“My love,” I said smiling, “what would become of me? I felt abashed when I told the Boyar Ramodanofsky that I loved his daughter, and he has not replied to me yet. How could I sue for the white hand of an empress?”
She looked at me with her head a little on one side.
“If I were an empress, M. le Vicomte”—she began, but the opening of the outer door arrested the laughing words upon her lips, and we both turned startled glances at the stern countenance of the boyar. His keen eyes searched us for a moment, but he closed the door and advanced with a sober face.
“You have evil tidings, father,” Zénaïde exclaimed, her quick eye reading his clouded brow.
“Not for you, my child,” he replied quietly; “but a sad thing has happened. We have lost a friend,” he added, turning to me.
“Von Gaden?” I exclaimed at once.
The boyar bowed his head in assent.
“Alas!” exclaimed Zénaïde, “is he slain?”
“He and Ivan Naryshkin were taken to-day,” Ramodanofsky replied. “The Streltsi came to the palace and demanded Ivan Naryshkin; the czarina resisted, until Sophia told her that his life must be sacrificed to save the others. He received the eucharist in the Church of the Savior beyond the Wicket, and Sophia gave him an image of the Virgin to hold. Poor Natalia Kirilovna went with him to the Golden Wicket, and there the Streltsi seized him and insulted him before her eyes. Meanwhile, Von Gaden had been arrested in disguise, begging for food; he has been three days in the woods without it. He and Naryshkin were both taken to the Constantine torture-room and subjected to excruciating agony. Ivan uttered not a word, but Von Gaden had already endured too much, and he made some sort of confession, the wild talk of a man in death agony. It availed nothing. They were dragged to the Red Place and lifted on the points of the rioters’ spears. Then their hands and feet were cut off, their bodies chopped in pieces and trampled in the dirt. Thus perished a benevolent physician.”
“His poor wife!” cried Zénaïde; “who can tell her? She is here, father,” she added; “she came to hear some tidings of him.”