And the princess, letting her head glide upon Razumovsky’s shoulder, as if exhausted by this long speech, closed her fatigued eyelids.
“Ah, if Czar Peter, your great father, could hear you,” sadly said Lestocq, “he would spurn you for such pusillanimity, princess.”
“It is, therefore, fortunate for me that he is dead,” said the princess, with a smile. “And now, my dear Lestocq, if you know nothing further, let this suffice you: I tell you, once for all, that I have no desire for this imperial throne. I would crown my head with roses and myrtles, but not with that golden circle which would crush me to the earth. Therefore, trouble me no more on this subject. Be content with what I am, and if you cannot, well—then I must be reconciled to being abandoned by you!”
“I will never desert you, even if I must follow you to suffering and death!” exclaimed Alexis Razumovsky, casting himself at the feet of the princess.
“We will remain true and faithful to you unto death!” cried Woronzow and Grunstein.
“Well, and you alone remain silent, Lestocq?” asked the princess, with tears in her eyes.
“I have not yet come to the end of my bad news,” said Lestocq, with a clouded brow.
“Ah!” jestingly interposed the princess, “you would, perhaps, as further bad news, inform us that the Emperor Ivan has cut his first tooth!”
“No,” said Lestocq, “I would only say to you, that the 18th of December, the day on which the regent is to be crowned as empress, the 18th of December is the day assigned for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth with Prince Louis of Brunswick, the new Duke of Courland!”
The princess sprang up from her seat as if stung by an adder. Alexis Razumovsky, who still knelt at her feet, uttered loud lamentations, in which Woronzow and Grunstein soon joined. With calm triumph Lestocq observed the effect produced by his words.
“What are you saying there?” at length Elizabeth breathlessly asked.
“I say that on the 18th of December the Princess Elizabeth is to be married to Prince Louis of Brunswick, who has already come to St. Petersburg for that purpose,” calmly answered Lestocq.
“And I say,” cried the princess, “that no such marriage will ever take place!”
Lestocq shrugged his shoulders. “Princess Elizabeth is a gentle, peace-loving, always suffering lamb,” he said.
“But Princess Elizabeth can become a tigress when it concerns the defence of her holiest rights!” exclaimed the princess, pacing the room in violent excitement.
“Ah,” she continued, “they are not then satisfied with delivering me over to poverty and abandonment; it does not suffice them to see me so deeply humiliated as to receive alms from this regent who occupies the throne that belongs to me. They would rob me of my last and only remaining blessing, my personal freedom! They would make my poor heart a prisoner, and bind it with the chains and fetters of a marriage which I abhor! No, no, I tell you that shall they never do.”
And the princess, quite beside herself with rage, stamped her feet and doubled up her little hands into fists. Now was she her father’s real and not unworthy daughter; Czar Peter’s bold and savage spirit flashed from her eyes, his scorn and courageous determination spoke from her wildly excited features. She saw not, she heard not what was passing around her; she was wholly occupied with her own angry thoughts, and with those dreadful images which the mere idea of marriage had conjured up.
Her four favorites stood together at some distance, observing her with silent sympathy.
“It is now for you, Alexis Razumovsky, to complete the work we have begun,” whispered Lestocq to him. “Elizabeth loves you; you must nourish in her this abhorrence of a marriage with the prince. You must make yourself so loved, that she will dare all rather than lose you! We have long enough remained in a state of abjectness; it is time to labor for our advancement. To the work, to the work, Alexis Razumovsky! We must make an empress of this Elizabeth, that she may raise us to wealth and dignities!”
“Rely upon me,” whispered Alexis, “she must and shall join in our plans.”
He approached the princess, who was walking the room in a state of the most violent agitation, giving vent to her internal excitement and anger in loud exclamations and bitter curses.
“I must therefore die!” sighed Alexis, pressing Elizabeth’s trembling hand to his lips. “Kill me, princess, thrust a dagger in my heart, that I at least may not live to see you married to another!”
“No, you shall not die,” cried Elizabeth, with fierce vehemence, throwing her arms around Razumovsky’s neck. “I will know how to defend you and myself, Alexis! Ah, they would shackle me—they would force me to marry, because they know I hate marriage. Yes, I hate those unnatural fetters which could command my heart, force it into obedience to an unnatural law, and degrade divine free love, which would flutter from flower to flower, into a necessity and a duty. It is an unnatural law which would compel us forever to love a man because he pleased us yesterday or may please us to-day, and who perhaps may not please us to-morrow, while on the next day he may excite only repugnance! Would they forge these matrimonial chains for me? Ah, Regent Anna, you are this time mistaken; you may be all-powerful in this empire, but you cannot and shall not extend that power over me!”
“And how,” asked Lestocq, shrugging his shoulders, “how will Princess Elizabeth oppose the regent or empress? What weapon has she with which to contend?”
“If it must be so, I will oppose power to power!” passionately exclaimed the princess. “Yes, when it comes to the defence of my freedom and my personal rights I will then have the courage to dare all, defy all; then will I shake off the lethargy of contented mediocrity, and upon the throne will find that freedom which Anna would tread under foot!”
“Long live our future empress! Long live Elizabeth!” cried the men with wild excitement.
“I have long withstood you, my friends,” said Elizabeth, “I have not coveted this imperial Russian crown, but much less have I desired that crown of thorns a compulsory marriage. I am now ready for the struggle, and, if it must be so, let a revolution, let streams of blood decide whether the Regent Anna Leopoldowna or the daughter of Peter the Great has the best right to govern this land and prescribe its laws!”
“Ah, now are you really your great father’s great daughter!” cried Lestocq, and bending a knee before the princess, he continued: “Let me be the first to pay you homage, the first to swear eternal fidelity to you, our Empress Elizabeth.”
“Receive also my oath, Empress Elizabeth,” said Alexis, falling upon his knees before her, “receive the oaths of your slaves who desire nothing but to devote their bodies and souls to your service!”
“Let me, also, do homage to you, Empress Elizabeth!” exclaimed Woronzow, falling to the earth.
“And I, too, will lie at your feet and declare myself your slave, Empress Elizabeth!” said Grunstein, kneeling with the others.
But Elizabeth’s anger was already past; only a momentary storm-wind had lashed her gently flowing blood into the high foaming waves of rage; now all again was calm within her, and consequently this solemn homage scene of her four kneeling friends made only a comic impression upon her.
She burst into a loud laugh; astonished and half angry, the kneeling men looked up to her, and that only increased her hilarity.
“Ah, this is infinitely amusing,”