The Green Book Part 28

"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 gla.s.s.

"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 s.e.x. 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sa.s.sins 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 a.s.sa.s.sins!" 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 gla.s.s 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 coa.r.s.e 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 n.o.bility 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 un.o.btainable. 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, '_ca 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-p.r.o.nged 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.