"
"Have you any more exact information?"
"The conspirators meet this evening at five o'clock."
"Where?"
"Number fourteen the Strandlinje, at an apparently harmless meal."
"Strand--14," wrote the Czar on his tablets. "Any more?"
"To-night at two o'clock they fire the city."
"At two o'clock?" The Czar shook his head, and his face twitched.
"I build up, and they pull down. But now I will extirpate them root
and branch. What do they say?"
"They look back to Holy Moscow, and regard the building of
Petersburg as a piece of godlessness or malice. The workmen die,
like flies, of marsh fever, and they regard your Majesty's building
in the midst of a marsh as an act of bravado a la Louis Quatorze,
who built Versailles on the site of a swamp."
"Asses! My town is to command the mouth of the river, and to be the
Key to the sea, therefore it must be there. The marsh shall be
drained off into canals, which will carry boats like those of
Amsterdam. But so it is when monkeys judge!"
He rang; a servant appeared; "Put the horses to the cabriolet"; he
called down, "and now, goodbye, Katherine; I shall not be home till
to-morrow. It will be a hot day. But don't forget the letters.
Alexander can help you."
"Will you not dress, little son?" answered Katherine.
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