“Of Ouvarov?”
“No; of the other who rode beside him. That tall, gaunt, foreign-looking man. I have seen him before; I am sure of it. But where? when?”
“I should think,” said Kanikoff, “that you would care very little to see him again. He must ride out with Ouvarov on purpose to illustrate Beauty and the Beast.”
“Ivan would like well enough to see him if he were ill,” Yakovlef interposed. “That is the Czar’s physician—Dr. Wylie, a Scotchman, very clever, but very ready with his lancet, they say. He has been accused of cutting off a man’s head to cure him of a headache.”
“The head of the man who allowed him to do it could have been little loss to its owner,” laughed Ivan. Then he repeated thoughtfully, “His lancet! I am sure I have seen him with a lancet. Of what can I be thinking?”
He was interrupted by Feodor, the grandson of Petrovitch, who pushed his way through the crowd to the group of young nobles. The handsome, dark-eyed lad, in his blue caftan and crimson sash, looked to no disadvantage amongst them. They all knew him, and greeted him with kindness, if also with a little condescension.
“I am so glad I have found you, Prince Ivan,” said the boy breathlessly. “My grandfather thought you would like to see the benediction of the Czar with the holy picture. His friend, Pope Yefim, is to take part in the ceremony, and he says he can secure you a good place.”
Ivan gladly accepted the offer; and in the short conversation that followed, the merchant’s son was able to contribute materially to the information of his social superiors.
“Pope Yefim has seen a copy of the letter which the Patriarch wrote to the Czar,” he said. “He was not able to come himself—for you know, gentlemen, he is nearly a hundred years old, much older than my grandfather—but he writes that it grieves him to the heart he cannot see the face of his sovereign—that face which is to him ‘as the face of Christ.’”
Neither speaker nor hearers were startled by the expression which to us seems to border on the profane. But the profanity was unintentional, and the passionate loyalty utterly sincere.