"Now's the time! the Czarina asks what we want!" thought the blacksmith, and suddenly down he went on his knees. "Imperial Majesty! Do not show me thy anger, show me thy mercy! Let me know (and let not my question bring the wrath of thy Majesty's worship upon me!) of what stuff are made the boots that thou wearest on thy feet? I think there is no bootmaker in any country in the world who ever will be able to make such pretty ones. Gracious Lord! if ever my wife had such boots to wear!"
The empress laughed; the courtiers laughed too. Potemkin frowned and smiled at the same time. The Zaporoghians pushed the blacksmith, thinking he had gone mad.
"Stand up!" said the empress, kindly. "If thou wishest to have such shoes, thy wish may be easily fulfilled. Let him have directly my richest gold embroidered shoes. This artlessness pleases me exceedingly." Then, turning towards a gentleman with a round pale face, who stood a little apart from the rest, and whose plain dress, with mother-of-pearl buttons, showed at once that he was not a courtier[22]: "There you have," continued she, "a subject worthy of your witty pen."
"Your Imperial Majesty is too gracious! It would require a pen no less able than that of a Lafontaine!" answered with a bow, the gentleman in the plain dress.
"Upon my honour! I tell you I am still under the impression of your 'Brigadier.'[1] You read exceedingly well!" Then, speaking once more to the Zaporoghians, she said, "I was told that you never married at your Ssiecha?"
"How could that be, mother? Thou knowest well, by thyself, that no man could ever do without a woman," answered the same Zaporoghian who had conversed with the blacksmith; and the blacksmith was astonished to hear one so well acquainted with polished language speak to the Czarina, as if on purpose, in the coarsest accent used among peasants.
"A cunning people," thought he to himself; "he does it certainly for some reason."
"We are no monks," continued the speaker, "we are sinful men. Every one of us is as much inclined to forbidden fruit as a good Christian can be. There are not a few among us who have wives, only their wives do not live in the Ssiecha. Many have their wives in Poland; others have wives in Ukraine;[23] there are some, too, who have wives in Turkey."
At this moment the shoes were brought to the blacksmith.
"Gracious Lord! what ornaments!" cried he, overpowered with joy, grasping the shoes. "Imperial Majesty! if thou dost wear such shoes upon thy feet (and thy Honour, I dare say, does use them even for walking in the snow and the mud), what, then, must thy feet be like?—whiter than sugar, at the least, I should think!"