Читать книгу The Green Book; Or, Freedom Under the Snow - Mór Jókai - Страница 10

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Prince Ghedimin left his secret domicile in a simply appointed sledge, without crest, his coachman wearing no livery. He ordered his man to drive to the opera.

At that time the capital possessed but one large, newly built theatre—the opera-house. Here representations of the drama, comedy, and opera were given, and often on one and the same evening, the performances lasting, as a rule, from early evening to midnight.

It was just the period when Russians had conceived a passion for the drama. One theatre no longer sufficed them. It had become the fashion for the wealthy princes of the blood to have stages erected in their own palaces, and to have representations given by their own private companies of Shakespeare and Molière. Even in the Czar's two palaces—the Winter Palace and Hermitage—there were theatres, where the court actors and actresses made their début. One leader of fashion carried the theatrical mania so far that he never travelled to his country-seat without taking his troop with him; but, the main difficulty there being to find the audience, he had a collection of wax figures made—generals, statesmen, and elegant women—and with these figures he filled his stalls, to give the illusion of a full house. If we add that this theatrical company was largely recruited from the retainers and serfs of the said magnate, there is nothing improbable in the story that went about of him that one night, as Othello was in the very act of throttling his Desdemona, my lord in his box was seized with a fit of sneezing, which resounded through the house; whereupon the dark-skinned tyrant, instantly abandoning his murderous design, advanced to the front of the stage, humbly uttered the Russian form, "God bless your Grace," and then retreated, to proceed with Shakespeare's ghastly deed.

Hence we may imagine the enthusiasm excited by so extraordinary an artistic genius as was Zeneida, a child of the people—since Finland was born to Russia on the day of Zeneida's birth.

Zeneida was a more powerful factor than a cabinet minister. Even in Catharine II.'s time a prima donna, on the Czarina's representing to her that she was drawing as heavy pay as the most renowned of her generals, had presumed to say flatly to her, "Then, your Majesty, bid your generals sing to you."

Prince Ghedimin's great source of anxiety was not that Zeneida might be exposed to some insult or humiliation at the hands of a wounded rival; much more, knowing her spirit, he dreaded lest she, at first sound of a hiss, should rush forward to the footlights and begin singing the Marseillaise, and that if rotten eggs were thrown one moment, in the next men's heads would be flying. It needed so tiny a spark to fire the whole mine.

His heart was beating violently as he neared the opera-house. The clang of bells from a hundred clock-towers drowned all other sounds; but as they ceased a roar rose in the long street into which his sledge had turned. The stately avenue was simply filled with a moving mass of people surging in his direction. What could it be? A revolt, or a triumphal procession? Hundreds and hundreds of torches cast their lurid light over the heads of the throng.

His heart beat faster and faster. He was not a lover of revolutions; not one of those who grow drunk with enthusiasm when they hear the leonine roar of an insurgent mass. On the contrary, his soul shuddered within him at the thought. But he was a brave man—a man who, although heart and spirit might shrink, would know how to die with those to whom he had sworn fidelity; who, although his soul might faint within him, would walk with firm step to the scaffold for the great aspirations with which that soul was fired. More than one man has proved himself a hero whose soul has quailed within him before the beginning of the fight. Prince Ivan, ordering his coachman to stop, awaited the throng.

And presently a strange sight met his gaze. In the very midst of the torch-lit crowd came a golden sledge, shaped like a swan. It was Zeneida's well-known sledge. In it was sitting the prima donna (wrapped in her costly sables, and literally covered with bouquets, the flowers of which were beginning to sparkle with the night frost), drawn by a team of eight—such a team as the Czar himself had never been drawn by, since it was composed of eight young noblemen, the cream of Russia's jeunesse dorée. On the coachman's box sat Chevalier Galban in person.

Prince Ghedimin, springing from his sledge, joined the procession. Among the crowd a man was pressing and forcing his way. In him the Prince recognized one of his wife's lackeys. Reaching Zeneida's sledge, the man handed up to Chevalier Galban an enormous bouquet of hyacinths, whispering a few words as he did so. The Chevalier, straightway standing up, called out with stentorian voice:

"Ho, ho, gentlemen! Noble team of teams! halt an instant! Look at this brilliant trophy! See these flowers with their diamond-set bouquet-holder—'With the expression of her admiration for our divine Zeneida—from Princess Ghedimin!'"

A thousand hurrahs resounded through the icy air, thickened for an instant with the breath from many vociferous lungs.

"Allons! forward, my noble steeds!" And the eight-in-hand proceeded on its way.

A young man was standing at the back of the sledge. As Zeneida leaned forward to take the flowers, he reached over her so that his face, bent downward, nearly touched hers. In such a position even a well-known face is hard to recognize. The man thus standing whispered to her:

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."

"I do not understand Latin," she answered. "Translate it into some other language for me."

And he at once, converting it into faultless hexameter, said, in their own tongue:

"Ever I fear the Russian, even when with gifts he comes."

"Thanks, Pushkin."

The members of the "Northern Confederation" called each other by their family names, in contradistinction to the old Russian usage, which is to call every one by their Christian names, adding to a man that of his father, to a woman that of her mother.

So this young man was to become the renowned Pushkin. At that time he had no such claim; at that time he was a nobody.