Life had no charm—death no terror for Ivan.
In his visits, which were frequent, as the young Prince had conceived a great regard for him, Charlie Balgonie knew not upon what topics to converse; for he experienced great difficulty in fashioning his sentences and observations to suit a listener whose knowledge of the external world and of all the machinery of life was so limited. In those visits, Balgonie was always accompanied by the Chaplain, or Captain Vlasfief, as the watchful and suspicious Bernikoff would by no means permit them to have an interview alone.
"I am so glad to have you for a friend, Ivanovitch Balgonie," the Prince would say sometimes; "though Father Chrysostom assures me that kings may have peers and soldiers, serfs and slaves, but, alas! they can never have a friend! I have heard my guards say that I was once a King—an Emperor; but I cannot remember when. It must have been long, long ago, as Russia has had four monarchs since. I have not even a dream of it—an Emperor? Yet I shall too probably die even as Demetrius did. I cannot remember even my mother; for they tell me that she died of sorrow, when I was brought here from a place called Moscow. Do you, Hospodeen, remember yours?"
"When I was but a child she died, to my sorrow. Had she lived, I might not have been here in Russia to-day," replied Balgonie.
"Well—but you may remember," persisted the young Prince.
"True, your Highness; memories I have of a soft fair face that bent over my little bed at night; of one who kissed and hushed me to sleep; but those memories are faint or vivid, broken and uncertain, according to my mood of mind; and strange it is that they come to me more in dreams by night than thoughts by day, especially as I grow older."
"I should like to have some such dreams, but then I have nothing to remember; I know not even my own age or when I came here," said Ivan thoughtfully. "If I do dream, by night, I seem to hear only what I hear by day—the voices of the Cossack sentinels, the screams of the sea-birds, the dashing of the waves when the wind crosses the lake, or the clanging of the castle bell. Then there are times when I dream that I see Demetrius, and then I awake in a cold perspiration. Tell me of the things that are being acted in the great world that lies beyond the Lake of Ladoga, for Father Chrysostom speaks to me only of Heaven."
"It is said that the King of Prussia has agreed to the proposal of—of—the Empress, about the county of Wirtemberg, in Silesia."
"How, agreed?"
"Count Biron is to have the estate as Duke of Courland, on paying eight thousand guineas to Field-Marshal Count Munich," said Balgonie.