CHAPTER IV
There was a smell of sour cabbage soup in the palace. This soup was being cooked for the imperial dinner. Peter liked it; he preferred the simple dishes of the soldiers.
The Tsar disliked spending much time at meals; the dishes were served in rapid succession through a window straight from the kitchen. The latter was neat, tiled, and its walls hung with bright copper pans—as in old Dutch houses.
Besides the soup the dinner consisted of buckwheat, Flensbourg oysters, brawn, sprats, roasted meat, with cucumbers and pickled lemons, ducks’ feet in sour sauce. After dinner, nuts, apples and Limbourg cheese were brought in. For drinks kvas, and French red wine. One servant only waited at table.
As usual, guests were invited to dinner: James Bruce, the Court physician, Blumentrost, an English captain, the Kammerjunker Mons, and Miss Hamilton, lady-in-waiting. Peter had invited Mons as a surprise for Catherine; and when she heard of it, she, in her turn, invited the court lady Hamilton. Perhaps she did it to suggest to her husband that she was not quite ignorant of his mistresses. It was that same Hamilton, a Scotchwoman by birth, proud, pure, cold as a marble Diana to look at, whose name had been whispered, when in the Summer Garden the body of an infant, wrapt in a napkin belonging to the palace, had been found in the water pipe of a fountain. At table she remained silent; her pale face seemed bloodless.
Conversation flagged, notwithstanding Catherine’s efforts to keep it going.
She related a dream she had had—a savage white-furred animal with a crown on its head bearing three lighted candles, repeatedly roared at her.
Peter was fond of dreams, and would often at night note them down on his slate. He, too, related his dream: Water everywhere; manœuvres at sea; vessels, and galleys; he had noticed in his dream that the sails and masts were out of proportion.
“Ah, little father,” Catherine fondly exclaimed, “you are continually worrying about the ships; even sleep brings you no peace.”
And when he lapsed into sullen silence she began to talk about the new ships. “The Neptune is an exceedingly fine vessel and sails so well, that it is really the flower of the fleet. The Gangut also goes well and obeys her rudder; only she is not rigid enough for her height, and the slightest breeze causes her to slope more than any of the others. What will happen to her in stormy weather? I have delayed the launching of the large sloop, made by Von Renne, until your arrival; and to prevent it warping had it covered with boards.”
She spoke about the ships like a mother of her children: “The Gangut and the Lesnoy are like twin sisters, unhappy apart from one another. Now that they lie together it is a pleasure to see them. The name ‘adopted’ suits well the purchased vessels as compared with ours; for they can as little be mistaken for ours as a father confounds his own child with an adopted one.”
Peter answered reluctantly, as though preoccupied. He was stealthily watching her and Mons, whose smooth, immovable face, as if it were cut out of some pink stone, his blue turquoise eyes, gave the Kammerjunker the appearance of a porcelain doll.
Catherine felt that her husband was watching them, yet she controlled herself perfectly; even if she knew of any charge against her, she manifested no alarm. Only her eyes, when looking at her husband, expressed more insinuating tenderness than usual; and, perhaps, she talked a little too much, passing on quickly from subject to subject, as if trying to distract her husband. It might have dawned upon him that she was striving to charm away his suspicions.
She had hardly ended about the ships before she began about the children; Elizabeth and Anne who had narrowly escaped being disfigured by smallpox this summer; the little Peter, whose health had grown worse with his last tooth.
“Still he is gradually picking up again; already he has cut five teeth; only now his right eye gives him trouble.”
Peter brightened up for a moment and began to question Blumentrost about his boy’s health.
“The eye is getting better, sir,” the doctor replied, “and a new tooth has appeared in the lower jaw. To-day he is rubbing his gums further back with his little fingers; that means the molars will soon be coming.”
“He will be a brave general,” added Catherine; “he delights in playing at soldiers, and his great joy is to watch the soldiers exercise and hear the guns go off. All he can say is ‘papa,’ ‘mamma,’ ‘soldier.’ I need your protection, father, he is always quarrelling with me when you are away. He does not like to be told that his father has gone, and he rejoices when I tell him that papa has come.” She smiled sweetly at her husband.
Peter did not reply. But the look he gave her and Mons made every one feel uneasy. Catherine cast her eyes down and slightly paled. Hamilton raised her eyes, and a mocking smile curved her lips. Silence ensued. All were alarmed.
Peter, as though nothing had happened, turned to James Bruce and began to talk with him about astronomy, Newton’s system, the spots on the sun which can be looked at through a telescope, if the glass next to the eye be smoked, and the forthcoming solar eclipse. He was so engrossed in this conversation that he noticed nothing else to the very end of the meal. Before leaving the table he pulled out his diary and noted down:
“Mem:—To inform the people about the forthcoming solar eclipses in order to prevent them being regarded as miraculous; since that which is foretold ceases to be a miracle. Nobody should be allowed to invent and spread false rumours about supposed miracles, which serves no purpose except to upset people.”
All breathed more freely when Peter rose from the table and went into the next room.
He sat down in an arm-chair close to the fire, put on his round, iron-rimmed spectacles, lit his pipe, and began to look through the new Dutch papers, marking on the margin what was to be translated for the Russian newspapers.
Then he made another note in his diary:
“Publish everything in full: both good and bad news; nothing should be concealed.”
A pale sunbeam escaped from behind the clouds; it was timid, feeble, like the smile of a dying man. A luminous square spread from the window across the floor to the fireplace; the red flame paled, and grew transparent. Outside the branches stood sharply outlined against the clear silvery sky. An orange-tree grown in a barrel, which was generally carried from one hothouse to another, being delicate and sensitive to cold, rejoiced to see the sun, and its fruit glowed among the dark clipped foliage like golden balls. Amid the dark tree stems gleamed white marble gods and goddesses, the few which had not yet been hidden in their coffins; they too, naked and chilled, seemed to hasten to warm themselves in the sun.
Two little girls came running into the room; the nine-year old Anne, with black eyes, white skin and rosy cheeks, quiet, grave, fat and rather heavy, “a little barrel,” as Peter was wont to call her. The younger one, Lisa, aged seven, with golden curls, blue eyes, sprightly as a bird, noisy, mischievous, slack at her lessons, and caring for only games, dancing and songs, was very pretty and already quite a little flirt.
“Aha! you rascals!” exclaimed Peter, and laying aside the newspapers, he put out his hands towards them with a loving smile. He embraced and kissed them, and lifted them one on to each knee.
Lisa pulled off his spectacles: she did not like them because they made him look older—quite a grandfather to them. Then she began whispering into his ear, confiding to him her long-cherished wish:—
“The Dutch boatswain, Issai Koenig told me about a green monkey which lives in Amsterdam. It is very tiny and could get into an Indian nut. Papa, darling, it would be nice if I could have that monkey!”
Peter, doubting the existence of green monkeys, nevertheless was forced to promise solemnly, with a twofold oath, that he would write by the next courier to Amsterdam. Elizabeth was in raptures and began passing her hand through the blue ringlets of smoke which escaped from Peter’s pipe, to string them together, as she explained.
Anne talked about the marvellous docility and good nature of her pet Mishka, the tame seal which lived in the middle fountain of the Summer Garden.
“Why couldn’t we have a saddle made for him and ride him like a horse?”
“And suppose he dives, won’t you get drowned?” asked Peter.
He talked and laughed with the children like a child.
Suddenly in the pier glass he caught sight of Mons and Catherine as they stood in the adjoining room before the Tsaritsa’s pet, a green parrot, feeding it with sugar.
“Your Majesty’s—— a fool,” shrieked hoarsely the parrot.
He had been taught to say two phrases: “Good-morning, your Majesty;” “the parrot is a fool,” but he joined both sentences in one. Mons bending down to the Tsaritsa was speaking to her almost in whispers. Catherine lowered her eyes, slightly blushed, and listened with the affected mincing smile of a shepherdess in the “Journey to the Isle of Love.”
Peter’s face grew suddenly dark. Nevertheless he kissed the children and affectionately sent them away,
“Now go, go, you little rascals; Anne will give my greetings to Mishka.”
The sunbeam vanished. The room grew dark, damp and cold. A crow cawed just under the very window. Again the hammer was heard; the last of the risen gods were being nailed up and ensconced in their coffins.
Peter sat down to a game of chess with Bruce. He usually played well, but to-day he was absent-minded. He lost his queen after the fourth move.
“I checkmate with the queen,” said Bruce.
“Your Majesty’s—a fool,” cried the parrot.
Peter happened to lift his eyes, again saw Mons and Catherine reflected in the same glass. They were so engrossed in their conversation that they did not notice how a little monkey, like a little devil, had crept up to them from behind, and, making a waggish grimace, stretched out one paw to lift the bottom of Catherine’s dress.
Peter jumped up and with his foot overturned the chess-board, scattering the pieces over the floor. He dropped his pipe, it broke and spilled its burning ashes. Bruce jumped up in terror. Catherine and Mons turned round, attracted by the noise. At this moment Mary Hamilton entered the room. She walked as in a dream, as it were hearing and seeing nothing. Passing the Tsar she slightly inclined her head and looked fixedly at him. Her beautiful lifeless face, which struck the beholder with chill, made her resemble one of those goddesses who were being nailed up in their coffins.
The Tsar followed her with his eyes till she had disappeared behind the door; then, turning to Bruce and the overturned chess-board, he said in apologetic tones:—
“Forgive me, Bruce, it was an accident!”
He left the palace, stepped into his boat, and went to rest on the yacht.