We laughed, and left him to his vodka and his pipe and cigarettes, and his stupid sleep in the armchair of the office, from which he occasionally roused enough to inquire about the “eight old maids, and what they were up to now.”
CHAPTER IV.
NICOL’S HOUSE.
We had been told that the time to visit St. Petersburg was in the winter, when the city is in its glory. The nobility have then returned from their summer homes. The czar is at his palace. The Nevsky Prospect is gay with equipages of every description, from the common sledge to the carriages of the aristocracy, while the Neva, frozen to the thickness of three or four feet, rivals the Nevsky, with its crowds of sledges and skates and lookers-on, its colored lights, its bazaars and booths filled with a laughing crowd till long after the coachmen and horses, who have stood for hours in the cold before the Winter Palace, where a ball was in progress, have gone home.
All this I saw later, and was a part of most of it during my second visit to St. Petersburg; but now, not knowing the difference, I was satisfied to be there in the summer, although the streets seemed deserted, and most of the great houses were closed, or left in charge of a few old domestics, who were faithful to their trust as watchdogs. The czar, with his family, was at Gatschina, in the great, gloomy palace, where I was told that, although there were six hundred rooms, the royal family confined themselves to only six, as they could thus feel more secure from attacks of nihilists. Whether this was true or not, I do not know. One hears many wonderful rumors in St. Petersburg of plots and counterplots, and prying gendarmes, and arrests and banishment to the fortress or Siberia; but these did not concern us. We were there to see, and we made good our time, going everywhere we could go, and pushing our way into some places which at first seemed impossible to enter.
And nearly always Chance was with us. Just where he came from I did not at first know. We usually found him outside the hotel waiting for us, and attaching himself to me as if I were his mistress. His master we did not see until the fifth day, when we met him in front of the house where Nicol Patoff had once lived. I remembered the number on the card Nicol had given me, and was anxious to visit it alone, to inspect it at my leisure, and possibly ring the bell boldly, and ask if the Patoff family were at home. But this I could not do, for, as I was the only one who spoke the language, it seemed necessary that our party should keep together.
Still, I must see the house, and give it more than a passing glance, and at last I took the ladies into my confidence, telling them why I wished particularly to see the place. None of them had ever heard of Nicol, except the girls from Ridgefield, and, as these were much younger than myself, they only knew of him as some one who taught in the academy for a time and then disappeared. They were, however, ready to go with me, and on a sunny afternoon we started along the Nevsky on our tour of discovery, with our escort, Chance, who seemed to know just where we were going, and forged ahead at a rapid pace until he reached the Patoff house, where he stopped and waited for us to come up.
It was very large, and built of brick, as are most of the houses in St. Petersburg. In front was the inevitable porter, or servant, of the proprietor, who keeps guard over the premises and over all who come in or go out. The one of our party most interested in Nicol Patoff after myself was Mary, my roommate, who was usually bubbling with enthusiasm, and who thought it would be great fun if we could get inside a real Russian house, and see what it was like.
“Aren’t you going to ask that porter if Mr. Patoff lives here? He looks harmless and sleepy,” she said, while Chance was making various signs that he expected us to enter.
What I might have done I do not know, if upon the scene a new actor had not appeared, in the person of the gendarme Michel, who came upon us rather suddenly, as we stood huddled together on the sidewalk. There was no mistaking the pleasure on his face when he saw us.
“Good-afternoon!” he said, speaking in English. “Sight-seeing, I suppose? What place are you bound for now, if I may ask? I hope you find Chance a good escort. I tell him every morning to find Miss Harding, and he goes;” and he patted the head of the beautiful dog, who began to leap upon him, with little cries of delight.