by L. Mühlbach
A WEDDING
The people dispersed. The great returned to their palaces, and alsoAlexis Razumovsky, who, that he might not excite the anger of theempress, had likewise attended the execution, returned to the imperialpalace.
Elizabeth was standing before a large Venetian mirror, scrutinizing atoilet which she had to-day changed for the fourth time.
"Well," she asked of Alexis, as he entered, "was it an interestingspectacle? Was the handsome countess soundly whipped?"
And, while so asking, she was smilingly occupied in attaching a purpleflower to her hair.
"She was flayed," laconically replied Alexis. "Her blood streamed down aback that was as red as your beautiful lips, Elizabeth."
Elizabeth offered him her lips to kiss.
"Now," she jestingly asked, "who is now the handsomest woman in myrealm?"
"You are and always were!" responded Alexis, embracing her.
"And now tell me," said she, with curiosity, "what did this proudcountess do? How did she behave, what did she say?"
Alexis, seating himself upon a tabouret at her feet, related to her allabout the fair Eleonore, and what a terrible curse she uttered.
"Ah, nonsense!" replied Elizabeth, shrugging her shoulders, "How canone make such a stupid prayer to God! I shall never marry, and thereforenever have a daughter to be scourged with the knout."
But while thus speaking, her eyes suddenly became fixed and her cheekpale. She laid her trembling hand upon her heart--tears gushed from hereyes.
Under her heart she had felt a movement of a new and mysterious life!Heaven itself seemed to contradict her words! Elizabeth felt that shewas a mother, and Eleonore's words now filled her with awe and terror!
Fainting, she sank into Razumovsky's arms.
A few weeks later, a great and magnificent court festival was celebratedat the imperial palace at St. Petersburg. It was not enough thatElizabeth had chosen a successor in the person of Peter, Duke ofHolstein, she must also give this successor a wife, that the thronemight be fortified and assured by a numerous progeny.
She chose for him the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, the young and beautifulSophia Augusta, who, embracing the Greek religion, received the name ofCatharine.
It was the marriage festival of this young German princess with the heirto the Russian throne which was celebrated in the imperial palace at St.Petersburg--a festival of splendor and enthusiasm, as it was attendedby two women of the most exciting beauty, Elizabeth the present andCatharine the future empress--the one gorgeous with the splendor ofthe present, the other irradiated with the glory of the future. Peoplelooked at the fair youthful face of Catharine, and sought to read in hermajestic high forehead the hopes that Russia might cherish of her! Itwas, therefore, a festival of the present and future that was there andthen celebrated, and the magnates humbly prostrated themselves beforethis new star, and threw themselves upon the earth before the ever-newsun of imperial majesty which shone upon them in the person ofElizabeth.
Catharine with a joyful spirit and a proud smile laid her hand in thatof Peter, and as she stepped with him to the altar she thought: "I dothis that I may one day be empress! and as I can reach that position inno other way--well, then, let them call me the wife of this under-agedboy! I will suffer it until the time when I shall no longer suffer, butcommand."
With such thoughts did Catharine become the wife of the Grand-dukePeter, who, as he with a loud and solemn "yes" vowed eternal truth tohis young wife, looked at the Countess Woronzow, and both exchanged astolen smile and a glowing glance of love.
"They may henceforth call this proud Catharine my wife," thought Peter,"but I shall never love her, as my heart will ever belong to my dearWoronzow! But Elizabeth has decided that Catharine shall be my wife.I accommodate myself to her command, and obey now, that I may one daycommand! But then woe to the wife this day forced upon me!"
And when the ceremony was ended, the new-married pair received withsmiling faces and radiant glances the congratulations of the court,which in loud and ecstatic exclamations commended the love and happinessof this young princely pair.
On the same day a second marriage was celebrated in this same imperialpalace, perhaps not so splendid, but certainly a happier one, for itwas love that united the two--love had overcome Elizabeth's aversionto marriage, and decided her to raise her dear Alexis Razumovsky to theposition of her husband--love, and also a little superstition! As theson born to Elizabeth some months previously had died soon after itsbirth, and in this dispensation Elizabeth recognized the punishment ofheaven in disapproval of her connection with Alexis, she shudderingly,remembered the words spoken by Eleonore Lapuschkin, and her heart wasfilled with fear for the children which the future might bring her.
"I will destroy the curse which this Countess Lapuschkin has pronouncedagainst my children," thought Elizabeth, as she now for the second timefelt herself to be a mother. "If God blesses my children, the curseof no human being can affect them, and this revengeful prayer of thecountess will have no more power when the priest of God has consentedand blessed the child now quietly reposing under my heart!"
This was the reason why Elizabeth resolved to marry Alexis Razumovsky;this was the reason why she, in a solitary chapel, accompanied only byLestocq and the priest, stood before the marriage-altar with Alexis, andbecame his wife.
She breathed freer when the priest had pronounced his blessing upon her;an oppressive weight was lifted from her heart; the child she was aboutto bear was saved and sheltered, and Eleonore's curse had no longer anypower over it!
On the next day Elizabeth appointed Alexis field-marshal, and raised himin the ranks of the nobility.
"We must at any rate give our son a respectable father," said she. "Ihope we shall have a son, who will be as beautiful as his father; whomI will overload with honors, and place high above all the magnates of mycourt. Ah, a son! No daughter, Alexis!"
"And why no daughter?" smilingly asked Razumovsky.
Elizabeth shuddered, and, clinging to her beloved, whispered:
"Has not Eleonore Lapuschkin said, 'Give her a daughter, and let her,before the eyes of her mother, experience what I now suffer!' Oh,Alexis, wish me therefore no daughter! I shall always tremble for her!"
And God seemed to have listened to the anxious prayer of the empress.Again she bore a son, but again the son died shortly after his birth.
"It is very sad to lose a child, and especially a son," sighedElizabeth, and involuntarily she thought of Anna, that poor mother whomshe had robbed of her son, that he might grow up in eternal joylessimprisonment, that he might be morally murdered, and from a man beconverted into an idiot!
"This is God's vengeance!" whispered something in her breast, butElizabeth shrank from these low whisperings of her conscience, and shetremulously said: "I will not listen to it! Away, ye intrusive thoughts!I am an empress--for me there are no crimes, no laws! An empress isexalted above all law, and whatever she does is right! Away, away,therefore, ye troublesome thoughts! This boy Ivan must remain in prison;I cannot restore him to his mother. May she bear other children, andthen new joys will bloom for her!"
But these thoughts would not be thus be banished, they constantlyhaunted her; they left not her nightly couch; they constantly renewedtheir dismal, awful whisperings; and this all-powerful empress wouldloudly shriek with mortal anguish, and she was dismayed at being leftalone with her thoughts.
"I will have society around me," said she, "and will never be alone; thepeople about me shall always laugh and jest, to cheer me and distractmy thoughts. Hasten, hasten--call my court; the most jovial men shallbe most welcome! And, do you hear, above all things, bring me wine, thebest and strongest wine. When I drink plenty of it, I shall again becomegay and happy; it drives away all cares, and renders the heart light andfree!"
And they came, the merriest gentlemen of the court; it also came, thestrong, fiery wine; and, after an hour, Elizabeth's brow beamed withrenewed pleasure, while her heavy tongue with difficulty sta
mmered:
"How beautiful it yet is to be an empress--for an empress there is onlyjoy and delight, and endless pleasures!"