The Genius. Margaret Horton Potter
and put much work upon him: so much, that lo! a Gregoriev soon became necessary to the governmental world. And Michael had worked to more purposes than one. His great master had no fault to find with his performance of duty. Thus it was not until too late that more than one of the ministers discovered the fact that it may be better to have certain things bungled than to have them carried through by a man so clever that he can put knowledge amassed by the way to double—sometimes triple, uses. This was what Gregoriev could, and did, do. He was, par excellence, a man of his time: in many ways even in advance of it. And he had by no means begun to approach his goal before all the men with whom he came in daily contact, and many of those considerably above him, had come to stand in terrible fear of his accurate and tabulated knowledge of things they had believed to be unsuspected by any human being beyond themselves.
But there was one man in the Empire who, as yet, remained in ignorance of this trait of his official: who had never felt the faintest scratch beneath the velvet of his favorite cat's-paw. Thus it was that Michael's momentary defeat had come about. Czar Nicholas crossed him openly; put upon him an affront unbearable; lowered him in the eyes of three hundred puny men and women over whom he had no power for revenge. It was, then, as a result of this, that treason had begun to surge through the mind of a brilliantly wicked man. And had he been able to read certain thoughts passing through his subject's head, it is possible that the Iron One might have felt a certain uneasiness of mind at possibilities of the future; and a rather poignant regret at his negligence of the evening before.
Two hours had gone by since Piotr had carried his master's first meal to that master's work-room. Michael had finished his letters. His first anger was gone and his plan of "payment" already under way. With his mind thus relieved, then, he suddenly began to feel the fatigue of thirty hours of sleeplessness. With a comforting sense of relaxation, he ascended to his bedroom, partly undressed himself, lay down on the bed, and within five minutes had fallen into a sound sleep.
And it was two hours later and Ivan Veliki had rung the hour of eleven, when the silence of the room was broken by the entrance of Piotr, who, at sight of his master asleep at this unwonted hour, halted in surprise and confusion. It took him ten minutes to nerve himself to the waking of the Prince. But it was only ten more before Michael, who had sworn at his valet steadily, meantime, for the delay, entered his public office, fully dressed, to greet General Ryúmin, a member of the Imperial staff, just now sent as an envoy from the Kremlin. Michael, who chose to greet him with all the courtesy he could command, hurried forward, his hands out-stretched, and gave the greetings of the day.
"So! I roused you from sleep, Prince? However, I come direct from the Kremlin; and his Majesty commands an audience of you at half-past noon. He is here ex-officio, of course, with only Alderberg, Zelanoi, and ourselves, on the matter of the forestry ukase. But about you—there's another matter he wants you for: the petition for the families of convict-exiles to follow them to Siberia. The Council has rejected it twice; but Benckendorf is still agitating the question. His Majesty still seems to object, strongly. You, too, I suppose?"
"If the wife or the daughter be pretty—of course," returned Gregoriev, lightly. And Ryúmin, seeing that he was not to be drawn, hastily forced a laugh.
They passed thence into a discussion of local affairs in which they had recently acted as allies when Ryumin had been Lieutenant-Governor of the Moscow province. No undercurrent of enmity marred their intercourse. Gregoriev was certainly an adept at applying or loosening his screws. His guest had felt them sharply once or twice before to-day. He knew Gregoriev's power; and Michael asked no more. He had soon made the General entirely at his ease, and the half-hour passed most agreeably. At last, however, Ryúmin rose, tacitly to remind his host of the Imperial audience. They had now, indeed, by driving as fast as possible, barely time to reach the Kremlin. Gregoriev, nevertheless, paid no attention to the other's movement.
"Come, Boris Vassilyitch, one more cigar! We may as well settle now the details of this Pahlen affair. You wish a conviction in any case, I understand?"
"My dear Prince, it can wait. His Majesty's wishes are more important than mine, you know."
Gregoriev leaned back in his chair and took three leisurely puffs before he observed, lazily: "I don't agree with you. However, I must not keep you if you have some other appointment. I shall hardly start for the Kremlin before one.
"But—but my dear Gregoriev! The Czar! Your audience!—You see you forget, my good fellow!"
"I forget nothing whatever, General: not even promises that are not kept."
Ryúmin stared, open-mouthed, as Gregoriev's gloomy eyes met his. Then, with a thrill of wonder, he understood that the man before him had the superb audacity thus openly to rebuke his Emperor.
Certainly Gregoriev's suggestion was no empty threat. Nicholas Romanoff actually waited something more than an hour for the arrival of the Moscow police official. When at last Prince Gregoriev was ushered into the royal presence, the voice of the master of ceremonies shook as he announced the name; and, while he closed the door that shut this madman from his sight, he longed and yet dreaded to hear his Majesty's first words. Should he—had he time to—rush forth and spread abroad the news of Gregoriev's fall, before the broken man should issue from that ominously quiet room? Fortunately for himself, the master of ceremonies was hardly of an adventurous disposition. He cogitated the matter till he felt it too late to perform the errand and get back in time to see Gregoriev's expression as he emerged from the Presence. Nevertheless, minute after minute went by, till an hour had passed: time for a comprehensive reproof and dismissal, truly! But the feeble-minded one was prepared for anything by the time the miracle happened. It was three o'clock before he beheld, issuing from the audience-chamber, side by side and chatting together in tones of intimacy, Michael Petrovitch Gregoriev and Nicholas I., Emperor of Russia. Nor was that all. For it was the face not of the official but of his Imperial Majesty, that wore an expression of uneasiness, of disquietude, almost—of alarm.
Gregoriev left the Kremlin, by the Gate of the Saviour, on foot. He had dismissed his sleigh upon his arrival. But, though the afternoon was yet young, the light of the brief winter day was almost gone. Lights were appearing in the shop-windows of the Tverskaia as Michael, muffled comfortably in his sables, entered the celebrated street and walked along it, leisurely, in a direction leading directly away from his distant palace. He had no definite goal in mind. He was in the high humor of immediate success. Many-colored Moscow lay all about him: his city, wherein he was known to and feared by, nearly every man. Labyrinth though it was, there was scarcely a corner, an alley, a court-yard in that most jumbled of cities that he did not know. Moscow belonged to him as London to Dickens, Paris to Balzac. And, like the great novelists, his walks, always a delight, played also an important part in his profession. It was, however, rare that he issued forth in his present guise. The Iákiminskaia, for instance, saw him oftenest as a petty merchant; the Piatnitskaia as a Jewish or Tátar trader; the Basmanaia as a soldier, or petty officer off duty; other quarters as a member of a workingman's artel, a university hanger-on, or a loafer, as the neighborhood demanded. To-day, however, being himself, he directed his steps towards the fashionable part of the town, passing from the shopping district into the old Equerries' quarter lying behind, and west of, the Kremlin hill. It was possible that he had some hazy idea of startling his wife's family by an unwelcome visit; and from them gaining the latest gossip concerning last night's ball. But the idea remained nebulous. Nicholas had responded too readily to his touch, the few lines of cipher on his map had proved too disturbing to the royal mind, for the tormentor's pride not to have been restored by such evidence of his power. He knew well that their recent talk, in which he had played his difficult part with genius, had left his Majesty fearful, not of revelations concerning mere peculations or juggled laws, but of something touching his very seat upon the throne; a certain disclosure that might bring up again that old, forgotten matter of his unnatural accession to the throne in place of his elder brother Constantine. And Michael had an unfounded belief that the Czar would, therefore, in some unknown way, bring him, peaceably, the social power he now trebly desired. Therefore it was not difficult to turn him from his half-formed purpose.
Leaving the great street for the comparatively quiet Nikolskaia, he presently encountered one of the unofficial companions of his leisure hours: a retired