“No, no!” he said, “there is nothing left for me but to watch. I shall watch De Chauxville,” he added, turning to that graceful skater with a grim smile. De Chauxville nodded and laughed.
“You have been doing that any time this twenty years, mon ami,” he said, as he stood upright on his skates and described an easy little figure on the outside edge backward.
“And have always found you on slippery ground.”
“And never a fall,” said De Chauxville over his shoulder, as he shot away across the brilliantly lighted pond.
It was quite dark. A young moon was rising over the city, throwing out in dark relief against the sky a hundred steeples and domes. The long, thin spire of the Fortress Church—the tomb of the Romanovs—shot up into the heavens like a dagger. Near at hand, a thousand electric lights and colored lanterns, cunningly swung on the branches of the pines, made a veritable fairyland. The ceaseless song of the skates, on ice as hard as iron, mingled with the strains of a band playing in a kiosk with open windows. From the ice-hills came the swishing scream of the iron runners down the terrific slope. The Russians are a people of great emotions. There is a candor in their recognition of the needs of the senses which does not obtain in our self-conscious nature. These strangely constituted people of the North—a budding nation, a nation which shall someday overrun the world—are easily intoxicated. And there is a deliberation about their methods of seeking this enjoyment which appears at times almost brutal. There is nothing more characteristic than the ice-hill.
Imagine a slope as steep as a roof, paved with solid blocks of ice, which are subsequently frozen together by flooding with water; imagine a sledge with steel runners polished like a knife; imagine a thousand lights on either side of this glittering path, and you have some idea of an ice-hill. It is certainly the strongest form of excitement imaginable—next, perhaps, to whale-fishing.
There is no question of breathing, once the sledge has been started by the attendant. The sensation is somewhat suggestive of a fall from a balloon, and yet one goes to the top again, as surely as the drunkard will return to his bottle. Foxhunting is child’s play to it, and yet grave men have prayed that they might die in pink.
Steinmetz was standing at the foot of the ice-hill when an arm was slipped within his.
“Will you take me down?” asked Maggie Delafield.
He turned and smiled at her—fresh and blooming in her furs.
“No, my dear young lady. But thank you for suggesting it.”
“Is it very dangerous?”
“Very. But I think you ought to try it. It is a revelation. It is an epoch in your life. When I was a younger man I used to sneak away to an ice-hill where I was not known, and spend hours of the keenest enjoyment. Where is Paul?”
“He has just gone over there with Etta.”
“She refuses to go?”
“Yes,” answered Maggie.
Steinmetz looked down at his companion with his smile of quiet resignation.
“You tell me you are afraid of mice,” he said.
“I hate mice,” she replied. “Yes—I suppose I am afraid of them.”
“The princess is not afraid of rats—she is afraid of very little, the princess—and yet she will not go on the ice-hill. What strange creatures, mademoiselle! Come, let us look for Paul. He is the only man who may be trusted to take you down.”
They found Paul and Etta together in one of the brilliantly lighted kiosks where refreshments were being served, all hot and steaming, by fur-clad servants. It was a singular scene. If a coffee-cup was left for a few moments on the table by the watchful servitors, the spoon froze to the saucer. The refreshments—bread and butter, dainty sandwiches of caviar, of pâté de foie gras, of a thousand delicatessen from Berlin and Petersburg—were kept from freezing on hot-water dishes. The whole scene was typical of life in the northern capital, where wealth wages a successful fight against climate. Open fires burned brilliantly in iron tripods within the doorway of the tent, and at intervals in the gardens. In a large hall a string band consoled those whose years or lungs would not permit of the more vigorous outdoor entertainments.
Steinmetz made known to Paul Maggie’s desire to risk her life on the ice-hills, and gallantly proposed to take care of the princess until his return.
“Then,” said Etta gayly, “you must skate. It is much too cold to stand about. They are going to dance a cotillon.”
“If it is your command, princess, I obey with alacrity.”
Etta spoke rapidly, looking round her all the while with the bright enjoyment which overspreads the faces of some women at almost any form of entertainment, provided there be music, brilliant lights, and a crowd of people. One cannot help wondering a little what the minds of such fair ladies must consist of, to be thrown off their balance by such outward influences. Etta’s eyes gleamed with excitement. She was beautifully dressed in furs, which adornment she was tall and stately enough to carry to full advantage. She held her graceful head with regal hauteur, every inch a princess. She was enjoying her keenest pleasure—a social triumph. No whisper escaped her, no glance, no nudge of admiring or envious notice. On Steinmetz’s arm she passed out of the tent; the touch of her hand on his sleeve reminded him of a thoroughbred horse stepping on to turf, so full of life, of electric thrill, of excitement was it. But then, Karl Steinmetz was a cynic. No one else could have thought of comparing Etta’s self-complaisant humor to that of a horse in a racing
