THE REBELLION OF THE
PRINCESS
OTHER BOOKS
BY M. IMLAY TAYLOR
[Illustration]
_On the Red Staircase_
_The House of the Wizard_
_The Cardinal’s Musketeer_
_An Imperial Lover_
_A Yankee Volunteer_
_Anne Scarlett_
_The Cobbler of Nimes_
_Little Mistress Goodhope and Other Fairy Tales_
The Rebellion of
the Princess
_By_
M. Imlay Taylor
[Illustration]
M^c.Clure, Phillips & Co.
New York
1903
COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
Published, March, 1903, R
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE MAJOR-DOMO’S WHIP, 1
II. THE MINIATURE, 14
III. THE BOYAR KURAKIN, 23
IV. THE MAKING OF A FRIEND, 35
V. THE PRINCESS DARIA, 45
VI. THE DWARF, 56
VII. THE SUMMONS, 66
VIII. THE GREAT CZAREVNA, 73
IX. I MAKE A PRISONER, 81
X. IN THE GARDEN OF THE KREMLIN, 89
XI. THE PLOT THICKENS, 98
XII. ADVOTIA AS AN INTERPRETER, 104
XIII. THE TOCSIN, 110
XIV. A DESPERATE CLIMB, 121
XV. THE PRINCESS AND THE CZAREVNA, 129
XVI. THE PAINTED GALLERY, 138
XVII. CROWNED WITH RUE, 147
XVIII. AN HOUR OF PERIL, 155
XIX. AT NIGHTFALL, 163
XX. THE ESCAPE, 174
XXI. THE STEWARD’S REVENGE, 182
XXII. A DRUNKEN ORGY, 189
XXIII. A SPRIG OF RUE, 199
XXIV. GALITSYN, 206
XXV. MICHAUD’S REPENTANCE, 216
XXVI. MALUTA BUYS TWO SOULS, 224
XXVII. “IS IT THOU?” 234
XXVIII. THE HUT ON THE ROAD, 243
XXIX. A DUEL WITH SWORDS, 254
XXX. THE PRINCE VORONIN, 261
XXXI. VASSALISSA, 268
XXXII. THE MAN WITH THE PURPLE SCAR, 277
XXXIII. I SOW DISSENSION, 285
XXXIV. A BOYAR’S FUNERAL, 293
XXXV. THE DWARF AND I, 301
XXXVI. THE PRINCESS, 309
XXXVII. THE WOMAN, 316
THE REBELLION OF THE
PRINCESS
_I: THE MAJOR-DOMO’S WHIP_
FROM my post at the window I could look down upon the court-yard of
the palace of the Boyar Kurakin. Although it was early in May, it was
a cold day in Moscow, and the sun shone obliquely into the yard, cut
off as it was by the walls of two houses. The black mud of winter
had not dried off the centre of the court, and there was ice in the
corner by the water-butts, and ice hung, too, on the north side of the
roof, under the eaves, like the ragged beard of the old man of the
north, Moroz Treskun, or the Crackling Frost, as the moujik names him,
while above, around the great chimney, a group of ravens were huddled
together in the sun, preening their plumage and croaking now and then
in a solemn fashion.
The boyar’s house was large, and shaped like a Greek cross, the kitchen
and the servants’ quarters opening on the court, which was crowded now
with the serfs, for the steward of the household was giving one of
the varlets a taste of the whip. The doors and windows of the kitchen
gaped wide, filled with curious spectators; some, I fancied, half in
sympathy with the poor rogue who squealed under the lash, and others
applauding the major-domo, whether from fear or love I knew not. He was
a burly fellow with a red head and a short, red-bearded, fierce-eyed
countenance, and had the serf by the waistband with one giant hand and
with the other he laid the whip on his bare back, leaving a long welt
across the brown flesh with every cut. The slave howled and writhed,
the whip cracked, the spectators applauded or jeered, as fancy seized
them, and then, quite suddenly, there was a diversion.
The water-butts were in the corner at the steward’s back, and a
dwarf darted out from behind them, quick as a wasp, and cut at the
major-domo’s calves with a leather thong and was back under cover
before the big man could wheel around. And he, thinking that he had
cut his own legs with the long end of his lash, and furious at the
titter of the servants, laid it on the poor serf with redoubled venom
until the blood ran. Meanwhile the dwarf executed a weird dance of
triumph on the ice by the water-butts, mocking the steward in dumb
show, and beating an imaginary victim, his thin cheeks blown out and
his brows knotted, to the delight of his audience, thus furnished with
a double entertainment. He was one of those wretched little creatures
that haunted Moscow, the playthings and spies of the courtiers, and he
was unusually small, even for a dwarf, with a strange pointed face,
white and three-cornered, like a patch of paper, and with great ears
shaped like the leaves of a linden standing out from his head as if
upon stems; it was by these ears that I always knew him afterwards,
even in the crowd of court midgets. Encouraged by the success and the
private applause, the little wretch darted out again and repeated the
performance of whipping the steward’s legs, while the men and women
held their sides with laughter, because the fat beast danced and swore
and lashed, like one beside himself.
But it was an ill jest for the rogue in his clutches, and, minded
to end their sport, I shouted to him, in Russ, to look behind the
water-butts for the wasp. The fat fool gaped at me in amazement, and
the dwarf, darting from his covert, was running full speed for the
kitchen before he spied him and made after him. But one of the men,
willing to save the little beast, no doubt for the sake of the laugh,
tripped the major-domo as if by accident, and down he went in the mud
of the court-yard, bellowing and splashing like a whale.
I laughed until the tears came into my eyes, and whether he heard me,
or thought I had some hand in it, I know not, but when he got to his
feet, all bedaubed with mud and green slime, he shook his two great
fists at me and shrieked defiance; at which I laughed the more. His
face grew as red as his beard.
“Come down, you dog of a tinsmith!” he shouted, cracking his whip in
the dirt. “Come down, and I’ll take the hide off your back!”
I laughed again; for the life of me, I could not be angry with the
wretch. His burly figure and his impotent rage only aroused my
contempt, and I heeded his threats and his gestures as little as I did
the mirth of the kitchen behind him. I know not how long he would have
continued his pantomime, if it had not been for another attack of his
inveterate enemy. While he was shouting at me I saw the ravens rise
suddenly from the roof with a whir of black wings, and the dwarf came
dancing along on the very verge of the eaves. He had evidently dropped
from the windows of the _terem_, the women’s quarters, which there, as
usual, occupied a separate upper story of wood, which overlooked the
flat roof of the wing. The little creature executed a fandango over the
steward’s head and then suddenly let fly a pebble, with such accurate
aim that he took the fat man fairly under his left ear. He was alive
to dangers now, however, and, discovering his foe, started for the
kitchen-door with a bound, while the dwarf, waiting only for him to
disappear, came sliding down over the edge of the roof, and swinging by
his long arms he dropped, with marvellous agility, on the ledge of the
window below, and from there, swinging again, monkey-fashion, on the
window of the lower story, he finally dropped into the yard, amidst a
burst of applause from the serfs. Meanwhile, the major-domo, arriving
at last at the window over the roof, looked out in baffled fury, and
seeing me still at my post, cursed me in Russ and two or three other
dialects. “O meat for dogs!” he bellowed, “’tis through some signalling
of yours, and I’ll pay you for it! I will--by the beard of the Saint
Nikolas of Mojaïsk! May the black god smite you!”
I shrugged my shoulders and left the window in disgust. So he called me
meat for dogs and a tinsmith; that was the cream of the jest! By Saint
Denis, a tinsmith--I, Jéhan de Marle, Marquis de Cernay, an officer of
the household troops of Louis XIV., King of France, and cousin to the
Duc de Richelieu! Yet, after all, the varlet had some reason for his
gibe, for did I not figure in Moscow as the apprentice of Maître le
Bastien, the goldsmith of Paris? Ah, and thereby hangs a tale!
Twelve months before, my evil star took me to Paris for Easter. I had
been in Normandy, on my estates, and had served in the Palatinate.
Before that I won distinction, under the very eye of the king, at Ghent
and Ypres, and the saying at court was that no service paid out of his
sight, while in it there was such a scramble that Spinola bit the royal
finger--when he saluted the king’s hand--to make his mark among the
herd of sycophants. But, as it happened, the king noticed me without
the bite, though afterwards I paid for the recognition.
It was then scarcely three years after the Peace of Nimequen; France
was on a pinnacle of glory; Strasburg had fallen without a shot, and
Catinet had entered Casale. King Charles the Second of England had
taken his wages with some grumblings, and retired from the war, and the
Prince of Orange had been forced to yield to the Estates of Holland
and conclude the peace; the King of France held a line of towns from
Dunkerque to the Meuse, and Spain was disarmed. Louis had maintained
the war against Europe and was victorious; “singly against all,” as
Louvois said. It was a season of glory and joy for every Frenchman, and
especially for every French soldier.
But what of it? What if fortune seemed to smile, and the rewards of
courage were within my grasp; what of it? I say. My evil star took me
to Paris, and all the world was at the festival. Mme. de Montespan, the
king’s mistress, was at dagger’s point with Mme. de Maintenon, who was
the governess of her children and the rising star, as all the world
knew; for “the Star of Quanto,” as they called Mme. de Montespan, was
near to setting, though she could still afford to lose and win again,
four millions--in one night--at basset.
There also was M. le Vicomte d’Argenson, taken by his evil star--a
deadly evil one it proved--to Paris and to me. He was cousin to Mme. de
Montespan, and as black-hearted a knave as ever wore a velvet coat and
clean ruffles at court, and that, as I would have you know, is saying
much. Ah, well! monsieur and I were in Paris, and ’twas Easter week,
and Mme. de Montbazon gave a ball at the Hôtel de Montbazon. It was one
of the most magnificent fêtes in Paris; wine flowed in the kennel of
the Rue de Bethisi, so they said, and madame gave a silver lily to each
of her guests, while Vatel himself was superintending in the kitchen.
The lily for the young Duchess of Burgundy was of gold set with pearls
and diamonds. The world was there, great and small, and one little maid
from Provence, a dependent of the Princess de Condé, country-bred and
honest, as I chanced to know, although she had an old hag of a mother
who would have sold her soul to make a fine match for her daughter, and
had even been to that great man, Bontemps, the king’s chief valet, to
inquire about the possibilities of securing a rich husband. But that is
neither here nor there.
It all happened at the very height of the ball, and it was thus I lost
my silver lily. I was on the grand staircase, and at the landing was M.
d’Argenson, with a throng of rufflers, waiting for the king. And, at
the moment, as ill luck would have it, the little maid from Provence,
Mlle. Lamoignon, came up the stairs, her face aglow with pleasure and
looking, as I thought, not unlike a Provençal rose herself. Satan
being in the heart of M. le Vicomte, doubtless it was his prompting
that made the man go out, before us all, to meet the child and try to
kiss her; at which she cried out, resisting with all her might, and
the beaux on the landing laughed. M. d’Argenson, being in liquor and
angered, I take it, by the titter behind him, turned on the girl and
grossly insulted her before us all. I was but two steps above them and,
quick as a flash, I caught monsieur by the shoulders, and flinging him
back against the wall with one hand, with the other I slapped my glove
in his face. D’Argenson was a mixture of bully and coward, and had his
sword out in a trice, and was at me, the others crying to us that the
king was coming. But I caught his rapier and, breaking it across my
knee, flung the fragments over the balustrade with a gibe, and he, with
the face of a fury, cursed me, standing on the same step, while little
mademoiselle cowered under my arm like a frightened pigeon.
“Monsieur will pay for it--with blood!” screamed M. le Vicomte, growing
purple above his cravat.
“Pish!” I retorted, laughing in his face. “Jéhan de Cernay cares not
for vermin.”
“Coward!” he said, and struck me on the side where mademoiselle
cowered, so that I could not ward off the blow, and it slanted on my
cheek.
Then the devil rose in me; I thrust her away, and catching him about
the waist, flung him headlong on the stairs, just as the ushers in the
lower hall began to shout, “The king, the king!”
M. de Mazarin and M. de Besanvel, my friends, hustled me off out of
sight, and there was pandemonium on the staircase! Mme. de Montbazon
furious and in tears because of the fracas, Mlle. Lamoignon hysterical,
and M. le Vicomte, with a bruised head and a black eye, shrieking for
vengeance. To make a long story short, the next morning I received
monsieur’s cartel at my lodgings, and being privately warned by
M. de Mazarin that the king was angry and I might look for the
provost-marshal, I lost no time in choosing the hour and the weapons.
We fought that day in the Place Royale with swords. What would you?
I was accounted one of the best swordsmen in France, and I had the
advantage of being indifferent. M. de Besanvel was with me and M. de
Palisot with him. So far my evil star shone propitious and sparkled,
for monsieur’s nerves were unstrung and his head sore.
I remember the scene quite well. The spring was forward; it was
Thursday in Easter week, and the trees were feathery with green and
the violets bloomed. ’Twas afternoon, and long shadows fell aslant
the green turf and the sun was warm. Monsieur, stripped of coat and
waistcoat, confronted me in a white ruffled shirt and trousers of
blue satin, with ruffles of point de Venise, and silk stockings and
red-heeled slippers. I saw his bloodshot eyes and his purple lips, and
we crossed swords, while M. de Besanvel engaged M. de Palisot. It was
not long; I spitted him at the second round--my famous thrust over the
guard--and I saw him die without regret--vermin!
That was the end of it. We left him in the arms of the surgeon and M.
de Palisot, who got but a scratch from Besanvel, and I rode post-haste
from Paris with his majesty’s provost-marshal at my heels--and all for
a girl I did not know. Saint Denis, such is life!
It seemed that Mme. de Montespan, the handsome she-devil, was hot for
my ruin, and would give the king no rest; so Paris would not hold me,
nor Normandy, nor France. In this dilemma I bethought me of Maître le
Bastien, the goldsmith, then on his way to Moscow, summoned thither
by Prince Basil Galitsyn. Maître le Bastien was my father’s friend
and mine, and one whom I had benefited in more ways than one; to him
therefore I went. Was not a journey to Russia and, mayhap, an adventure
or two, better than a dull exile over seas? To protect Maître le
Bastien from trouble, I travelled under an assumed name; I had the
passports of his apprentice, Raoul,--who fell ill of the small-pox, the
week before we left Paris,--and no one suspected my disguise unless it
was the little varlet, Michaud, who hated me from the first. Thus out
of Paris, and its envy and favour, I dropped into the northern capital,
and found it less interesting than I had hoped--which shows that a man
sees but an inch beyond his own nose.
I had been in Moscow now nearly a year, and the Czar Feodor was just
dead and the two factions--the Naryshkins and the Miloslavskys--were
quarrelling to the knife over the succession to the throne, and the
quarrel was all the more bitter because it was a family one. It
came about in this way. The Czar Alexis the Débonair married first
a Miloslavsky, by whom he had several children, among them the Czar
Feodor, his successor, but just dead; then Alexis had married a second
wife, the young and beautiful Natalia Naryshkin, who became the mother
of a boy and a girl. At the death of Feodor his natural successor would
have been his own brother, Ivan, but Ivan was weak-minded and blind,
and the Patriarch and the Naryshkins stirred up the populace to elect
Natalia’s boy, Peter, a lad of nine. But the victory, though apparently
easy, was destined to bear black fruit, for behind Ivan, the idiot,
was his clever and daring sister, the Czarevna Sophia, who wanted
the throne herself, and supporting her was her clever cousin, Ivan
Miloslavsky, and Prince Basil Galitsyn, one of the most enlightened of
the young Russian statesmen. And the balance of power seemed to be
for the time with the Streltsi, or national guard, the only military
organization of Russia, and both parties were intriguing with the
soldiers, who, dissatisfied with their officers, their pay in arrears,
and some of their hereditary privileges threatened by political
changes, were ripe for mischief. Trouble growled deep and loud in the
lanes and alleys of Moscow; in the palaces and the hovels of its three
towns were whisperings, and terror, and intrigue.
But little I cared for all this, and time hung heavy on my hands, for
I had many dull hours, and it was in one of these that I watched the
dwarf torment the steward, and found the scene amusing.
I was still pacing the workshop in an idle mood when Michaud, the
apprentice, found me.
“Monsieur,” he said, with his air of knowing more than he chose to
tell, “two ladies are below, determined to see the master.”
“Of what sort, Michaud?” I asked; “old or young, fair or fat?”
“How can I tell, monsieur,” he replied, with a shrug, “they are hooded
as close as an ugly nun.”
I laughed.
“Maître le Bastien shall not have all the fun,” I said; “let them come
up, Michaud, and not a word to tell them I am not the master goldsmith.”
He gave me an odd look and went out, and presently I heard his step
again on the stairs, and with it the rustle of skirts and the sound of
soft laughter.
“So!” I said to myself, “the jest is not all on one side.”
_II: THE MINIATURE_
MICHAUD opened the door and stood back to admit my visitors, casting
another look of intelligence at me. But the two did not enter at once;
instead, there was much ado, whispers and suppressed laughter in the
hall, one hanging back and one pushing forward, until my curiosity
was alive, and I stood waiting with my eyes on the door. At last,
with another ripple of laughter, they came in; two slight figures,
muffled in the long, straight Russian cloaks, fur-edged, with conical
hoods over their heads, their features as completely concealed as any
nun’s of Port Royal. Determined to play my rôle of goldsmith to the
life, I had hastily picked up a mallet and a bit of beaten gold, and,
with these in my hands, I made a becoming obeisance. Both the cloaked
figures responded, and here at once I noted a difference between them
which no similarity of dress could disguise: the taller of the two
inclined her hooded head with the air of a queen, the smaller one
nodded at me with a suggestion of infinite good humour. They remained
silent,--struck dumb, no doubt, at their own daring,--and we three
stood confronting each other without a word. It was evident that the
pause might be eternal, and I heard Michaud shuffling his feet outside
the door; the rogue was listening. I had learned to speak Russian
fairly well and I called it to my aid.
“How can I serve you, madame?” I said, awkwardly enough, I suspect, for
the shorter girl tittered, while the taller one silenced her with a
gesture, and addressed me in excellent French.
“You are a goldsmith, monsieur,” she said, in a clear voice, her accent
sweet rather than harsh. “I would have this locket opened.”
As she spoke she held out a gold locket and chain which she had been
hiding under her cloak. A glance told me that it was of great value,
and a rare piece of workmanship, encrusted with precious jewels,
and shaped like a pear. I took it gingerly, knowing no more of a
goldsmith’s trade than an unborn babe, and fairly caught in my own
trap. Whether she saw my awkwardness or not, I could not tell, but
she drew back a little, seeming to examine me with curious eyes. I
suddenly remembered my hands, when I became aware that both girls were
looking at them; my signet was on my right hand, and their sharp eyes
had discovered it, beyond a doubt; but what of it? They knew nothing of
French heraldry--or as little as I knew of them, and I was more anxious
than ever to peep under those hoods. Meanwhile, in spite of my busy
thoughts, I was trying in vain to find an opening in the trinket. It
showed not a crevice, but lay in my hand, a marvellous golden pear,
gleaming with rubies and diamonds and sapphires, and with a crest that
I could not decipher on its lower end.
“It baffles you, monsieur,” remarked the taller maiden, a trifle coldly.
The perspiration gathered on my brow; what, in the name of the saints,
could I do with it? And I was figuring as a master goldsmith with the
abominable thing lying sealed in my hand. The smaller nymph began to
shake with laughter again under her cloak.
“’Tis magic, Daria,” she said, with the merriest laugh in the world,
her hood slipping back enough to disclose the rosy, roguish face of a
girl of sixteen or seventeen, with a pair of eyes as blue as the sky.
“I will have it open for all that,” retorted her companion imperiously.
“Monsieur, there is a secret spring.”
“Precisely, mademoiselle,” I replied, with a bow, “so secret that
’twill not confide in a stranger.”
At this both laughed a little, but I saw that mademoiselle the
imperious was growing impatient, and, in desperation, I turned the
locket over and over, and as I did so my eye caught sight of the
Russian Imperial arms on the small end of the pear, where a golden
clasp represented the stem. In twisting the trinket thus in my fingers
I must have pressed a spring, for lo! the pear fell apart and
mademoiselle clapped her hands.
“The problem is solved,” she cried, while both of them craned their
necks to look at the two pieces.
These already riveted my attention; in one side was a lock of hair
and in the other a miniature that no one in Moscow could mistake,
flattered though it was. It was the face of the dead Czar’s sister,
her serene highness Sophia Alexeievna. There was an exclamation,
either of surprise or pleasure, from one of the girls, and as I cast a
covert glance at them I discovered that both hoods had been slightly
displaced, and I saw the features of the taller of the two. Saint
Denis, what a face! Young, beautiful, with the spirit of an empress;
the dark eyes, keen and brilliant, the lips and cheeks deeply coloured,
the brows sharply defined, the forehead like milk. My glance was so
searching and so earnest that mademoiselle looked up and, encountering
it, flashed me a look of such hauteur as I had never before seen in
the eyes of woman, but she disdained to draw her hood. Meanwhile, the
smaller and merrier beauty had given away to delight at the adventure.
“Take out the portrait, monsieur,” she said; “I have one here to put in
its stead.”
“Nay,” interposed Mlle. Daria. “I will have none of it, Lissa; the jest
has gone too far.”
“Daria, Daria!” cried the other, forgetful of me, “thou art afraid!
thou, Daria Kirilovna!”
“I am not!” cried mademoiselle with defiance, tossing her head; “but I
despise the trick.”
“Oh, sweetheart, thou----” Lissa broke off under a lightning glance
from the dark eyes, for Mlle. Daria had remembered me.
But the merry damsel was not to be silenced; plucking at her
companion’s cloak, she drew her off into the corner and whispered, and
laughed, and entreated, apparently between jest and earnest, while I
pretended to examine the miniature, all the while cudgelling my brains
for a solution of this escapade, so rare was it for girls to be out on
an adventure in Moscow, and girls too, of rank, for no one could doubt
that who looked at them and heard them speak. Meanwhile Daria had been
melting under the persuasion of the fair manœuvrer, and she came back
slowly across the room, permitting rather than encouraging Lissa, who
now took the lead.
“Prithee, monsieur,” she said,--she too, spoke French, though with a
strong accent,--“take out that portrait for us and substitute this.”
As she held out her hand her companion made a sudden motion as if to
snatch the bit of ivory from it, but restrained herself and let Lissa
hand me a miniature.
Then I understood mademoiselle’s hesitation, for the face limned on the
ivory, more or less faithfully, was her own. Suppressing my surprise,
I put it down on a table and began the delicate task of lifting the
other miniature from its setting, and a task it was for my awkward
fingers. With no knowledge of such baubles, and as little dexterity as
a bear, I fully expected to break the picture in pieces, but, as luck
would have it, either the ivory was already loose in its setting, or I
again hit upon some secret spring, and out fell Sophia, just escaping
annihilation by falling on Maître le Bastien’s taffety cloak that lay
on the table. But now was the rub, for I had no notion of how I should
set mademoiselle’s face in the room where Sophia’s had been, and both
girls hung on my movements with breathless interest. I took up the
bit of ivory with a gingerly touch and cautiously dropped it into the
gaping setting, and lo! success beyond my wildest hopes. It seemed to
sink into place, as if by magic, and Mlle. Lissa clapped her hands with
delight.
“Good goldsmith!” she cried, beaming upon me. “What a fair exchange!”
“Hush, Vassalissa!” commanded Mlle. Daria; “for shame!”
But Lissa would not be suppressed.
“And is it not?” she cried mischievously. “Ah, bah; what a fright!” and
she pointed derisively at Sophia’s portrait. “Come, come, Daria, let us
have our frolic while we may!”
“Exactly so, while we may!” retorted Daria grimly; “but afterwards, my
dear,” and she smiled a little.
“The deluge,” replied Vassalissa, laughing. “Ah, good master goldsmith,
give us the trinket that we may get into the ark.”
But here was the difficulty; I could not fasten the miniature in place,
nor could I for the life of me close the locket. The pear was twain
and like to be so, as far as I could see, to the end of the world, and
Mlle. Daria began to cast suspicious glances at me. I think, for the
second time, she doubted that I was a goldsmith.
“Time presses, monsieur,” she said imperiously; “let us have it, as
speedily as may be.”
I was red in the face and almost out of temper, but I saw no escape.
“Mademoiselle must leave it with me,” I replied as blandly as I could;
“it will take time to secure the portrait and reclasp the locket.”
“Impossible!” said Daria; “we must have it now, monsieur; the matter is
imperative.”
I saw that she was uneasy, and I thought that Vassalissa was a little
alarmed; both girls pressed forward eagerly.
“We must have it!” they protested.
I took the bull by the horns. “Certainly, mademoiselle,” I said with a
bow, “but it will not be completed or fastened,” and I held out the
two pieces of that ill-starred pear with a malicious smile.
They looked at each other and at me for a moment with blank faces, and
then they broke out with irresistible, delicious, rippling laughter.
“What on earth shall we do?” cried Vassalissa; “the deluge and no
ark! Monsieur, we have a fable that when the Evil One, in the form of
a mouse, gnawed a hole in the ark, Uzh, the snake, saved the ship by
thrusting his head into the place. Find us a snake therefore, good
goldsmith, or our ark will surely sink. Mend us the pear, or----”
“Pshaw!” interrupted Mlle. Daria, with an imperious gesture, “what
difference? I care not a straw! Finish it, monsieur, and send it to me
at your leisure.”
“Daria!” sharply ejaculated her smaller companion, suddenly grown
cautious.
And Daria bit her lip and turned crimson.
“Mademoiselle may trust me,” I said, drawing myself up to my full
height, which compelled them both to look up at me.
She gave me a swift, penetrating glance, and her face, by nature
haughty, suddenly relaxed and a smile, like sunshine, shone on it.
“I do, monsieur,” she said, with her queenly air. “You will send the
locket, by a safe hand, to the house of the Prince Voronin, to be
delivered only to me--the Princess Daria.”
Her companion fairly gasped, her blue eyes big with amazement, at
mademoiselle’s daring.
“I will bring it with my own hand,” I said, with a profound bow.
And, as I spoke, there was a sharp knock at the door. Vassalissa
started with a little shriek of nervous excitement, but Daria laughed.
“’Tis old Piotr,” she said.
As she spoke, the door opened and a tall, grey-haired Russian, wearing
the dress of a boyar’s retainer, stood on the threshold.
“We have been here too long, little mistress,” he said in Russ,
respectful, but impatient; “’tis neither safe nor wise.”
“Bear with us, Piotr,” said his mistress graciously; “’tis but a half
hour under a whole moon; may not the children play?”
He shook his head, glancing with evident affection at the tall, girlish
figure.
“Time waits for no man, Daria Kirilovna,” he said gravely, “and the
morning is wiser than the evening.”[A]
“I come, I come!” she retorted, and with a gesture of farewell to me,
she left the room, followed by Lissa, who cast a mischievous smile at
me, and a doubtful glance at the trinket in my hands as she went out.
_III: THE BOYAR KURAKIN_
LEFT alone with the trinket, I forgot it in my meditation on the two
girls, or rather, if the truth be told, on the one--the Princess Daria.
Such beauty, such spirit, such dignity; the combination was rare,
and in a Russian, brought up no doubt under the iron rule of some
old Russian dragon of propriety, it was little short of a miracle.
How came this perfect flower to bloom in a waste of snow? And how
came she and the merry one on this strange expedition? There was some
mischief afoot, but I could not fathom it, cudgel my brains as I
would. They both seemed too young and too artless to be engaged in any
very profound intrigue, and yet the portrait of the czarevna was an
unusual possession to cast lightly and publicly aside; publicly, I say,
because I was a stranger to them and might be, for all they knew, quite
unworthy of trust. And how did they escape the vigilant watchfulness
of a Russian household, where the women were kept in almost Oriental
seclusion? It was true that the Czar Alexis the Débonair had modified
the customs of the court in this respect, by the freedom he had allowed
his young wife, Natalia Naryshkin, the mother of the newly elected Czar
Peter. Yet it was undoubtedly an escapade for two Russian girls to
visit the workshop of a stranger and a Frenchman, for the nation had
no love for the French, and indeed a deep distrust of all foreigners.
But what of it, after all? I reflected, was it not better to remember
the two pretty faces, the slender hands, the soft voices, the ripple of
merry laughter? Saint Denis! ’twas worth something to have seen them!
And I would see them again unless Jéhan de Cernay had assumed a coat of
quite another colour from the one he had worn in France. As for Daria,
she might well be a princess; she looked it, and no queen was ever more
worthy a crown.
How she had graced even Maître le Bastien’s workshop, and transformed
the old room into an enchanted palace! I looked about it now with a
shrug; since she had left it, it had returned to its usual aspect, and
was a workshop again and no more.
The house that Prince Galitsyn had given to Maître le Bastien stood
in the Kitai-gorod, with the bazaars on one side, humming with life,
like so many beehives, and on the other the palaces of the boyars,
the official nobility of Moscow; and yonder were the golden domes and
minarets of the Kremlin. The house itself was much like the others
in Moscow--built of logs, the interstices stuffed with tow, and the
roof also of wood; it was no marvel that there had been great fires,
leaping from town to town, within the walls, and carrying terror and
destruction with smoke and flame. Underground we had cellars for
storing liquors and ice; and above these, on the ground floor, were the
kitchen, refectory, and offices, while on the second floor were always
the living rooms; the Chamber of the Cross, or private chapel, being in
the centre, and a narrow stair led to the apartments above, usually set
aside for the women, in a separate story of the house, and called the
_terem_.
It was on the second floor that Maître le Bastien had his workshop, in
a long room that had served as a nursery and playroom for the children
of the Russian family who had previously occupied the dwelling. The
windows faced north, and the room was well lighted and spacious,
but very different from the goldsmith’s famous workshop on the
Pont-au-Change, where all the lovers of his art in Paris flocked. I
have seen Louvois there, and Luxemburg himself, with his hump and his
pale face, and Monseigneur, dull and pompous, and the little Duchess of
Burgundy with Mme. de Maintenon, then called the widow of Scarron, and
the court ladies, Mme. de Mazarin and Mme. de Richelieu, and hundreds
of others, and sometimes the great king himself. It was Le Bastien who
made the famous bracelet for Mme. de Montespan, and Le Bastien who
designed the great candelabra for the king’s table. It was the silver
vase that he had made for Louis that he was to copy now for Prince
Galitsyn to give, so it was whispered, to the Czarevna Sophia, she
whose portrait lay on the folds of the old taffety cloak. The goldsmith
had received other orders in Moscow, and had been making some models,
too, that he purposed carrying back to France, so the workshop was not
without its objects of interest, though bare enough compared with the
marvels of that room on the Pont-au-Change.
Here in one corner was a candelabrum that was nearly finished for the
Czar Feodor, when his majesty died so suddenly. It was a graceful
piece, a full cubit in height, the figure of Hecate bearing a torch;
it was to have been in solid silver, ornamented with gold. Near it
was a bracelet of Russian amethysts, set in a design of clusters of
grapes, the leaves of gold, studded with emeralds--so closely that
they sparkled with green. Beyond was a salt-cellar, undertaken also
for Prince Galitsyn, a shell upheld by two mermaids--in gold; but the
most conspicuous object was the great vase, three cubits in height,
of silver, with bas-reliefs of gold; on one side Venus and Mars, on
the other Pluto and Persephone, and below a group of sirens formed the
pedestal, their uplifted arms holding the vase, while around the top
of it--which opened like the petals of a flower--was a marvellously
fine design of Cupids at play. Though it was before my eyes all day,
I often examined it and watched the work grow under the master’s
skilful fingers, and I doubt not I should have been staring at it when
Maître le Bastien returned, if it had not been for the fascination of
that jewelled pear that I could not put out of my mind. And I was back
at the table again, with the thing in my fingers, when the goldsmith
entered the room.
Le Bastien was a man past middle age, with a noble head and fine face,
which wore habitually an expression of calm reflection worthy a great
philosopher. The man was indeed an artist and a sculptor of no mean
order, who yet carried on his trade of goldsmith, and was reported rich
in Paris. His dress became his reputation, being rich though simple
in style, of dark velvet with rare lace at his throat and wrists, and
a chain of gold about his neck, a marvel of his own workmanship, and
I noticed that he wore on it to-day the icon that Prince Galitsyn had
given him. He entered with his usual dignified and composed demeanour,
greeting me pleasantly.
“I fear you have had a dull day, M. le Marquis,” he said, with his
accustomed formality, for in private he always gave me my title, though
in public I was “Raoul,” the apprentice; I think it would have hurt the
good man to infringe on a single rule of courtesy, even in the privacy
of his own closet.
“Far from it, Maître le Bastien,” I replied with a smile; “I have
been receiving your fair visitors, and hold here a hostage for their
return,” and I held up the pear.
The goldsmith looked at me in some surprise, and taking the locket
turned it over in his hand, examining it curiously.
“Whence came this, monsieur?” he inquired, with evident interest, “and
what is this talk of fair visitors? We are not on the Pont-au-Change.”
I laughed, enjoying his sober perplexity.
“No,” I responded, “but not even on the Pont-au-Change did you ever
have a fairer visitor, and a princess at that,” and I proceeded to
relate my experience with a relish for the surprise that I knew I was
giving him.
But all the while, he was examining the pear with the minute attention
of an expert, and when I was done, he closed it with an ease that made
me envy his skill in a trade that, if the truth be told, I held rather
in contempt.
“_Ma foi!_” I exclaimed, “I would have been happy to have done that an
hour ago; you know the trick of it by instinct.”
He shook his head, smiling. “I have seen it before,” he said quietly;
“a good piece of workmanship, monsieur, and Italian in origin.”
It was now my turn to be surprised, and I knew he enjoyed turning the
tables upon me.
“Perhaps you can give me its history,” I said drily.
“No, no, M. le Marquis,” he replied, laughing a little at my vexation.
“I only know that I have seen it, and handled it in the palace of the
Prince Galitsyn; he usually wears it around his neck.”
“Ah,” I exclaimed, “with the portrait of Sophia in it,” and I pointed
to the miniature lying on the folds of Maître le Bastien’s cloak.
The good man snatched it up in some anxiety, examining the ivory
closely for cracks or defacements.
“I suppose the Czar Feodor planned to marry his fat sister to the
prince,” I remarked.
Le Bastien smiled. “It is considered beneath the imperial dignity to
marry a daughter or a sister of a czar to a subject,” he said, “and, as
foreign princes--with two exceptions--have not sought Russian wives,
there are quite a number of single czarevnas.”
“Old maids must be thicker than ravens about the Kremlin,” I rejoined,
still watching him as he examined Sophia’s picture.
“There are only twelve of them in the imperial family at present,” he
replied, and laughed a little, as he put the miniature carefully away;
“there are only twelve,” he continued, “and this one is more of a man
than a woman; her appeal to the populace at the Czar Feodor’s funeral,
the other day, has raised the very devil among the lower classes, and
’tis rumoured to-day that she has won over twenty-one regiments of the
Streltsi to the Miloslavskys; only one is faithful to the little czar.
Mischief is afoot, M. le Marquis; I hear the growl of the mob in the
Zemlianui-gorod; I see trouble brewing even among the palace guards,
and the Czarina Natalia is losing her nerve. The Naryshkins have
snatched all the offices of state, and they are young and untried and
unfit to meet the crisis.”
Le Bastien went to the window and looked out, the golden pear still
closed in his hands.
“Hush!” he said; “what is that?”
We listened and heard, far off, shouting and beating of drums.
“The yelp of the _canaille_,” he said scornfully. “I hear that the
Streltsi demand that some of their colonels shall be sent to Siberia,
and others receive the _pravezh_. Trouble, monsieur, trouble of a
bloody kind; I predict it, and I trust,” he added suddenly, looking at
the trinket on his palm, “that this bauble has nothing to do with it.”
“Nonsense!” I ejaculated, with a shrug; “the frolic of two girls,
monsieur, nothing more.”
But he shook his head. “I know a little of the Prince Voronin,”
he said; “he is on the side of the Naryshkins, and a man of much
prominence, belonging to one of the oldest----”
He got no farther, for the door was opened without ceremony and a
tall Russian stood on the threshold. The stranger’s dress, which was
long and girded at the waist, was of deep crimson, brocaded in gold,
and was edged with sable, to match the bands on the high round cap
on his head. He was a young man and handsome, in a fierce way, as a
tiger is handsome. His complexion had the tints of ivory and his eyes
were brilliant and unpleasantly alert. Maître le Bastien knew him,
and greeted him as a person of rank, while I suddenly endeavoured to
remember my rôle of apprentice.
“I come unexpectedly, master goldsmith,” the stranger said, in Russ,
“but I was curious to see your work.”
“The Boyar Kurakin is welcome always,” Maître le Bastien replied, with
dignified courtesy, “and he may inspect my designs and my completed
work at his leisure.”
So it was our neighbour, whom I had never happened to see, for he had
been absent from Moscow until very recently. I regarded him therefore
with some interest. He walked over to the large silver vase at once,
and stood apparently contemplating it, while the goldsmith pointed
out its beauties and explained the bas-reliefs, but I noticed that M.
Kurakin’s sharp eyes had wandered from the vase to the golden pear that
Le Bastien still held in his hand, and I began to regret my stupidity
in allowing it to remain in sight.
“This design of the cupids,” said the master placidly, pointing to
the top of the vase, “is precisely like the one on the vase I made
for his majesty the King of France; but here,” and he indicated the
bas-relief of Venus and Mars, “I have varied the pattern a little to
the satisfaction of his excellency Prince Galitsyn.”
The Russian did not reply, he was too much engaged in staring at that
fateful pear, so much so indeed, that the goldsmith suddenly became
aware of it and let that hand fall at his side.
“Would you care to see my wax model of Diana, M. Kurakin?” he asked
blandly.
“Surely,” replied the boyar, with interest that was either genuine or
extremely well feigned; “your work pleases me so well that I think
I must have a piece of it for my palace,” he added, suave as silk,
showing his white teeth, that reminded me strangely of the fangs of a
wolf, handsome as he was.
“Raoul, is not the Diana in the other room?” asked Maître le Bastien,
suddenly turning to me, and, as he did so, he swiftly and silently
slipped the pear into my hand with a significant glance.
“It is, monsieur,” I said, with the air of an apprentice, infinitely
relieved at his adroit manœuvre, and thinking, fool that I was, that
those keen eyes had not seen the locket change hands.
The master went on calmly discoursing about the vase, and I slipped
out of the room and ordered Michaud to take in the model of Diana, a
graceful figure, in wax, worthy of Le Bastien’s genius.
Having got rid of the matter, as I thought, so easily, I walked into
the Chamber of the Cross, which, as I have said, was in the centre of
the house, and there I fell to examining my treasure with the greedy
interest of the miser. I was convinced now that there was some mystery
attached to that pear of gold and jewels, and turned it over and over
in my hands. Then I was seized with a mad desire to get it open and
look again at the pictured face of the Princess Daria, for, truth
to say, that face had already begun to haunt me. But the tormenting
trinket, shut by Maître le Bastien, would not open, nor could I find
the secret spring, and I was still trifling with it, when I became
suddenly aware that the curtain opposite the shrine was moving and, in
an instant, the Boyar Kurakin walked in alone. I thrust the pear into
my bosom, but I was certain that he had seen the gleam of gold and of
jewels. If I had had any doubt of it, his next move dispelled it, for
he pounced upon me as eager as a tiger after his prey.
“Give me that locket, sirrah!” he said fiercely; he took me for an
apprentice.
I was within a hair’s-breadth of giving him a sharp retort when I
remembered my rôle, with a certain malicious enjoyment. I shook my head
stupidly, pretending not to understand Russ, and he had not a word of
French. He flew into a passion and used some hard language, and then
tried by signs to make me understand. I think he did not relish the
idea of laying hands on me, for I was a larger man than he and scarcely
wore the air of a tame pigeon. But I shook my head again and chattered
French at him in the tone of one of the monkeys in the bazaar.
“Give me the locket, varlet,” he bellowed, striding toward me, his
whole aspect full of a belligerence that made my fingers tingle for the
moment of conflict.
We were now in the corner of the room by a door that stood open at
the top of a flight of steep stairs, and suddenly I bethought me of a
way to punish my friend. I turned upon him so sharply that he started
back, expecting violence, no doubt, and, as I had planned, he tripped
on the step behind him, rolled over, and fell head over heels, down the
stairs.
_IV: THE MAKING OF A FRIEND_
THE stairs down which the Boyar Kurakin fell were entirely dark, and I
could not see what was happening, so I was the more surprised to hear,
on top of the crash of his fall, a woman’s shrill screams, a man’s
curses, and the sound of a scrimmage down there in the dark. I snatched
up a taper and, lighting it, held it high over my head, and was looking
down the stairs when Maître le Bastien and Michaud hurried in, summoned
by the outcry, and running to me, peeped under my uplifted arm into the
abyss below. Then it was that we were all convulsed with a merriment
that Le Bastien and I smothered for caution’s sake, but Michaud, the
apprentice, knowing no reason for prudence, gave way to, and doubled
up and rocked with laughter, holding his sides, for the light of my
taper revealed a ridiculous scene. We had in our employ, as cook, an
enormously fat old Russian woman named Advotia, and it was evident that
she had either been listening--after the fashion of servants--at the
foot of the stair, or had started up with a skillet of soup, when M.
Kurakin started down on his unceremonious trip, and the result was that
the hot soup had been spilled on both, and the infuriated boyar, whose
fall had been broken by her mountain of flesh, was so little grateful
that he had evidently punched her head, and she, in her turn, enraged
at the double injury, fell to beating him with her skillet, and the two
were dancing about on the stairs, showering blows and curses upon each
other, while the savoury odor of the wasted broth rose to our nostrils.
Maître le Bastien was the first to recover from his amusement and
recognise the serious side of the scene, and he called out to Advotia
to go about her business, while he begged M. Kurakin to ascend and
permit him to attend to his hurts in a suitable manner. But the boyar
was in no mood for apologies and, having shaken his fist in Advotia’s
face, he came up the stairs, cursing at every step, and accused me of
throwing him down, while I bowed and smiled blandly, making signs that
the fall was due to his own misfortune, and Maître le Bastien, quick at
taking a cue, apologised for me and declared that I was a good fellow,
quite incapable of such villainy. Kurakin was far from convinced of my
goodness, but for some reason it suited him to conceal from Le Bastien
his attempt to get the pear, and he contented himself with a scowl at
me that was equal to a threat, and a few curt remarks to the goldsmith.
“Your servants, sir, male and female, are only fit for the gallows,” he
said fiercely, “and the sooner they hang the better. Such a varlet as
that big ruffian of yours would get the _pravezh_ here!”
“You do not know his good qualities, monsieur,” said my master suavely;
“he has been a faithful servant to me. Your misstep was distressing,
but it might have had even worse consequences, for the stairs are
steep.”
“Yes, it might have broken my neck,” replied the boyar, casting a dark
look at his host, “but for that fat beast at the bottom.”
“Exactly,” said Maître le Bastien; “so, after all, she served a good
purpose in breaking your excellency’s fall.”
But Kurakin would not be appeased; he had been balked, and he knew
it; but we were too many for one, and he took himself off, with such
ill-concealed rage and malice that I saw that the goldsmith was uneasy.
When he was gone, and I had related the whole incident and began to
laugh at it, Maître le Bastien held up his hand.
“He laughs longest who laughs last,” he said gravely. “Have a care, M.
le Marquis; these Russians are fiery creatures, and this man has all
the fierce pride of his class. ’Tis as I feared; there is some mystery
behind that bauble, and, please the saints, I’ll get it out of my house
as soon as I may; therefore give it to me, monsieur, and let me secure
the miniature and return it to this princess of yours.”