They placed him at the bottom of
the steps. The Prince descended until the two stood face to face.
The others looked on from courtyard, door, and window. A pause
ensued, during which no one dared to breathe.
At last Prince Alexis spoke, in a loud and terrible voice--
"It was you who sang it?"
"Yes, your Highness, it was I," Waska replied, in a scarcely
audible tone, dropping his head and mechanically drawing his
shoulders together, as if shrinking from the coming blow.
It was full three minutes before the Prince again spoke. He still
held the whip in his hand, his eyes fixed and the muscles of his
face rigid. All at once the spell seemed to dissolve: his hand
fell, and he said in his ordinary voice--
"You sing remarkably well. Go, now: you shall have ten rubles and
an embroidered caftan for your singing."
But any one would have made a great mistake who dared to awaken
Prince Alexis a second time in the same manner.
V.
Prince Boris, in St. Petersburg, adopted the usual habits of his
class. He dressed elegantly; he drove a dashing troika; he
played, and lost more frequently than he won; he took no special
pains to shun any form of fashionable dissipation.
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