The little maid, with an unchanged countenance, continued singing, in a low, melancholy, and monotonous voice, an old Tartar song:
The gentle baby died, mother, died when it was born. He will never saddle horse, mother, nor eat the cakes of corn, Or ride before his soldiers in the glory of the morn, Nor chase the bitter tiger or the fleet and lovely fawn. The gentle baby died, mother, died when he was born.
Peter stared at the singer, as if fascinated by her flat, brown face.
Katherina was not thinking of the song nor of him; it was very hot and she was almost asleep in her comfortable chair.
They wrapped him in a silken swaith and in a golden shawl, And laid him ’mid the tulips, him the fairest of them all. I saw him as a chieftain, magnificent and tall, Riding red from combat or playing of the ball. They wrapped him in a silken swaith and in a golden shawl.
And I am left so lonely, all in the twilight clear, A-holding of my bosom where lay my tender dear, A-watching of the tent door when the first stars appear, Crying for my baby in the great desert near. And I am left so lonely, all in the twilight clear.
Katherina glanced rather uneasily at the Czar; she had hoped that now he had achieved this great victory he would be less moody and melancholy.
Even her placid good-humor did not always find Peter easy to manage; sometimes her ease-loving temperament was inclined to regret the days of her comfortable prosperity with Prince Mentchikoff.
“The King of Sweden has not been captured?” she asked gently.
“Nay, he crossed the Bug and is safe in Turkey, flattered by the Sultan.”
“Well, he will trouble you no more,” said Katherina pleasantly.
The little Tartar maid rose and crept away, with a furtive look at the terrible Czar.
“I do not know,” replied Peter. “He is a very able man. But I think I have secured the Baltic Provinces.”
Leaning forward with a sudden eagerness he began discoursing of this Baltic Empire and what the acquisition of it would mean to Russia, what she could do when she commanded the town and gulf of Riga and all the islands, of the new naval base of Kronstadt, and the new arts and sciences already beginning to flourish in St. Petersburg.
As he spoke, his rough voice, suffused face, and swollen eyes became inspired; he forgot the ignorant woman to whom he spoke, and declaimed as if he was before a nation of men.