Part 53

“Are there no women among the guests?” queried Malevsky.

“No—or wait a minute—yes, there are some.”

“Are they all ugly?”

“No, charming. But the men are all in love with the queen. She is tall and graceful; she has a little gold diadem on her black hair.”

I looked at Zinaïda, and at that instant she seemed to me so much above all of us, there was such bright intelligence, and such power about her unruffled brows, that I thought: “You are that queen!”

“They all throng about her,” Zinaïda went on, “and all lavish the most flattering speeches upon her.”

“And she likes flattery?” Lushin queried.

“What an intolerable person! he keeps interrupting … who doesn’t like flattery?”

“One more last question,” observed Malevsky, “has the queen a husband?”

“I hadn’t thought about that. No, why should she have a husband?”

“To be sure,” assented Malevsky, “why should she have a husband?”

“Silence!” cried Meidanov in French, which he spoke very badly.

“Merci!” Zinaïda said to him. “And so the queen hears their speeches, and hears the music, but does not look at one of the guests. Six windows are open from top to bottom, from floor to ceiling, and beyond them is a dark sky with big stars, a dark garden with big trees. The queen gazes out into the garden. Out there among the trees is a fountain; it is white in the darkness, and rises up tall, tall as an apparition. The queen hears, through the talk and the music, the soft splash of its waters. She gazes and thinks: you are all, gentlemen, noble, clever, and rich, you crowd round me, you treasure every word I utter, you are all ready to die at my feet, I hold you in my power … but out there, by the fountain, by that splashing water, stands and waits he whom I love, who holds me in his power. He has neither rich raiment nor precious stones, no one knows him, but he awaits me, and is certain I shall come—and I shall come—and there is no power that could stop me when I want to go out to him, and to stay with him, and be lost with him out there in the darkness of the garden, under the whispering of the trees, and the splash of the fountain …” Zinaïda ceased.

“Is that a made-up story?” Malevsky inquired slyly. Zinaïda did not even look at him.

“And what should we have done, gentlemen?” Lushin began suddenly, “if we had been among the guests, and had known of the lucky fellow at the fountain?”

“Stop a minute, stop a minute,” interposed Zinaïda, “I will tell you myself what each of you would have done. You, Byelovzorov, would have challenged him to a duel; you, Meidanov, would have written an epigram on him … No, though, you can’t write epigrams, you would have made up a long poem on him in the style of Barbier, and would have inserted your production in the Telegraph. You, Nirmatsky, would have borrowed … no, you would have lent him money at high interest; you, doctor,…” she stopped. “There, I really don’t know what you would have done….”

“In the capacity of court physician,” answered Lushin, “I would have advised the queen not to give balls when she was not in the humour for entertaining her guests….”

“Perhaps you would have been right. And you, Count?…”

“And I?” repeated Malevsky with his evil smile….

“You would offer him a poisoned sweetmeat.” Malevsky’s face changed slightly, and assumed for an instant a Jewish expression, but he laughed directly.

“And as for you, Voldemar,…” Zinaïda went on, “but that’s enough, though; let us play another game.”

“M’sieu Voldemar, as the queen’s page, would have held up her train when she ran into the garden,” Malevsky remarked malignantly.

I was crimson with anger, but Zinaïda hurriedly laid a hand on my shoulder, and getting up, said in a rather shaky voice: “I have never given your excellency the right to be rude, and therefore I will ask you to leave us.” She pointed to the door.

“Upon my word, princess,” muttered Malevsky, and he turned quite pale.

“The princess is right,” cried Byelovzorov, and he too rose.

“Good God, I’d not the least idea,” Malevsky went on, “in my words there was nothing, I think, that could … I had no notion of offending you…. Forgive me.”

Zinaïda looked him up and down coldly, and coldly smiled. “Stay, then, certainly,” she pronounced with a careless gesture of her arm.

“M’sieu Voldemar and I were needlessly incensed. It is your pleasure to sting … may it do you good.”