Meanwhile Tamara was conversing in a lower voice with Stephen Strong.

"The more you stay in this country, the more it fascinates you," he said. "And you feel you have got back to some of the fierce primitive pa.s.sions of nature. Here, in Moscow, the whole earth must be stained with wild orgies and blood, and yet they are full of poetry and romance. Even Ivan the Terrible had his religious side, and every creature of them believes in the saints and the priests. It is said the impostor who posed as Ivan's son might have succeeded had he not been too kind, he showed clemency to Shuisky and his enemies and did not have them torn to pieces, so the people would not believe he could be the Terrible's son! And they chased him to that window you remember we saw in the old palace of the Kremlin and there he had to throw himself out."

"It makes one wonder what can arise from a history of such horrible crimes," Tamara said.

"You must not forget that the country is practically three hundred years behind the times, though," Stephen Strong went on. "No doubt quite as great horrors marked others if we look at them at an equivalent stage of development. It is missing this point which makes most strangers, and many foreign historians, so unjust to Russia and her people. The national qualities are immeasurably great, but as a civilized nation they are so very young."

"I believe one could grow to love them," Tamara said. "I have never had the feeling that I am among strangers since I have been here."

Then she wondered vaguely why Stephen Strong smiled softly to himself.

By the end of dinner, Gritzko's eyes were blazing, and he suggested every sort of astonishing way to spend the night. But Princess Ardacheff, as the doyenne of the party, prudently put her foot down, and insisted upon bed. For had they not a whole morning of sight-seeing still to do on the morrow, and then their thirty versts in troikas to arrive at Milaslav. So the ladies all trouped off to rest.

"Leave your door open into my room, Tamara dear, if you do not mind,"

her G.o.dmother said. "I am always nervous in hotels--"

"I trust everything is going quietly," she added to herself, "but one never can tell."

Next day the whole sky was leaden with unfallen snow. Nothing more strange and gloomy and barbaric than Moscow looked could have been imagined, Tamara thought. It brought out the gilt domes and the unusual colors of things in a lurid way.

Their first visit was to the Church of the a.s.sumption, where the emperors are crowned. Its great beauty and rich colors pleased the eye.

The totally different arrangement of things from any other sort of church--the shape and the absence of chairs or seats--the hidden altar behind the doors of the sanctuary--the numerous pictures and frescoed walls--all gave it a mysterious, wonderful charm, and here again the two English were struck by the people's simple faith.

"We would catch every sort of disease kissing those Ikons after filthy ulcerated beggars," Stephen Strong said to Tamara. "But the belief that only good can come to them brings only good. The study of these people makes one less materialistic and full of common sense. One puts more credence in things occult."

A service was just beginning, it was some high saint's day, and the beautiful singing, the boys' angel voices and the deep ba.s.s of the priests, unaccompanied by any instruments or organ, impressed Tamara far more in this old temple than the services had done in any of the St. Petersburg churches.

A peace fell on her soul, and just as the gipsies' music had been of the devil, so this seemed to come from heaven itself. She felt calmed and happier when they came out.

After an early lunch they saw from the hotel windows three troikas drawn up. Two of them Gritzko's, and one belonging to Prince Solentzeff Zasiekin, who had also a country place in the neighbourhood.

The two, which had come a day or so before from Milaslav, were indeed wonderful turn-outs. The Prince prided himself upon his horses, which were renowned throughout Europe.

The graceful shaped sleighs, with the drivers in their quaint liveries standing up to drive, always unconsciously suggest that their origin must have been some chariot from Rome.

Gritzko's colors were a rich greenish-blue, while the reins and velvet caps and belts of the drivers were a dull cerise; the caps were braided with silver, while they and the coats and the blue velvet rugs were lined and bordered with sable. One set of horses was coal black, and the others a dark gray. Everything seemed in keeping with the buildings, and the semi-Byzantine scene with its Oriental note of picturesque grace.

"Which will you choose to go in, Madame?" Gritzko asked. "Shall you be drawn by the blacks or the grays?"

"I would prefer the blacks," Tamara replied. "I always love black horses, and these are such beautiful ones." And so it was arranged.

"If you will come with Stephen and me, Tantino," the Prince said, "we shall be the lighter load and get there first. Madame Loraine and Olga can go with Serge and Lord Courtray, they will take the blacks; that leaves Valonne for Sonia and her husband. Will this please everyone?"

Apparently it did, for thus they started. It was an enchanting drive over the snow. They seemed to fly along, once they had left the town, and the weird bleak country, unmarked by any boundaries, impressed both Tamara and Jack. And while Tamara was speculating upon its mystical side, Lord Courtray was gauging its possibilities for sport.

They at last skirted a dark forest, which seemed to stretch for miles, and then after nearly three hours' drive arrived at the entrance to Milaslav.

They went through a wild, rough sort of park, and then came in view of the house--a great place with tall Ionic pillars supporting the front, and wings on each side--while beyond, stretching in an irregular ma.s.s, was a wooden structure of a much earlier date.

It all appeared delightfully incongruous and a trifle makeshift to Tamara and Jack when they got out of their sleigh and were welcomed by their host.

A bare hall, at one side showing discolored marks of mould on the wall, decorated in what was the Russian Empire style, a beautiful conception retaining the cla.s.sic lines of the French and yet with an added richness of its own. Then on up to a first floor above a low _rez de chaussee_ by wide stairs. These connecting portions of the house seemed unfurnished and barren,--walls of stone or plaster with here and there a dilapidated decoration. It almost would appear as if they were meant to be shut off from the living rooms, like the hall of a block of flats. The whole thing struck a strange note. There were quant.i.ties of servants in their quaint liveries about, and when finally they arrived in a great saloon it was bright and warm, though there was no open fireplace, only the huge porcelain stove.

Here the really beautiful, though rather florid Alexander I. style struggled from the walls with an appalling set of furniture of the period of Alexander II. But the whole thing had an odd unfinished look, and a fine portrait of the Prince's grandfather in one panel was entirely riddled with shot!

Some splendid skins of bears and wolves were on the floor, and there was a general air of the room being lived in--though magnificence and dilapidation mingled everywhere. The very rich brocade on one of the sofas had the traces of great rents. And while one table held cigarette cases and cigar boxes in the most exquisitely fine enamel set with jewels, on another would be things of the roughest wood. And a cabinet at the side filled with a priceless collection of snuff boxes and _bon-bonnieres_ of Catherine's time had the gla.s.s of one door cracked into a star of splinters.

Tamara had a sudden sensation of being a million miles away from England and her family: it all came as a breath of some other life. She felt strangely nervous, she had not the least notion why. There was a reckless look about things which caused a weird thrill.

"If it were only arranged, what capabilities it all has," she thought; "but as it is, it seems to speak of Gritzko and fierce strife."

Tea and the usual quant.i.ties of _bonnes bouches_ and vodka waited them and a bowl of hot punch.

And all three English people, Stephen Strong, Tamara and Jack, admired their host's gracious welcome, and his courtly manners. Not a trace of the wild Gritzko seemed left.

Tamara wondered secretly what their sleeping accommodation would be like.

"Tantine, you must act hostess for me. Will you show these ladies their rooms," the Prince said. "Dinner is at eight o'clock, but you have lots of time before for a little bridge if you want."

He took them through the usual amount of reception-rooms--a billiard-room and library, and small boudoir--and then they came out on another staircase which led to the floor above. Here he left them and returned to the men.

"This was done up by the late Princess, Tamara," her G.o.dmother said.

"Even twenty years ago the taste was perfectly awful, as you can see.

The whole house could be made beautiful if only there was someone who cared--though I expect we shall be comfortable enough."

The top pa.s.sage proved to be wide, but only distempered in two colors, like the walls of a station waiting-room. Not the slightest attempt to beautify or furnish with carved chairs, and cabinets of china, and portraits and tapestry on the walls, as in an English house. In the pa.s.sage all was as plain as a barrack.

Tamara's room and the Princess' joined. They were both gorgeously upholstered in crude blue satin brocade, and full of gilt heavy furniture, but in each there was a modern bra.s.s bed.

They were immense apartments, and warm and bright, monuments of the taste of 1878.

"Is it not incredible, Marraine, that with the beautiful models of the eighteenth century in front of them, people could have perpetrated this? Waves of awful taste seem to come, and artists lose their sense of beauty and produce the grotesque."

"This is a paradise compared to some," the Princess laughed. "You should see my sister-in-law's place!"

One bridge table was made up already when they got back to the saloon, and Sonia, Serge Grekoff and Valonne, only waited the Princess' advent to begin their game.

It seemed to be an understood thing that Gritzko and his English guest should be left out, and so practically alone.

"I feel it is my duty to learn to play better," Tamara said, "so I am going to watch."

He put down his hand and seized her wrist. "You shall certainly not,"

he said. "You cannot be so rude as deliberately to controvert your host. It is my pleasure that you shall sit here and talk."

His eyes were flashing, and Tamara's spirit rose.

"What a savage you are, Prince," she laughed. "Everything must be only as you wish! That I want to watch the bridge does not enter into your consideration."

"Not a bit."