The customary celebration of the New Year had begun with Peter the Great, who had proclaimed it by ukase. Catherine II, with her penchant for German traditions, had decreed that the symbol should take the form of a huge fir tree, laden with thousands of nuts, red apples, and brightly wrapped bonbons. Hundreds of candles on the tree would be lit at midnight the night before. Now, each of the grand dukes—brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, and grandchildren of the czar—had his own personal tree in his apartments or in the nursery.
But at the dawn of the year 1840, the tree for the whole Romanov family had been placed, not in the czarina’s salons, but in the Throne Room. It was taller and more handsome than all the others, a tree such as one would never find in the mountains of Europe, one that embodied the expansion of the empire: a tree from the forests of the Caucasus. To commemorate the recent victory at Akulgo, its black branches had been transformed to shimmering light and gold, a symbol that all could understand. The chief of police’s last hymn of praise expressed the allegory: “Russia’s past is admirable, her present… beyond all magnificence. As for her future, it exceeds the wildest imagination.” Court and city prepared to revel in this truth, dazzled by their own power.
A hard, icy frost covered the ground before sunrise. The sleighs discharged their passengers at the foot of the stairway of honor, then went to park in a circle around the Alexandrine Column. A huge bonfire burned there in the middle of the snow to warm the coachmen and horses. There was no disorder, no pushing or shoving among the teams. Outside as well as in, each knew his place.
The White Hall, the only one open for the moment, was already crowded. Streams of people strolled back and forth, zigzagging between the gilded furniture, the malachite tables, the porphyry candelabra, and the lapis lazuli vases. Like moths around a flame, the visitors pressed beneath the incandescent round balls of the crystal chandeliers. Some stood in the galleries, between the candlelit pillars of the long colonnade. The light sparkled and glanced off the sabers, the epaulets, the decorative cords, the gardes’ helmets, and the demure crosses at the ladies’ throats. It scintillated in the tiny pendants that dangled from their ears, the rows of pearls at gloved wrists, the blood-red rubies that rested against white-powdered breasts.
Nearly a thousand ladies of honor packed the balconies. Their sumptuous traditional costumes, in keeping with Nicholas I’s wishes, subtly announced each woman’s respective duty, age, wealth, and rank.
The most titled among them, the empress’s attendants, wore the imperial monogram pinned to their shoulders. The older women in charge of the czarina’s toilette, the dames à portraits, wore diamond-framed miniatures of her pinned to their bodices. Younger and more numerous, the maids of honor assigned to the service of the five grand duchesses all wore satin tiaras of azure, trimmed with swan feathers. Forbidden from wearing the colors of the imperial attendants’ trains—purple or green trimmed with gold, or plain blue—the other ladies of the court wore colors that harmonized with the blue of their sapphires and the green of their emeralds. The feathered fans they waved in the stuffy, crowded premises lifted the veils of their crownlike kokoshniks, and the sweet, heady scents of their hair wafted into the air.
These blended with the perfume of lilies and tuberoses from the window boxes and the incense from cassoulets that burned near the stoves. Scents of the Orient, the heavy fragrance of Russia.
The foreign dignitaries, also in dress uniforms covered with gold, plumes, metal, and gems, breathed in this potpourri as they listened and observed the scene before them. Never before had they encountered such a spectacle of colors, fabrics, and perfumes. Not at the courts of Paris or Vienna, nor at the sumptuous ceremonies of the Vatican. Even the princes of the reigning royal houses were hypnotized, breathless with wonder. Few things could compare to the magnificence and solemnity of the Russian court.
There was nonetheless one element of this vibrantly colored crowd that particularly intrigued the foreign guests, one touch of black in their midst, an incongruous figure who looked entirely out of place.
It was a child of about nine or ten, dressed in a cherkeska that was too long for him, obviously a hand-me-down, with his left arm in a sling.
“Who is he?” the visitors asked. “What’s he doing here?”
No one answered their questions.
The child was, of course, not the only one of his age to attend the ceremony. At the four doors of the White Hall, the cadets of the First Corps, dressed in green and red, stood at attention in formations of twenty square. But the austerity of this little one, the coldness of his expression, and the solitude that emanated from his entire being, made him stand out among all the others.
He appeared to be accompanied—or rather, watched over—by a young lieutenant who leaned down to whisper things in his ear from time to time. But every time the officer tried to catch his attention, the child moved perceptibly away, straining to distance himself from the voice of his guardian. Perhaps because of all the noise around him, or because Milyutin did not speak his language well, the boy did not even pretend to listen or to look in the direction of whatever the lieutenant was describing. His expression haughty, his faced closed and impenetrable, he remained at whatever distance he could, as though he had seen, heard, and understood nothing. The spectacle was probably too new for him to be touched or impressed by it all. What event in his past could possibly compare to all this? There was absolutely no common point of reference between his past and what he saw before him, no link whatsoever that would have offered him a means to compare and judge what was taking place.
The crowd and the noise made him feel confused; he was blinded by the vivid colors and light-headed from the violent onslaught of all the various perfumes. In sum, none of it particularly pleased him. On the contrary, the disorder of all these sensations made him dizzy. He concentrated on concealing his feelings and behaving with all the politeness one should show when under another’s roof, without expressing any sign of rejection or surprise. No curiosity, really? To all outward appearances, this seemed to be the case.
Ten shots of cannon fire marked the hour. All the double doors clacked as they opened in unison. A murmur passed through the crowd of courtiers who pressed forward excitedly toward the connecting rooms, the majordomos holding them back behind the cordons. These signs, like battle preparations, made the boy nonetheless lift his head attentively. From the back, a boot step resounded on the parquet.
A shiver of impatient expectation rippled through the crowd, and he understood. The Great White Czar was coming. In spite of his efforts, his curiosity got the better of him. No longer able to stand still, he leaned forward with the others.
His view was blocked by a line of soldiers standing at attention along the connecting rooms. But already a procession of harbingers, pages, and gentlemen was arriving at the White Hall. A voice silenced the crowd.
“Messieurs, the czar!”
The women curtsied deeply, and the men bowed.
Above all the respectfully lowered heads, Jamal Eddin at first saw only one thing: the high, black papakha of his countrymen.
This was a shock, one that went straight to his heart.