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.”