The Count, with a sour look, opined that it was correct.
“Then with the breaking-up of the ice will come the bombardment of Cronstadt.”
“Thousand devils!” cried Benningsen, “and I’ve just bought a villa at Oranienbaum. Right in the line of fire. Thirty thousand roubles clean thrown away! Count, this war is of your creation. Undo your work. Persuade Paul to make peace. This morning’s text ought to dispose him to it.”
“Text?” said Pauline inquiringly.
“Text!” repeated Benningsen. “His latest craze is to turn the Bible into a book of holy divination. Each morning he opens the Scriptures, and the first verse his eye lights upon is taken as a direct message from Heaven. To-day’s text was, ‘Thou shalt bruise his heel.’ Not quite seeing its application to himself straight he goes with the verse to Archbishop Plato. ‘The passage, Sire, is to be taken in connection with the preceding clause, “It shall bruise thy head.” The head is a vital part; not so the heel. The meaning, therefore, is that your enemies, the English, will do you more hurt than you will do them.’”
“Trust Plato for making the Scriptures speak his own views,” said Baranoff with a sneer.
“The text,” continued Benningsen, ignoring the Count’s remark, “has made our little Czar thoughtful. All day long he has been saying at intervals, ‘Thou shalt bruise his heel,’ so that—but here comes Monsieur l’Ambassadeur,” he said, breaking off in the middle of a sentence. “Now, perhaps,” he whispered in Pauline’s ear, “I shall be able to have a word with you on—start not—on a matter touching our personal safety.”
The Marquis de Vaucluse had entered the reception-hall wearing a perturbed look, due to the discovery that the Czarovitch was a close prisoner in his own apartments, and forbidden to hold any communication with the outside world.
For a few moments the four discussed in common this latest phase of Imperial politics, and then Baranoff, desirous of conversing privately with De Vaucluse, drew him on one side, leaving Benningsen free to talk with Pauline.
“How long, think you,” said Baranoff to the Marquis, “shall we be able to keep the Czar alive?”