Part 57 (2/2)
These words were spoken by the Czar of All the Russias, not in bitterness, but with the deep melancholy of conviction. It moved the heart to pity.
Suddenly he turned to Zeneida.
”Do you wish me, then, to grant Pushkin permission to return?”
”No, sire. He is in good hands. Whoever is a true friend to him would rather desire that he should live a happy life _far from St.
Petersburg_!”
This surprised Araktseieff. He threw his pen down and scrutinized Zeneida.
”And for yourself, have you no wishes?” continued the Czar.
”I am leaving St. Petersburg to-morrow, sire!”
”And do you not wish that I should send you back your credentials?”
Oh, how proudly she raised her head at the words! She, too, was a queen, and she proved it.
”Sire, where I am once shown that my presence is unwelcome I do not remain!”
It was an audacious speech, bordering on treason, and not the manner in which to address the Czar of All the Russias!
Springing from his chair, it was the favorite and not the melancholy monarch who hastened to reply to the haughty singer.
”Are you aware, young lady, that there are duties from which a feeling of wounded pride does not exempt us? To them belongs the respect due to the throne and ruler, to whom you owe your fame.”
Zeneida's bosom heaved; her nostrils dilated like those of a zebra prepared for the fight with a wolf. Her great dark flas.h.i.+ng eyes threatened to annihilate the favorite; her lips quivered as if with fever.
”Your Excellency,” she gasped, ”there are men who have carried grat.i.tude to their benefactors to the other ends of the earth with them, and who, though they had the misfortune to lose the favor of their august protectors, _have not gone home to sing the 'Knife Song'_!”
This was such a smart slap in the face to Araktseieff that he went back to his seat as though thinking it not worth his while to reply to the insinuation. Did she really know about it? Had she her secret spies--perhaps Diabolka?--the gypsy girl could write now!
Instead of his silenced favorite, the Czar now took up the lance. It was but fair. If the squire defends his lord, surely his lord should defend the squire.
”Your bitter remarks are in the wrong place, Fraulein Ilmarinen. If there is one man in Greater Russia who deserves to be looked upon as a perfect pattern of fidelity and loyalty, that is the man! He who has been at my side in every battle; has shared with me every danger, yet never claiming part in my glory; who watches, that I may sleep; who defies the world, to defend me; who forsakes me never, when all else desert me; that man is Araktseieff! What hard proofs of loyalty has he not withstood! How often have his enemies prevailed to banish him! And yet, as often as I have called, he has returned, without a word of reproach to me! I struck him a vital blow in exiling his son, yet he could kiss my hand and say I had done right, and remain loyal to me.
Such is Araktseieff!”
But the favorite could not glory in this imperial recognition of his services, for, as he resumed his seat and, in order to mark his contemptuous indifference, opened the Sophien post-bag, the very letter Jakuskin had mentioned to Zeneida came to hand, and absorbed his attention to such a degree that he actually became deaf to the sound of his own praises from the lips of the Czar.
Zeneida saw how his face was working with demoniacal torture; how, convulsed by nameless horror, it had changed to the semblance of a maddened spectre; she saw his hair stand on end, his lips become blue, his eyes start from their sockets.
”Oh, woe is me!” he suddenly roared out, in a tone so brutalized that the Czar turned round in affright. Araktseieff beat his breast with the letter, as a man tries to heal his wound with the hair of the dog that bit him, or of a scorpion with its dead body; then, up from his seat, ”Oh, woe! oh, woe! that I came back! Why was I not there at the time?”
And he flung out of the room like a madman.
The Czar, thinking that a sudden fit of mania had seized the favorite, endeavored to hold him back.
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