“You saved my life,” he said; “I am yours, O my master!”
And after that we went out together into the streets, where the glare of day shone horridly upon a scene of death and turmoil, and those things that night had cloaked with charity glared at noonday and sent a shudder even to a strong man’s heart.
XXIV: GALITSYN
WHEN I left our quarters I had made no plans, and was only determined to find the Princess Daria, and to save her from the dangers that encompassed her at every step. A wild enough design for one man—and a foreigner at that—to form at such a time in Moscow, and the aspect of the deserted streets smote me with a sharp sense of the desperate nature of my enterprise. Fear crept here, behind the close-shuttered windows, the grim, double-bolted doors—fear and silence. Once or twice, as I passed, a grille opened and I saw a white face peep out and vanish again at the sound of my footstep, and here and there, notably among the houses of the better sort, doors and windows gaped wide, and a heap of refuse, of broken furniture and torn clothing, lay piled in the court-yard, showing that this house and that had been gutted by the mob, and across more than one threshold lay something that was neither furniture, nor clothing, nor a sack of meal, though it lay as helpless, still for evermore. Where I walked it was silent, so silent that my tread woke the echoes, but the city was not so; it was full of confused noises, of shouting and crying, of drum and musket, and now and then, of the deep voices of the bells of Moscow’s many churches and cathedrals. Riot and murder and robbery were loose there, and as I drew nearer to the Kremlin I saw ever more bodies and more bodies, lying in the sunlight with upturned faces and helpless hands that would fight no more forever. I turned aside thrice to avoid parties of rioters in pursuit of some wretched victim, but through all my devious turns I kept on toward the palace. If the princess lived, if my wife lived, she was there, of that I was convinced. But before I entered the Red Place I heard the trampling of horses, the shouts of men approaching, and stepped back into the shadow of a friendly doorway and waited to see who passed that way with such an escort. And presently, at the end of the street, appeared a band of serfs, running ahead of a carriage, as they always ran before a great nobleman; they came swiftly toward me, two and two, clad in long crimson tunics, with collars and belts of white and high green caps; and as they advanced I counted twenty before the horses and behind the carriage there were twenty more, and with all their splendid dress their feet were bare, as had been the feet of the Prince Voronin’s slaves. The horses, three splendid creatures, were hung with fox-tails that floated as they moved, and in the carriage sat a noble figure, in a magnificent dress of gold and silver brocade; his handsome face was but slightly concealed by his high collar, and jewels flashed on his breast. It was Prince Basil Galitsyn himself, the rising star of the new order of things, the favourite of Sophia, and the lover of the Princess Daria. And at his feet sat Maître le Bastien. I stepped out of my concealment and called aloud for them to stop. The driver, a fierce Cossack, cracked his whip and would have driven over me, but for Le Bastien, who saw me and cried out to Prince Galitsyn. At a nod from him the whole procession halted, the horses plunging and rearing on their haunches, and the serfs crowding about me, as if they waited orders to seize and carry me away. But I walked up to the carriage itself, and demanded speech with his excellency the Boyar Prince Galitsyn, aware, all the while, of the master goldsmith’s perplexed amazement, but the prince was bent on benevolence. It was an hour, indeed, when he had need of all his diplomacy and suavity to hold his supremacy, and he bade me follow to his palace, where I should have an audience. His air of patronage stuck in my throat, but reflecting that he knew me only as the French goldsmith, I swallowed my pride and followed at a distance to his house.
Galitsyn was noted for his magnificence and his foreign tastes, and his palace was furnished more in the style of Europe than any other in Moscow. I had been there before as Maître le Bastien’s apprentice and knew it well. The carriage of the prince and his attendants arriving in advance, I found the court-yard thronged with his scarlet tunics, and the wide doors of the great house stood open as I approached, and in the lobby, too, were serfs in scarlet, and then I saw the prince very gracefully and graciously offer Maître le Bastien the bread and salt, and when the goldsmith had tasted both, they were extended to me and, happily, I took them also. Then his excellency led the way, and Maître le Bastien and I followed into a grand salon, where the prince seated himself in a chair, carved with his arms and covered with cloth of gold, and signing to the master goldsmith to sit in a lower and humbler seat, he turned to me and asked my business, while a slave brought in the salver laden with vodka and caviare—the zakuska.
I was in no mood to mince matters, and, despite various frowns and grimaces from Maître le Bastien, I came bluntly to the point, speaking in Russ; for the prince knew only his own language and Latin.
“Can your excellency tell where the Czarevna Sophia has hidden the Princess Daria?” I asked, fixing my eyes sternly on him, for I was not without suspicions of the man himself, but my doubts were instantly dispelled by the change that swept over his face.
The prince was a proud man, haughty and reserved, as all these Muscovite aristocrats were, but he could not disguise his discomfiture at the mention of those two names together.
“The Princess Daria!” he repeated blankly. “I was told that she and her cousin, Vassalissa, were safe in Troïtsa yesterday morning.”
I could not doubt that he spoke the truth; his manner was full of a noble sincerity, and, indeed, I think the man’s worst fault was the common one of a not over-scrupulous ambition.