Read Online The Ice King by Dinah Dean - Free Book Online Page B

He likes to travel in comfort, not on his own feet! He's the scholar of the family —always has his nose in a book — he's the only man I've ever seen reading poetry on a battlefield!"
    “How did he get there, if he isn't in the Army?" she enquired.
    “It was in 1812 — he joined for the campaign. He'll always put himself to a little inconvenience if he thinks it's necessary."
    “Have you been in the Army very long?" Tanya asked.
    “Since I was eighteen, or six, according to which way you look at it. Cadet College here in Petersburg for twelve years, then commissioned Ensign. The usual thing."
    “You seem rather young to be a colonel," Tanya commented.
    Vladimir looked selfconscious and touched his St. George. "That helped," he replied, "and quite a lot of luck. I got in the way when someone fired a pistol in the general direction of the Emperor once, and he thought I did it on purpose.”
    Tanya wondered if she would ever hear the true story behind the modest disclaimer, but decided on reflection that if she did, it would certainly not be from Vladimir. They talked for a little longer, and then Vladimir drew out his watch and said he must be going as he was due to he on duty at the Fortress.
    “I trust I'll see you at the Palace tomorrow?" he asked as he stood up.
    “I don't know," Tanya replied. "Which Palace, and what is happening?"
    “ The Palace. New Year's Day." Vladimir replied obscurely. "I expect Nikolai Ilyich brought the tickets." And with that he kissed her hand and departed, leaving her none the wiser.
    Tanya did indeed see him, and Prince Nikolai, at the Palace the next day. It was the custom for the Emperor to open the galleries of the Winter Palace and the adjoining Hermitages to the public on the first of January each year, and it appeared that everyone in St. Petersburg of every social class tried to obtain a ticket and go to wander in a great crowd through the enormous buildings, to admire their beauty and see the magnificent collection of pictures and objets d'art, to eat the refreshments provided, and dance in the great galleries.
    The Kirovs went during the afternoon, and it seemed to Tanya that they walked for miles and miles among the biggest crowd of people she had ever seen. At times the sheer number of them quite frightened her, but they were not closely crowded, and they were all very orderly and good-humoured, peasants and soldiers, aristocrats and shopkeepers, coachmen and dandies, ragged workmen and fashionable ladies, all thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to see inside the Little Father's great house, and even, Tanya discovered, to see the Little Father himself. For as the Kirovs passed near the head of the great Jordan Staircase, they saw a little group standing to one side watching the slowly-moving throng, and among them was a very tall, fair-haired man in the uniform of the Semenovsky Guard, with a number of diamond-studded orders and the blue ribbon of the St. Andrei. He was smiling benignly at the people going past, and nodding affably in reply to the greetings and blessings which they called out to him.
    Tanya realised whom he was at once, although he looked older than the engravings she had seen of him, and stouter; his hair was receding, and he looked rather tired, but he was undoubtedly Alexander the Blessed, and she could not help gazing at him as if he were the most wonderful and precious of all the treasures in the Palace. She quite failed to notice Boris and Prince Nikolai among the gentlemen in attendance on the Emperor, and passed on into the next gallery in something of a daze at having actually seen him so close that she might almost have touched him.
    Presently they came upon Vladimir Karachev, very smart in his full-dress uniform, and he led them aside from the main stream to a long side gallery in the Little Hermitage which was reserved for friends of the Emperor's attendants, where Prince Nikolai had bespoken a table for them where they could sit down and be