The scene at the ballet was most brilliant, as it is always on a Sunday
night. The great auditorium, with its blue silk-curtained boxes, the
mass of glittering uniforms, and the ladies in evening-dress, although
they were all in black, made a gay spectacle almost like a gala night.
Then it is so delightful to have one's eyes pleased with what is on the
stage and yet be able to talk.
But Tamara, as she sat and looked at it, was not enjoying herself. She
was overcome with a vague feeling of unrest. She hated having to admit
that the Prince was the cause of it. She could not look ahead; she was
full of fear. She knew now that when he was near her she experienced
certain emotion, that he absorbed far too much of her thoughts. He did
not really care for her probably, and if he did, how could one hope to
be happy with such a wild, fierce man? No, she must control herself;
she must conquer his influence over her, and if she could not she could
at least go away. England seemed very uninteresting and calm--and safe!
Filled with these sage resolutions she tried to fix her eyes on the
stage, but unconsciously they continually strayed to a tall blue figure
which was seated in the front row of the stalls with a number of
officers of the Chevaliers Gardes. And when the curtain went down,--and
instead of the Prince joining them in the box, as she fully expected he
would do, he calmly leaned against the orchestra division and surveyed
the house with his glasses--she felt a sudden pang, and talked as best
she might to the many friends who thronged to pay the Princess court.
Gritzko did not even glance their way! he stood laughing with his
comrades, and it would have been impossible to imagine anything more
insouciant and attractive and provoking than the creature looked.
"No wonder Tatiane Shébanoff is in love with him--or that
actress--or--the rest!" Tamara thought.
And then a wave of rage swept over her. She at least would not give in
and join this throng! To be his plaything. _She would_ be mistress of
herself and her thoughts!
But alas! all these emotions not unmixed with pique, spoilt the
ballet's second act!
For the interval after it, the two ladies got up and went into the
little ante-chamber beyond the box. Tamara was glad. There she could
not see what this annoying Prince would do.
What he did do was to open the door in a few minutes and saunter in. He
greeted Tamara with polite indifference, and having calmly displaced
Count Valonne, sat down by the Princess' side.
Valonne was a charming person, and he and Tamara were great friends. He
chatted on now, and she smiled at him, but with ears preternaturally
sharpened she heard the conversation of the other pair.
It was this.
"Tantine, I am feeling the absolute devil tonight. Will you come and
have supper with me after this infernal ballet is over?"
"Gritzko--what is it? Something has disturbed you!"
He leant forward and rested his chin on his hands. "Well, your haughty
guest touched me with too sharp a spur, perhaps," he said, "but she was
right. I do waste my life. I have been thinking of my mother. I believe
she might not be pleased with me sometimes. And then I felt mad, and
now I must do something to forget. So if you won't sup--"
"Oh! Gritzko!" the Princess said.
"I telephoned home and ordered things to be ready. I know you don't
like a restaurant. Say you will come," and he kissed her hand. "I have
asked all the rest." And the Princess had to consent!
"You must promise not to quarrel any more with my godchild if we do. I
am sure you frighten and upset her, Gritzko--promise me," she said. He
laughed.
"I upset her! She is too cold and good to be upset!"
Tamara still continued to talk to Valonne, and presently they all moved
into the box, and the Prince sat down beside her, and again as he
leaned over in the shaded light that nameless physical thrill crept
over her. Was she really cold, she asked herself. If so, why should she
shiver as she was shivering now?
"I wonder if you have any heart at all, Madame?" he said. "If under the
mummy's wrappings there is some flesh and blood?"
Then she turned and answered him with passion. "Of course there is,"
she said.
He bent over still nearer. "Just for to-night, shall we not quarrel or
spar?" he whispered. "See, I will treat you as a sister and friend. I
want to be petted and spoilt--I am sad."
Tamara, of course, melted at once! His extraordinarily attractive voice
was very deep and had a note in it which touched her heart.
"Please don't be sad," she said softly. "Perhaps you think I was unkind
to-day, but indeed it was only because--Oh! because it seemed to me
such waste that you--you should be like that."
"It hurt like the fiend, you know," he said, "the thought of the damned
circus. I think we are particularly sensitive as a race to those sort
of things. If you had been a man I would have killed you."
"I hated to hear what you told me," and Tamara looked down. "It seemed
so dreadful--so barbaric--and so childish for a man who really has a
brain. If you were just an animal person like some of the others are,
it would not have mattered; but you--please I would like you never to
do any of these mad things again--"
Then she stopped suddenly and grew tenderly pink. She realized the
inference he must read in her words.
He did not speak for a moment, only devoured her with his great
blue-gray eyes. Of what he was thinking she did not know. It made her
uncomfortable and a little ashamed. Why had she melted, it was never
any use. So she drew herself up stiffly and leaned back in her seat.
Then down at the side by the folds of her dress he caught her hand
while he said quite low:
"Madame, I must know--do you mean that?"
"Yes," she said, and tried to take away her hand. "Yes, I mean that I
think it dreadful for any human being to throw things away--and Oh! I
would like you to be very great."
He did not let go her hand, indeed he held it the more tightly.
"You are a dear after all, and I will try," he said. "And when I have
pleased you you must give me a reward."
"Alas! What reward could I give you, Prince," she sighed.
"That I will tell you when the time comes."
Thus peace seemed to be restored, and soon the curtain fell for the
interval before the last act, and the Prince got up and went out of the
box.
He did not reappear again, but was waiting for them to start for his
house.
"I met Stephen Strong, Tantine," he said. "He left me at Trieste, you
know, and only arrived in Petersburg to-day. He has got a cousin with
him, Lord something, so I have asked them both to come along. They will
be a little late they said."
"It is not Jack Courtray by chance--is it?" Tamara asked, in an
interested voice, as they went. "Mr. Strong has a cousin who lives near
us in the country and he is always traveling about."
"Yes, I think that is the name--Courtray. So you know him then!" and
the Prince leant forward from the seat which faced them. "An ami
d'enfance?"
"We used to play cricket and fish and bird's-nest," she said. "Tom--my
brother Tom--was his fag at Eton--he is one of my oldest friends--dear
old Jack."
"How fortunate I met him to-night!"
"Indeed, yes."
Then her attention was diverted, as it always was each time she saw the
blazing braziers and heaped up flaming piles of wood at the corners of
the streets, since she had been in Russia. "How glad I am there is
something to make the poor people warm," she said.
"When it gets below twelve degrees it is difficult to enjoy life,
certainly," the Prince agreed. "And, indeed, it is hard sometimes not
to freeze."
It was a strange lurid picture, the Isvostchiks drawn round, while the
patient horses with their sleighs stood quiet some little distance off.
How hard must existence be to these poor things.
Supper could not be ready for half an hour, the Prince told them when
they got to the Fontonka House, and as they all arrived more or less
together, they soon paired off for bridge.
"I am going to show Mrs. Loraine my pictures," the host said. "She
admires our Catherine and Peter the Great."
And in the salon where they all sat, he began pointing out this one and
that, making comments in a distrait voice. But when they came to the
double doors at the end he opened them wide, and led Tamara into
another great room.
"This is the ballroom," he said. "It is like all ballrooms, so we shall
not linger over that. I have two Rembrandts in my own apartment beyond
which it may interest you to see, and a few other relics of the past."
He was perfectly matter of fact, his manner had not a shade of
gallantry in it, and Tamara accepted this new situation and followed
him without a backward thought.
They seemed to go through several sheet-shrouded salons and came out
into a thoroughly comfortable room. Its general aspect of decoration
had a Byzantine look, and on the floor were several magnificent bear
skins, while around the walls low bookcases with quantities of books
stood. And above them many arms were crossed. Over the mantelpiece a
famous Rembrandt frowned, and another from the opposite wall. But it
was strange there were no photographs of dancers or actresses about as
Tamara would have thought.
The Prince talked intelligently. He seemed to know of such things as
pictures, and understood their technique. And if he had been an elderly
art critic he could not have been more aloof.
Presently Tamara noticed underneath the first picture there was hung a
quaint sword. Something in its shape and workmanship attracted her
attention, and she asked its history.
The Prince took it down and placed it in her hand.
"That sword belonged to a famous person," he said--"a Cossack--Stenko
Razin was his name--a robber and a brigand and a great chief. He loved
a lady, a Persian Princess whom he had captured, and one day when out
on his yacht on the Volga, being drunk from a present of brandy some
Dutch travellers had brought him, he clasped her in his arms. She was
very beautiful and gentle and full of exquisite caresses, and he loved
her more than all his wealth. But mad thoughts mounted to his brain,
and after making an oration to the Volga for all the riches and plunder
she had brought him, he reproached himself that he had never given this
river anything really valuable in return, and then exclaiming he would
repair his fault, unclasped the clinging arms of his mistress and flung
her overboard."
"What a horrible brute!" exclaimed Tamara, and she put down the sword.
The Prince took it up and drew it from its sheath.
"The Cossacks had a wild strain in them even in those days," he said.
"You must not be too hard on me for merely riding my horse!"
"Would you be cruel like that, too, Prince?" Tamara asked; and she sat
down for a second on the arm of a carved chair. And when he had put the
sword back in its place, he bent forward and leaned on the back of it.
"Yes, I could be cruel, I expect," he said. "I could be even brutal if
I were jealous, or the woman I loved played me false, but I would not
be cruel to her while it hurt myself. Razin lost his pleasure for days
through one mad personal act. It would have been more sensible to have
kept her until he was tired of her, or she had grown cold to him. Don't
you agree with me about that?"
"It is a horrible history and I hate it," Tamara said. "Such ways I do
not understand. For me love means something tender and true which could
never want to injure the thing it loved."
He looked at her gravely.
"Lately I have wondered what love could mean for me. Tell me what you
think, Madame," he said.
She resolved not to allow any emotion to master her, though she was
conscious of a sudden beating of her heart.
"You would torture sometimes, and then you would caress."
"I would certainly caress."
He moved from his position and walked across the room, while he talked
as though the words burst from him.
"Yes, I should demand unquestioning surrender, and if it were refused
me, then I might be cruel. And if my love were cold or capricious,
_then_ I would leave her. But if she loved me truly--my God, it would
be bliss."
"Think how it would hurt her when you did those foolish things though,"
Tamara said.
He stopped short in his restless walk.
"No one does foolish things when he is happy, Madame. All such
outbursts are the froth of a soul in its seething. But if one were
satisfied--" he paused, and then he went on again. "Oh! If you
knew!--In the desert in Egypt I used to think I had found rest,
sometimes. I am sated with this life here. A quoi bon, Madame!--the
same thing year after year!--and then since I have known you. I have
wondered if perhaps you in your country could teach me peace."
"So many of you are so déséquilibrés," Tamara said. "You seem to be so
polished and sensible and even great, and then in a moment you are off
at a tangent, displaying that want of discipline that we at home would
not permit in a child."
"Yes it is true."
"It seems that you love, and must have, or you hate and must kill.
There are storms and passions, and the gaiety of children and their
irresponsibility, and all on the top is good manners and smiles, but
underneath--I have a feeling I know not what volcano may burst."
"Tonight I feel one could flame with me." He came up close now and
looked into her eyes, as if he were going to say something, and then he
restrained himself.
Tamara did not move, she looked at him gravely.
"You all seem as if you had no aim," she said. "You are not interested
in the politics of your country. You don't seem to do anything but kill
time--Why?"
"Our country!" he said, and he flung himself into a seat near. "It
would be difficult to make you understand about that. In the old days
of the serfs, it was all very well. One could be a good landlord and
father to them all, but now----" Then he got up restlessly and paced
the room. "Now there are so many questions. If one would think it would
drive one mad, but I am a soldier, Madame, so I do not permit myself to
speculate at all."
"Things are not then as you would wish?" she asked.
"As I would wish--no, not as I would wish--but as I told you, I do not
mix myself up with them. I only obey the Emperor and shall to the end
of my life."
Tamara saw she had stirred too deep waters. His face wore a look of
profound melancholy. She had never felt so drawn toward him. She let
her eyes take in the picture he made. There was something very noble
about his brow and the set of his head. Who could tell what thoughts
were working in his brain. Presently he got up again and knelt by her
side--his movements had the grace and agility of a cat. He took her
hand and kissed it.
"Madame, please don't make me think," he said. "The question is too
great for one man to help. I do not go with the Liberals or any of the
revolt. Indeed I am far on the other side. Good to this country should
all have come in a different, finer way, and now it must work out its
own salvation as best it may. For me, my only duty is to my master.
Nothing else could count." His eyes which looked into hers seemed great
sombre pools of unrest and pain.
She did not take away her hand and he kissed it again.
Then the clock on the mantelpiece chimed one, and she started to her
feet.
"Oh! Prince, should we not be thinking of supper," she said. "Come, let
us forget we have been serious and go back and eat!"
He rose.
"They have probably gone in without us, they know me so well," he said;
"but as you say, we will no more be serious, we will laugh."
Then he took her hand, and merrily, like two children, they ran through
all the big empty rooms to find exactly what he had predicted had
occurred. The party were at supper quite unconcerned!
It was such a gay scene. Princess Sonia and Serge Grekoff were busily
cutting raw ham, by their places; while others drank tea or vodka or
champagne, or helped themselves from various dishes the servants had
brought up. There was no ceremony or stiffness, each one did as he
pleased.
And there sitting by Olga Gléboff, already perfectly at home, was Lord
Courtray; and further down the Princess Ardácheff sat by Stephen Strong.
"Gritzko--we could not wait!" Countess Olga said.
Then both the Englishmen got up and greeted Tamara.
"Fancy seeing you here, Tamara! What a bit of luck!" Jack Courtray said.