THE MONSTER
Krizsanowski had just ended his report of the St. Petersburg
conference--to which a pale lady had lent most careful attention--when
the duenna, keeping guard, entered hurriedly, and whispered,
"Araktseieff has come." Then as quickly retreated.
"Oh, heavens!" sighed the pale lady, pressing her hands convulsively to
her bosom.
"Now be strong as a man," whispered Krizsanowski. "The decisive moment
is at hand!"
"Can it be that that brings him?" she asked, tremblingly.
"Not a doubt of it. Look well to your women, for he brings an arch spy
with him. Handsome and dangerous with the sex."
Just then the sound of carriage-wheels was audible in the courtyard
below, amid much noise and the harsh tones of a man's voice.
"Make haste away! The Grand Duke is coming!" the pale lady whispered to
Krizsanowski.
He, rising, took her hand in his.
Again the duenna appeared, this time rushing in, and saying,
breathlessly:
"The Grand Duke is back from the manoeuvres. Just as they drove in at the
gate one of the horses stumbled, the outrider was thrown, and the Grand
Duke's pipe was so jolted that it broke one of his front teeth. He is
wild with rage."
"Alas!" exclaimed the lady, and was hastening out. Krizsanowski held her
back.
"You would do well just now to keep out of his way."
"On the contrary, it is just now that I must hurry to him," she
answered, freeing herself from Krizsanowski's hold. "But you hasten away
from here, that no one sees you."
"Well, then, be strong as a woman," he murmured, and disappeared.
Yet it was so difficult to disappear. Krizsanowski was in the palace of
Belvedere, in the royal park of Lazienka, the residence of the Polish
Viceroy, outside Warsaw. The park was surrounded by a great wall,
guarded on all sides by armed soldiers. The castle itself a fortress,
with high bastions and intrenchments, a deep moat round it, and
drawbridge; every outlet was protected by an embrasure, there was no
evading the sentries. Within cannon-range the noble forest-trees had
been cleared away, and turf laid down adorned with tulip-beds. It is
humanly impossible to go or come unperceived. And yet Krizsanowski did
succeed in getting away, although Grand Duke Constantine had had the
Belvedere built to his own plan, and had watched its construction with
his own eyes. It was impossible that there should be any secret passage
unknown to him--and yet, supposing one did exist? The architect had been
a Pole. He was capable of constructing a secret passage by night, and so
building it up again that the Grand Duke had no notion of its existence.
And so it really was. Constantine might have been surprised in his bed
any night were not assassination detestable to a Pole.
His wife hurried out to meet him.
The tyrant met her in the armory hall. He was exactly as his
contemporaries have described. Imagination had not run riot.
The Grand Duke had reason enough to be wroth with his brothers. They had
all inherited their mother's beauty and noble presence. He alone
possessed his father's repulsive features and person. Czar Paul was the
impersonation of ugliness, so hideous in appearance that he would allow
no coin bearing his effigy to be struck throughout the whole course of
his reign. And Constantine was a faithful counterpart of his father. His
enormous horn-shaped nose stood out from his face as if it had no
connection with his forehead; his little sea-green eyes were scarce
visible under his thick, shaggy eyebrows and blinking, almost shut,
eyelids. His hair, beard, eyebrows, and eyelashes were the color of
hemp, his face red as Russia leather. But the most remarkable thing
about him was that the one half of his face was unlike the other, as
though Nature had intended to crown her master-work of ugliness by
joining together two different caricatures. One corner of the mouth was
turned up, the other down; the scars of small-pox, wrinkles, warts, so
completed the disfigurement that the painter who would have perpetuated
the face could only have attempted it in profile. In fact, the artist
who would have painted him full-face would have been guilty of
high-treason. So he is described by contemporary writers.
His exterior was the true picture of his inner man; his features were
the slaves of his passions. To look at him was to make one shudder or
deride. As was his face, so was his disposition--violent, passionate,
cruel to a degree. He carried a stick always in his hand, and laid it
about him freely. If it be true that his brother, the Czar, spent two
thousand rubles a year in quill pens, it may be guessed what amount
Constantine's yearly budget showed for smashed walking-sticks. The stick
he now held in his hand was broken and split all the way up. No doubt he
had been again laying it impartially about the shoulders of the several
commandants of division. Their morning prayers were blows.
And there must needs come this accident. And through the confounded
horse stumbling, and the postilions being thrown, the pipe, which was
never out of the Grand Duke's mouth, had hurt his gum and broken him a
tooth. He uttered the most horrible oaths, spitting out blood the while.
"Cursed hound! As soon as he comes to himself throw him into the water
to rouse him! Bring him here. Miserable rascal! I'll break all his bones
for him!" Just then he became aware of a gentleman advancing towards
him. "Who is that? Chevalier Galban? No, you fools--that hound, I mean;
not this gentleman! What does he want? Araktseieff has come? The devil
take--Humph! It's the barber I want, and not a minister. Can't he see
I've got a broken tooth? Why are you hanging about, Chevalier Galban?"
At that moment a lady, coming hurriedly up, pushed the Chevalier aside.
"For Heaven's sake, what has happened to you?" she cried, throwing
herself on Constantine's breast. "My life, my dearest, are you wounded?
What is it?" And she kissed his bleeding lips.
Over the monster's face dawned a sudden smile--a smile joyous as the
aurora borealis, sad as the depths it was, but it transformed the Grand
Duke's hideous face. It chased away his violence. The wild, rugged
features became more harmonious; the brutal mouth endeavored to assume a
gentle expression.
"Nothing, nothing, my love!" he replied, in the voice of a lion
caressing its mate. "Now, now, do not cry. Don't be frightened!"--his
voice growing lower and lower. "There is nothing the matter."
"Oh, but your lips are bleeding. Your tooth is broken."
And she tried to stanch the blood with her handkerchief.
"It is not broken clean out," growled Constantine. "Only the crown of
it. And the devil take the crown!"
"Why, your Highness," put in Galban, beginning to take part in the
conversation, which had assumed so much milder a tone, "do you say, 'May
the devil take the crown'?"
"At present it is only the crown of my tooth that is under discussion,"
returned the Viceroy, emphatically, in somewhat trembling tones. "Go you
to Araktseieff, Chevalier Galban, and rest awhile after the fatigues of
the journey. We shall have time for our talk after dinner. Before I have
eaten and drunk I am in no mood to talk over state matters. Do not spoil
my appetite. _Zdravtvijtjé!_ And as for you, bring that
good-for-nothing here as soon as he has come to himself. I will try a
couple of good boxes on the ear to see if his teeth are set like mine.
The scoundrel! If I had not been holding my pipe pretty firmly between
my teeth the mouth-piece would have pierced through my jugular--"
"Oh, don't!" stammered his wife, in superstitious dread, laying her
trembling hands over the Grand Duke's mouth.
He, pressing a kiss upon the palm of her outstretched hand, threw his
arm round her waist, and she, nestling up to him, they retired to their
inner apartments, leaving Chevalier Galban standing in the hall.
"So you really would grieve if I were brought to you one day dead, run
through the chest to my back?"
"Oh, do not say such things!" exclaimed she, making the sign of the
cross over the spot to which Constantine pointed. And to smother such
fearful words she shut his mouth with a long, fervent kiss.
"Child!" murmured the monster, and, taking his wife's head between his
two hands, like a bear hugging the head of a lamb, he looked into her
eyes. "Child! Does it not go against you to kiss my mouth? Do not the
fumes of tobacco disgust you?"
With an innocent glance, she answered:
"I suppose every man's mouth emits the same smell of tobacco. I remember
my father's did."
At these words the monster pressed her with such force to himself as
though he would stifle her in his embrace.
"Oh, wondrous child! She knows neither the lies nor the flatteries of a
court lady. She does not tell me that my breath is ambrosian. She only
knows that it was so when her father kissed her, and therefore the lips
of every man must be the same! Wife of mine, my father was as hideous as
I am, and his wife loved him as dearly as you do me. And yet he was as
repulsive as I."
"You cannot tell what you are like."
"Oh yes, I know. My mother used to tell me. She loved me best of all her
children; spoiled me; allowed me my own way in everything. When my
brothers and sisters used to complain about it, she would say, 'Let him
alone. It is because he has his father's ugliness that I love him so.'
But I am a bad man too, and that my father never was. True, he was
hot-headed, and a blow was as quick as a word with him; but I am savage
by instinct. I am bad because I like it."
"That is not true. Who says so?"
"I say it myself. Often when I come home with an inch of cane in my
hand, having broken it on the backs of all who have come in my way, I
feel as if I could break the rest of it on my own head." Here, for the
first time noticing that the broken cane still hung from his wrist by
the strap, he flung it hastily from him.
"No, no, dear," said his wife, "it is that bad men exasperate you to
wrath. You have to do with rough people who are stupid and cunning, and
that irritates you. If they were good you would treat them kindly."
The monster stroked his wife's cheeks with caressing hand.
"And you really believe that I am good? Wonderful! I should have thought
I had done enough to give proof to the contrary. I thought I was a very
devil."
Meanwhile his wife had coaxed the monster to her dressing-room, and,
sitting him down before the toilet-table, had been busily occupied by
the aid of all manner of brushes and combs in bringing hair and beard
into something like order. Then she bathed his hot, dusty face with
lily water, and stuck court-plaster over the cut on his mouth.
"Am I a pretty boy now?" said he, with the look of a child who has just
had his face washed.
"That you always are to me. But to-day you will have strangers dining
with you."
"True. And, moreover, grand gentlemen from St. Petersburg--from our
Russian Paris. Of course they are accustomed to smart folk, so make me
smart. How do we know whether these Frenchified gentlemen will like your
Polish cookery? You make light of it, after the manner of women-folk,
and then they'll praise it."
"Do you wish me to appear at the table?"
"Of course. Why not? Even were the Czar himself my guest! Are you not my
own little wife? Come, answer; are you not my very own little wife?"
She answered a timid "Yes."
"I would not advise any one who values sound limbs in his body to
presume to look down upon you, Excellency or no Excellency!" cried the
Viceroy, wrathfully, menacing his own face with his fists in the glass.
"True, this Araktseieff was devoted hand and foot to my father--he
followed him about like a dog. Yet, for all that, I'd rather know him to
be safe on the island which Kotzebue named after him, in the Yellow Sea,
than here."
"Why, dearest?" asked his wife, as she tied and arranged the Grand
Duke's necktie.
"Oh, women have nothing to do with state secrets," he answered, as he
strove to twirl the ends of his mustache evenly--an attempt in which all
his efforts were unavailing, for one side would not keep together. Woe
to the private if the Grand Duke's eyes lighted on an ill-waxed
mustache! "I only tell you he may esteem himself a lucky man if I have
no cane at hand during our interview."
"Oh, don't terrify me, dearest!"
"I was only joking. May I not have my bit of fun? Well, are we ready
now? I am hungry. I have been working all the morning like any
corporal."
"We will go, then. Won't you choose out one of your sticks?"
In every room of the palace where the Grand Duke went, even in his
wife's dressing-room, stood a couple of sticks; and it was as much as
any one's life was worth to move them from where he placed them.
"A stick? For what? I am not lame."
"No; but to chastise the culprit, he who ran you into such danger. You
might have been killed. He well deserves to be punished."
"Does he, really? Well, then, you choose one. What, this good, stout
one? Ah, that won't break so easily. So you feel more for me than for
the man who injured me? Come, that is a rare trait in your sex. Women
usually expend their sympathy on the guilty. Now, then, let us be off."
Johanna took Constantine's left arm; the stick was in his right hand. In
the armory hall the delinquent, with head bound up and swollen cheeks,
was awaiting sentence. He trembled like a dog when he saw the Grand Duke
in the doorway.
"You scoundrel!" snorted the monster, swishing his cane threateningly
through the air. "You deserve a good sound hiding! Can you not look out
when you are driving? So you have got badly hurt? There, take these five
rubles--buy yourself doctor's stuff with them. Gallows bird! What, you
limp! Then take the stick to walk with, you good-for-nothing!"
And he passed on with his wife.
A monster arm in arm with his good genius!
"Humph!" growled the Grand Duke. "It is odd. You have discovered the
better self within me; and now it almost seems as if I, too, were
sensible of it."
The two gentlemen were already in the dining-hall. There were no other
guests. The Viceroy was not particularly hospitable; nor had he much
occasion to exercise that virtue, for the people over whom he ruled came
but seldom to the palace. But they must stand high in favor who were
allowed to sit at his table when his wife, Johanna, was present.
Araktseieff was one of these privileged ones. The two men had seen each
other shed tears--once only, and no other eye had witnessed it. The
occasion was when first they met after Czar Paul's death. The faithful
follower loved the dead man as fondly as did the monster. Others
breathed a sigh of relief when the grave closed over him. The world was
rid of a burden! The assassins were pardoned; some even attained to high
positions as generals. Two men only never forgave them--Grand Duke
Constantine and Araktseieff. When, at Austerlitz, the French surrounded
General Bennigsen, Constantine charged them like a Berserker, at the
head of a company of Dragoon Guards, and, with the daring of a wild
animal, rescued him from their midst, only to call out later to him, "I
have saved your life, and you were one of my father's assassins!" It was
this common hatred which enabled him to "suffer" Araktseieff. He
"suffered" him. And that meant a great deal with him. Moreover,
Araktseieff was a minister who could be beaten--be sent away--and yet
who always came back again.
"_Zdravtazjtye!_" was the Grand Duke's salutation to his guests. "One
can still talk Russian with you, eh? You have not grown into
full-fledged Frenchmen? Kiss my wife's hand!"
Chevalier Galban carried out this injunction with all a courtier's
grace. Araktseieff, with the unction characteristic of the genuine
Russian peasant, pressing the lady's hand with both of his to his lips,
amid many long-winded compliments, finally ending up with an amorous
sigh.
"Ah! the sight of this domestic happiness, this 'sweet home,' reminds me
of my own home."
Johanna alone was unconscious of the deep affront hidden in these words.
But her very unconsciousness incensed the Grand Duke the more; his face
crimsoned with wrath. It was well that he had but now made a present of
his cane, else it would emphatically have expressed on Araktseieff's
back, "My good man, this is not Daimona!"
"Don't talk bosh!" growled the imperial host; "but toss off a glass of
schnapps in good Russian style. I can't stand your foreign fads and
fashions--French compliments and German maunderings. I never could learn
a foreign language. I dare say you well remember, Araktseieff, the sort
of school-boy I made! My poor tutor! When he used to try to impress on
me to work hard, I would answer him, 'What for? You are always learning
and learning, and are only an usher, after all!'"
"Better still was the answer your Imperial Highness gave to your
professor of geography: 'I do not learn geography; I make it!'"
"All very fine. But you see I do not make it."
"All in good time."
"Shut up. Here comes the soup; set to work, and don't talk. And keep
silence, gentlemen, while my wife says grace; she does the praying for
me. And now, no serious subjects during dinner. Anecdotes are allowed,
drinking is a duty, swearing is not forbidden; but he who makes a coarse
speech in presence of my wife must straightway make full apology to her.
If you get short commons, I must beg you, in my wife's name, to excuse
it; she was not prepared for guests. That our fare is strictly
national--Russian and Polish--needs no excuse. I cannot abide French
cookery; their names are enough to my ears, let alone the kickshaws
themselves to my digestion! And as for my wife, they are positively
injurious to her!"
Chevalier Galban had his word to say:
"Oh, French cooks are swells among us just now. The family 'Robert' are
quite aristocrats in St. Petersburg; it confers nobility to possess one
of them in one's household. His French cook is a greater personage than
the Czar himself; for he makes out the Czar's daily menu, and suffers no
supervision in his domain. He is a more important man than the family
physician, for he rules strong and weak alike. What he refuses to serve
up is unobtainable. M. Robert does what the Polish Senate alone was
empowered to do when the 'niepozwolim' was yet in fashion. If his master
sends word that he desires this or that dish that day at table, M.
Robert meets him with his _liberum veto_, which in French implies, '_Ça
n'existe pas!_' Quite recently Prince Narishkin sent for his cook, that
he might repeat to him by word of mouth his written refusal to prepare a
blanc-mange for the dinner-table."
"What, did he give an audience to the fellow?"
"Yes; and M. Robert repeated his refusal verbally. The Prince began
giving him a piece of his mind, when the _chef_, rising on his heels,
said, 'Sir, you forget to whom you are speaking!'"
"The devil! And what was the end of the story?"
"Well, the Prince went without his blanc-mange."
"Ah, ah! That would just suit me. I should be for eating up the cook
instead of his dishes."
Chevalier Galban was a capital talker; he took the chief burden of the
conversation upon himself.
"A funny thing happened at St. Petersburg a few days ago, at Prince
Popradoff's, who has a French cook, and a French tutor for the children.
The cook was but so-so; the tutor no great pedagogue. All of a sudden
the cook was taken ill, and confusion reigned. The tutor offered his
services, saying he knew a little about cookery, and he was forthwith
despatched to the kitchen, where he sent up seven excellent dinners.
Meanwhile the sick cook offered to carry on the little prince's tuition,
and he made surprising progress. To make a long story short, both
confessed to have only taken their situations from necessity, and, in
fact, to have changed departments."
"And the Prince had not found it out? You must tell that story to my
wife, more in detail, when you go into the drawing-room. Let us now
speak of more important things. How was my august brother the Emperor
Alexander, Araktseieff, when you left him?"
As he named the Czar the Grand Duke had risen, in which action he was
followed by the others.
"I regret, your Highness, to be unable to give a satisfactory answer to
that question."
"What is the matter, then, with his Majesty my brother? Eh? Or can you
not speak out before my wife? All right. You do well not to startle her.
You shall tell me when we are alone. And how is her Majesty the Czarina
Elisabeth? Are there any unpleasantnesses between them? If you have no
good news to give, better say nothing before my wife. Do not trouble
her."
Araktseieff, in the face of this caution, found it wiser to lick his
fingers and say nothing.
"It's always the case when a man marries too young!" resumed the Grand
Duke, picking his teeth with his two-pronged fork. "I found that out
myself, and had cause to repent it. Well, thank Heaven, that's past! I
had work enough before I could obtain a separation from my first wife.
But we won't talk of that before my wife. After all, it was I who was in
fault; I who was to blame. A woman who could put up with me is as rare
as a comet. And how does the world wag with you, Galban; have you got
caught yet? Who is the unlucky woman who calls you husband? If I were
the Czar I would levy a tax upon all such bachelors as you. The
old-bachelor tax! Lucky for you that I shall never come to the throne."
"Your Highness! It was an understood thing that we touched upon no
serious subjects at table," observed Araktseieff, deferentially.
"Yes; you are right. I was infringing the rule. To make amends, let us
empty our glasses to my wife's health."
The men's three glasses clinked together, then touched the fourth,
extended to them by a white hand, while the fiery Tokay moistened a
delicate red lip. Dinner was over, dessert on the table. The Grand Duke
only took hazelnuts, which he cracked with his teeth. The first three he
laid on Johanna's plate.
For the first time since she sat down to dinner she spoke, and then but
in a whisper.
"Oh, please be careful about your teeth. You might break away another
crown!"
"That may be!" said the Grand Duke, leaning his elbows on the table, and
darting a quick glance from under his bushy eyebrows at Araktseieff, who
understood it. Then Constantine kissed his wife's forehead.
"Now leave us, darling. Have coffee served on the terrace, and take the
Chevalier with you. He likes to end up dinner with his coffee in French
fashion. While we, like good Poles, will sit over our wine a little
longer."
On this Johanna, rising, took the Chevalier's arm, and, followed by a
footman carrying the silver coffee equipage, left the dining-hall.
The two men, left alone, applied themselves to the wine, filling up
their glasses a fourth time with golden Tokay.
"To the health of my august brother the Czar!"
They drained their glasses and refilled them.
"In truth, the Czar stands in sore need of that fervent aspiration!"
quoth Araktseieff, with a deep sigh.
"What! is he seriously ill, then? What ails him?"
"He is suffering from the malady hardest to cure--melancholia. All the
doctors' arts are of no avail. For months together the Czar gets no
sleep, save a short, unrefreshing siesta at noon. By night and day he is
tortured by all kinds of fancies. He is weary of life; and what wonder?
Wherever he looks he sees nothing but ruin and decay in all that which
he so painfully built up. The dreams he cherished are dispelled. Every
institution for promoting liberty of thought and action which he called
into life has he been himself compelled, one by one, to annul and
abolish. And he has no spirit or energy left to pull himself together
and devise new schemes. He feels that he has aroused disaffection, and
has not the moral strength to become a tyrant and quell that
disaffection. He knows himself to be surrounded by assassins, and has
not energy to take firm hold of the only weapon which remains to him.
Moreover, his domestic happiness is ruined. Your Imperial Highness knows
the catastrophe. The Czar's spirit is clouded by the weight of religious
depression; he looks upon himself as an irremediable sinner, condemned
alike by God and man. Shudderingly surveying the fatality, he is
hurrying it on. A mental condition such as this must in the end
undermine the strongest constitution. The slightest indisposition might
prove fatal at any moment; and he takes not the slightest care of
himself. He will suffer no physician about him, and keeps his ailments
secret. It is my firm belief that in his heart is the seat of disease,
and that the heart is wounded to death."
"My poor brother!" muttered the Grand Duke, resting his head on his
hand. "That noble, powerful fellow, by whose side I was at the victory
of Leipsic, when he concluded peace with Napoleon on the island in the
Niemen, and in the triumphal entry into Paris; and in Vienna, at the
Congress; and wherever we went I heard people whisper, 'There he is,
that splendid-looking man beside the deformed one!' Light and shadow; we
were their true exponents."
"We must be prepared for the worst. The feeble flame which still feeds
that light needs but a breath to extinguish it, and then the whole
country will be given up to most terrible anarchy. The ground is
undermined by countless conspiracies; we are menaced on all sides. Who
can withstand the flood when the gates of heaven are opened? The Czar
has no children. Who is to succeed him?"
"He whom the Czar appoints."
"And supposing he appoints no one? It is, indeed, impossible to get him
to do so. The law, he says, speaks plainly enough--it is the Czarevitch
who succeeds the Czar."
The Grand Duke burst into a loud laugh. He threw himself back in his
chair in his fit of laughter; he laughed till his open jaws disclosed
two rows of teeth like those of a yawning lion.
"Ha, ha, ha! That's a good one--the Czarevitch! No, my friend, he is
much obliged; he would rather not sit on the throne! You don't catch me
wearing Ivan's diamond crown!"
"Why not, your Highness?"
"Because I prefer to see your ribbon across your back than about my
throat!"
Czar Paul had been strangled by his adjutant's ribbon.
"What are you thinking of, your Highness?"
"Of my father--and of my people. I should be a pretty fellow for the St.
Petersburgers! Last year, when my illustrious brother the Czar, thinking
himself in a bad way, was graciously pleased to command my presence, and
I repaired to the capital, Hui! there was a panic! They began to take
steps to appoint me his successor. As soon as I showed my face in the
streets they were cleared in a trice. People took refuge in doorways
rather than salute me. Ah! how they flocked into the churches! The
sacristan had never had so many kopecs in his alms-bag as while I was in
St. Petersburg. The priests almost dragged the angels by the feet out
from heaven in their fervent supplications for the Czar's recovery. They
sketched a caricature of my profile, with my huge nose, at every street
corner, with all manner of slanders beneath it! And when it pleased
Providence to restore my imperial brother so far that he could drive out
again, there were rejoicings. The people thronged round his carriage,
hardly allowing the horses room to plant their feet, and almost buried
him under flowers. And all this to show their hatred to me. Not that
they loved him, but because they dreaded me. You just now said that even
he is surrounded on all sides by assassins; but the difference is that
they would despatch him to heaven, me to hell. They believe they would
find in me the son of my father--a man with iron hand for their iron
necks, as was my sainted father."
"And that is what they need! The Russian's iron neck only bends to the
hand of iron."
"Well, let them have it; but Heaven preserve me from them, and them from
me!"
"But every true man sets his hopes upon your Highness!"
"Eh! Time enough for that. But why are we talking such folly? Why should
I survive him? I am but eighteen months his junior. Fill your glass.
Long life to my brother his Majesty, the Czar! And what else brings you
hither? We will speak no more of that."
"I came with a commission from his Imperial Majesty. It is his pleasure
that the succession be now settled. The Czar has no heir."
"Well, no more have I! But one may be on the way--as you see I have
recently married."
"So I see; but only left-handed. A morganatic marriage."
"So far. But as soon as my wife bears me a child I will make her my
legitimate wife."
"That is not possible to your Highness."
"Why not?"
"Because your Highness's first wife, Anna Feodorovna, is still living."
"But the Synod has granted me a separation, and she has already
renounced the name of Anna Feodorovna and resumed that of Juliana of
Saxe-Coburg; moreover, my fresh marriage was entered upon with the
sanction of the Czar."
"But it was only a left-handed marriage."
"Then we will convert it into a right-handed one."
"That is impossible. In the State Archives is a ukase of Czar Alexander
to the effect that _only women descending from reigning families may be
raised to the imperial throne_, and the descendants of those who are not
of royal birth may not inherit the throne."
"Then when I--which Heaven forbid--come to the throne I will promulgate
another ukase annulling that one."
"But there is a further obstacle, which not even the Czar's ukase can
overcome. Your Highness is aware that _a woman may not ascend the
imperial throne unless she be of the Orthodox faith_. Does your Highness
believe that Johanna Grudzinska would abjure the Roman Catholic faith
for a crown?"
"Not for all the crowns in Europe! The heart of that woman is so stanch
that she would scarce change a horse grown old in her service for a
young one! Still less would she change her religion. I would not advise
any one to try it on her."
"And there is yet another still greater obstacle than even that of
religion--society. Is St. Petersburg society to be exiled from the
Czar's palace? Johanna Grudzinska may be a very angel of light, but she
would by no means make a Czarina whom the Ghedimins, Narishkins,
Trubetzuois, Muravieffs, and whatever all their names may be, would be
willing to acknowledge to stand on a par with themselves, still less to
whom they may pay allegiance."
"Then let them keep it."
"What does your Highness mean by that?"
"A very simple meaning. Let them keep their crown. I keep my wife!"
"Your Highness does not mean that in earnest?"
"In thorough earnest and in cold blood," said the Grand Duke, laying his
hand on Araktseieff's arm. "All my life through I had never known what
it was to be loved. I verily believe that the nurse who nursed me
thrashed me for being such a piece of deformity. Not even a dog have I
ever been able to attach to me. Look where I will, I see that every one
shrinks back from me. My very voice, which I try in vain to moderate, is
rough and grating, as if I were perpetually scolding. I have never heard
an endearing epithet since I was out of the nursery. And suddenly Fate,
like a blind hen, casts in my way a pearl of women, a tender soul who
loves me with all her being. She does not say it, she feels it--nay, she
lets me feel it. She lives in me like the very soul and thought of me.
The little good there is in me she awakens and makes me reconciled to
myself. She alone of all the world has brought sunshine into my dark
life. When I am ill she nurses me; when I am violent she pacifies me.
She is my better self! And do you believe that I would renounce her for
any prize the earth could give? That for any throne in the whole world I
would exchange this easy-chair where she has sat nestling up to me? Ah,
what fools you must be to think it!"
"Your Highness! I have long made the human mind an object of study, and
it is not new to find that love is the most powerful factor we have to
deal with on earth. It is strong, but not lasting. To-day your Highness
may be feeling as you say; but the human heart is as variable as the
sky; and earth, the fatherland, is its antipodes. To-day we may feel as
though we had cast away a whole paradise of bliss in descending from
heaven to earth; to-morrow we discover that our supposed heaven was but
a cloud which glistened in the sun and disappeared, leaving 'not a wrack
behind.' Earth, on the contrary, remains firm beneath our feet; it never
loses its power of gravity. What? Could your Imperial Highness stand by
with folded arms and see the whole monarchy, a prey to the flames, sink
into ashes at your feet, that your head might rest undisturbed on the
lap of the woman you love?"
"Well, and even then?"
"Even then? Even in that case I have my clear instructions. Your
Highness is the master of your own future. But the Russian Empire is the
master of its own fate. If the Czarevitch prizes the prosaic domestic
life of a citizen higher than the maintenance of the empire he has
received from his ancestors, I have yet one other proposition to make to
him. His Majesty the Czar will elevate the morganatic wife of the
Czarevitch, Johanna Grudzinska, to the rank of a Polish princess, with
the family name of 'Lovicz'! In perpetual lien he will make over to her
the royal Lovicz domain of Masover Voivodeship upon the Grand Duke
declaring her to be his legitimate wife; her children to be Princes of
Lovicz and heirs to their mother's kingdom, with the rank of Russian
bojars--_in virtue of which Grand Duke Constantine will resign the title
of Czarevitch and the right of succession to the Russian Empire, for
himself and his heirs, forever, in favor of his brother_."
Constantine struck the table emphatically with his fist.
"Rather to-day than to-morrow!"
"I entreat your Highness not to reply too hastily! The sky is ever
changing; not so the earth. I am convinced of the truth of your Imperial
Highness's words; but a short delay cannot be of any vital importance.
Let your Highness try absence from the lady, say, for a week or a month.
Or send her for a time, as in truth her delicate health requires, to Ems
or Carlsbad. Separate yourself from her, so that you are not seeing each
other daily, hourly; that she may not always be your centre, but that
you may both come in contact with other people, other surroundings,
other interests--"
"And do you suppose that absence, whether longer or shorter, could
estrange us from one another?"
"It is an old story, yet ever new."
"That one short month could suffice to cause some new face to blot out
the other from our hearts? You are a fool, man!"
"It is but giving it a trial."
"I may do it! But I tell you beforehand that you will find yourself
mistaken. Do not dream for an instant that your plan will be successful.
We do not stumble, like ordinary mortals. For a woman to love me is akin
to madness--it is incredible! But once to love me is never to part from
me! And to expect me to forget that woman is an absurdity. Then, of a
truth, should I be the blind fowl pecking at a grain of oats instead of
the pearl before her. Is the Act of Renunciation ready? Of course you
have brought it with you? Give it here. To-day, to-morrow, or as long as
my life lasts, you will receive from me but the one answer--'I will sign
it.'"
"Let us agree to delay the decision, your Highness. The subject in
question is no child's play; nor is it the fighting down any youthful
love affair. Let your Imperial Highness weigh well what you are
renouncing--the nineteen crowns of Russia! From Ivan Alexievitch's
crown, inlaid with its nine hundred brilliants, to the simple 'cap' of
Peter the Great; the Novgorod crown with the Deissus, crown of the
Republic, worn by Ruric; the Astrakhan cap of Michael Feodorvitch; the
Siberian hat of Fedor Alexievitch; lastly, the ancient, most sacred
relic, the crown of Monomachos, who dates from legendary times. And
would my illustrious chief renounce all this splendor for the sake of a
'woman's charms'?"
Here the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Chevalier
Galban, who appeared in the doorway humming a ballet air.
"Well, Galban," shouted the Grand Duke, as he appeared, "how do you like
the Belvedere?"
"Grand!" returned the Chevalier, "and, moreover, an _impregnable
fortress_!" The two last words were directed to Araktseieff, accompanied
with a meaning look. Possibly the Grand Duke intercepted it, for with
sharp intonation he repeated:
"An impregnable fortress? I did not know that you concerned yourself
with the storming of fortresses among other things."
"Oh yes," retorted the Chevalier, in a tone equally sarcastic. "I have
had the good-fortune to succeed in storming many a castle hitherto held
to be impregnable."
Araktseieff here cut short the allegory by interposing, abruptly:
"I know the castles in the taking of which you have won your
spurs--Château Lafitte and Château Margot!"--both well-known Bordeaux
wines--at which the Grand Duke, with a laugh, rose from the table.