These flights were never undertaken without a generous remembrance. Michael Fedor's munificence continued for those whom he had abandoned. Each year new names were added to his budget, like that of a reigning house which allots pensions to its forgotten servants. But the pensions of Prince Lubimoff were for the maintenance of luxury and not of life. The most modest were over thirty thousand francs a year. The average was double that amount.
"Your Excellency: there will have to be a revision," his administrator would say.
Michael would examine the list of names, hesitating at a few. He could not recall clearly the persons who bore them. Then suddenly he would smile, as certain visions were suddenly and attractively awakened in his mind. He was immensely wealthy: why not keep up the luxury which was the one dream of all of them?... He was not disturbed by the jealous thought that his successors would be reaping the benefit of that luxury.
He felt a certain god-like pride in making his generosity felt at all times, without letting himself be seen. In Paris a jewelry shop managed by a Jew of Spanish origin limited its entire business to the production of the Prince's gifts. His gems of high intrinsic value, with no false artifices, had a certain family resemblance, a sort of imaginary perfume which enabled the women who displayed them to recognize each other. When it was least expected, at tea time, in the dining-room of a hotel, at an elegant watering place at a dance, two women who had just met would gaze at each other's ears and breast in silence, until the boldest, blushing imperceptibly under her rouge, would ask simply: "You knew Prince Lubimoff too?..."
Atilio Castro felt a deep admiration for his relative, less on account of his triumphs than of the iron constitution required to sustain them.
"What a Cossack! A regular Cossack!... He is a true descendant of that lover of the Great Catherine!"
Nevertheless, frequently the yacht would hurriedly put out to sea on long voyages, without its master being forced to flee from any dangerous or entangling passion. He was running away from himself, from his perverse imagination and curiosity, which made him seek and allure different women, upsetting his peace of mind, without rousing in him any real desire. He undertook the most extraordinary voyages, for the sake of the bracing air and the sense of restfulness the sea brings. The orchestra accompanied him; but the "harem" remained on shore. He had gone completely around the globe, following the shortest route; then he had repeated this circumnavigation, but over a zig-zag course, to become acquainted with all the coasts of the earth. At present he was on going on whimsical trips; he was sailing from one hemisphere to another for the pleasure of visiting one or another of the small islands which seem lost in the Pacific, and are so tiny that on the maps they look like mere dots placed after long names traced on the blue colored surface.
Returning from one of these excursions on which he went around the world as though it were his personal property, he received by wireless the news that Germany had declared war against Russia and France.
He felt no great surprise. He knew William II personally. It was because of him that Prince Lubimoff avoided cruising off the coast of Norway in summer.
The year following his acquisition of the Gaviota II he had come across the Imperial yacht in those parts. The Kaiser, like an officious, all-knowing neighbor, came to see him in order to look over the yacht, examining it in all its details, giving advice, reviewing the men and materials, making a dissertation on the engines and interrupting himself to advise certain changes in the uniform of the crew. After a breakfast on his own yacht, and luncheon on the Emperor's, Prince Michael had had enough of this unexpected friendship. Lohengrin, with his winged helmet, white mantle, and both hands on the hilt of his sword, was less unbearable than this gentleman with turned up mustache, and wolfish teeth, dressed like a sailor, who laughed a false and brutal laugh, and (whenever he met on the seas a multimillionaire from America or Europe) played the rôle of a man of great simplicity and of an unconventional sovereign. Money inspired deep veneration in this story-book hero, this mystic with a mind fed on grandeur. Michael had never shared the enthusiasm of various snobs for the German Emperor. He smiled at the Hohenzollern's theatrical tastes, his war-like bravadoes, and his intellectual ambitions which pretended to embrace the whole knowable universe.