Christ hath risen!
The other replied with:—
Come beat a livelier strain!
Blow loudly now, my pipe!
The Tsarevitch recalled the holy night, the holy joy, the depth of past emotion, the expectation of a miracle, and he felt as if he had fallen from heaven itself into the mire; like the sot who was lying in the gutter without. Bitter feelings took possession of him. What was the good of beginning Easter as they had done, if this was to be the close? There is not, neither will there be, any miracle, but only the “abomination of desolation” in the Holy Place, to the very end!
CHAPTER II
Peter was no less fond of Peterhof than he was of his “Paradise.” He went there each summer, and personally supervised the laying out of pleasure gardens, vegetable beds, ornamental cascades of fountains. He ordered that one cascade was to be broken and rough with foam, another, on the contrary, was to fall with a surface smooth as glass; a pyramid of water was to be designed by means of a series of small cascades. In front of the one which formed the apex the legend of Hercules contending with the seven-headed Hydra was to be represented; from the seven heads jets of water were to shoot; while further down the car of Neptune was to appear, drawn by four sea-horses which also gave forth sprays of water. Forming the border of this central group were Tritons blowing their conchs from which jets played in different directions. Designs were to be prepared for the arrangement of each fountain and of the landscape which was to surround it; and the latter were to resemble French and Roman gardens.
A pale May night lay over Peterhof. The sea was as calm as a mirror. Against a green sky shot with pink mother-of-pearl hues, were outlined the dark firs and the yellow walls of the palace. The dim windows, like blind eyes, reflected the light of the coming dawn. In this light everything looked pale and faded, the green of the grass and of the trees was ashen grey, the flowers were as things dead, and all was still in the empty gardens. The fountains slept. Only from the mossy banks of the cascades, and from the porous stones, which formed the walls of grottos, drops fell from time to time like tears.