CHAPTER XIX

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.