The Czar smiled; nay, he laughed—he laughed aloud.
"We will have it packed in among my own personal things, which are not examined in the customs. Thus will we bring the poem into the country."
Pushkin trembled in every limb, like a schoolboy who has undergone an examination.
"Stay a moment!" exclaimed the Czar. "It will be more profitable to your poetical studies were you to prosecute them in the country. It will be better for you to pass the summer on your estate of Pleskow. You will find you can write better there."
That meant the restoration of his confiscated estate. Moved to tears, Pushkin's voice failed.
"Tell no one of what has passed between us. I do not wish it spread abroad."
"Only to one woman, sire, whose silence is as perfect as is her singing."
"She knows it already," returned the Czar, with a smile. He had smiled twice.
How instantly the brightness of that smile had changed the temperature! How immediately the ice and snow in it had thawed! As Pushkin rejoined the circle he was greeted on all sides by friendly faces beaming with congratulation. Distinguished court ladies shut up their fans; they no longer felt the heat. Pushkin could not but respond to the crowd who claimed acquaintance. He was wise enough to tell every one that the Czar had restored his Pleskow estates to him on condition that he gave up writing poetry, which raised him at once on a pinnacle. For be it known, not to write poetry at all is a negative merit; to write bad poetry and give it up is some slight merit; to write good poetry, and yet give it up, is a positive and great merit—in high society.
Even Princess Korynthia had the hero of the hour called up to her in order to ask him why he had not recognized her just now. Women alone are capable of such a piece of audacity, and men are obliged to take it from them.