MADAME POTIPHAR
At the appointed hour Pushkin presented himself at Villa Ghedimin, and
was passed on from one footman to another, until he finally arrived at
Korynthia's boudoir.
The Princess was a handsome woman; but to-day she wanted to surpass
herself. The feminine fashions of that day were very becoming. The
pale-golden silk, fine as any from the loom, thrown lightly about her
head, enhanced the gold of her waving hair, arranged in a classic coil,
and threw up her complexion; as did the soft Brussels lace the whiteness
of her neck and arms. Her shoulder-straps even were set with yellow
diamonds, and, coquettishly placed between the lace, a pale yellow
tea-rose diffused its delicate perfume. Her whole being betrayed an
agitation unusual to her. She blushed and smiled as Pushkin entered. And
both blushes and smiles repeated themselves during the greeting and
exchange of customary courtesies. Then she signed him to a chair, while
she seated herself upon a silken divan opposite to him, and opened the
conversation.
"I have shed as many tears over your lovely poem as though I had been
myself to the Baktshisseraj Well of Tears."
"I am rejoiced that the heroine of my lay should have won your
sympathy, Princess. For in her I impersonated my betrothed, Sophie
Narishkin."
Oh, what a change passed over her face!
Her cheeks aflame with anger, her eyebrows arched like bows, her eyes
shooting out arrows of fire.
"You desire to marry Sophie Narishkin?" she cried, passionately.
"Impossible!"
"I think it, on the contrary, very possible, seeing that our wedding is
already fixed for the 21st of June."
"In a week? Has the betrothal been already announced, then?"
"No! A dispensation has been granted for our marriage."
Springing from her divan, the Princess gasped:
"Impossible! Impossible!"
Pushkin retained his seat. He was not easily frightened by any man--or
woman either. So he answered, calmly:
"But, my dear Princess, what objection can you have to it?"
Korynthia saw that she had suffered her impetuosity to carry her too
far. So, commanding herself, she resumed her seat and made as if fanning
herself from the heat.
"He who advised you to this was no friend of yours!" she hissed out.
"It was the Czar!"
Korynthia, shutting her fan, put it to her lips. After a short silence
she said:
"You know, then, that the Czar is Sophie's father?"
"I have divined it."
"And have you also divined the future which awaits you in marrying a
daughter of the Czar? You will be banished from the society in which you
have hitherto lived; the circles into which you will try to force
yourself will hold you in contempt. As long as the Czar lives you will
be a prisoner in the glittering cage of the court, deprived of
free-will; an unhappy man, born to enlighten others, condemned to be the
shadow of a man! At the death of the Czar you may be appointed to a
governorship in the Caucasus or on the Amur."
"Princess! I shall neither become a prisoner at court nor governor of
Kamchatka. My wife will accompany me to my little estate of Pleskow,
where I mean to be sometime farmer, sometime poet."
"You do not love the girl. Vanity alone has led you to this step."
Pushkin never took a blow unrequited--even from a woman.
"Princess, did you know her you would know that it were impossible not
to love her!"
The Princess bit her lips until they bled. It was a cruel thrust.
Quickly upon it followed a second.
"Sophie has only inherited her father's sweetness of disposition;
nothing of her mother."
The Princess rose. She could bear it no longer. Her face was deathly
pale, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous light. Going up to Pushkin, she
seized his hand as she whispered:
"Has the Czar also confided to you the name of Sophie's mother?"
"Never!"
"Have you heard it from any one else?"
"From no one who had a right to know it."
"Come, then, sit down by me," gasped the Princess, convulsively
clutching Pushkin's arm, and drawing him on to the divan beside her.
"Listen to me! I will make a confession to you. What I have hitherto
told to none but the Patriarch I will confess to you." Sobs choked her
voice; then violently tearing the lace handkerchief with which she had
dried her tears, she continued, "Even to my husband I have never dared
to say what I now tell to you: _I am Sophie Narishkin's mother!_"
Pushkin, of course, appeared to be intensely surprised at this
discovery.
"You be my judge," continued the Princess, as she threw back the
gossamer covering from her shoulders. She drew a long breath. "I was but
a child, scarce sixteen; my parents dead. I met a man whom all conspired
to worship. The aunt who brought me up was a vain, ambitious woman, and
had made me equally so. Every one about me counselled me to return his
love, telling me that he was unhappy for cause of me. They sought out
old records of how Czars who had not loved their wives had sent them
into convents, and had raised others, more beloved, to share the
imperial throne. Flattery, ambition, inexperience, youthful fancy,
turned my head, and I--fell. Ah, how low I fell! So low that my whole
life since has been one expiation! Still, I never relinquished hope; I
ever believed that the man who had wronged me would come one day to
raise me from shame to splendor. I implored him; I knelt in the dust at
his feet. Then he published the ukase that only the daughters of
reigning families might be raised to the throne of Russia--that was the
answer to my dreams! In the depths of my despair a man in my own rank of
life came and asked my hand. True, he had no love to give me, but he
gave me his name; I, too, had no love to give him, but I have borne his
name honorably and spotlessly before the world. And now there suddenly
breaks upon me the dreaded catastrophe which for sixteen long years has
been my nightly terror: Sophie Narishkin will marry, and people will be
asking, 'But who is this Sophie Narishkin? Who is her father--who is her
mother?"
"You may make yourself at ease on that score, Princess. The wedding will
be conducted in all privacy by the Patriarch of Solowetshk in the Chapel
of Peter the Great on Petrovsky Island. After the wedding not a soul
will see the young couple in St. Petersburg, or speak about them."
This consolation was poison to the heart of the Princess. Would she see
Pushkin no more, then?
"But why this feverish haste? The girl is but a child, scarce sixteen
years old!"
"Princess," returned Pushkin, mournfully, "we do not reckon time by
years, but by the griefs we endure; and by that computation Sophie has
already lived a long life. Sixteen years of confinement, banishment,
unrecognized by any one--sixteen years without knowing a loving word or
ray of brightness should count for age enough! It is just this dream of
happiness that is keeping the poor child in life. Sophie is a
somnambulist on this earth. To awaken would be to kill her!"
"So it is a spirit of magnanimous self-sacrifice which binds you to
her--you are not in love with her?"
"I worship her; am hers forever."
"I see. Permit me to meditate over the subject. This news has taken me
so by surprise that I can give you no answer at present. Can this
marriage not be delayed?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"The Czar is going on a journey--it may be a long--very long journey. He
will shortly hold a great review of the guards, and then start. But of
this Prince Ghedimin can inform you better than I. At any rate, it is
the Czar's pleasure that our marriage takes place before he leaves."
"Then at least allow me to defer my answer to the last moment. I have so
much to say to you; do give me as long a time as you can. Come again on
the twentieth, and even then not until dusk, so that your coming may not
attract attention. In order to enter unperceived--you will readily
understand why I should not wish a visit from Sophie's bridegroom, on
the very eve of his wedding-day, to be publicly known--take this key. It
belongs to the door of the veranda which opens on to the park. Thence,
by a spiral staircase, you ascend direct to my apartments. We can then
talk over various matters undisturbed, which you ought to know."
Pushkin put the key intrusted to him in his pocket, and, kissing the
Princess's hand, took leave, Korynthia giving him the farewell kiss on
his lips and accompanying him to the door of her room.
From this we glean that the Russian scientist was right in his remarks
upon "degenerated cats"--at least, as far as this woman is concerned.