"Deface! Confounded chalk!" screamed the death's-head, rigid with horror. "Audacity like this has no superlative."
"By heavens, it has!" shouted Pushkin, on his side; and to substantiate his words, snatching the red pencil from the Censor's hand he threw it so violently to the ground that the precious relic was shattered to a thousand pieces; at which awful result Pushkin himself was so terrified that he took to flight, leaving the terrible man alone with the pieces.
The Censor was aghast with rage and horror at the deed. His all-powerful pencil shattered to atoms! He could scarce believe it. Such a thing had never before happened in civilized Europe. What would men leave sacred and untouched in future, when even that hallowed implement could be dashed to the ground?
Herr Sujukin did not call his servant, but himself, kneeling down, began collecting the precious fragments, weeping so bitterly as he did so that his chin trembled.
"My faithful—my treasure—pride of my life—thou art no more!" He endeavored to fasten the larger portions together, but in vain.
Such an offence needed a special punishment.
The aggrieved Censor, wrapping the corpus delicti in a paper, rolled Pushkin's poem round it, and hastened off to Araktseieff's Palace, mentally conning the speech the while with which he should make his patron acquainted with the abominable assault.
Araktseieff's palace was just then being decorated with those historic frescos by which the celebrated Doyen perpetuated the deeds of Czar Alexander. The master was even then himself at work on the immense circle which formed the cupola of the domed reception-room, and in which the Czar appears in the midst of his generals and surrounded by mythological and allegorical figures.
The furious Censor had to pass through this saloon. He glanced up at the master, who, astride on the plank, was touching up the figures, already designed, with color. It was just what he wanted. He would let off some of his rage upon him.
"Is it Master Doyen, or one of his assistants, who is painting up there?" asked he.