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.