The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

I dared for the moment to believe it, until the shape of a house emerged suddenly from the shadows and I saw that we had come to a considerable habitation upon the very brink of the woods. To my astonishment this was guarded by sentinels, and no sooner were we out of the shadows than one of them challenged us angrily.

"Salut de l'Empire," said His Majesty, advancing with a smile, and, the man having brought his musket to the salute, we passed the gate and entered the house.

IV

Naturally we were expected. It was evident that His Majesty would never have gone upon such a journey if he had not known very well that he would find a welcome at the end of it. The army hears many stories and must listen at all times with prudent ears. We had mentioned the name of more than one belle fille since we had left Paris, and we knew that we should mention many another before we returned there. So you will imagine my surprise when it was not a young woman but a very old one who greeted us upon the threshold of this remote house.

I saw she was old, but it would have puzzled a man to have guessed her age. Shrivelled and wan, with a skin of parchment and hair of flax, her eyes nevertheless glittered like those of a hawk, and her hands were ablaze with diamonds of wonderful lustre. Her dress was rich, and such as usually worn by noblewomen in Russia. She wore a silk robe trimmed with ermine, and the most wonderful cape of the same costly fur about her hunched shoulders. To His Majesty she was deferential beyond compare. She welcomed him with a curtsey full of the old-time stateliness, and to me she extended her hand to be kissed. Then she bade us enter the salle à manger of the house, and I perceived at once that supper was prepared there.

I have told you that it was an extensive dwelling, though built of wood, and certainly this apartment was fine enough for anything. The walls were everywhere hung with old French tapestry; the furniture must have come from our own Paris. There was china of Sèvres upon the table, and that extravagant porcelain in which the East and the West commingle and delight. Two liveried servants stood at the table's head and bowed low as the Emperor entered. He, however, appeared but ill at ease, and I plainly perceived that he was seeking someone whose presence he had expected.

This whetted my curiosity. The old lady herself, setting His Majesty at the head of her table, now sat down upon his right hand, and motioned me to a seat beside her. Then she made a signal to the lackeys, and instantly they began to serve us with all manner of luxuries unlooked for in such a place, and certainly not discovered since we had left Moscow.

The man who has lived upon horseflesh for many days is a good judge of any kind of cooking, and I could not but think, as I sat at the table, of that unhappy mendicant who had said to Louis XV., "Sire, how hungry I am!" and had been answered with the quip, "Lucky devil."

To me this Was a Gargantuan feast such as had never been surpassed in all my years.

We had the fine sturgeon in which the Russians delight, their own caviare, excellent mutton, and chickens which were matchless, and all washed down with the wines of Burgundy, and upon that with draughts of our own magnificent brandy. When we had finished we were even offered a little preserved fruit and some of the tobacco which the Russians smoke rolled in slips of paper. His Majesty condescended to try one of these, but made little of it, and presently it became apparent to me that he was anxious, and that his anxiety no longer brooked the control of silence.