Читать книгу Peter and Alexis. The Romance of Peter the Great онлайн

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And affectedly curtsying to the cavalier, as the rule of a minuet demanded, the pretty princess responded with the languid smile of a Chloe to the aged Daphnis. Meanwhile in the dark alleys, bowers, in all the secluded nooks of the Summer Garden, whispers, rustlings, kisses, sighs of love were heard; the goddess Venus had begun her reign in the Hyperborean Scythia.

In an oak grove, apart from the rest, so that none could overhear them, a group of servants and pages, belonging to the Tsar’s household, were discussing the love exploits of their friends, the court ladies or maidens, after the manner of true Scythians and Barbarians.

In the presence of women they were shy and bashful, but when by themselves they spoke about “women” with brutal shamelessness.

“The wench Hamilton spent a night with the master,” calmly announced one of them.

It was Mary Hamilton, the Tsaritsa’s lady in waiting.

“The master is gallant, he can’t live without mistresses,” remarked another.

“It is not her first either,” retorted a page, a boy of about fifteen, deliberately spitting and again puffing the pipe which made him sick: “Before the master’s time she had a child by Golitsin.”