The 4th of December, the day of the court-ball, to which Elizabeth had looked forward with a longing heart because of her anxiety to display at court her new Parisian dresses, at length had come. A most active movement prevailed in the palace of the regent. The lord-marshal and the chamberlains on service passed up and down through the rooms, overlooking with sharp eyes the various ornaments, festoons, garlands, and draperies, to make sure that all was splendid, and tasteful, and magnificent.
Anna Leopoldowna troubled herself very little about these busy movements in her palace. She was in her boudoir, delightedly reading a letter from her distant lover, which had just been received under Julia’s address. She had already read this letter several times, but ever recommenced it, and ever found some new word, some new phrase that proved to her the glowing love of her absent friend.
“Ah, he still loves me,” murmured she, pressing the letter to her lips; “he really loves me, and this short separation will not estrange his heart, but cause it to glow with warmer passion! Oh, what a happiness will it be when he again returns! And he will return! Yes, he will be with me again on the 18th of December, and, animated by his glances, I shall for the first time appear in all the splendor of an imperial crown. Ah, they have no presentiment, my councillors and ministers, that I have selected the 18th of December for the ceremony precisely because it is the birthday of my beloved! He will know it, he will understand why his Anna has chosen this particular day, and he will thank me with one of those proud and glowing glances which always made my heart tremulous with overpowering happiness. Oh, my Lynar, what a blessed moment will be that when I see you again!”
A slight knock at the door interrupted the imaginings of the princess. It was Julia von Mengden, who came to announce the old Count Ostermann.
“And is it for him that you disturb my delightful solitude?” asked the princess, somewhat reproachfully. “Is this Count Ostermann, is this whole miserable realm of so much importance to me as the sweet contemplation of a letter from my friend? When I am reading his letter it seems to me that my beloved himself is at my side, and therefore you must clearly see that I cannot receive Count Ostermann, as Lynar is with me!”
“Put your letter and your lover in your bosom,” said Julia, with a laugh; “he will be very happy there, and then you can receive the old count without betraying your lover’s presence! The count has so pressingly begged for an audience that I finally promised to intercede with you for him.”
“Ah, this eternal business!” angrily exclaimed the princess. “They will never let me have any peace; they harass me the whole day. Even now, when it is time to be making my toilet for the ball—even now I must be tormented with affairs of state.”
“Shall I, then, send away Count Ostermann?” sulkily asked Julia.
“That I may, consequently, for the whole evening see you with a dissatisfied face? No, let him come; but forget not that I submit to this annoyance only to please you.”
With a grateful smile, Julia kissed the regent’s hand, and then hastened to bear to Count Ostermann the favorable answer.
In a few minutes, Count Ostermann, painfully supporting himself upon two crutches, entered the regent’s cabinet.
Anna Leopoldowna received him, sitting in an armchair, and listlessly rummaging in a band-box filled with various articles of dress and embroidery, which had just been brought to her.
“Well,” said she, raising her eyes for a moment to glance at Ostermann, “you come at a very inconvenient hour, Herr Minister Count Ostermann. You see that I am already occupied with my toilet, and am endeavoring to find a suitable head-dress. Will you aid me in the choice, sir count?”
Ostermann had until now, painfully and with many suppressed groans, sustained himself upon his feet; at a silent nod from the princess he glided down into a chair, and staring at Anna with his piercing and wonderfully-flashing eyes, he said:
“You highness would select a head-dress? Well, as you ask my advice in the matter, I will give it; choose a head-dress so firm and solid as to prove a fortification for the defence of your head. Choose a head-dress that will protect you against conspiracies and revolutions, against false friends and smiling enemies! Choose a head-dress that will keep your head upon your shoulders!”
“Count Ostermann speaks in riddles,” said Anna, smiling, and at the same time arranging a wreath of artificial roses. “Or no, it was not Count Ostermann, but a toad singing his hoarse song. Drive away that toad, Ostermann, it is broad day—why, then, have we the croaking of such night-birds?”
“Listen to the croaking of this toad,” anxiously responded the old man. “Believe me, princess, when the toads croak in broad daylight, it betokens an approaching misfortune. Let it warn you, Madame Regent Anna! You have called me a toad—very well, toads always have correctly prophesied misfortune, and if they can never avert it, it is because otherwise people will not listen to such oracular voices of all-wise Nature! Let me be your toad, your highness, and listen to me! I foresee misfortune for you. Believe my prophecy, and that misfortune may yet be averted. Mark the signs by which fate would warn you! Did you not yesterday see Elizabeth driving through the streets, chatting and jesting with the soldiers, who crowded around her sledge? Have you not heard how the grenadiers of the Preobrajensky regiment shouted after her? Has it not been told you that Lestocq holds secret intercourse with the French ambassador, and know you not that Lestocq is the confidential servant of the princess? Guard yourself against Princess Elizabeth, your highness!”
“Are you in earnest?” smilingly asked Anna, drawing her silver toilet-glass nearer to her person, and placing a bouquet of flowers in her hair to examine its effect in the glass.
“Oh, Heavens!” cried Count Ostermann, “you adorn yourself with flowers, while I am telling you that you are threatened with a conspiracy!”
“A conspiracy!” laughed the regent, “and Princess Elizabeth to be at the head of it! Believe me, you overwise men, with all your wisdom, never learn rightly to understand women. I, however, am a woman, and I understand Elizabeth. You think that when she kindly chats with the soldiers, and admits the handsome stately grenadiers into her house, it is done for the purpose of conspiring with them. Go to, Count Ostermann, you are very innocent. Princess Elizabeth has but one passion, but it is not the desire of ruling; and when she chats with handsome men, she speaks not of conspiracy, believe me.” And, laughing, the regent essayed a new head-dress.
“And how do you explain the secret meetings of Lestocq and the Marquis de la Chetardie?” asked Ostermann, with painfully-suppressed agitation.
“Explain? Why should I seek an explanation for things that do not at all interest me? What is it to me what the surgeon Lestocq has to do with the constantly-ailing French ambassador? Or do you think I should trouble myself about the lavements administered to an ambassador by a surgeon?”
“Well, then, your highness will allow me to explain their meetings from a less medical point of view? France is your enemy, France meditates your destruction, and the Marquis de la Chetardie is exciting the princess and Lestocq to an insurrection.”
“And to what end, if I may be allowed to ask?” scornfully inquired Anna.
“France, struggling with internal and foreign enemies, at war with Austria, involved in disputes with Holland and Spain, France would wish at any price to see the Russian government so occupied with her own domestic difficulties as to have no time to devote to international affairs. She would provide you with plenty of occupation at home, that you may not actively interfere with the affairs of the rest of the world. That is the shrewd policy of France, and it would fill me with admiration were it not fraught with the most terrible danger to us. The Marquis de la Chetardie has it in charge to bring about a revolution here at any price, and as an expert diplomatist, he very well comprehends that Princess Elizabeth is the best means he can employ for that purpose; for she, as the daughter of Czar Peter, has the sympathies of the old Russians in her favor, and they will flock to her with shouts of joy whenever she may announce to the people that she is ready to drive the foreign rulers from Russia!”
“Ah, our good Russians,” laughingly exclaimed the regent, “they shout only for those who make them drunk, and for that the poor princess lacks the means!”
“The Marquis de la Chetardie has, in the name of his king, offered her an unlimited credit, and she is already provided with almost a million of silver rubles.”
“You have a reason for every thing,” laughed the regent. “The princess is poor; let the French ambassador quickly provide her with his millions. The good princess, I wish she had these millions, and then she could indulge her love of ornaments and magnificent dresses.”
“The marquis has brought her rich dresses and stuffs from Paris,” said Ostermann, laconically.
The regent burst into a clear, ringing laugh.
“The marquis is a real deus ex machina,” exclaimed she. “Wherever you need him, he appears and helps you out of your trouble. But seriously, my dear count, let it now suffice with these gloomy suspicions. They are already commencing the dance-music, and you will put me out of tune with your croaking. A ball, my dear count, requires that one should be in and not out of tune, and you are pursuing the best course to frighten the smiles from my lips.”
“Oh, could I but do that!” cried Ostermann, wringing his hands—“could I but cry in your ear with a voice of thunder: ‘Princess, awake from this slumber of indifference, force yourself to act, save your son, your husband, your friends; for we are all, all lost with you!’”
“Oh, speaking of my son,” smilingly interposed the regent, “you must see a splendid present which the Emperor Ivan has this day received.”
With this she took from a carton a small child’s dress, embroidered with gold and sparkling with brilliants, which she handed to the count.
“Only look at this splendor,” said she. “The ladies of Moscow have embroidered this for the young emperor, and it has to-day been presented by a deputation. Will not the little emperor make a magnificent appearance in this brilliant dress?”
Count Ostermann did not answer immediately. His face had assumed a very painful expression, and deep signs escaped his agitated breast. Slowly rising from his seat, with a sad glance at the princess, he said:
“I see that your destruction is inevitable, and I cannot save you; you will be ruined, and we all with you. Well, I am an old man, and I pardon your highness, for you act not thus from an evil disposition, but because you have a noble and confiding heart. Believe me, generosity and confidence are the worst failings with which a man can be tainted in this world—failings which always insure destruction, and have only mockery and derision for an epitaph. You are no longer to be helped, duchess. You are on the borders of an abyss, into which you will smilingly plunge, dragging us all after you. Well, peace be with you! My sufferings have lately been so great, that I can only thank you for furnishing me with the means of quickly ending them! Madame, we shall meet again on the scaffold, or in Siberia! Until then, farewell!”
And, without waiting for an answer from the regent, the old man, groaning, tottered out of the room.
“Thank Heaven that he is gone!” said Anna, drawing a long breath when the door closed behind him. “This old ghost-seer has tormented me for months with his strange vagaries, which weigh upon his soul like the nightmare! Happily, thy letter, my beloved, has filled my whole heart with the ecstasy of joy, else would his dark and foolish prophecies be sufficient to sadden me.”
Thus speaking, the princess again drew Count Lynar’s letter from her bosom and pressed it to her lips. Then she called her women to dress her for the ball.
Some hours later the elite of the higher Russian nobility were assembled in the magnificent halls of the regent. Princes and counts, generals and diplomatists, beautiful women and blooming maidens, all moved in a confused intermixture, jesting and laughing with each other. They were all very gay on this evening, as the regent had herself set the example. With the most unconstrained cheerfulness, radiant with joy, did she wander through the rooms, dispensing smiles and agreeable words among all whom she approached. She bore in her bosom the glowing and cherished letter of her lover, and at its lightest rustling she seemed to feel the immediate presence of the writer. That was the secret of her gayety and her joyous smiles. People, perhaps, knew not this secret, but they saw its effects, and, as the all-powerful regent deigned this day to be cheerful and smiling, it was natural for this host of slavish nobility, who breathe nothing but the air of the court, to adopt for this evening’s motto, “Gayety and smiles.”
As we have said, only smiling lips and faces beaming with joy were to be seen; all breathed pleasure and enjoyment, all jested and laughed; it seemed as if all care and sorrow had fled from this happy, select circle, to give place to the delights of life. They had, with submissive humility, repressed all discontent and disaffection, all envyings and enmities; they chatted and laughed, while every one knew or suspected that they were standing on a volcano, whose overwhelming eruptions might be expected at any moment, and yet every one feigned the most perfect innocence and unconstraint. The ladies scrutinized each other’s magnificent and costly toilets, jesting and exchanging amorous glances with the gentlemen displaying orders and diamond crosses.
A movement suddenly arose in the rooms, the crowd divided and respectfully withdrew to the sides, and through the rows of smiling, humbly bowing courtiers passed the Princess Elizabeth, followed by her chamberlain Woronzow, her private secretary Alexis Razumovsky, and her physician Lestocq, in the splendor of her beauty and grace, all kindness, all smiles. She was to-day wonderfully charming in her gold-spangled lace dress, which flowed like a breath over her under-dress of heavy white satin. Her widely-bared, full and luxuriant shoulders were partially covered by a costly lace mantelet, the present of the French queen, and her long, floating ringlets were surmounted by a wreath of white roses such as only Parisian artistic skill could offer in such perfect imitation of nature. Thus enveloped as it were in a veil of white mist and floating vapors, Elizabeth’s beauty appeared only the more full and voluptuous. She looked like a purple rose standing out from a cloud of fluttering snow-flakes, wonderfully charming, wonderfully seductive. Princess Elizabeth was fully conscious of the impression she made, and this internal satisfaction manifested itself in a sweet smile which increased the charm of her appearance. With pride and pleasure she enjoyed the triumph of being the fairest of all the beauties present, and this triumph contented her heart.
The princess now approached her cousin, the Regent Anna, who came from the adjoining room to meet and welcome her, and for one short moment the courtiers forgot her smiles and her inoffensiveness. All eyes were with the most intense anxiety directed toward those two women; all conversation, jesting, and laughing were at once suspended. There was a deep pause, all breathing was smothered, all feared that the loud beating of their hearts might betray them and cause them to be suspected.
The two princesses now approached each other—Princess Elizabeth would have bent a knee to the regent—Anna, with charming kindness, raising and kissing her, tenderly reproached her for coming so late.
“I feared coming too early,” said Elizabeth, pressing the regent’s hand to her lips, “for I doubted whether my fair cousin would find time to bestow a friendly word upon her poor relation, Princess Elizabeth!”
“How could Elizabeth fear that, when she knows I love her like a sister?” tenderly asked the regent, and, taking the arm of the princess, she made with her a round through the rooms.
Now again came life and movement in this lately so silent and anxiously expectant assemblage; they now knew how they were to deport themselves: Princess Elizabeth was in the good graces of the regent, and therefore they could receive her polite greetings with the most reverential thankfulness; they could approach her and admire her beauty without incurring suspicion. The stereotyped smile had reappeared upon all faces, cheerful and lively conversation was again resumed, and wherever the two arm-in-arm wandering princesses appeared, they were greeted with endless shouts of ecstasy.
As we have said, it was a gay and very splendid festival. Only occasionally did something like a dark shadow pass through the rooms; only here and there did the chattering guests forget their wonted smiles; only occasionally did the mask of cheerfulness fall from many a face, discovering serious, anxious features, and suspicious, lurking glances. Every one felt that a catastrophe was impending, but, as no one could know its result in advance, all wished to keep as clear of it as possible, and seem perfectly unconscious and unaffected by these things. As they could not foresee which party would triumph, they found it advisable to join neither while awaiting coming events, after which they would hail as lords and masters those who might succeed in attaining to power.
For the present, Anna Leopoldowna was the ruler, and, as they were her subjects, they must in humble submission pay homage to her; but Elizabeth might become empress, and therefore they must likewise pay homage to her, with a prudent avoidance of the too much, which might cause them to be suspected in case the regent should still continue in power.
These were the dangerous rocks between which this proud and elegant assemblage had to find their winding way, and they did it with smiles and outward ease, with open admiration of both princesses, before whom they bowed to the ground with slavish submission.
But suddenly something like a panic-terror, like an unnatural awe, flew through all these splendid halls; the smiles were arrested on all faces, the harmless jests on all lips; the pallor of beautiful women became visible through their paint, and generals staggered to and fro as if a thunderbolt had fallen. As if touched by a magic wand, every one stood motionless like statues modelled in clay, no one daring to speak to his neighbor or make a sign to a friend. They would not see, they would not hear, they only wished to seem to be indifferent and unobserving.
As we said, a panic-terror pervaded the halls, and like an evil-announcing night-spectre passed over the heads of the stiffened, lifeless crowd the dismal rumor—“The regent and the princess are at variance; the regent is speaking to her with vehemence, and the princess weeps!”
This certainly was a terrible announcement. But if the regent was angry, it must be because she knew of the intrigues and machinations of the princess, and knowing them she could counteract and nullify them; consequently the plans of the princess were upset, Anna Leopoldowna would remain ruler, and her son Ivan the Czar of all the Russias.
Now the touch, the vicinity of Elizabeth’s friends became an evil-breathing pest, a death-bringing terror; they anxiously avoided the vicinity of Lestocq, they crowded back from Woronzow and Razumovsky, whom they had before sought with every demonstration of friendliness; they even avoided looking at the French ambassador; for, if the regent knew all, she must know of the intimate relations of Lestocq with the Marquis de la Chetardie, and he was therefore doomed like the other three.
And moreover, this pernicious rumor had not lied; the two princesses were at this moment no longer so tender and friendly disposed as shortly before.
They had long wandered through the halls, confidingly chatting and smiling, and Anna, leaning upon Elizabeth’s arm—Anna who this day saw every thing couleur de rose—felt a sort of disquiet that people should suspect her who was walking by her side with such innocent candor and unconstraint, seeming not to have the least presentiment of the dark cloud gathering over her head.
“She is inconsiderate,” thought the regent; “she allows herself to be carried away by her temperament, and behind her inclination and her weakness for handsome grenadiers and soldiers, her enemies seek to discover an insidious and well-considered conspiracy; this is cruel and unjust! This good Elizabeth must be warned, that she may become more cautious, and give her numerous enemies no occasion for suspecting her. Poor innocent child, so gay and ingenuous, she plays with roses under which serpents lie concealed! It is my duty to warn her, and I will.”
Wholly penetrated with this noble and generous resolution, the regent drew her cousin Elizabeth into the little boudoir which lay at the end of the hall, offering a convenient resting-place for a confidential conversation.
But at this moment Anna’s eyes fell upon the lace mantelet of the princess, and quite involuntarily came to her mind the warning words of Ostermann, who had said to her: “The French ambassador, by command of his government, provides the princess not only with money, but also with the newest modes and most costly stuffs.” This lace mantelet could surely only come from Paris; nothing similar to it had been seen in St. Petersburg; it certainly required especial sources and especial means for the procurement of such a rare and magnificent exemplar.
A cloud drew over the regent’s brow, and in a rather sharp and cutting tone she said; “One question, princess! How came you by this admirable lace veil, the like of which I have not seen here in St. Petersburg?”
While putting this question, the regent’s eyes were fixed with a piercing, interrogating expression upon the face of the princess: she wished to observe the slightest shrinking, the least movement of her features.
But Elizabeth was prepared for the question; she had already considered her answer with the marquis and Lestocq. Her features therefore betrayed not the least disturbance or disquiet; raising her bright and childlike eyes, she said, with an unconstrained smile: “You wonder, do you not, how I came by this costly ornament? Ah, I have for the last eight days rejoiced in the expectation of surprising you to-day with the sight of it!”
“But you have not yet told me whence you have these costly laces?” asked the regent in a sharper tone.
“It is a wager I have won of the good Marquis de la Chetardie,” said Elizabeth, without embarrassment, “and your highness must confess that this French ambassador has paid his wager with much taste.”
The regent had constantly become more serious and gloomy. A dark, fatal suspicion for a moment overclouded her soul, and in her usually unsuspicious mind arose the questions: “What if Ostermann was right, if Elizabeth is really conspiring, and the French ambassador is her confederate?”
“And what, if one may ask, was the subject of the wager?” she asked, with the tone of an inquisitor.
“Ah, this good marquis,” said the princess, laughing, “had never yet experienced the rigor of a Russian winter, and he would not believe that our Neva with its rushing streams and rapid current would in winter be changed into a very commodious highway. I wagered that I would convince him of the fact, and be the first to cross it on the ice; he would not believe me, and declared that I should lack the courage. Well, of course I did it, and won my wager!”
The regent had not turned her eyes from the princess while she was thus speaking. This serene calmness, this unembarrassed childishness, completely disarmed her. The dark suspicion vanished from her mind; Anna breathed freer, and laid her hand upon her heart as if she would restrain its violent beating. The letter of Lynar slightly rustled under her hand.
A ray of sunshine became visible in Anna’s face; she thought of her beloved; she felt his presence, and immediately all the vapors of mistrust were scattered—Anna feared no more, she suspected no more, she again became cheerful and happy—for she thought of her distant lover, his affectionate words rested upon her bosom—how, therefore, could she feel anger?
She only now recollected that she had intended to warn Elizabeth. She therefore threw her arms around the neck of the princess, and, sitting with her upon the divan, said: “Do you know, Elizabeth, that you have many enemies at my court, and that they would excite my suspicions against you?”
“Ah, I may well believe they would be glad to do so, but they cannot,” said Elizabeth, laughing; “I am a foolish, trifling woman, who, unfortunately for them, do nothing to my enemies that can render me suspected, as, in reality, I do nothing at all. I am indolent, Anna, very indolent; you ought to have raised me better, my dear lady regent!”
And with an amiable roguishness Elizabeth kissed the tips of Anna’s fingers.
“No, no, be serious for once,” said Anna; “laugh not, Elizabeth, but listen to me!”
And she related to the listening princess how people came from all sides to warn her; that she was told of secret meetings which Lestocq, in Elizabeth’s name, held with the French ambassador, and that the object of these meetings was the removal of the regent and her son, and the elevation of Elizabeth to the imperial throne.
Elizabeth remained perfectly cheerful, perfectly unembarrassed, and even laughingly exclaimed—“What a silly story!”
“I believe nothing of it,” said Anna, “but at last my ministers will compel me to imprison Lestocq and bring him to trial, in order to get the truth out of him.”
“Ah, they will torture him, and yet he is innocent!” cried Elizabeth, bursting into tears. And, clasping the regent’s neck, she anxiously exclaimed: “Ah, Anna, dear Anna, save me from my enemies! Let them not steal away my friends and ruin me! They would also torture me and send me to Siberia; Anna, my friend, my sovereign, save me! You alone can do it, for you know me, and know that I am innocent! The idea that I should conspire against you, against you whom I love, and to whom, upon the sacred books of our religion, I have sworn eternal fidelity and devotion! Anna, Anna, I swear to you by the soul of my father, I am innocent, as also is my friend. Lestocq has never passed the threshold of the French ambassador’s hotel! Oh, dear, dear Anna, have mercy on me, and do not permit them to torture me and wrench my poor members!”
With a loud cry of anguish, with streaming tears, pale and trembling, Elizabeth sank down at the regent’s feet.
It was this cry of anguish that rang through the hall, and spread everywhere astonishment and consternation. And this shrieking, and weeping, and trembling, was no mask, but truth. Elizabeth was frightened, she wept and trembled from fear, but she had sufficient presence of mind not to betray herself in words. It was fear even that gave her that presence of mind and enabled her to play her part in a manner so masterly that the regent was completely deceived. Taking the princess in her arms, she pressed her to her bosom, at the same time endeavoring to reassure and console her with tender and affectionate words, with reiterated promises of her protection and her love.
But it was a long time before the trembling and weeping princess could be tranquillized—before she could be made to believe Anna’s asseverations that she had always loved and never mistrusted her.
“What most deeply saddens me,” said Elizabeth, with feeling, “is the idea that you, my Anna, could believe these calumnies, and suppose me capable of such black treason. Ah, I should be as bad as Judas Iscariot could I betray my noble and generous mistress.”
Tears of emotion stood in Anna’s eyes. She impressed a tender kiss upon Elizabeth’s lips, and with her own hand wiped the tears from the cheeks of the princess.
“Weep no more, Elizabeth,” she tenderly said—“nay, I beg of you, weep no more. It is indeed all right and good between us, and no cloud shall disturb our love or our mutual confidence. Come, let us smile and be cheerful again, that this listening and curious court may know nothing of your tears. They would make a prodigious affair of it, and we will not give them occasion to say we have been at variance.”
“No, they shall all see that I love, that I adore you,” said Elizabeth, covering Anna’s hand with kisses.
“They shall see that we love each other,” said Anna, taking the arm of the princess. “Be of good cheer, my friend, and take my imperial word for it that I, whatever people may say of you, will believe no one but yourself; that I will truly inform you of all calumnies, and give you an opportunity to disarm your enemies and defend yourself. Now come, and let us make another tour through the halls.”
Arm in arm the two princesses returned to the nearest hall. This was empty, no one daring to remain there lest they might incur the blame of having overheard and understood some word of the princesses, and thus acquired a knowledge of their private conversation. People had therefore withdrawn to the more distant rooms, where they still preserved a breathless silence.
Suddenly the two princesses, arm in arm, again appeared in the halls, pleasantly conversing, and instantly the scene was again changed, as if by the stroke of a magic wand. The chilling silence melted into an agreeable smile, and all recovered their breaths and former joviality.
All was again sunshine and pleasure, for the princesses were again there, and the princesses smiled—must they not laugh and be beside themselves with joy?
Elizabeth’s tender glances sought her friend, the handsome Alexis Razumovsky. Suddenly her brow as darkened and her cheeks paled, for she saw him and saw that his eyes did not seek hers!
He stood leaning against a pillar, his eyes fixed upon a lady who had just then entered the hall, and whose wonderful beauty had everywhere called forth a murmur of astonishment and admiration. This lady was the Countess Lapuschkin, the wife of the commissary-general of marine, from whose family came the first wife of Czar Peter the Great, the beautiful Eudoxia Lapuschkin.
Eleonore Lapuschkin was more beautiful than Eudoxia. An infinite magic of youth and loveliness, of purity and energy, was shed over her regular features. She had the traits of a Hebe, and the form of a Juno. When she smiled and displayed her dazzlingly white teeth, she was irresistibly charming. When, in a serious mood, she raised her large dark eyes, full of nobleness and spirit, then might people fall at her feet with adoration. Countess Lapuschkin had often been compared and equalled to the Princess Elizabeth, and yet nothing could be more dissimilar or incomparable than these two beauties. Elizabeth’s was wholly earthly, voluptuous, glowing with youth and love, but Eleonore’s was chaste and sublime, pure and maidenly. Elizabeth allured to love, Eleonore to adoration.
The princess had long hated the young Countess Eleonore Lapuschkin, and considered her as a rival; but that this rival should now gain an interest in the heart of her favorite, that filled Elizabeth’s soul with anger and agitation, that caused her eyes to flash and her blood to boil.
Staringly as Alexis Razumovsky’s eyes were fixed upon the countess, she, unconscious of this double observation, stood cheerful and unembarrassed in the circle of her admiring friends and adorers.
Anna Leopoldowna followed the glance of the princess, and, observing the beautiful Lapuschkin, said, without thinking of Elizabeth’s very susceptible vanity:
“Leonore Lapuschkin is an admirably beautiful woman, is she not? I never saw a handsomer one. To look at her is like a morning dream; her appearance diffuses light and splendor. Do you not find it so, Elizabeth?”
“Oh, yes, I find it so,” said Elizabeth, with a constrained smile. “She is the handsomest woman in your realm.”
“Yourself excepted, Elizabeth,” kindly subjoined the regent.
“Oh, no, she is handsomer than I!” murmured Elizabeth.
Poor Leonore! In this moment hath the princess pronounced your sentence of condemnation, and in her heart subscribed the stern order for your execution.
A longer view of this triumph of the countess became insufferable; alleging a sudden attack of illness, she immediately took leave of the regent, and ordered her carriage.
Tears of anger and love stood in her eyes as Razumovsky approached to aid her in entering it. Hurling away his hand, she entered the carriage without assistance.
“And may I not accompany you in the carriage as usual?” asked Alexis, with tenderness in his tone.
“No,” she curtly said, “go back into the hall, and again admire the handsomest woman in the empire!”
Then, jealousy getting the better of anger, she beckoned to Alexis, who was about departing in sadness, and commanded him to enter the carriage without delay.
As soon as the carriage door was closed, with an angry movement she seized both of Razumovsky’s hands.
“Look at me,” said she—“look me directly in the eye, and then tell me, is Eleonore Lapuschkin handsomer than I?”
It was the day after the court ball. Princess Elizabeth was in her dressing-room, and occupied in enveloping herself in a very charming and seductive neglige. She was to-day in very good humor, very happy and free from care, for Alexis Razumovsky had, with the most solemn asserverations, assured her of his truth and devotion, and Elizabeth had been soothed and reconciled by his glowing language. It was for him that she wished to appear especially attractive to-day, that Alexis, by the sight of her, might be made utterly to forget the Countess Eleonore Lapuschkin. In these coquettish efforts of her vanity she had utterly forgotten all the plans and projects of her friends and adherents; she thought no more of becoming empress, but she would be the queen of beauty, and in that realm she would reign alone with an absolute sway.
A servant announced Lestocq.
A cloud of displeasure lowered on the brow of the princess. Startled from her sweet dreams by this name, she now for the first time recollected the fatal conversation she had had on the previous evening with the regent. In her love and jealousy she had totally forgotten the occurrence, but now that she was reminded of it, she felt her head throb with anxiety and terror.
Dismissing her attendants with an imperious nod, she hastened to meet the entering physician.
“Lestocq,” said she, “it is well you have come at this moment, else, perhaps, I might have forgotten to say to you that it is all over with the conjuration spun and woven by you and the French marquis. We must give it up, for the affair is more dangerous than you think it, and I may say that you have reason to be thankful to me for having, by my foresight and intrepidity, saved you from the torture, and a possible transportation to Siberia. Ah, it is very cold in Siberia, my dear Lestocq, and you will do well silently and discreetly to build a warm nest here, instead of inventing ambitious projects dangerous to all of us.”
“And whence do you foresee danger, princess?” asked Lestocq.
“The regent knows all! She knows our plans and combinations. In a word, she knows that we conspire, and that you are the principal agent in the conspiracy.”
“Then I am lost!” sighed Lestocq, gliding down upon a chair.
“No, not quite,” said Elizabeth, with a smile, “for I have saved you. Ah, I should never have believed that the playing of comedy was so easy, but I tell you I have played one in a masterly manner. Fear was my teacher; it taught me to appear so innocent, to implore so affectingly, that Anna herself was touched. Ah, and I wept whole streams of tears, I tell you. That quite disarmed the regent. But you must bear the blame if my eyes to-day are yet red with weeping, and not so brilliant as usual.”
And Princess Elizabeth ran to the toilet-table to examine critically her face in the glass.
“Yes, indeed,” she cried, with a sort of terror, “it is as I feared. My eyes are quite dull. Lestocq, you must give me a means, a quick and sure means, to restore their brightness.”
Thus speaking, Elizabeth looked constantly in the glass, full of care and anxiety about her eyes.
“I shall appear less beautiful to him to-day,” she murmured; “he will, in thought, compare me with Eleonore Lapuschkin, and find her handsomer than I. Lestocq, Lestocq!” she then called aloud, impatiently stamping with her little foot, “I tell you that you must immediately prescribe a remedy that will restore the brilliancy of my eyes.”
“Princess,” said Lestocq, with solemnity, “I beseech you for a moment to forget your incomparable beauty and the unequalled brilliancy of your eyes. Be not only a woman, but be, as you can, the great czar’s great daughter. Princess, the question here is not only of the diminished brilliancy of your eyes, but of a real danger with which you are threatened. Be merciful, be gracious, and relate to me the exact words of your yesterday’s conversation with the regent.”
The princess looked up from her mirror, and turned her head toward Lestocq.
“Ah, I forgot,” she carelessly said, “you are not merely my physician, but also a revolutionist, and that is of much greater importance to you.”
“The question is of your head, princess, and as a true physician I would help you to preserve it. Therefore, dearest princess, I beseech you, repeat to me that conversation with the regent.”
“Will you then immediately give me a recipe for my eyes?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Well, listen, then.”
And the princess repeated, word for word, to the breathless Lestocq, her conversation with Anna Leopoldowna. Lestocq listened to her with most intense interest, taking a piece of paper from the table and mechanically writing some unmeaning lines upon it with an appearance of heedlessness. Perhaps it was this mechanical occupation that enabled him to remain so calm and circumspect. During the narration of the princess his features again assumed their expression of firmness and determination; his eyes again flashed, and around his mouth played a saucy, scornful smile, such as was usually seen there when, conscious of his superiority, he had formed a bold resolution.
“This good regent has executed a stroke of policy for which Ostermann will never forgive her,” said he, after the princess had finished her narration. “She should have kept silence and appeared unconstrained—then we should have been lost; but now it is she.”
“No,” exclaimed the princess, with generous emotion, “the regent has chosen precisely the best means for disarming us! She has manifested a noble confidence in me, she has discredited the whisperings of her minister and counsellors, and instead of destroying me, as she should have done, she has warned me with the kindness and affection of a sister. I shall never forget that, Lestocq; I shall ever be grateful for that! Henceforth the Regent or Empress Anna Leopoldowna shall have no truer or more obedient subject than I, the Princess Elizabeth!”
“By this you would not say, princess—”
“By this I mean to say,” interposed Elizabeth, “that this conspiracy is brought to a bloodless conclusion, and that, from this hour, there is but one woman in this great Russian realm who has any claim to the title of empress, and that woman is the Regent Anna Leopoldowna!”
“You will therefore renounce your sacred and well-grounded claims to the imperial throne?” asked Lestocq, continuing his scribbling.
“Yes, that will I,” responded Elizabeth. “I will no longer be plagued with your plans and machinations—I will have repose. In the interior of my palace I will be empress; there will I establish a realm, a realm of peace and enjoyable happiness; there will I erect the temple of love, and consecrate myself as its priestess! No, speak no more of revolutions and conspiracies. I am not made to sit upon a throne as the feared and thundering goddess of cowardly slaves, causing millions to tremble at every word and glance! I will not be empress, not the bugbear of a quaking, kneeling people, I will be a woman, who has nothing to do with the business and drudgery of men; I will not be plagued with labor and care, but will enjoy and rejoice in my existence!”
“For that you will be allowed no time!” said Lestocq, with solemnity. “When you give up your plans and renounce your rights, then, princess, it will be all over with the days of enjoyment and happiness. It will then no longer be permitted you to convert your palace into a temple of pleasure, and thenceforth you will be known only as the priestess of misfortune and misery!”
“You have again your fever-dreams,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “Come, I will awaken you! I have told you my story; it is now for you to give me a recipe for my inflamed eyes.”
“Here it is,” earnestly answered Lestocq, handing to the princess the paper upon which he had been scribbling.
Elizabeth took it and at first regarded it with smiling curiosity; but her features gradually assumed a more serious and even terrified expression, and the roses faded from her cheeks.
“You call this a recipe for eyes reddened with weeping,” said she, with a shudder, “and yet it presents two pictures which make my hair bristle with terror, and might cause one to weep himself blind!”
“They represent our future!” said Lestocq, with decision. “You see that man bound upon the wheel—that is myself! Now look at the second. This young woman who is wringing her hands, and whose head one of these nuns is shearing, while the other is endeavoring, in spite of her struggling resistance, to envelope her in that black veil;—that is you, princess. For you the cloister, for me the wheel! That will be our future, Princess Elizabeth, if you now hesitate in your forward march in the path upon which you have once entered.
“And to persevere in this conspiracy is to give ourselves up to certain destruction, for doubt not they will be able to convict us. Among Grunstein’s enlisted friends there are drunkards enough who would betray you for a flask of brandy! Princess Elizabeth, would you be a nun or an empress? Choose between these two destinations. There is no middle course.”
“Then I would be an empress!” said Elizabeth, with flashing eyes, trembling with anxiety and excitement, and still examining the two drawings. “Ah, you are an accomplished artist, Lestocq, you have designed this picture with a horrible truth of resemblance. How I stand there! how I wring my hands, the pale lips opened for a cry of terror, and yet silenced by a view of those dreadful shears before whose deadly operations my hair falls to the earth, and that veil entombs me while yet living!”
And casting away the drawings, the princess trod them under foot, declaring in a loud and imperious tone: “These drawings are false, Lestocq, and that will I prove to you—I, the Empress Elizabeth!”
“All hail, my empress!” cried Lestocq, throwing himself at her feet and kissing the hem of her robe; “blessings upon you, for you have now rescued me from the hands of the executioner! You have saved my life, in return for which I will this day place an imperial crown upon your heavenly brows.”
“This day?” asked Elizabeth, with a shudder.
“Yes, it must be done this very night! We must improve the moment, for only the moment is ours. Every hour of delay but brings us nearer to our destruction. Yet one night of hesitation, and they will already have rendered our success impossible. Ah, the Regent Anna has sworn to believe only you, and never to doubt you, and yet she has ordered three battalions of the guards to march early in the morning to join the army in Viborg. Our friends and confidants are in these three battalions. Judge, then, how very much Anna Leopoldowna confides in you!”
“Ah, if it be really so,” said Elizabeth, “then can I no longer have any regard for her. Anna will remove my friends from here, and that is a betrayal of the friendship she has sworn for me. I have therefore no further obligations toward her! I am free to act as I think best. Lestocq, I will be no nun, but an empress! You now have my word, and are at liberty to make all necessary arrangements. If it must be done, let it be done quickly and unhesitatingly. I have yet to-day the courage to dare any enormity, therefore let us utilize this day!”
“Expect me to-night at twelve o’clock!” said Lestocq, rising; “I will then be here to bring you the imperial crown.”
This firm confidence made Elizabeth tremble again. Until now all had seemed like a dream, a play of the imagination; but when she read in Lestocq’s bold and resolved features that it was a reality, she shook with terror, and an anxious fear overpowered her soul.
“And if it miscarry?” said she, thoughtfully.
“It will not and cannot miscarry!” responded Lestocq. “The right is on your side, and God will watch over the daughter of the great czar.”
“And then, when I am really empress,” said Elizabeth, thoughtfully, to herself, “what then? There is no happiness in it! They will give me another title, they will place a crown upon my head, and bind me to a throne. I shall no longer be free to act according to my will, to live as I would. Thousands of spies will lurk around me. Thousands of eyes will follow my steps, thousands of ears will listen for my every word, in order to interpret and attach a secret meaning to it! They will call me an empress, but I shall be a slave bound with golden fetters, upon whose head sits a golden crown of thorns. And this toil and weariness! These tiresome sittings of the ministers, this law-making and the signing of orders and commands! How horrible!—Lestocq,” suddenly cried the princess aloud, “if I must always labor, and make laws, and subscribe my name, and command and govern, then I will be no empress, no, never!”
“You shall be empress only to enjoy life in its highest splendor. We, your servants and slaves, we will work and govern for you!” said Lestocq.
“Swear that to me! Swear to me that I shall not be constrained to labor, swear that you will govern for me, that I may devote my time to the enjoyment of life!”
“I swear it to you by all that is most sacred to me.”
“Well, then, I will be your empress!” said Elizabeth, satisfied.
At this moment a secret door opened and gave admission to Alexis Razumovsky.
By his entrance Elizabeth was reminded of her inflamed eyes, and of the fair Countess Eleanore Lapuschkin.
She gave Alexis a searching, scrutinizing glance, and it seemed to her that he appeared less tender and ardent than usual.
“Oh,” she proudly said, motioning her favorite to approach her and lightly kissing him upon the forehead, “oh, I will yet compel you to adore me. When an imperial crown encircles my brow, then will you be obliged to confess that I am the fairest of women! Alexis, on this night shall I become an empress!”
With a cry of joy Alexis sank to her feet.
“Hail to my adored empress!” he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. “Hail Elizabeth, the fairest of all women!”
“With the exception of the beautiful Countess Lapuschkin!” said Elizabeth, with a bitter smile—“ah, when I am empress, I shall at least have the power to render that woman harmless, and to annihilate her!—You turn pale, Alexis,” she continued with more vehemence—“your hand trembles in mine! You must therefore love her very much, this exalted queen of godlike beauty? Ah, I shall know how to punish her for it!”
“Princess!” reproachfully exclaimed Alexis—“Elizabeth, you, my august and gentle empress, you will not sacrifice an innocent woman to a momentary jealous vagary!”
“Ah, he ventures to intercede for her!” cried Elizabeth, with a hoarse laugh, and, turning to Lestocq, she continued, with anger-flashing eyes: “Lestocq, I have yet a condition to make before consenting to become an empress.”
“Name your condition, princess, and if it be within the compass of human power it shall be fulfilled.”
Casting an angry glance at Razumovsky, Elizabeth said, with a sinister smile:
“Swear to me, by all you hold most sacred, to find some fault in this Countess Lapuschkin which shall give me the right to condemn her to death!”
“I swear it by all I hold most sacred,” solemnly responded Lestocq.
“And you will do well in that!” exclaimed Alexis. “For when a crime rests upon her, and she, only with a word or look, offends against my fair and noble empress, she will deserve such condemnation.”
“You will, then, defend her no longer?” asked the somewhat appeased princess, bending down to her kneeling lover.
“What is Countess Lapuschkin to me?” tenderly responded Alexis. “For me there is but one woman, one empress, and one beauty, and that is Elizabeth!”
The princess smiled with satisfaction. “Lestocq,” said she, “this time I keep my word. I am ready to dare all, in order to place the imperial crown upon my head. I must and will be empress, that I may have the power to reward you all, and to raise you, my Alexis, to me!”
And drawing the handsome Alexis up to herself, she gave him her hand to kiss.
“I now go to make all necessary preparations,” said Lestocq. “At midnight I will come for you. Be ready at that time, Elizabeth!”
“I will then be ready!” said Princess Elizabeth, nodding a farewell to Lestocq.
“At midnight!” she then thoughtfully continued. “Well, we have twelve hours until then, which will suffice for the invention of a suitable toilet. Alexis, tell me what sort of dress I shall wear. What color best becomes me and in what shall I please the soldiers? The toilet, my Alexis, is often decisive in such cases; an unsuitable costume might cause me to displease the conspirators, and lead them to give up the enterprise. You must aid me, Alexis, in choosing a costume. Come, let us repair to the wardrobe, and call my women. I will try on all my dresses, one after the other; then you shall decide which is most becoming, and that will we choose.”
The princess and her lover betook themselves to the wardrobe, and called her women to assist in selecting a suitable revolution-toilet.