"This time we are not foes, but allies."
The common foe (Bethsaba) here interrupted the amicable warfare by coming up to put the naïve question if she might dance the first polonaise with Chevalier Galban? She was heartily laughed at.
"You may do whatever you like. You are a married woman now."
What is known as a polonaise in the court balls of St. Petersburg is a promenade round the ballroom in short dance step, performed by the whole company according to the fancy of the first couple. We are therefore not to understand under that appellation the wild mazurka of former days, when the floor groaned under the stamp of the dancers. That was the dance of a period when every Polish nobleman was as good as the king; this is the dance of a time when every Polish nobleman is equal to—a peasant.
In former times both Czar and Czarina had headed the dance; and it happened to have been a polonaise in which Alexander had wounded the feelings of Elisabeth for the sake of the beautiful Korynthia Narishkin—an insult the former had never forgotten.
The arrivals of the great, greater, and greatest personages put an end to conversation. Once arrived, people formed themselves into a circle and waited for the august couple to make the round of the ballroom, after which the polonaise began.
Zeneida was presented to all the foreign princes, and received so much homage that in its intoxicating atmosphere she might well have lost sight of the one intrusted to her care. She was, however, a tried general in such campaigns, and knew how to keep the whole field well under supervision, even to the slightest detail. Attentively her eyes follow Bethsaba. She sees Chevalier Galban, with languishing expression, whisper in her ear; sees the young wife hasten up to her godmother with glowing cheek; sit down by her and then listen, surprised and startled, betwixt laughter and tears, to what her godmother is saying to her. She even divined what it was that was being said to her. She also saw the Czarina address Bethsaba, and enter into conversation with her with gracious condescension. And she saw, moreover, that these thousand guests here assembled to discourse sweet nothings, to jest, to trifle away the hours with orgeat, sorbet, and punch, were often the bitterest enemies, full of deadly hatred, ready at the first opportunity to give vent to their true feelings; that the men in their uniforms, stiff with gold lace, their breasts liberally sown with orders, who, hat under arm, bowed low to the Czar or to each other, were thinking, "To-day or to-morrow either you or I will be giving each other a 'How d'ye do?' with our heads, instead of our hats, under our arm"; that she, the singer, had but to say, "I am singing for the benefit of the Orphanage," and in an instant every sword would be out of its scabbard, and the men now dancing vis-à-vis to each other would be running their swords through each other's bodies, and the crowned chairs on the dais be overturned, no one asking themselves, "Who is sitting on those chairs?" or, worse still, that same dais be turned into a scaffold. Conspirators and oppressors, murderers and executioners, all assembled in one ballroom; every one knowing who everybody is so well that when the master of ceremonies, in mistake, called out, "Coup de main!" instead of "Tour de main!" there was a shout of laughter. Only the Czar asked, "Why are the gentlemen so merry?"
All this Zeneida saw. The secret of every man there lay in her hands. Ah, she saw, too, very well, what motive the gracious lady of the house had in giving this brilliant entertainment. In order to seduce a young wife from her truth? Oh no! But in order to discover the key to a secret which he to whom it was intrusted had not divulged to any one—not even to his well-beloved wife.
With the departure of the court from the ballroom the whole assemblage, as etiquette dictated, at once broke up. No one, moreover, was inclined to stay for the sake of enjoyment on that occasion.