The Green Book Part 64

Korynthia, rising, advanced to meet them; first she greeted Bethsaba as the married woman, then she turned to Zeneida. Zeneida forestalled her greeting.

"You forestall me!" exclaimed the Princess. "Of course, _queens_ ever give the first greeting."

"Not so, Princess; but they who desire to offer their congratulations on their hostess's name-day."

And the two ladies shook hands. They knew that every eye was upon them, wondering how they would meet.

Both were well-seasoned warriors.

The ballroom was so arranged that all about were small groves of exotics, with openings just large enough for a couple to retreat into, and talk scandal or flirt, as the case might be. Little tables were there placed, and footmen went in and out handing refreshments.

Korynthia drew Zeneida into one of these floral retreats, and, as they sat down together, whispered laughingly into her ear:

"You understood me. I expected no less from your clever intellect."

Zeneida, adopting her tone, replied in equally laughing voice.

"That I have brought you the dove out of her nest?"

"Just so--that we have thus become allies?" resumed the Princess.

"An alliance _ad hoc_, in the language of diplomacy," interpreted Fraulein Ilmarinen.

"For the object of discomfiting a third adversary," filled in Korynthia.

"And meanwhile England and Russia have signed defensive and offensive alliance--"

"In order, as allied powers, to conquer Paris," laughed Korynthia.

"The same Paris who keeps the golden apple, in order to give it to--whom?" exclaimed Zeneida, with a peal of silvery laughter.

"You are a demoniacal woman!"

"That I know. Your Highness has said it already."

"How you remember everything! But, to change the subject, three of your admirers are here to-night. We will soon settle the third of them. See, your little _protegee_ is already absorbed. Her former admirer, Chevalier Galban, has caught her like a spider in his web. Do not be uneasy about her; she will not go back heart-whole. We will see to that.

We understand one another!"

"Perfectly, Princess."

"No harm to her! All loss is gain to her, but I do not think it will be her last conquest. For any one who has _begun_ as has my G.o.ddaughter, it requires no great sagacity to prophesy how she will _go on_. No need for us to grieve about her."

"Nor in such a case can we show any mercy."

"So, for the present, peace is concluded between us! After that, war to the knife."

"I first pull down my flag."

"Oh, that is only tactics, Fraulein Ilmarinen. Women never capitulate.

That we both know too well. Do you know, I have never had opportunity to see you so close, though I have been so curious to get a good view of you. Tell me, do you dye your hair with saffron to make it such a lovely gold color?"

The golden hue of Zeneida's hair was a natural beauty, but she whispered confidentially to the Princess:

"No; saffron has too pungent a smell. I dye my hair with berberis roots in which purple snails have been steeped."

"And I never could understand how you get that exquisite complexion. Do you use violet roots?"

Zeneida laughed; the blush which heightened her complexion should have been answer enough--could she have told the truth. But she had come here to lie; therefore answered, in laughing accents:

"Oh, Princess, the preservation of this complexion is a perfect science.

I have an old book, published in the times of Poppaea, which contains the receipt."

"Oh, among other things does that receipt advise laying a slice of beef upon one's face on going to bed?"

"Yes, that and other things. I could send you the book; though, in truth, you do not need it. It would be the Graces clothing Anadyomene."

"Oh, you are as magnanimous an adversary as that French naval captain who shared his powder with the Englishman and let himself be shot by him. To that I can only answer as did the Persian king to the Armenians: 'What use is it to send me your sword if therewith you do not send me your arm also?' Of what use the secret of the cosmetic if you do not make me an adept in that bewitching smile which none may resist?"

"Princess, you are just like Napoleon, who had the art of raising a fallen foe."

"This time we are not foes, but allies."

The common foe (Bethsaba) here interrupted the amicable warfare by coming up to put the nave question if she might dance the first polonaise with Chevalier Galban? She was heartily laughed at.

"You may do whatever you like. You are a married woman now."

What is known as a polonaise in the court b.a.l.l.s of St. Petersburg is a promenade round the ballroom in short dance step, performed by the whole company according to the fancy of the first couple. We are therefore not to understand under that appellation the wild mazurka of former days, when the floor groaned under the stamp of the dancers. That was the dance of a period when every Polish n.o.bleman was as good as the king; this is the dance of a time when every Polish n.o.bleman is equal to--a peasant.

In former times both Czar and Czarina had headed the dance; and it happened to have been a polonaise in which Alexander had wounded the feelings of Elisabeth for the sake of the beautiful Korynthia Narishkin--an insult the former had never forgotten.

The arrivals of the great, greater, and greatest personages put an end to conversation. Once arrived, people formed themselves into a circle and waited for the august couple to make the round of the ballroom, after which the polonaise began.

Zeneida was presented to all the foreign princes, and received so much homage that in its intoxicating atmosphere she might well have lost sight of the one intrusted to her care. She was, however, a tried general in such campaigns, and knew how to keep the whole field well under supervision, even to the slightest detail. Attentively her eyes follow Bethsaba. She sees Chevalier Galban, with languishing expression, whisper in her ear; sees the young wife hasten up to her G.o.dmother with glowing cheek; sit down by her and then listen, surprised and startled, betwixt laughter and tears, to what her G.o.dmother is saying to her. She even divined what it was that was being said to her. She also saw the Czarina address Bethsaba, and enter into conversation with her with gracious condescension. And she saw, moreover, that these thousand guests here a.s.sembled to discourse sweet nothings, to jest, to trifle away the hours with orgeat, sorbet, and punch, were often the bitterest enemies, full of deadly hatred, ready at the first opportunity to give vent to their true feelings; that the men in their uniforms, stiff with gold lace, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s liberally sown with orders, who, hat under arm, bowed low to the Czar or to each other, were thinking, "To-day or to-morrow either you or I will be giving each other a 'How d'ye do?'

with our heads, instead of our hats, under our arm"; that she, the singer, had but to say, "I am singing for the benefit of the Orphanage,"

and in an instant every sword would be out of its scabbard, and the men now dancing _vis-a-vis_ to each other would be running their swords through each other's bodies, and the crowned chairs on the dais be overturned, no one asking themselves, "Who is sitting on those chairs?"

or, worse still, that same dais be turned into a scaffold. Conspirators and oppressors, murderers and executioners, all a.s.sembled in one ballroom; every one knowing who everybody is so well that when the master of ceremonies, in mistake, called out, "_Coup de main!_" instead of "_Tour de main!_" there was a shout of laughter. Only the Czar asked, "Why are the gentlemen so merry?"

All this Zeneida saw. The secret of every man there lay in her hands.

Ah, she saw, too, very well, what motive the gracious lady of the house had in giving this brilliant entertainment. In order to seduce a young wife from her truth? Oh no! But in order to discover the key to a secret which he to whom it was intrusted had not divulged to any one--not even to his well-beloved wife.

With the departure of the court from the ballroom the whole a.s.semblage, as etiquette dictated, at once broke up. No one, moreover, was inclined to stay for the sake of enjoyment on that occasion.

Zeneida, taking Bethsaba under her protecting wings, went off with her to Kreskowsky Island. In the gondola the young wife was very silent, and Zeneida purposely abstained from asking her how she had enjoyed herself.

Even after the two women had divested themselves of their ball-dresses Bethsaba remained dreamy and melancholy. The chill of the river made hot tea a necessity before going to bed--in the paradise reclaimed from the marshes lurked ague. When they were alone together, wrapped in warm dressing-gowns and drinking their steaming tea, Bethsaba broke her melancholy meditations with:

"But tell me then, is this, too, a part of religion?"