He comes in so gently at the tapestried door that she only perceives him when he stands before her.
Her Boysie is the handsomest man in the whole capital; he is as tall as the Czar.
His languishing gray eyes wear an earnest, thoughtful expression.
"Now, you bad boy—to come so late! Is school but just over? Are you not afraid that I shall make you kneel to ask my pardon?"
He is already kneeling before her; and the old grandmother passes her thin, wrinkled hand over his face as he bows his head on her lap. Laughing, she playfully ruffles his hair.
"This naughty Boysie! He knows how to coax his old grandmother, like any kitten. All right; you shall have no blows this time. I forgive you; so no need to cry. He has just the same shaped head as my Maximilian; only Maximilian loves me best, for he writes to me every month; and yet he is a great man. At your age two orders of merit already decorated his breast. But what have you done? Have you fought yet for the honor of your country? Are you following in your father's footsteps?"
The old woman's hands feel over the young man's breast until they rest upon the diamond star of the Alexander Nevski order, upon which she cries, joyfully:
"This is no cross; it is a star! And set in brilliants! You have robbed your father, for this order would have sat well upon him. He is a hero, a great man; the diamond star would well have become him. But he, too, has already obtained the first grade of the order, has he not? And set with diamonds as fine as these?" (Ah yes—ah yes! he has received it set with glistening pebbles in the cool sands of the Muscovite soil.) "But now stand up. You are a grown-up man, and what would the Czar say if he were to know that his privy-councillor still knelt, like a boy, at his grandmother's knee? Stand up, my dear boy, and tell me about matters of State. I know how to talk about them. Oh, in Czar Paul's time I was up in everything. It was I who kept the old man back from joining in Count Paklem's conspiracy, or he would be even now in Siberia. Eh, my boy, you love the Czar? That's right. How many a time has Czar Paul bastinadoed your grandfather! And he never complained. But now there are no conspiracies throughout the whole land against the Czar."
"None, dear granny."
"If at any time you should hear of plots, mind you tell it at once to headquarters. If you knew there was a thief lurking under your grandmother's bed, would you not straightway drag him out by the legs? Much more is it your sacred duty to destroy all conspiracies against the Czar's Majesty. He who works against the Czar will be punished, but he who serves him will be richly rewarded. How was it with Kutusoff? Did not the Czar take the finest jewel from his crown to present to him, and had a golden leaf set in the empty space with 'Kutusoff' inscribed upon it? The family of the Ghedimins is not inferior to that of the Kutusoffs."