The Muscovites could admire in the house of the count the splendid gobelin tapestries on the walls; the marvellous, graceful Dutch-tile stoves on gilt pedestals; the magnificent collection of old arms and armour. His town garden was ornamented with ponds, lakes, arbours, cascades, a menagerie, and an aviary. At the princely gates, in one of the windows of the lodge-keeper’s cottage, hung a golden cage with a parrot in it, who would scream at the idlers, “Long live our little Mother Empress!” At the fabulous feasts of the Count Alexis, very often under the costly lemon and orange trees, brought from his hothouses, tables would be spread, at which more than 300 people would sit down. A true Russian at heart, the count used to like giving his guests the pleasure of looking on at boxings, wrestlings, minstrelsies, himself often not disdaining to take part in them. With his hand he could bend a horseshoe, tie a poker in a knot, or catch a bull by the horns and throw him down; and to these sights he would sometimes invite all Moscow.
On one occasion, to have a good laugh at the rising passion of the fops for pince-nez and spectacles, on the 1st of May he sent on the public promenade at Sokolnika one of his attendants, dressed in a riding costume, and leading amongst the crowd of young dandies a poor, crippled, and half-blind cur, with great tin spectacles on his nose, and a card hung round his neck with the following sentence in large letters, “And look, he’s only three years old!”
But it was his splendidly arranged hunting meets and horse races which made him a centre of attraction to all classes of society. Not one horse in all Moscow could be compared to his “Rissak,”[22] a mixed breed of Arabian, English, and Frisian horses. At the races held in front of the house at the “Crimean Ford” I can even now remember how the Count Alexano, in the winter in his tiny sleighs, and in summer in his racing droskies would lead with his own hands his spotlessly white horse “Smitanka,” or her rival, the dapple-grey “Amazonka.” Crowds would be running after the count when he, gathering the reins in his hand in his romanovski touloup,[23] or his damask coat, would appear at the gates on his snorting, white-maned beauty, calling out to his three Simeons—to his first jockey, Sainka the White, to arrange the bit; to his second, Sainka the Black, to tighten the stirrups; to his third, Sainka the Dresdenite, to moisten the horse’s mane with kvas.
The count was also playful in his correspondence. Who does not know the letter he wrote to his brother Gregory after the celebrated victory of Chesma?
“Sir, my brother, good day! We marched on the enemy, we went up to him, we caught him, we felled him, we broke him, we conquered him, we drowned him, we burnt him, and turned him into ashes. And I, your humble servant, am in good health.—Alexis Orloff.”
Copies of this letter were in the hands of every one. A born jester, a reveller, a boxer, this pleasure-loving count in his young years before the war had never even dreamt of being a sailor. Even to take the command of the fleet in Italy he went by land! He was very much talked about on the accession of the empress to the throne; after the battle of Chesma he was still more talked about; but to a good many he remained an enigma. At the reviews and parades, at his own princely levées, Count Alexis always appeared surrounded with great pomp, covered with gold, diamonds, and orders of all sorts; but in his walks in Paris he would go out amongst the elegant and fastidious crowd of promenaders sometimes with his head unpowdered, with a little round bourgeois hat, and a coat of the coarsest and commonest grey cloth. I, of course, like others, could not very well guess the motives which prompted him to do all this. Very often even his words would bewilder you. Yes, he was a man of great mind and subtle wit. I burned with impatience again to see him, after so long a separation, although the commission entrusted to me by the Princess troubled me very much. Before my departure from Ragusa I had let the count know by letter of my escape from the Turks, and also that I was bringing him news of a very important person, whom I had discovered by accident and had met.
My journey through Italy lasted a long time. I managed to get a chill on the mountains, fell ill, and was obliged to stay for some time at the house of a charitable magnate. At length I arrived at Bologna. After having rested from my journey a little, I changed my dress, and, feeling rather agitated, I approached the beautiful palace of the count at Bologna. I learnt that the count was at home, and sent to announce my presence. After my long imprisonment, I had every reason to expect a warm welcome and reward; but I was rather doubtful how the count would take my audience and conference with the dangerous and mysterious pretender, held without the permission of my chief. There were two sides to the question. If I had been asked to say conscientiously exactly what I thought of the Princess, I should have found it very difficult to give a truthful answer. At Ragusa I had heard many doubtful things of her past life, about mysterious ties she had formed. But what did her past life matter to any one? Who knows what ties she might have been induced to make to escape from her gloomy fate? And who knows if such ties really existed?
The count received me directly. I was led through a long suite of richly-decorated drawing-rooms and salons, first on the ground-floor and then upstairs.
At this time the handsome hero of Chesma, Count Alexis, was in his thirty-eighth year. Not only at home, but in a strange land, he loved to spend his time with doves, being passionately fond of these birds. On my arrival he was sitting at the very top of his house, where he ordered the footman at once to bring me. What a sight met my eyes! This celebrated man—so clever, so strong and so stately, before whom all other men seemed but pigmies—was seated on a common wooden chair at the dusty little window. Having run away from the heat, he was seated with only his shirt on! and was drinking out of a mug some iced wine, at the same time waving his handkerchief at a brood of doves, who were pirouetting about the roof. “Ah! Konchic;[24] how are you?” said he, turning for a minute towards me. “Well, what? run away, eh? Well, congratulate you, old fellow. Sit down. Oh! look there; are they not a lovely couple? What do you think of them? Ah! the rascals; there they are turning and twisting. Ah, tourmelins[25] ah!”
Again he waved his handkerchief, and I, not finding any chair to sit upon, began looking at him with curiosity.