‘Bravo!’ she said. ‘You are wrong from beginning to end. In the first
place, it is my father who has seen the Tsar and who has taken fright;
in the second, I would give half my life to become Tsaritsa, even
Ivan’s; lastly, I am escaping from my father, not from the _terem_, to
which I long to obtain admission, though he has sworn I shall not.’
This was a surprising state of things, and quite the opposite of that
which was usual as between daughters and fathers--the fathers being, so
far as I had seen, for ever ambitious, while the maidens often preferred
love to ambition--love, that is, for some lover who was not the Tsar; or
perhaps even presumed to allow a sense of personal antipathy to stand
between themselves and their chance of high advancement.
‘If that is so,’ I said, ‘the matter should be easily arranged. Your
father dare not withstand the _ukase_ of the Regent. She need but be
told that you are here, and that your appearance is worthy of the Tsar’s
regard, and you shall soon find yourself among those assembled for his
inspection. Go home, if you are wise, and you shall be sent for.’
‘But my father threatens to leave Moscow with me this very day; that is
why I attempted to escape. I dare not go home to him, for in an hour I
should be on my way back to our own place, which I loathe. It has taken
us two months to journey from there to here, and I do not care if I
never see it again.’
‘Where, then, is this unloved home?’ I asked.
‘My father is Soltikof, Governor of Siberia. He is a good father, and
loves me. He saw this Tsar Ivan for the first time yesterday. The youth
became angry with someone and frothed at the mouth, afterwards bursting
into tears; lastly, he fell in a fit! Lord knows what ailed him. “No
daughter of mine,” said my father in telling me afterwards of what he
had seen at the palace of the Regent, “should marry such a creature as
this, not if he were Tsar of all Christendom. Tfu!” he said, “the thing
is a frog, not a man; fie upon her who should marry such a creature!”’
‘And you, you think differently?’ I asked. ‘You would marry this
frog-man for the sake of his Tsarship?’
‘Bah! it is the name Tsaritsa one marries, and the clothes, and the
beautiful jewels, and the power. What matter whether this man or that
calls himself your husband?’
‘Have you, then, seen him, that you speak so boldly?’
‘Not I! He cannot be more loathsome than my father has represented him:
whatever he may be I shall surely be agreeably surprised, for verily my
good parent, in his anxiety on my account, has drawn the sorriest
picture of a prince that fancy could devise. Is he indeed so bad? Can he
speak--can he be understood--can he stand upon his own feet--can he wear
a Tsar’s clothes and sit upon a Tsar’s chair?’
‘Oh, he can do that much,’ I laughed. ‘He is an invalid, and has fits,
but his brother Peter likes him well enough, and they talk and laugh
together. To speak truthfully, I fear he would make a sorry husband,
though his wife would have as much right to call herself Tsaritsa as the
wife of the handsomest prince that ever drew breath.’
‘Well, that is all that matters. Come, what meant you that my admission
to the _terem_ could be arranged? Did you mean anything? Who are you? A
Cossack, I see; that much is in your favour.’
‘Why?’ I laughed.
‘They are independent and the slaves of no man: I suppose that is what I
like in the Cossacks. If I were a man I would rather be Cossack than
Russian. But come, what about the _terem_--who are you that you say you
can get admission for me?’
‘Your face would open every door----’ I began, but she stamped her
foot. ‘Bah!’ she cried. ‘Enough fooling. I suppose, then, you meant
nothing; it is a pity you spoke as you did.’
‘I was going to say,’ I continued, looking at her with approval--for,
indeed, she appeared very beautiful in her indignation and
impatience--‘that though you would be admitted even if you presented
yourself with no introduction save your own good looks, I think I can
have you sent to the _terem_ under the best of introductions--if you
please to approve the suggestion: namely, that of the Tsar’s brother and
joint-Tsar, Peter, who is amiable enough to be my very good friend!’
‘You jest!’ she cried, flushing; but I disclaimed all idea of jesting.
‘You shall come with me to Preobrajensky now at once, if you will,’ I
said; ‘I ride from thence at this moment. The young Tsar will send you
forthwith to his brother’s palace.’
So I seated the girl--Praskovia Soltikof--upon my own horse and walked
by her side back to Preobrajensky; and as I gazed in her face and
listened to her animated talk, ‘By the Saints,’ I thought, ‘you would
make the best Tsaritsa of all the girls I have yet seen, for you have
spirit enough both for yourself and also for the frog who would call
himself your husband, and beauty that should make even his cold blood
run warmer in his veins!’
She prattled all the way, telling me how dull was life in her Siberian
fortress, and how she longed for change and for movement. She told me
she had never had a lover, at which assertion I raised my eyebrows.
‘You will have plenty, my friend,’ thought I, though I did not say it,
‘whether you marry Tsar Ivan or no; for the man who could be near thee
and not feel his pulses beat the quicker for it would be no man, but a
thing of wood or of stone!’
Even young Peter, when he saw her, for all that he numbered but sixteen
years, flushed up and laughed boisterously, crying that Ivashka would be
a fool, indeed, if he saw not here something that would change his mind
in the matter of his marriage. ‘By the saints,’ he said, ‘wench, thou
shalt bid them send up more of thy stock when it comes to my turn. How
old art thou?’
‘Seventeen,’ replied Praskovia, and Peter shook his head. ‘Thou’lt be a
hag before I am in middle life,’ he said. ‘Well, let Ivan see thee; I
will write him a letter--he will not look at thee else. Lord! I should
be a kind brother to thee,’ he ended with a second boisterous laugh, ‘if
Ivashka took thee!’