‘Ha!’ I said. ‘Mazeppa, that is more than thy usual praise for a woman: is it possible that thou hast it in thy mind to run a race with the Tsar for a pretty wench? That would endanger thy favour with her Highness!’
‘Bah!’ said Mazeppa. ‘I tell you that he gazes at the jewel at her throat because it flashes in the sun: set a light dancing upon the wall, and he will stare at that. As for the girl, it is not my habit to do things in a hurry, and least of all will I marry in haste; but she is certainly one of the fairest of women that I have yet seen! Think you such as she would mate with an Ivan, even though he be half a Tsar? I think she would die first!’
As to that I knew nothing, for I did not pretend to understand the heart of woman. But I knew this, that Russian Tsars marry whom they will, be they devils like Ivan the Terrible, or unsightly, unwholesome things like this other Ivan; for either the maidens must, though they would not, or else they consider that the man matters little so long as there is a crown to be worn, and one may call herself Tsaritsa!
I became somewhat friendly with Vera Kurbatof, and before I left Moscow I took occasion to ask her how she liked my friend Mazeppa.
‘He is handsome,’ she said, ‘and has a good manner, and he is cleverer than all these together except Galitsin; but he is cunning, and I am afraid of him; also he looks as though he might be treacherous. On the whole, I do not like him! Yet, if I should ever need such help as the wit or cunning of a man might furnish me withal, I should trust his wit sooner than another’s, so long as I knew that he lost nothing by helping me.’
I laughed much at the time over Vera’s saying. But afterwards, that is when next Vera’s destiny crossed my own, I remembered it, for I had then reason to believe that Mazeppa had somehow compacted with the girl to stand her friend in certain contingencies. And that Mazeppa was one who would never work without pay I knew well!
CHAPTER VIII
About one year from the time of our return to the Hetman’s Court after this visit to Moscow, as I reckon it, there began to subsist a state of constant warfare between Mazeppa and myself; not a warfare of thrust and blow, of swords or of pistols, indeed, for we never came to violence, but a warfare of wit, in which the desire to obtain the better of one another was the principal end and motive.
We had been, on the whole, good friends up to this time. I had, indeed, begun very gradually to understand Mazeppa and to regard him, in consequence, with more suspicion and less respect than formerly; but I now soon realised that I must treat him differently, that I must in fact dissemble with him, since I found that he dissembled constantly in dealing with myself, if I desired to live upon equal terms with my friend and not to lag for ever behind in the race of life.
That which first angered and set me to use my wits against him was this: