He may have been silent, but his eyes may have said enough. That blue gaze was examining everything. Alfred wanted to memorize the architecture and every difference he could register. How did they build their walls and why? If it was with different materials than his own, was it because it was truly better, or more suited for this particular climate, or simply more economical? What had developed out of cultural values versus necessity, or both? What did this man's attire say to another Russian? Or to that one's?
They'd been guided into a room and, for the moment, left alone after a few words were exchanged between the guide and Alfred's ambassador.
"...try not to smile at everyone and everything here, Alfred," Francis said softly. "Remember, they could take it as your enjoyment of their home, but they might also very well take it as an indication that you are a fool."
Alfred moved around the room, inspecting it carefully and reverently running a hand over one of the elegantly carved chairs. "I'll try, but—-but look at this," he said with the same enthusiasm he bore for pretty much everything he encountered.
"Yes, it's a nicely designed chair, Alfred," Francis said almost dismissively, shaking his head. He paused at the next words that left Alfred's mouth, however, and this time spoken in French:
"But everything's more than what it looks like it is. They took us to a room like this for a reason. What are they telling us with their furniture? With the person they had guide us here? What about me? What have I told them, in their eyes? This room is beautiful, Francis; it's filled with things they obviously took care to make and create exactly for this." Alfred's gaze took a somber turn. "I think Arthur would have said to be wary. That this is boasting, this is showmanship, this is lulling fools into a sense of comfort so that you can win the game."
He finally drifted from the chair back to a window, looking out at everything. "But it's not a game," he continued cheerfully in English. "They should love their home as much as I love my own, so why should there be any shyness about it? I'm no danger to them, not at all-I'm here to learn and be grateful for the Tsaritsa's choices during the war."
"It would serve you better to be wary of the Tsaritsa's choices," Francis said resignedly, in French.
"Et ton cheval de bataille est chercher la petite bête?"
The tsaritsa herself swept into the room, resplendent in a gown of deep ivory, intricately embroidered with golden thread. Russia, from a small balcony alcove on the upper floor, sighed to himself and shook his head in exasperated amusement. Two aides fluttered into the room behind the Empress, utterly ignored as they set the room to rights, one silently throwing open curtains over the tall windows as the other rapidly set places for tea. The samovar bubbled quietly in the background.
"You surprise me, Francis," she said playfully, her voice rich and feline as she placed one hand delicately over her décolleteé, as though wounded by the politic criticism. (Russia knew, privately, that she rather delighted in being considered so very clever and conniving. No small matter that she quite probably was.) The other hand, immaculately manicured and fairly dripping with jeweled rings, she held out to receive the appropriate kisses for courtesy.
"It pleases me immensely to receive you into my home," she continued, one of the servants appearing behind with a chair that she settled into as gracefully as a swan. "Certainly I have heard much about the New World and even though this is not precisely an official sort of visit, I did so want to lay eyes on him myself..."
Her voice drifted off into a faintly questioning and curiously suggestive tone as her imperious gaze lit upon America himself, unreadable above her pleasant smile.
"...and I find myself not at all disappointed. Marvelous." A servant held out a silver tray with a cup of tea balanced on it. Catherine gave the girl an acknowledging nod before accepting it, glass and gilt silver held delicately between her fingertips. The tray was then extended to the two seated guests, small saucers and trains of various accouterments arranged around the cups themselves, not all of them immediately recognizable.
"I would suggest you sweeten your tea," Catherine commented. Her lips curved into a small, amused smile over the rim of her cup. "Most find their first experience a trifle bitter."
My God, Russia despaired from above, she really is so brazen.
He stepped away from the railing of the small balcony, stepping towards a narrow doorway that would lead downstairs and only a short walk from the antechamber. Better, perhaps, that he did not leave their guests alone with his Empress for too long lest the entirety of the conversation devolve into innuendo and he spent the rest of the delegation's visit deflecting advances and thereby garnering his sovereign's ire.
A few moments later he paused, framed silently between the paired golden pillars that formed the doorway to the antechamber itself.
Dappled summer sunlight dripped lazily through the large windows, glinting off the gilded woodwork and polished parquet. Mostly he was struck by how it cast a halo around the New World, warm and shining.
This, he decided abruptly, was going to be immensely troublesome.
Notes: The next chapter, now with some artistic license! More notes: "Et ton cheval de bataille est chercher la petite bête?": In so many words, "And your main focus is nitpicking?" "Not precisely an official sort of visit": Francis Dana of Massachusetts was appointed as the American minister to the Russian Empire on December 19th, 1780. The artistic license comes in here because although Dana proceeded to his post, he was never officially received at Russian court. Though he was never officially recognized by Tsaritsa Ekaterina II, he remained at his post in St. Petersburg until 1783. The antechamber: As can be seen here.