Strasse, and tears off panting and snorting towards the Costinoi Dwor. This is one of the curiosities of St. Petersburg—the great bazaar.

The Costinoi Dwor is a distinct quarter in itself, where everything of most costly nature, from Persian carpets to diamond necklaces, is to be bought. Here the stag evidently thinks to find shelter. All the doors stand open. From among the thousand shops he must needs select that of a Venetian glass-dealer, huntsmen and hounds in hot pursuit. In the vast apartment, supported by pillars, are massed crystal ornaments, amounting in value to hundreds of thousands of rubles, artistically piled into pyramids of fairy-like elegance, the walls hung with Venetian mirrors reaching from floor to ceiling. The unhappy Italian proclaims himself bankrupt as he sees the stag make for his shop, containing such costly and perishable wares, and it is a comical sight to see the poor signor and his fauteuil fall back head over heels when the crash comes. But no sooner does the stag see an innumerable number of its fellows reflected in the mirrors all around him, hounds upon them, closely followed by galloping huntsmen, than it completely loses the little remnant of wits it had retained, and, turning its back on the raving Italian, it dashes through the ranks of its pursuers towards the Appraxin Dwor, where Turks, Jews, Armenians, Persians, brokers, second-hand dealers, Little and Great Russians, Copts, and Raskolniks, Gruses, and Finlanders abound, their stalls crammed with old rubbish from every quarter of the globe, and they themselves standing out in the middle of the street to better attract the passers-by, two or three seizing the unwary customer by the arm at the same time, crying up their own wares, depreciating those of their neighbors, squabbling among themselves, vociferating oaths, lying, cheating, bargaining—playing the rogue in every barbaric language under the sun. And to them, in their very midst, the excited, maddened stag! Now the real fun begins. It was a sight to see the terrified peddlers scattered right and left among their heaps of rubbish, to hear their agonized adjurations to all the powers of heaven and earth; to see them crawl on all fours, frog-like, into their holes, as the huntsmen and hounds went galloping in full course over their fallen bodies; and to watch the angry company, after the wild hunt had passed, streaming back again to their desecrated wares with loud laments, proclaiming that the world was coming to an end. The stag simply flew over the heads of the densely packed throng; the hunt could not follow up so rapidly; it required the huntsmen's whips to keep the dogs together in such a bewildering crowd. Thus it gained a certain advantage, and, reaching the Boulevard of the Fontana Canal, dashed across the frozen stream to the opposite bank, and sped down the Goronschaja Street before its pursuers came up with it. [At the time of our story (1825) a palace, surrounded by a large park, the Bulasky Gardens, stood there. The great fire of 1862 has since laid it, as well as the whole Appraxin Dwor, in ruins; the railway-station of Czarskoje Zelo now occupies the site.]

The park is surrounded by a high gilded railing, through which sprigs of vine-covered firs push their way. Perhaps the stag takes it for its native home. Close by palace and park lies the great Obuchow Hospital; some five hundred patients, men and women (most of them epileptics) are just coming down the opposite street, returning from Trinity Church, where they have been attending mass. Should the affrighted creature rush in among the panic-stricken crowd, there would be no escape for them—their crippled, infirm forms, their enfeebled brains, would render it impossible. The very fright alone might kill them, deadened as are their senses. Now a chorus of horror arises from the procession of imbeciles, who, as if under a spell, come to a halt, helplessly awaiting the attack of the incomprehensible foe. Infirmity has not crippled their feet alone, but their thinking powers also. Nothing intervenes to stop the approaching stag. As it flies in full career past the principal gate of the Bulasky Gardens a shot resounds in the air. The stag makes a side spring, throws back its head, sinks down, struggles up again, plunges its bleeding nose into the snow, then stretches itself out, resting its stately antlered head on the threshold of the gate, as though in gratitude to him whose well-directed aim has released it from its pursuers.

Sport was spoiled.

CHAPTER IV
NO RIVAL

What unheard-of audacity, to spoil the sport of such an aristocratic hunting-party!

"Who fired that shot?" cried the foremost of the huntsmen, with a threatening crack of his whip.

The hounds dashed furiously on towards the open gate, their sense of the dignity of the hunt equally insulted.

The question had been put in Russian; and the action was in accord with the speech, although the speaker's face was close shaven in the French style, while the other members of the hunt all wore short whiskers.

"I took that liberty!" returned a woman's voice; and from under the fir-trees, whose branches overhung the gate, appeared a woman's form, slender as one of the Amazons of the "Kalevala" Saga, her pale oval face surrounded by loose-falling hair of reddish gold, like a lion's mane; the nose, straight and delicate, and full lips recalling the Niobe group; while at sight of the great flashing eyes, instinct with magic beauty, one was irresistibly reminded of a peri from the "Sakuntala." A very fairy, who united in herself the threefold myths.

"I dared do it!" she said, coming forward alone, unattended. And carelessly dispersing the excited dogs with one hand, she raised the pistol she held in the other, and, pointing it at her interlocutor, continued: "And there is another shot in it for you if you do not instantly lower your whip."

The hounds were cringingly snuffing about her whom the moment before they had been ready to tear in pieces; the huntsman, too, was not less susceptible to the charm than was the pack. Raising his whip, he touched his cap courteously with it, and addressed her in French, the language of Russian society:

"It were unnecessary, madame, that you should use firearms, possessing as you do in your eyes such powerful weapons."

By this speech the huntsman betrayed the school of Versailles, where men were accustomed to carry on war with compliments, and to mask retreat with gallant words.

Meanwhile the rest of the hunting-party had come up to the gates. The gentlemen, seeing with whom their comrade was in conversation, held in their horses, as though not wishing to take part in it; only an older man, wearing an order set in diamonds on his fur-lined coat, approached nearer; and one of the ladies, galloping straight up to the gate, pulled up her horse at its threshold, the body of the dead stag alone separating her from the other woman.

The huntswoman wore a blue, fur-bordered jacket, with hunting-cap to match, under which her fair hair hung in ringlets to the shoulders. Her face was crimsoned with eagerness and the extreme cold, giving to her somewhat prominent eyes a still more dazzling brilliancy than they were wont to have; her thin, delicately shaped lips were half open; the blue veil falling over her forehead, and the blue band she wore under her chin as a protection from the cold, did not allow more of her face to be seen. But as she drew up close beside the other lady she pushed back the chin band, perhaps in order to speak more freely, thereby displaying a pretty, rosy chin, divided by charming dimples.

"How dared you shoot that stag?"