Ivan made no mistake in these personal equations of his; but he managed one very bad one when, in his heart, he thought of fate, or destiny, or circumstance, as leaving all responsibility of decision to him, thus shirking its generally acknowledged business. Had this chosen son harbored no such audacity, perhaps the rearrangement of Ivan's life, necessary though it had now become, might have been gradually wrought. As it was, the fellow must be given a double lesson, and forced to learn it well:—by heart, in all probability. Nor must it fail to stretch his powers of apprehension to their fullest extent. Wherefore, in the early autumn, the giant wheel that is not turned by chance, began to revolve for Ivan, very slowly, without apparent aim in its pristine movements.
Summer was gone. The five great camps in the Empire had been broken a fortnight before; and officers and men alike began to let their backs relax a little, and were taking less notice of dust-flecks on their uniforms. In the suburbs, at Tsarskoë-Selo, for instance, there were now many villas whose eyes had closed for the night of winter—their recently open windows and doors being dismally boarded over; while their aristocratic owners were indulging in a last informal holiday at some one of the foreign Spas, before the serious business of winter sleighing and court balls should recommence. This year there was, however, less flitting than usual; for men in high places had been made to understand the full significance of an imperial whisper that the ministers and their aides remain in close touch with Peterhof and the Hermitage. Europe was under a tension of hope—and fear. And the Bear and the Lion crouched face to face, every muscle rigid, eyes glued upon each other, ears strained to catch every faintest echo from the booming of northern guns in that far-off land where America lay, already torn and bleeding with the first lacerations of her terrible inward strife.
In the first week of September, Lieutenant Gregoriev, returning from a visit to his father in Moscow, rejoined Captain de Windt in their apartment in the little Peréolouk.—Thus the court journal: whereby the young man should have perceived himself to have ascended at least one more round of the social ladder. If he did not realize this, however, Ivan was still in a very excellent frame of mind. His stay with his father had been pleasanter than he had hoped; for Prince Michael, who began to see his every ambition realized in the probable future of his son, had been more agreeable to him than ever before, and absolutely magnificent in his generosity. Ivan felt a little thrill of amazement every time he recalled the amount of money at his command. Moreover, here was a new season coming on; and one that promised him delight untold. For was it not to bring the début of his cousin Nathalie? She, light of his dreams, no longer to be shut away from his eyes, or voice, or even—speak of it reverently!—arms, perhaps—stood where he had stood a year before: on the threshold of the ballroom of youth. The world was to know her well; for her mother, always advocate of the dernier cri de la mode, had decided, months before, that she, like a dozen ladies of the highest Russian world, would adopt, for her daughter, the English fashion; and actually allow her, before her marriage, to face the living world of men and things. At the first court ball of the season she should be presented to her sovereigns; after which it would be understood that the charming child was in the matrimonial market, ready to be knocked down to the highest bidder.
Had her cousin Ivan, who scarcely regarded her presentation in this harsh and vulgar light, thrilled at the prospect of her first appearance there, how much more must it mean to the damsel herself, who, in all her girlish dreams of the freedom of womanhood, had never dared picture the possibility of such liberty before the event of marriage? During the coming season there were to be introduced half a dozen other young girls of her own station, who had even been in her own class at the Institute. And more than once this true daughter of the world had laughingly reviewed her possible rivals, either to herself, or to her interested maid. There were Mademoiselle Cherneskovsky, with her long, skinny neck; and Alexandra Nikitenko, whose red face and fat figure could not possibly be forgotten in the good-nature of her disposition, any more than the immense wealth of the only daughter of the Shúlka-Mirskies could compensate for her thin, colorless hair, and pale, red-rimmed eyes with their invisible white lashes. Finally, there was Olga Tarentino, whose blonde stateliness might prove dangerous, so long as she could keep from a betrayal of her vixenish temper. But pretty Nathalie, remembering the furious recklessness of this, laughed as she lifted her golden-framed hand-glass, and accepted, complacently, the ready flattery of smooth-tongued Antoinette.
Nor, seeing this young girl as she stood, surrounded by her mother, two maids, and half a dozen adoring serfs, on the evening of November 12th, in the year 1862, could any one have blamed her, very strongly, for her gay vanity. Lovelier vision than this surely never graced the somewhat bare corridors of the labyrinthine Hermitage! For this was the night of her début, when Nathalie was to make her first courtesies to royalty.
She was dressed in the prescribed court costume—which was to prove so trying to the objects of her naughty ridicule. Upon her, the high kakoshnik, with its jewelled rim, and the floating veil that softened so beautifully the great weight of her braids, proved startlingly beautiful. And, with a neck like hers, what more desirable than the daring décolletage of her white tulle gown, from the billowing skirts of which her tiny waist sprang like the slender stem of a huge, white rose. About her throat was clasped a double row of pearls—her father's gift to her for the great occasion. And, in her arms,—last, daring touch of her Countess-mother, who, in the matter of dress, was a consummate artist,—Nathalie carried a great cluster of vivid crimson camellias, that gave a perfect finish to a costume now relieved from any suspicion of monotony, or too conventional simplicity. The red of the waxen camellia, vividly transparent as it was, was scarce redder than the unroughed cheeks and lips of their bearer. Nor was the brilliant sparkling of the diamonds in the kakoshnik inadequately reproduced in the light of those changing eyes, which, to-night, glowed large and dark with steady, living fire.
Caroline, Countess Dravikine, gazing critically at her daughter's finished figure, felt her heart glow within her. Who could reproach her for exploiting such beauty before marriage? For at sight of Nathalie to-night, an Emperor himself could scarce have reproached his son for desiring the hand of so exquisite a creature. And, with her own great skill as a firm basis for the girl's charming ingenuousness, reflected her mother, what alliance would prove impossible to her now? For, even in her mother-love, this odd woman was filled with the selfishness of a very empty vanity. And it seemed now as if, with the death of her unhappy sister, there had also died in Madame Dravikine the last vestige of unworldliness.
The Hermitage that night proved a fitting field for her generalship. The event so long dreaded by her as the seeming end of her own youth, was suddenly turned into a double triumph. For, as Nathalie passed through the long salons, she was followed by such a trail of whispers, envious, malicious, amazed, from the women, universally applausive from the men, that the Countess suddenly realized that she held in her hands a new instrument of power; one greater than she had ever wielded before. Moreover, before an hour was gone, she knew well that she had been vindicated of any suggestion of mistake in having adopted the English rather than the French form in introducing her daughter. For his Majesty exclaimed, delightedly, as he personally lifted the débutante from her third low and graceful courtesy; and the Empress, most charming, most gentle, most refined of women, kissed the young girl on the cheek with a compliment that made Princess Shúlka-Mirski scowl with displeasure—her own daughter having received no more than the conventional acknowledgment. Later, as Nathalie, her cheeks burning, her big eyes cast down, backed slowly from the room, still prostrating herself at intervals, every woman present felt that little, insensible murmur of applause that came from every member of the royal circle—the grand-dukes indeed attempting no concealment of their admiration.
The great formality over, Mademoiselle Nathalie was bestowed upon her own, voluntary subjects: a throng of brilliantly uniformed men, among whom already—oh remarkable girlhood!—Nathalie's eyes were eagerly searching, for a certain one. He was there; and presently, catching that look, he came to her: the handsome, black-eyed cousin, whose heart was throbbing for and with her. And her triumphant mother would have been dismayed indeed had she known that all that evening, throughout her unprecedented success, Nathalie had moved and spoken and blushed and been still for one alone, whose eyes, from the moment of her entry into the royal presence, she had felt upon her!
How this feeling had come, whence it sprang, whereon been nourished, grown, who could say? Certainly not the maiden herself. Indeed, until this night, she had not given Ivan his rightful place with her. But henceforth she was to hold his image in her heart, and, sleeping and waking, it was to be with her, her delight, her anguish, her wonderment.