The Green Book Part 72

"For all I care, let him stay where he is."

"You, in your Tusculum, can afford to make cheap jokes; but what are all the poor devils about the court to do in such an imbroglio?"

"Especially as his wife is more to the Czarevitch than his crown!"

"No more of that! With that overdrawn conjugal love we do not throw sand into other people's eyes. I had opportunity of putting that love to the proof. I a.s.sure you that it needed no magic to have led Frau Johanna to forget her Grand Ducal lover for a _knightly_ one. At that time she had not the right to call him husband. Ah! had not a more powerful feeling swayed my heart"--a suppressed sigh and secret side-glance at Bethsaba here explained his words--"truly in my hands would have lain the power to present Grand Duke Constantine the nineteen crowns of Russia--even a twentieth. It only needed me to have stayed one day longer in the gardens of the lovely Lazienka."

Pushkin was disgusted at this bragging. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe. Galban's boasting he valued at the same rate as those ashes.

"I happen to know, however, that the Czarevitch and his wife are so devotedly attached to each other that Constantine would not exchange Johanna's head-dress for Rurik's crown."

"But what if that is not due to Johanna's head-dress, but is the fault of Rurik's crown? A sensible man does not shelter from the storm under a fir-tree if he means to keep dry, and of all fir-trees the crown of a Russian fir is the most dangerous in a storm. Every one knows--even the sparrows twitter it--that the late Czar was only saved by the kind agency of Caucasian fever from the fatality which awaits every Russian czar. There are many rumors, even, about his end. People talk of poison.

The _bon-mot_ of Talleyrand is going the round: 'It is really time that Russian czars changed their manner of dying.' One shudders to say it, how a.s.sa.s.sination, treachery, conspiracy, await him who sits upon Rurik's throne. The very kneeling-chair, the altar, the church wherein he prays, are undermined. Is not this explanation enough why one brother vies with another in refusing the throne? The most open expression of feeling was that which caused the Czarevitch to explain the reason of his hesitation to the Queen Dowager of Saxony in these words: 'Russian czars need to have very strong necks, and I am not fond of having my neck tickled.'"

So outspoken! Only _agents provocateurs_ venture to say such audacious things.

Pushkin shoved the amber mouth-piece so far into his mouth that he could not bring out a word. Bethsaba saw that her husband was on thorns, and left the room. She had divined his wish, and ordered three sledges to be horsed and despatched to fetch their neighbors, hindered from coming by the snow-storm.

Galban, meanwhile, continued the conversation.

"You know very well who I was and what I am. My whole life long I have been a courtier. I loved to serve, to obey, to intrigue. Never did I have the least inclination to join a league of conspirators. I tell the truth. But under the present circ.u.mstances a man's ordinary loyalty is of no account whatever. The whole country is at sixes and sevens. Even political leagues are disrupted. By the death of the Czar the ground has been cut from under their feet. There is no Czar. Against whom should they conspire? They have split up into two parties. If Constantine take the crown, Nicholas will immediately be proclaimed Czar as well; if Nicholas, Constantine will be set up against him. The soldiers are ready to fire upon each other; each party will fight for their legitimate head. Under the counter battle-cry, 'Long live the Czar!' we shall have a fine revolution breaking out. Nor can one tell who will come out conqueror. If Constantine's party win the day, Nicholas's followers will be the rebels; if Nicholas's party gain the upperhand, it will be Constantine's followers who will suffer. The position of a man like myself is simply terrible. Whichever side I take to-day, how am I to tell if, with all my loyal devotion, I shall not to-morrow be proscribed as a rebel? Under such circ.u.mstances a wise man cannot do better than to leave the chaos to take care of itself and flee to the woods to hunt wolves. And, I trust, Alexander Sergievitch, that we shall often join in that healthful pursuit together."

"I am not allowed to go a day's journey from Pleskow."

"Well, then, my estate lies within your boundary--just a short winter day's distance. Let us get all the enjoyment out of it we can as long as this chaotic world endures."

Pushkin promised to return the visit shortly.

"Then, now we are friends and companions," continued Galban, garrulously. "You may imagine the lamentations under the tsinovniks in St. Petersburg. Next March Czar Alexander was to have celebrated his five-and-twentieth year of accession. Every man about the court was congratulating himself on the prospect of ascending a step on this ladder of rank; instead of being 'vase blagorodie' that he would become 'vase vomszkoblagorodie.' Numbers of them had had their uniforms made beforehand, and had prepared their answers for the forthcoming examinations. You are aware that all of us, when we get preferment, have to undergo an examination? Luckily for us the professors give out the papers in good time; a golden key lets them out the sooner. And now all this has come to naught. I myself stood on the list, in the third rank of n.o.bility, as director of the St. Petersburg Theatre, and you figured in it in the rank of major. Three thousand aspirants! most of whom had paid pretty heavily for their chances into Daimona's fair hands. Money thrown away now."

This dangerous conversation was brought to an end by the noisy entrance of the three neighbors. Never had doors opened to more welcome guests.

They had not, moreover, come to quarrel over involved questions of succession, but to play tarok; and it is an acknowledged axiom--tarok before everything!

Chevalier Galban excused himself on the plea that he only played hazard, and that for high stakes.

"Well, then, sit down and have a game of chess with my wife. But look to your laurels; Bethsaba plays a good game."

Thus Chevalier Galban settled to a game that is the greatest hazard in all the world, and is played for the highest stakes of all.

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE MOUSE PLAYS WITH THE CAT

The men flung their cards upon the table as though they meant to make it suffer, and after every game set to quarrelling. "This card should have been played, not that, for we were winning!"

The men said things to each other which, had not the cards been in their hands, must have led to affairs of honor. In the opposite corner of the room things went much more quietly. Here they only spoke in whispers, as is customary at chess.

"Sun of my life, now you can see of what a wounded heart is capable! Who other than a man made a very fool by his love would be paying visits at such a time?"

"Then you have not fled, in the political chaos, from the capital?"

"I? It is my element, in which I live as a fish does in water. It is my natural element. There has not been a change of sovereign throughout Europe at which I have not a.s.sisted. When Mars armed himself for the battle-field I was the Mercury who bore his message. It is in order to win your smile that I have rent a career in sunder, have thrust a princely crown from me."

"And if I do not smile?"

"I should go mad."

"Oh, you are going back on your words! The last time we met you vowed you were mad for love of me; and now are you only beginning to take precaution against it?"

"Every day I begin to get mad afresh."

"That proves that every day your madness is cured."

"Does not my presence here prove that I am incurable?"

"It was only the snow-storm that brought you here."

"The storm befriended me! It gave me the right to come."

"Oh, our house is always open to guests."

"Our house! What torture in those two words!"

"Shall I say, 'My husband's house'?"

"That is preferable! That manner of speaking in the plural only beseems kings, not even queens."

"Russian women are no queens; they serve a praiseworthy custom of antiquity."

"But your province is to make slaves."

"I have heard tell that the Turks once conquered a citadel which they had been permitted to enter as guests. Do you not perceive that you are misusing the rights of hospitality?"

"Show me by one look that my presence here is obnoxious to you, and neither storm nor night will exist for me. I will have my horses put to, and, despite snow-drifts, despite the howling of wolves, I will set out on my way."

"You are perfectly aware that you could find no reasonable pretext for such a step--that Pushkin would not suffer it."

"I knew how it was! Check to your king! You will soon have lost the game. Then you will jump up indignantly, complain of the smoky atmosphere, and retire to your own room. I shall sit down behind Alexander Sergievitch's chair and criticise his play. That is the way the best of friends fall out. One word leads to another. I am hot-headed, so is he. Finally, I let myself be turned out of doors. Now do you understand my game?"

"Not yet. I can still castle my king. I will not allow you to leave our house."

"If you say 'our' house again I will leave it on the spot. The very thought that the same roof covers me, my happiness, and the robber of that happiness makes even this paradise into purgatory to me. Check to your king and queen!"

"Then we shall be compelled to exchange queens. I take yours, you mine.