“The window barred,” murmured the General, as if following out some train of thought rather than addressing Wilfrid, “and the bedroom-door difficult of access, since to reach it one must traverse a network of corridors so like a maze that to find one’s way requires the thread of Ariadne.”
“Are such precautions necessary?”
“The dear Czar thinks so.”
On learning for what purpose Wilfrid had come to the Michaelovski Square, Benningsen made the disappointing announcement that a distressing cough on the part of the Empress—“due to the damned palace”—prevented her and the Imperial ladies from driving forth that afternoon.
Benningsen, who was a member of the English Club situated on the Minerva Prospekt, suggested that Wilfrid should accompany him thither, to which proposal Wilfrid assented, moved more by the hope of there getting rid of the General than by any other reason. So the two set off, on foot, because, as Benningsen remarked, it was “so English.”
The Minerva Prospekt, when reached, turned out to be a wide and noble boulevard, alive with pedestrians of the lower orders and with the sleighs of the wealthier classes. The barbaric, yet handsome, costume of the boyars, the gay dresses and rich furs of the ladies, with their bright eyes and laughing voices, the furious galloping of steeds and the jingling of silver bells made a scene of colour, movement, and sound, that offered a striking contrast to the stillness, the emptiness, the monotony of the Michaelovski Square.
Then, in a moment, all was changed!
“Gossudar zdes! Gossudar zdes!”
Such was the cry—“The Czar is coming!”—that flew from mouth to mouth along the Prospekt.
Pedestrians stopped short in their walk; vehicles were hastily reined in, and dismay appeared on the faces of all, as with a crash of military music there suddenly debouched upon the Minerva Prospekt a regiment of footguards, in front of whom, and keeping time to the music with the waving of his cane, strutted an odd little figure, who was evidently taking a huge delight in the soldiers, in the marching, in the music.