Читать книгу The Green Book; Or, Freedom Under the Snow - Mór Jókai - Страница 6

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What unheard-of audacity, to spoil the sport of such an aristocratic hunting-party!

"Who fired that shot?" cried the foremost of the huntsmen, with a threatening crack of his whip.

The hounds dashed furiously on towards the open gate, their sense of the dignity of the hunt equally insulted.

The question had been put in Russian; and the action was in accord with the speech, although the speaker's face was close shaven in the French style, while the other members of the hunt all wore short whiskers.

"I took that liberty!" returned a woman's voice; and from under the fir-trees, whose branches overhung the gate, appeared a woman's form, slender as one of the Amazons of the "Kalevala" Saga, her pale oval face surrounded by loose-falling hair of reddish gold, like a lion's mane; the nose, straight and delicate, and full lips recalling the Niobe group; while at sight of the great flashing eyes, instinct with magic beauty, one was irresistibly reminded of a peri from the "Sakuntala." A very fairy, who united in herself the threefold myths.

"I dared do it!" she said, coming forward alone, unattended. And carelessly dispersing the excited dogs with one hand, she raised the pistol she held in the other, and, pointing it at her interlocutor, continued: "And there is another shot in it for you if you do not instantly lower your whip."

The hounds were cringingly snuffing about her whom the moment before they had been ready to tear in pieces; the huntsman, too, was not less susceptible to the charm than was the pack. Raising his whip, he touched his cap courteously with it, and addressed her in French, the language of Russian society:

"It were unnecessary, madame, that you should use firearms, possessing as you do in your eyes such powerful weapons."

By this speech the huntsman betrayed the school of Versailles, where men were accustomed to carry on war with compliments, and to mask retreat with gallant words.

Meanwhile the rest of the hunting-party had come up to the gates. The gentlemen, seeing with whom their comrade was in conversation, held in their horses, as though not wishing to take part in it; only an older man, wearing an order set in diamonds on his fur-lined coat, approached nearer; and one of the ladies, galloping straight up to the gate, pulled up her horse at its threshold, the body of the dead stag alone separating her from the other woman.

The huntswoman wore a blue, fur-bordered jacket, with hunting-cap to match, under which her fair hair hung in ringlets to the shoulders. Her face was crimsoned with eagerness and the extreme cold, giving to her somewhat prominent eyes a still more dazzling brilliancy than they were wont to have; her thin, delicately shaped lips were half open; the blue veil falling over her forehead, and the blue band she wore under her chin as a protection from the cold, did not allow more of her face to be seen. But as she drew up close beside the other lady she pushed back the chin band, perhaps in order to speak more freely, thereby displaying a pretty, rosy chin, divided by charming dimples.

"How dared you shoot that stag?" she cried to the other lady. "Did you not know it was an imperial one?"

"How dared you chase that stag to the very gates of the hospital? Did you not know that it is a hospital for cripples?"

"I hope you recognize that the Czar is the first gentleman in Russia."

"Throughout the whole world the first gentlefolks are the sick."

"You are foolhardy, madame."

"That I admit."

Now the huntswoman lifted her veil. She was heated. She toyed impatiently with the riding-whip in her hand.

"Why am I not a man?" she muttered, between her pearly teeth.

The huntsman with the clean-shaven face, reading from his companion's working features and piercing eyes that there was something more in dispute than the shot stag, now bending towards her, addressed her audibly enough in German. For though the French language—that of the best-beloved enemy—is the language of society in the Russian capital, German—that of the most hated friend—is only spoken by the exclusive. German is therefore spoken when the servants are not desired to understand.

"A rival, eh?" asked the clean-shaven one.

The huntswoman projected her lips scornfully, and, knitting her brows, answered aloud in German:

"Neither rival nor——"

The lady standing by had distinctly heard the short colloquy, and was perfectly aware that she had another charge in her pistol.

The speaker had turned pale as she spoke, like a duellist who, having fired his shot and wounded his adversary, now awaits the other's fire.

The owner of the park did not do this, however. There are words, looks, and gestures which can strike deeper than the most deadly weapon. Placing one foot on the crowned antlers of the stag lying prone before her, she smiled full in the face of her adversary; and, as though to emphasize the insulting challenge, raising her pistol, she fired the remaining shot into the air. For an insult loses its sting if directed by an armed person against one unarmed. Now once more she stood conqueror.

The huntswoman's face flamed with fury. She twisted her riding-whip in her hands like a serpent, as though inwardly debating whether to strike it across the other's face, and thus wipe away the irritating smile.

One of the other two ladies was young, little more than a child. Her face a perfect oval, with exquisitely formed chin, a little rosebud mouth, large, deep-blue eyes, looking black in the distance, dark, finely pencilled eyebrows, and hair hanging in soft, shining plaits down her back.

Her whole face wore the astounded expression of a school-girl. The strangest thing about her was that she rode a gentleman's saddle, with which her costume was in keeping—the Circassian beshmet, the broad, white salavár, high boots, and flowing cashmere, with hanging kindzsál. Every one but she knew what the two women were saying to each other. He who happened to be ignorant of the language could understand the gestures, the contemptuous expression of the features, the crossfire of eyes. The young girl did not understand even that. She merely looked on in amazement. That the two ladies were angry with each other she saw—and about a stag's antlers! The riding-whip was twisted about in the huntswoman's nervous fingers until it snapped. She made use of another weapon.

"Bethsaba!" she exclaimed, turning to the girl, and speaking to her in a language unknown to any of their auditors—possibly Circassian; but the expression on the speaker's face, and the terror-stricken, pallid look on that of the young girl, said as plainly as words:

"You have asked me what the devil looks like? Look at that woman; there you have the fiend in human form."

The girl, bending her head, crossed herself as she cast a frightened side glance at the dreadful woman, who was the embodiment of his Satanic Majesty. Then the Amazon, turning her own horse, and at the same time seizing the reins of that upon which the young girl was mounted, galloped back the way she had come, huntsmen and hounds following. The stag remained where it had fallen.