But all these cold dishes composed but half the feast. Four kitchens, built of wood, at some distance from the palace, threw up constantly clouds of smoke. There boiled stags and elks, pullets of Archangel, and boars of Podolie. But that which particularly attracted the attention of the spectators were the large fires where whole oxen turned round upon spits, for the benefit of the people, to whom were to be also given tuns of brandy. The sun shone yet above the horizon when the great hall of the palace of crystal was lighted with wax candles in chandeliers of sparkling ice. A thousand lights were thus reflected and broken upon the transparent walls and windows. It seemed a fairy scene in the approaching night. While a legion of cooks, with their assistants, worked without cessation, the two personages, the boyard Tscherkaski and the prince Menzikoff, were not less busy in the interior of the palace. It was readily seen that they had the charge of directing the festival about to commence. The last-mentioned, spreading a bear-skin upon each of the seats of ice, was addressed by his companion. "Truly, Alexandre Michailowitz, the Czar could not have selected a better manager of the feast than yourself. If I had any thing to do but to take exclusive charge of the bottles, I am afraid I should oblige every one to sit upon the naked blocks. What grimaces those hungry foreign guests would make, such as the Frenchman Lefort, and those like him, whom the west is ever sending to fatten upon the blood of Russia. I should like to see them shivering to death, and at the same time politely struggling to appear pleased in the presence of the Czar." "But do you know how the Czar would regard such pleasantry? You remember Dimitri Arsenieff?" "Arsenieff! I hope you do not compound me with that herd whom a single glance of the Czar made tremble in their shoes. There was a time, it is true, but all is changed now--there was a time when those submissive slaves who filled the courts of the Kremlin, disappeared when they heard the steps of the old Alexis Nicolajewitz. His services were once required. He was not idle during the massacre of the Strelitz; they had need of Tscherkaski then. But all this has passed away. I have but one wish; it is, that in the hour of trial the swords of those Frenchmen, or of other foreigners, may leap as slowly from the scabbard as mine on that day when men of a nobler spirit were assassinated." "The Czar has not forgotten that you have--" "O, truly," replied the boyard, with a bitter smile, "the gracious Czar has made me the first chamberlain. He must have been in a good humor at that time; for Poliwoi--you know him--he is skilful in sealing bottles--he was a _valet de chambre_ in his youth--and that English Melton or Milton, who has imported some good dogs--both of them, at the same time with myself, received the key of the chamberlaincy." "But you cannot deny, Alexis, that in general the choice of our sovereign--"