FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30  
31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   >>   >|  
one of the greatest of crosses to this man, who had known and cast away many a heavier burden during his career. Remote as he was from the fashionable districts, there was neither man nor woman in the city, from the proudest house in the Equerries' quarter to the outskirts of the Novaia Andronovka, but knew and shuddered, agreeably, at the Gregoriev reputation. It was not strange, then, that the affair of New Year's night had become the sensation of the season. For on this night Prince Gregoriev had vowed a triumph over the massed society of the Mother City. He intended to accomplish now what his wedding with a daughter of one of the oldest and most honored families had failed to do: what no use of his unscrupulous power could force, what all Moscow society, for once banded unanimously together, had sworn he should never accomplish--enter their ranks, the ranks of the old nobility of the Empire. By New Year's morning, however, the numbers were admitting, bitterly, their defeat. Once more Gregoriev was about to achieve the impossible. Eighteen years before, Moscow society had defeated him, superbly. At the time of his marriage to a daughter of the Blashkovs, the question of his admission into the "court circle" had been violently agitated. But at that time even his prospective father-in-law had not had the hardihood to suggest an informal presentation of this man to his Majesty. Nay, it was the bride, pale, pretty, sensitive Sophia, who, when it was seen that she had no slightest influence over her dread husband, had been, not, perhaps, without a sigh, dropped from their acquaintance by her former associates: nay, by her very family, all save one sister, a girl younger than herself. For eighteen years, then, the Gregoriev palace had stood in its isolation, echoing only to the revelry that money can always obtain. For eighteen years its master, buying what the world had to sell, had been secretly planning to obtain what was not for sale: had faced, unmoved, an isolation which, to a nature less strong, would have been unbearable. Now, at last, he was about to win. His amazing intrigue had succeeded. Its results were for the eyes of all men. For Moscow society had been suddenly _commanded_ to his house, to a ball, given on New Year's night, in honor of his Imperial Majesty Nicholas I., who had decided, by his appearance, to honor the house of his subject and immediate servant. * * * *
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30  
31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
society
 

Gregoriev

 
Moscow
 

accomplish

 
eighteen
 
isolation
 
daughter
 

obtain

 

Majesty

 

associates


presentation

 

family

 

informal

 

hardihood

 

suggest

 

sister

 

prospective

 

father

 

slightest

 

husband


younger

 

Sophia

 

dropped

 

acquaintance

 
influence
 
sensitive
 

pretty

 

master

 

succeeded

 

results


intrigue

 
amazing
 
suddenly
 

commanded

 

appearance

 

subject

 

servant

 

decided

 

Imperial

 
Nicholas

unbearable
 
buying
 

revelry

 

palace

 
echoing
 

nature

 

strong

 

unmoved

 

secretly

 
planning