IN A WINTER CITY
St. Petersburg under snow is the most picturesque city in the world. The
town is at its best when a high wind has come from the north to blow all
the snow from the cupola of St. Isaac's, leaving that golden dome, in
all its brilliancy, to gleam and flash over the whitened sepulchre of a
city.
In winter the Neva is a broad, silent thoroughfare between the Vassili
Ostrow and the Admiralty Gardens. In the winter the pestilential rattle
of the cobble-stones in the side streets is at last silent, and the
merry music of sleigh-bells takes its place. In the winter the
depressing damp of this northern Venice is crystallized and harmless.
On the English Quay a tall, narrow house stands looking glumly across
the river. It is a suspected house, and watched; for here dwelt Stépan
Lanovitch, secretary and organizer of the Charity League.
Although the outward appearance of the house is uninviting, the interior
is warm and dainty. The odor of delicate hot-house plants is in the
slightly enervating atmosphere of the apartments. It is a Russian fancy
to fill the dwelling-rooms with delicate, forced foliage and bloom. In
no country of the world are flowers so worshipped, is money so freely
spent in floral decoration. There is something in the sight, and more
especially in the scent of hot-house plants, that appeals to the complex
siftings of three races which constitute a modern Russian.
We, in the modest self-depreciation which is a national characteristic,
are in the habit of thinking, and sometimes saying, that we have all the
good points of the Angle and the Saxon rolled satisfactorily into one
Anglo-Saxon whole. We are of the opinion that mixed races are the best,
and we leave it to be understood that ours is the only satisfactory
combination. Most of us ignore the fact that there are others at all,
and very few indeed recognize the fact that the Russian of to-day is
essentially a modern outcome of a triple racial alliance of which the
best component is the Tartar.
The modern Russian is an interesting study, because he has the remnant
of barbaric tastes, with ultra-civilized facilities for gratifying the
same. The best part of him comes from the East, the worst from Paris.
The Countess Lanovitch belonged to the school existing in Petersburg and
Moscow in the early years of the century--the school that did not speak
Russian but only French, that chose to class the peasants with the
beasts of the field, that apparently expected the deluge to follow soon.
Her drawing-room, looking out on to the Neva, was characteristic of
herself. Camellias held the floral honors in vase and pot. The French
novel ruled supreme on the side-table. The room was too hot, the chairs
were too soft, the moral atmosphere too lax. One could tell that this
was the dwelling-room of a lazy, self-indulgent, and probably ignorant
woman.
The countess herself in nowise contradicted this conclusion. She was
seated on a very low chair, exposing a slippered foot to the flame of a
wood fire. She held a magazine in her hand, and yawned as she turned its
pages. She was not so stout in person as her loose and somewhat highly
colored cheeks would imply. Her eyes were dull and sleepy. The woman was
an incarnate yawn.
She looked up, turning lazily in her chair, to note the darkening of the
air without the double windows.
"Ah!" she said aloud to herself in French, "when will it be tea-time?"
As she spoke the words, the bells of a sleigh suddenly stopped with a
rattle beneath the window.
Immediately the countess rose and went to the mirror over the
mantel-piece. She arranged without enthusiasm her straggling hair, and
put straight a lace cap which was chronically crooked. She looked at her
reflection pessimistically, as well she might. It was the puffy red face
of a middle-aged woman given to petty self-indulgence.
"While she was engaged in this discouraging pastime the door was opened,
and a maid came in with the air of one who has gained a trifling
advantage by the simple method of peeping.
"It is M. Steinmetz, Mme. la Comtesse."
"Ah! Do I look horrible, Célestine? I have been asleep."
Célestine was French, and laughed with all the charm of that tactful
nation.
"How can Mme. la Comtesse ask such a thing? Madame might be
thirty-five!"
It is to be supposed that the staff of angelic recorders have a separate
set of ledgers for French people, with special discounts attaching to
pleasant lies.
Madame shook her head--and believed.
"M. Steinmetz is even now taking off his furs in the hall," said
Célestine, retiring toward the door.
"It is well. We shall want tea."
Steinmetz came into the room with an exaggerated bow and a twinkle in
his melancholy eyes.
"Figure to yourself, my dear Steinmetz," said the countess vivaciously.
"Catrina has gone out--on a day like this! Mon Dieu! How gray, how
melancholy!"
"Without, yes! But here, how different!" replied Steinmetz in French.
The countess cackled and pointed to a chair.
"Ah! you always flatter. What news have you, bad character?"
Steinmetz smiled pensively, not so much suggesting the desire to impart
as the intention to withhold that which the lady called news.
"I came for yours, countess. You are always amusing--as well as
beautiful," he added, with his mouth well controlled beneath the heavy
mustache.
The countess shook her head playfully, which had the effect of tilting
her cap to one side.
"I! Oh, I have nothing to tell you. I am a nun. What can one do--what
can one hear in Petersburg? Now in Paris it is different. But Catrina is
so firm. Have you ever noticed that, Steinmetz? Catrina's firmness, I
mean. She wills a thing, and her will is like a rock. The thing has to
be done. It does itself. It comes to pass. Some people are so. Now I, my
clear Steinmetz, only desire peace and quiet. So I give in. I gave in to
poor Stépan. And now he is exiled. Perhaps if I had been firm--if I had
forbidden all this nonsense about charity--it would have been different.
And Stépan would have been quietly at home instead of in Tomsk, is it,
or Tobolsk? I always forget which. Well, Catrina says we must live in
Petersburg this winter, and--nous voilà!"
Steinmetz shrugged his shoulders with a commiserating smile. He took the
countess's troubles indifferently, as do the rest of us when our
neighbor's burden does not drag upon our own shoulders. It suited him
that Catrina should be in Petersburg, and it is to be feared that the
feelings of the Countess Lanovitch had no weight as against the
convenience of Karl Steinmetz.
"Ah, well!" he said, "you must console yourself with the thought that
Petersburg is the brighter for some of us. Who is this--another
visitor?"
The door was thrown open, and Claude de Chauxville walked into the room
with the easy grace which was his.
"Mme. la Comtesse," he said, bowing over her hand.
Then he stood upright, and the two men smiled grimly at each other.
Steinmetz had thought that De Chauxville was in London. The Frenchman
counted on the other's duties to retain him in Osterno.
"Pleasure!" said De Chauxville, shaking hands.
"It is mine," answered Steinmetz.
The countess looked from one to the other with a smile on her foolish
face.
"Ah!" she exclaimed; "how pleasant it is to meet old friends! It is like
by-gone times."
At this moment the door opened again and Catrina came in. In her rich
furs she looked almost pretty.
She shook hands eagerly with Steinmetz; her deep eyes searched his face
with a singular, breathless scrutiny.
"Where are you from?" she asked quickly.
"London."
"Catrina," broke in the countess, "you do not remember M. de Chauxville!
He nursed you when you were a child."
Catrina turned and bowed to De Chauxville.
"I should have remembered you," he said, "if we had met accidentally.
After all, childhood is but a miniature--is it not so?"
"Perhaps," answered Catrina; "and when the miniature develops it loses
the delicacy which was its chief charm."
She turned again to Steinmetz, as if desirous of continuing her
conversation with him.
"M. de Chauxville, you surely have news?" broke in the countess's
cackling voice. "I have begged M. Steinmetz in vain. He says he has
none; but is one to believe so notorious a bad character?"
"Madame, it is wise to believe only that which is convenient. But
Steinmetz, I promise you, is the soul of honor. What sort of news do you
crave for? Political, which is dangerous; social, which is scandalous;
or court news, which is invariably false?"
"Let us have scandal, then."
"Ah! I must refer you to the soul of honor."
"Who," answered Steinmetz, "in that official capacity is necessarily
deaf, and in a private capacity is naturally dull."
He was looking very hard at De Chauxville, as if he was attempting to
make him understand something which he could not say aloud. De
Chauxville, from carelessness or natural perversity, chose to ignore the
persistent eyes.
"Surely the news is from London," he said lightly; "we have nothing from
Paris."
He glanced at Steinmetz, who was frowning.
"I can hardly tell you stale news that comes from London via Paris, can
I?" he continued.
Steinmetz was tapping impatiently on the floor with his broad boot.
"About whom--about whom?" cried the countess, clapping her soft hands
together.
"Well, about Prince Paul," said De Chauxville, looking at Steinmetz with
airy defiance.
Steinmetz moved a little. He placed himself in front of Catrina, who had
suddenly lost color. She could only see his broad back. The others in
the room could not see her at all. She was rather small, and Steinmetz
hid her as behind a screen.
"Ah!" he said to the countess, "his marriage! But Madame the Countess
assuredly knows of that."
"How could she?" put in De Chauxville.
"The countess knew that Prince Paul was going to be married," explained
Karl Steinmetz very slowly, as if he wished to give some one time. "With
such a man as he, 'going to be' is not very far from being."
"Then it is an accomplished fact?" said the countess sharply.
"Yesterday," answered Steinmetz.
"And you were not there!" exclaimed Countess Lanovitch, with uplifted
hands.
"Since I was here," answered Steinmetz.
The countess launched into a disquisition on the heinousness of marrying
any but a compatriot. The tone of her voice was sharp, and the volume of
her words almost amounted to invective. As Steinmetz was obviously not
listening, the lady imparted her views to the Baron de Chauxville.
Steinmetz waited for some time, then he turned slowly toward Catrina
without actually looking at her.
"It is dangerous," he said, "to stay in this warm room with your furs."
"Yes," she answered, rather faintly; "I will go and take them off."
Steinmetz held the door open for her, but he did not look at her.