_THE HISTORIOGRAPHER, MILLER._
The obstinacy of the captive astonished and angered Ekaterina very much.
“How is this?” she reasoned. “I have conquered Turkey; Pougachoff
has been caught, has acknowledged his imposture, and been publicly
executed; … and that miserable, puny woman, that adventuress, … will
not acknowledge anything, and dares to threaten me, from her cellar …
from her den.”
Potemkin, after having heard from Christianok all the details of the
arrest of the Princess, was very morose and silent. Ekaterina ascribed
it to his frequent fits of melancholy.
Soon it became known to many of those about the empress, what means
Orloff had employed to entice and then betray the unfortunate captive,
and these were soon communicated to the empress through the medium of
her maid Perekousikhin. At first Ekaterina would not believe any of
these rumours, and severely reprimanded her maid on this account.
The secret report of the honest and incorruptible Galitzin concerning
the position and condition of the captive, all the courtiers had
made known to the empress. The womanly heart of Ekaterina was moved
with indignation. “Not Radzivill,” she said; “he, threatened with
confiscation of his enormous estates, did not betray the devoted woman!”
“Betrayer by nature!” shot through the brain of Ekaterina, when she
recollected the services of Orloff; … “ready for anything, unscrupulous
in all; stopping at nothing in his own interests,” and then Ekaterina
remembered the phrase, “Matoushka Tzaritza, pardon. You didn’t think,
you did not guess--”[38]
“Not for nothing do they call him butcher,” contemptuously murmured
Ekaterina. “Oh! he’ll just say that, out of devotion, he ‘oversalted
it.’ … Well! he’ll soon be here. He must be made to mend that affair.
That fallen one, without family, nameless, tribeless; a toy in the
hands of the wicked, in his arms she’ll be powerless.… And she, after
selling beer at Prague, well! how dares she disdain Russian dignitary
or count? Where’s--the _mésalliance_?”
The calm village scenes of Tzaritzin and Kolomenski, began to weary
Ekaterina. The forests, the lakelets, the birds and the butterflies no
longer brought her peaceful dreams.
The empress suddenly started for Moscow alone.
There, in the Chinese city, or Kitaï-Gorod, she visited the archives
of the Minister of the Interior, where several important papers had
been sent for revision. The director of the archives was the celebrated
author of the “History of Russia” and of “The Description of the
Empire of Siberia;” late editor of the academical journal, “Monthly
Compositions;” traveller and Russian historiographer;--the academician
Miller. He was then already seventy. The empress herself was very
fond of history, and knew him very well, having often had very long
conversations with him about his works, and in general about history.
She found him in his room, near the archives, busily turning over a
heap of old Muscovite manuscripts.
Miller was very fond of flowers and birds. The rooms of his
governmental department, not very lofty, were hung all around with
cages of blackbirds, bullfinches, and others of the feathered tribe,
which quite deafened Ekaterina with their loud whistling and
twittering. A glass door opened from the study of the master of the
house into another room, ornamented with large plants set in green
tubs. The windows were open, but a net which covered them prevented
the birds, which were flying about, from taking their departure. The
neat and pretty, although simple, room was filled with the perfume of
roses and heliotropes. The greatest cleanliness reigned everywhere. The
floors were as polished as a mirror. Miller was writing at his table
near the glass door leading to his aviary. The empress, passing by,
motioned the officious servant away, and came up to him unnoticed.
“I have come to you, Gerard Feodorovitch, with a request,” said
Ekaterina, on entering the room.
Miller jumped up, apologising for his morning costume.
“Command me, your Majesty,” said he, hastily arranging his dress, and
searching with his eyes for his spectacles, which he missed.
The empress took a seat, invited him to do the same, and the
conversation began.
“Is it true,” she began, after having made several gracious inquiries
after his health, and that of his large family, “is it true?--it is
said that you have collected evidence, that you are convinced that it
was not a usurper, a pretender who ascended the throne of Moscow; that
Grishka Otropieff was the real Tzarevitch Dimitri? You said something
about it--to the English traveller, Cox.”
The good-natured, absent-minded Miller, always lost in his researches,
was very much puzzled at this question of the empress.
“Where on earth could she have heard that?” thought he. “Could Cox have
blundered it out?”
“Let us be candid; I’ll help you,” continued Ekaterina. “You possess
a wonderful memory, and withal you are so very perspicacious in
deciphering and comparing manuscripts. Give me openly and boldly your
opinion. We are alone; no one can hear us. Is it true that the evidence
for the condemnation of the Pretender was weak, almost nothing?”
Miller became thoughtful. His grey hair was ruffled, and his
good-natured, intelligent mouth, which just before the entrance of the
empress had held a half-finished cigar in an amber mouth-piece, was now
unconsciously nervously twitching.
“Yes, it is true,” he answered, hesitating; “but, excuse me, that is
quite my own personal opinion, nothing more.”
“But if so, then why do you not publish such a very important judgment?”
“But, your Majesty,” stammered Miller, looking about him with a
bewildered gaze, pulling at his waistcoat, “I read the account of
the researches made by Vassili Shouiski at Ouglitch. He made those
researches by order of Godounoff. It was to his interest to please
Boris, and he did this by bringing to him the evidence only of those
who affirmed that the Tzarevitch had really been killed. Of course, any
one can see that all other evidence which might have been disagreeable
to Godounoff he would suppress.”
“Which other?” asked Ekaterina.
“That another one was killed, and that the former was hidden; but
of course, you know yourself, that this very same Shouiski publicly
acknowledged the resuscitated Dimitri.”
“A very witty proof,” said Ekaterina. “Not for nothing does General
Potemkin, great amateur historian, advise me to have all that
published, if you are really convinced of its truth?”
“Excuse me, your Majesty,” stammered Miller; “the will of the
empress--is an important guide; but there’s another, a power still
higher--Russia. I am a Lutheran; the body of the recognised Dimitri
lies in the cathedral of the Kremlin. What would become of all my
researches, what would become of my own person, amidst your own nation,
if I dared to assert that not Grishka Otropieff had ascended the
Muscovite throne, but the real Tzarevitch Dimitri?”