 | III. Beauty and the beast |  |
3. III.
The festival granted on behalf of Prince Boris was
one of the grandest ever given at the castle. In character
revel and the French entertainments which were then introduced
by the Empress Elizabeth. All the nobility, for
fifty versts around, including Prince Paul and the chief
families of Kostroma, were invited. Simon Petrovitch
had been so carefully guarded that his work was actually
completed and the parts distributed; his superintendence
of the performance, however, was still a matter of doubt,
as it was necessary to release him from the tower, and
after several days of forced abstinence he always manifested
a raging appetite. Prince Alexis, in spite of this
doubt, had been assured by Boris that the dramatic part
of the entertainment would not be a failure. When he
questioned Sasha, the poet's strong-shouldered guard, the
latter winked familiarly and answered with a proverb,—
“I sit on the shore and wait for the wind,”—which
was as much as to say that Sasha had little fear of the
result.
The tables were spread in the great hall, where places
for one hundred chosen guests were arranged on the
floor, while the three or four hundred of minor importance
were provided for in the galleries above. By noon the
whole party were assembled. The halls and passages
of the castle were already permeated with rich and unctuous
smells, and a delicate nose might have picked out
and arranged, by their finer or coarser vapors, the dishes
preparing for the upper and lower tables. One of the
parasites of Prince Alexis, a dilapidated nobleman, officiated
as Grand Marshal,—an office which more than compensated
in continual fear and trembling. The Prince had
felt the stick of the Great Peter upon his own back, and
was ready enough to imitate any custom of the famous
monarch.
An orchestra, composed principally of horns and brass
instruments, occupied a separate gallery at one end of the
dining-hall. The guests were assembled in the adjoining
apartments, according to their rank; and when the first
loud blast of the instruments announced the beginning of
the banquet, two very differently attired and freighted
processions of servants made their appearance at the same
time. Those intended for the princely table numbered
two hundred,—two for each guest. They were the handsomest
young men among the ten thousand serfs, clothed
in loose white trousers and shirts of pink or lilac silk;
their soft golden hair, parted in the middle, fell upon their
shoulders, and a band of gold-thread about the brow prevented
it from sweeping the dishes they carried. They
entered the reception-room, bearing huge trays of sculptured
silver, upon which were anchovies, the finest Finnish
caviar, sliced oranges, cheese, and crystal flagons of Cognac,
rum, and kümmel. There were fewer servants for
the remaining guests, who were gathered in a separate
chamber, and regaled with the common black caviar,
onions, bread, and vodki. At the second blast of trumpets,
the two companies set themselves in motion and entered
the dining-hall at opposite ends. Our business,
however, is only with the principal personages, so we will
and satisfy their senses with the coarser viands, while their
imagination is stimulated by the sight of the splendor and
luxury below.
Prince Alexis entered first, with a pompous, mincing
gait, leading the Princess Martha by the tips of her fingers.
He wore a caftan of green velvet laced with gold,
a huge vest of crimson brocade, and breeches of yellow
satin. A wig, resembling clouds boiling in the confluence
of opposing winds, surged from his low, broad forehead,
and flowed upon his shoulders. As his small, fiery eyes
swept the hall, every servant trembled: he was as severe
at the commencement as he was reckless at the close of a
banquet. The Princess Martha wore a robe of pink satin
embroidered with flowers made of small pearls, and a
train and head-dress of crimson velvet. Her emeralds
were the finest outside of Moscow, and she wore them all.
Her pale, weak, frightened face was quenched in the dazzle
of the green fires which shot from her forehead, ears,
and bosom, as she moved.
Prince Paul of Kostroma and the Princess Nadejda
followed; but on reaching the table, the gentlemen took
their seats at the head, while the ladies marched down to
the foot. Their seats were determined by their relative
rank, and woe to him who was so ignorant or so absentminded
as to make a mistake! The servants had been
carefully trained in advance by the Grand Marshal; and
whoever took a place above his rank or importance found,
when he came to sit down, that his chair had miraculously
and violently upon the floor. The Prince at the
head of the table, and the Princess at the foot, with their
nearest guests of equal rank, ate from dishes of massive
gold; the others from silver. As soon as the last of the
company had entered the hall, a crowd of jugglers, tumblers,
dwarfs, and Calmucks followed, crowding themselves
into the corners under the galleries, where they
awaited the conclusion of the banquet to display their
tricks, and scolded and pummelled each other in the
mean time.
On one side of Prince Alexis the bear Mishka took
his station. By order of Prince Boris he had been kept
from wine for several days, and his small eyes were keener
and hungrier than usual. As he rose now and then,
impatiently, and sat upon his hind legs, he formed a curious
contrast to the Prince's other supporter, the idiot, who
sat also in his tow-shirt, with a large pewter basin in his
hand. It was difficult to say whether the beast was most
man or the man most beast. They eyed each other and
watched the motions of their lord with equal jealousy;
and the dismal whine of the bear found an echo in the
drawling, slavering laugh of the idiot. The Prince glanced
form one to the other; they put him in a capital humor,
which was not lessened as he perceived an expression of
envy pass over the face of Prince Paul.
The dinner commenced with a botvinia—something
between a soup and a salad—of wonderful composition.
It contained cucumbers, cherries, salt fish, melons, bread,
huge fishermen, dressed to represent mermen of the Volga,
naked to the waist, with hair crowned with reeds, legs
finned with silver tissue from the knees downward, and
preposterous scaly tails, which dragged helplessly upon
the floor, entered the hall, bearing a broad, shallow tank
of silver. In the tank flapped and swam four superb sterlets,
their ridgy backs rising out of the water like those
of alligators. Great applause welcomed this new and
classical adaptation of the old custom of showing the living
fish, before cooking them, to the guests at the table. The
invention was due to Simon Petrovitch, and was (if the
truth must be confessed) the result of certain carefully
measured supplies of brandy which Prince Boris himself
had carried to the imprisoned poet.
After the sterlets had melted away to their backbones,
and the roasted geese had shrunk into drumsticks and
breastplates, and here and there a guest's ears began to
redden with more rapid blood, Prince Alexis judged that
the time for diversion had arrived. He first filled up the
idiot's basin with fragments of all the dishes within his
reach,—fish, stewed fruits, goose fat, bread, boiled cabbage,
and beer,—the idiot grinning with delight all the while,
and singing, “Neuyesjaï golubchik moi,” (Don't go away,
my little pigeon), between the handfuls which he crammed
into his mouth. The guests roared with laughter, especially
when a juggler or Calmuck stole out from under the
gallery, and pretended to have designs upon the basin.
Mishka, the bear, had also been well fed, and greedily
he would not dance. Sitting up on his hind legs, with his
fore paws hanging before him, he cast a drunken, languishing
eye upon the company, lolled out his tongue,
and whined with an almost human voice. The domestics,
secretly incited by the Grand Marshal, exhausted their
ingenuity in coaxing him, but in vain. Finally, one of
them took a goblet of wine in one hand, and, embracing
Mishka with the other, began to waltz. The bear
stretched out his paw and clumsily followed the movements,
whirling round and round after the enticing goblet.
The orchestra struck up, and the spectacle, though not
exactly what Prince Alexis wished, was comical enough
to divert the company immensely.
But the close of the performance was not upon the
programme. The impatient bear, getting no nearer his
goblet, hugged the man violently with the other paw,
striking his claws through the thin shirt. The dance-measure
was lost; the legs of the two tangled, and they
fell to the floor, the bear undermost. With a growl of
rage and disappointment, he brought his teeth together
through the man's arm, and it might have fared badly with
the latter, had not the goblet been refilled by some one
and held to the animal's nose. Then, releasing his hold,
he sat up again, drank another bottle, and staggered out
of the hall.
Now the health of Prince Alexis was drunk,—by the
guests on the floor of the hall in Champagne, by those in
the galleries in kislischi and hydromel. The orchestra
in which the departure of Prince Boris was mentioned;
the tumblers began to posture; the jugglers came forth
and played their tricks; and the cannon on the ramparts
announced to all Kinesma, and far up and down the Volga,
that the company were rising from the table.
Half an hour later, the great red slumber-flag floated
over the castle. All slept,—except the serf with the
wounded arm, the nervous Grand Marshal, and Simon Petrovich
with his band of dramatists, guarded by the indefatigable
Sasha. All others slept,—and the curious crowd
outside, listening to the music, stole silently away; down
in Kinesma, the mothers ceased to scold their children,
and the merchants whispered to each other in the bazaar;
the captains of vessels floating on the Volga directed their
men by gestures; the mechanics laid aside hammer and
axe, and lighted their pipes. Great silence fell upon the
land, and continued unbroken so long as Prince Alexis
and his guests slept the sleep of the just and the tipsy.
By night, however, they were all awake and busily preparing
for the diversions of the evening. The ball-room
was illuminated by thousands of wax-lights, so connected
with inflammable threads, that the wicks could all be kindled
in a moment. A pyramid of tar-barrels had been
erected on each side of the castle-gate, and every hill or
mound on the opposite bank of the Volga was similarly
crowned. When, to a stately march,—the musicians blowing
their loudest,—Prince Alexis and Princess Martha led
the way to the ball-room, the signal was given: candles
castle, but over the landscape for five or six versts, around
everything was bright and clear in the fiery day. Then
the noises of Kinesma were not only permitted, but encouraged.
Mead and qvass flowed in the very streets, and
the castle trumpets could not be heard for the sound of
troikas and balalaïkas.
After the Polonaise, and a few stately minuets, (copied
from the court of Elizabeth), the company were ushered
into the theatre. The hour of Simon Petrovitch had
struck: with the inspiration smuggled to him by Prince
Boris, he had arranged a performance which he felt to be
his masterpiece. Anxiety as to its reception kept him sober.
The overture had ceased, the spectators were all
in their seats, and now the curtain rose. The background
was a growth of enormous, sickly toad-stools, supposed to
be clouds. On the stage stood a girl of eighteen, (the
handsomest in Kinesma), in hoops and satin petticoat,
powdered hair, patches, and high-heeled shoes. She held
a fan in one hand, and a bunch of marigolds in the other.
After a deep and graceful curtsy to the company, she came
forward and said,—
“I am the goddess Venus. I have come to Olympus
to ask some questions of Jupiter.”
Thunder was heard, and a car rolled upon the stage.
Jupiter sat therein, in a blue coat, yellow vest, ruffled shirt
and three-cornered hat. One hand held a bunch of thunderbolts,
which he occasionally lifted and shook; the other,
a gold-headed cane.
“Here am, I Jupiter,” said he; “what does Venus
desire?”
A poetical dialogue then followed, to the effect that
the favorite of the goddess, Prince Alexis of Kinesma, was
about sending his son, Prince Boris, into the gay world,
wherein himself had already displayed all the gifts of all
the divinities of Olympus. He claimed from her, Venus,
like favors for his son: was it possible to grant them? Jupiter
dropped his head and meditated. He could not answer
the question at once: Apollo, the Graces, and the
Muses must be consulted: there were few precedents
where the son had succeeded in rivalling the father,—yet the
father's pious wishes could not be overlooked.
Venus said,—
“What I asked for Prince Alexis was for his sake:
what I ask for the son is for the father's sake.”
Jupiter shook his thunderbolt and called “Apollo!”
Instantly the stage was covered with explosive and
coruscating fires, — red, blue, and golden, — and amid
smoke, and glare, and fizzing noises, and strong chemical
smells, Apollo dropped down from above. He was accustomed
to heat and smoke, being the cook's assistant, and
was sweated down to a weight capable of being supported
by the invisible wires. He wore a yellow caftan, and
wide blue silk trousers. His yellow hair was twisted
around and glued fast to gilded sticks, which stood out
from his head in a circle, and represented rays of light.
He first bowed to Prince Alexis, then to the guests, then to
Jupiter, then to Venus. The matter was explained to him
He promised to do what he could towards favoring the
world with a second generation of the beauty, grace, intellect,
and nobility of character which had already won his
regard. He thought, however, that their gifts were unnecessary,
since the model was already in existence, and
nothing more could be done than to imitate it.
(Here there was another meaning bow towards Prince
Alexis,—a bow in which Jupiter and Venus joined. This
was the great point of the evening, in the opinion of Simon
Petrovitch. He peeped through a hole in one of the
clouds, and, seeing the delight of Prince Alexis and the
congratulations of his friends, immediately took a large glass
of Cognac).
The Graces were then summoned, and after them the
Muses,—all in hoops, powder, and paint. Their songs
had the same burden,—intense admiration of the father,
and good-will for the son, underlaid with a delicate doubt.
The close was a chorus of all the deities and semi-deities
in praise of the old Prince, with the accompaniment of
fireworks. Apollo rose through the air like a frog, with
his blue legs and yellow arms wide apart; Jupiter's chariot
rolled off; Venus bowed herself back against a mouldy
cloud; and the Muses came forward in a bunch, with
a wreath of laurel, which they placed upon the venerated
head.
Sasha was dispatched to bring the poet, that he might
receive his well-earned praise and reward. But alas for
Simon Petrovitch? His legs had already doubled under
him. He was awarded fifty rubles and a new caftan,
days afterward.
The supper which followed resembled the dinner, except
that there were fewer dishes and more bottles. When
the closing course of sweatments had either been consumed
or transferred to the pockets of the guests, the Princess
Martha retired with the ladies. The guests of lower rank
followed; and there remained only some fifteen or twenty,
who were thereupon conducted by Prince Alexis to a
smaller chamber, where he pulled off his coat, lit his pipe,
and called for brandy. The others followed his example,
and their revelry wore out the night.
Such was the festival which preceded the departure of
Prince Boris for St. Petersburg.
| III. Beauty and the beast | |