Chapter 4

The minister might flourish the knout and proclaim the Siberian banishment over the trembling people; the scourged might howl, and the banished might lament, the great and powerful might dispose of the souls and bodies of their serfs; rare honesty might be oppressed by consuming usury; offices, honors, and titles might be gambled for; justice and punishment might be bought and sold; vice and immorality might universally prevail--Anna would not know it. She would neither see nor hear any thing of this outside world! The palace is her world, in which she is happy, in which she revels!

Ah, that charming, silent little boudoir, with is soft Turkish carpet, with its elastic divans and heavily curtained windows and doors--that little boudoir is now her paradise, the temple of her happiness! In it she lingers, and in it is she blessed. There she reposes, dreaming of past delightful hours, or smiling with the intoxication of the still more delightful present in the arms of the one she loves.

THE FAVORITE

See how her eyes flash, how her heart beats--how beautiful she is in the warm glow of excitement, this beautiful Anna Leopoldowna.

The door opens, and a smiling young maiden looks in with many a nod of her little head.

“Ah, is it you, my Julia?” calls the princess, opening her arms to press the young girl to her heart. “Come, I will kiss you, and imagine it is he who receives the kiss! Ah, what would this poor Anna Leopoldowna be if deprived of her dear friend, Julia von Mengden?” And drawing her favorite down into her lap, she continued: “Now relate to me, Julia. Set your tongue in motion, that I may hear one of your very pleasantest stories. That will divert me, and cause the long hours before his coming to pass more quickly.”

Julia von Mengden roguishly shook her beautifully curling locks with a comic earnestness, and, very aptly and unmistakably imitating the somewhat hoarse and nasal voice of Prince Ulrich, said:

“Your grace forgets that you are regent, and have to hold the reins of government in the name of the illustrious imperial squaller, your son, since his imperial grace still remains in his swaddling-clothes, and has much less to do with state affairs than with many other little occupations!”

Anna Leopoldowna, breaking out in joyous laughter, exultingly clapped her little hands, which were sparkling with brilliants.

“This is superb,” said she. “You play the part of my very worthy husband to perfection. It is as if one saw and heard him. Ah, I would that he resembled you a little, as he would then be less insupportable, and it would be somewhat easier to endure him.”

Julia von Mengden, making no answer to this remark, continued with her nasal voice and comic pathos:

“Your grace, this is not the time to analyze our diverting little domestic dissensions, and occupy ourselves with the quiet joys of our happy union! Your grace is, above all things, regent, and must give your attention to state affairs. Without are standing three most worthy, corpulent, tobacco-scented ambassadors, who desire an audience. Your grace is, above all things, regent, and must receive them.”

“Must!” exclaimed Anna, suddenly contracting her brows. “We will first hear what they desire of us.”

“The first is the envoy of the great Persian conqueror, Thamas-Kouli-Khan, who comes to lay at your feet the magnificent presents of his master.”

“Bah! they are presents for the young Emperor Ivan. He may, therefore, be conducted to the cradle of my son, and there display his presents. It does not interest me.”

“The second is a messenger from our camp. He brings news of a great victory obtained by one of your brave generals over the Swedes!”

“But what does that concern me?” angrily cried the regent. “Let them conquer or be defeated, it is all the same to me. That concerns my husband the generalissimo! Let me be spared the sight of the warlike and blood-dripping messenger!”

“The third is the ambassador of the wavering and shaking young Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. He comes, he says, upon a secret mission, and pretends to have discovered a sort of conspiracy that is hatching against you.”

“Let him go with his discovery to Golopkin, our minister of the interior. That is his business!”

“Your grace is, above all things, regent, and should remember--”

“Nothing--I will remember nothing!” exclaimed Anna Leopoldowna, interrupting her favorite. “I will not be annoyed, that is all.”

“Well, thank God!” now cried Julia von Mengden, in her natural tone--“thank God, that such is your determination, princess! you are, then, in earnest, and I am to send these three amiable persons to the devil, or, what is just the same, to your husband?”

“That is my meaning.”

“And this is beautiful in you,” continued Julia, cowering down before her mistress. “These eternal, tiresome and intolerable state affairs would make your face prematurely old and wrinkled, my dear princess. Ah, there is nothing more tedious than governing. I am heartily sick of it! At first I was amused when we two sat together and settled who should be sent to prison and who should be pardoned; whom we should make counts and princes, or degrade to the ranks as common soldiers. But all that pleased only for a short time; now it is annoying, and why should we take upon ourselves this trouble? Have we not the power to act and live according to our own good pleasure? Bah! that is the least compensation you should receive for allowing these horrid Russians the privilege of calling you their regent and mistress!”

“But, my little chatterer, you forget the three envoys who are waiting without,” said Anna, with a smile.

“Ah, that is true! I must first send those wig-blocks away!” said Anna, tenderly looking after her departing favorite. “She is, indeed, my good genius, who drives away the cares from my poor brain.”

“So, it is done!” cried Julia, quickly returning to the room. “I have sent the gentlemen away. To the Persian envoy I said: ‘Go to our emperor, Ivan. He feeds upon brilliants, and, as he has had no breakfast this morning, his appetite will be good. Go, therefore, and give him your diamonds for breakfast. Anna Leopoldowna wants them not; she is already satiated with them!’--To the second I said: ‘Go and announce your glorious victory to our sublime generalissimo. He is at his toilet, and as he every morning touches his noble cheeks with rouge, your new paint, prepared from the purple blood of the enemy, will doubtless be very welcome to him!’--‘And as to what concerns your secret mission and your discovered conspiracy,’ said I to the Austrian ambassador, ‘I am sorry that you cannot here give birth to the dear children of your inventive head; go with them to our midwife, Minister Golopkin, and hasten a little, for I see in your face that you are already in the pangs of parturition!’”

“Well,” asked Anna Leopoldowna, loudly laughing, “what said their worships to that?”

“What did they say? They said nothing! They were dumb and looked astonished. They made exactly such eyes as I have seen made at home, upon my father’s estate in Liefland, by the calves when the butcher knocked them upon the head. But now,” continued Julia, nestling again at the feet of her mistress, “now give me a token of your favor, and forget for a while that you are regent. Let us chat a little like a couple of real genuine women--that is, of our husbands and lovers. Oh, I have very important news for you!”

“Well, speak quickly,” said Anna, with eagerness. “What have you to tell me?”

Julia assumed a very serious and important countenance. “The first and most important piece of news is, that your husband, Prince Ulrich of Brunswick, is very jealous of me, and yet of one other!”

“Bah!” said Anna, contemptuously, “let him be jealous. I do not trouble myself about it, and shall always do as I please.”

“No, no, that will not do,” seriously responded Julia. “It is so tiresome to always hear the wrangling and growling of a jealous husband! I tell your grace that I must have quiet in his presence; I can no longer bear his grim looks and his constant anger and abuse. You must soothe him, Princess Anna, or I will run away from this horrible court, where a poor maiden is not allowed to have her friend and mistress, the charming Princess Anna Leopoldowna, with all her heart and soul!”

The regent’s eyes filled with tears. “My Julia,” she tremulously said, “can you seriously think of leaving me? See you not that I should be thereby rendered very solitary and miserable?”

And, raising up her favorite into her arms, she kissed her.

Julia’s bright eyes also filled with tears. “Think you, then, princess, that I could ever leave, ever be separated from you?” she tenderly asked. “No, my Princess Anna has such entire possession of my heart, that it has no room for any other feeling than the most unbounded love and devotion to my dear, my adored princess. But for the very reason that I love you, I cannot bear to have your husband fill the palace with his jealous complaints, and thus publishing to St. Petersburg and all the world your unfaithfulness and criminal intrigues. Oh, I tell you I see through this generalissimo, I know all his plans and secret designs. He would gladly be able to convict you of infidelity to him--then, with the help of the army he commands, declare his criminal wife unfit for the regency, and then make himself regent! He has a cunningly devised plan, but which my superior cunning shall bring to naught! I will play him a trick!--But no, I will tell you no more now! At the right time you shall know all. Now, Princess Anna, now answer me one question. Do you, then, so very much love this Count Lynar?”

The princess looked up with a dreamy smile. “Do I love him!” she then murmured low. “Oh, my God, Thou knowest how truly, how glowingly my heart clings to him. Thou knowest that of all the world I have never loved any other man than him alone! And you, Julia, you who know every emotion and palpitation of my heart, you yet ask me if I love him--when he stood before me in all his proud manly beauty, with his conquering glance, his heart-winning smile? Ah, my whole heart already then flew to meet him. I revelled in the sight of him, I thought only of him, I spoke to him in my thoughts, and my prayers, I loved only when I saw him; and that happy, that never-to-be-forgotten day when he confessed his love, when he lay at my feet and swore eternal truth to me--ah, why could I not have died on that day? I was then _so_ happy!”

“Poor Princess Anna,” said Julia, sympathetically, “they soon grudged you that happiness!”

“Yes,” continued Anna with a bitter smile, “yes, the virtuous Empress Anna blushed in the arms of her lover, Biron, at this aberration of her sold and coupled niece. She found it very revolting that the poor sixteen-year-old Anna Leopoldowna dared to have a heart of her own and to feel a real love. They must therefore rob her of the only happiness Heaven had vouchsafed her. Consequently, they wrote to Warsaw, asking, nay, commanding the recall of the ambassador, and Lynar was compelled to leave me.”

“Ah, I well know how unhappy you were at that time,” said Julia, pressing the hand of the princess to her bosom; “how you wept, how you wrung your hands--”

“And how I nowhere found mercy or commiseration,” interposed Anna, with bitterness, “neither on earth nor in heaven. I was and remained deserted and solitary, and was compelled to marry this Prince Ulrich of Brunswick, for whom I felt nothing but a chilling, mortal indifference. But you must know, Julia, that when I stood with this man at the altar, and was compelled to become his wife, I thought only of him I loved; I vowed eternal love only to Lynar, and when the prince folded me in his arms as his wife, then was my God gracious to me, and in a happy deception it seemed to me that it was my lover who held me in his arms--I thought only of him and breathed only his name, and loved him, kissed him, and became his wife, although he was far, alas, so immeasurably far from me! And when I felt a second self under my heart, I then loved with redoubled warmth the distant one whom I had not seen for years; and when Ivan was born, it seemed to me that the eyes of my lover looked at me through his, and blessed my son whose spiritual father he was! And, my child, what think you gave me the courage to overthrow Biron and assume the regency? Ah, it was only that I might have the power to recall Lynar to my side! I would and must be regent, that I might demand the return of Lynar as ambassador from Warsaw. That gave me courage and decision; that enabled me to overcome all timidity and anxiety. I thought only of him, and when the end was attained, when I was declared regent, the first exercise of my power was to recall Lynar to Court. Julia, what a happy day was that when I saw him again!”

And the princess, wholly absorbed in her delightful reminiscences, smilingly and silently reclined upon the cushions of the divan.

“Ah, it must be love that so thinks and feels,” thoughtfully observed Julia. “I no longer ask you, Princess Anna, if you love the count, I now know you do. But answer me yet one question. Have you confidence in me--full, unlimited confidence? Will you never mistake, never doubt me?”

“Never!” said Anna Leopoldowna, confidently. “And if all the world should tell me that Julia von Mengden is a traitress, I would nevertheless firmly rely upon you, and reply to the whole world: ‘That is false! Julia von Mengden is true and pure as gold. I shall always love her.’”

Julia gratefully glanced up to the heavens, and her eyes filled with tears.

“I thank you, princess,” she then said, with a happy smile. “I now have courage for all. You shall now be enabled to love your Lynar without fear or trembling, and your husband’s clouded brow and reproaching tongue shall molest us no more. Confide in me and ask no questions. It is all decided and arranged in my mind. But hark! do you hear nothing?”

Anna’s face was transfused with a purple glow, and her eyes flashed.

“It is my beloved,” said she. “Yes, it is he. I know his step!”

Julia smilingly opened the concealed door, and Count Lynar, with a cry of joy, rushed to the feet of his beloved.

“At length!” he exclaimed, clasping her feet, and pressing them to his bosom.

“Yes, at length!” murmured Anna, looking down upon him with a celestial smile.

Julia stood at a distance, contemplating them with thoughtful glances.

“They should be happy,” she murmured low, and then asked aloud: “Count Lynar, did you receive my letter?”

“I did receive it,” said the count, “and may God reward you for the sacrifice you are so generously disposed to make for us! Anna, your friend Julia is our good angel. To her we shall owe it if our happiness is henceforth indestructible and indissoluble. Do you know the immense sacrifice this young maiden proposes to make for us?”

“No, Princess Anna knows nothing, and shall know nothing of it,” said Julia, with a grand air. “Princess Anna shall only know that I love her, and am ready to give my life for her. And now,” she continued, with her natural gayety, “forget me, ye happy lovers! Lull yourselves in the sweet enjoyment of nameless ecstasies! I go to watch the spies, and especially your husband, lest he break in upon you without notice!”

And Julia suddenly left the room, shutting the door upon Anna Leopoldowna and her lover, the Polish Count Lynar.

NO LOVE

Prince Ulrich of Brunswick, the husband of the regent, had assembled the officers of his general staff for a secret conference. Their dark, threatening glances were prophetic of mischief, and angrily flashed the eyes of the prince, who, standing in their midst, had spoken to them in glowing words of his domestic unhappiness, and of the idle, dreamy, and amatory indolence into which the regent had fallen.

“She writes amorous complainings,” he now said, with a voice of rage, in closing his long speech--“she writes sonnets to her lover, instead of governing and reading the petitions, reports, and other documents that come to her from the different ministries and bureaus, which she constantly returns unread. You are men, and are you willing to bear the humiliation of being governed by a woman who dishonors you by disregarding her first and holiest duties, and setting before your wives and daughters the shameful example of a criminal love, thus disgracing her own son, your emperor and master?”

“No, no, we will not bear it!” cried the wildly excited men, grasping the hilts of their swords. “Give us proof of her unfaithfulness, and we shall know how to act as becomes men over whom an adulterous woman would reign!”

“It is an unnatural and unendurable law that commands man to obey a woman. It is contrary to nature that the mother should rule in the name of her son, when the father is living--the father, whom nature and universal custom acknowledge as the lord and head of his wife and children!” cried the prince.

“Give us proof of her guilt,” cried the soldiers, “and we will this very hour proclaim you regent in her stead!”

A confidential servant of the prince, who entered at this moment, now whispered a few words in his ear.

The prince’s face flamed up. “Well, then, gentleman,” said he, straightening himself up, “you demand proof. In this very hour will I furnish it to you. But I do it upon one condition. No personal violence! In the person of your present regent you must respect the mother of your emperor, the wife of your future regent! Anna will yield to our just representations, and voluntarily sign the act of abdication in my favor. That is all we ought to demand of her. She will retain her sacred and inviolable rights as the wife of your regent, as the mother of your emperor. Forget not that!”

“First of all, give us the proof of her guilt!” impatiently cried the men.

“I shall, alas, be able to give it you!” said the prince, with dignity. “Far be it from me to desire the conviction of an innocent person! Believe me, nothing but her guilt could induce me to take action against her; were she innocent, I would be the first to kneel and renew to her my oath of fidelity and obedience. But you cannot desire that I, your generalissimo, should be the subject of a wife who shamefully treads under foot her first and holiest duty! The honor of you all is wounded in mine. Come, follow me now. I will show you Count Lynar in the arms of his mistress, the Regent Anna Leopoldowna!”

The prince strode forth, cautiously followed by his generals. They thus passed noiselessly through the long corridor leading from the wing of the palace inhabited by the prince to that occupied by the regent.

In the boudoir of the Regent Anna a somewhat singular scene was now presented.

The tender caresses of the lovers were suddenly interrupted by Julia von Mengden, who slipped in through the secret door in a white satin robe, and with a myrtle crown upon her head.

“Princess Anna, it is time for you to know all!” she hurriedly said. “Your husband is now coming here through the corridor with his generals; they hope to surprise you in your lover’s arms, that they may have an excuse for deposing you from the regency and substituting your husband. Struggle against struggle! We will outwit them, and cure your husband of his jealousy! From this hour he shall be compelled to acknowledge that he was mistaken, and that it is for him to implore your pardon. Anna Leopoldowna, I love no one in the world but you, and therefore I am ready to do all that love can do for you. I will marry Count Lynar for the purpose of preserving you from suspicion and slander. I will bear the name of his wife, as a screen for the concealment of your loves.”

Anna’s eyes overflowed with tears of emotion and transport.

“Weep not, my love,” whispered the count, “be strong and great in this eventful hour! Now will you be forever mine, for this magnanimous friend veils and protects our union.”

Julia opened the door and waved her hand.

A Russian pope in sacred vestments, followed by two other servants of the church, entered the room. With them came the most trusted maid-servants of Julia.

Clasping the count’s hand and advancing to Anna, Julia said: “Grant, illustrious princess, that we may celebrate our solemn espousal in thy high presence, which is the best blessing of our union!”

Anna opened wide her arms to her favorite, and, pressing her to her bosom, whispered: “I will never forget thee, my Julia. My blessing upon thee, my angel!”

“I will be a true sister to him,” whispered Julia in return; “always believe in me and trust me. And now, my Anna, calmness and self-possession! I already hear your husband’s approach. Be strong and great. Let no feature of your dear face betray your inward commotion!”

And, stepping back to the count, Julia made a sign to the priest to commence the marriage ceremony.

Hand in hand the bridal pair knelt before the priest, the servants folded their hands in prayer, and, proudly erect, with a heavenly transfiguration of her noble face, stood Anna Leopoldowna--the priest commenced the ceremony.

A slight noise was heard at the closed, concealed door. The priest calmly continued to speak, the bridal pair remained in their kneeling position, and, calmly smiling, stood the regent by their side.

The door opened, and, followed by his generals, the enraged prince appeared upon the threshold.

No one suffered himself to be disturbed; the priest continued the service, the parties remained upon their knees, Anna Leopoldowna stood looking on with a proud and tranquil smile.

Motionless, benumbed, as if struck by lightning, remained the prince upon the threshold; behind him were seen the astonished faces of his generals, who, on tiptoe, stretched their necks to gaze, over each other’s shoulders, upon this singular and unexpected spectacle!

At length a murmur arose, they pressed farther forward toward the door, and, overcoming his momentary stupefaction, the prince ventured into the room.

An angry glance of the priest commanded silence; with a louder voice he continued his prayer. Anna Leopoldowna smilingly beckoned her husband to her side, and slightly nodded to the generals.

They bowed to the ground before their august mistress, the regent.

Now came the closing prayer and the dispensation of the blessing. The priest pronounced it kneeling,--the regent also bent the knee, and drew the prince down beside her. Following the example of the generalissimo, the other generals also sank upon their knees,--it was a general prayer, which no one dared disturb.

The ceremony was ended. The priest kissed and blessed the bridal pair, and then departed with his assistants; he was followed by the servants of the favorite.

Anna now turned with a proud smile to the prince.

“Accident, my husband, has made you a witness of this marriage,” said she. “May I ask your highness what procures me this unexpected and somewhat intrusive visit, and why my generals, unannounced, accompany you to their regent and mistress?”

The embarrassed prince stammered some unintelligible words, to which Anna paid no attention.

Stepping forward, she motioned the generals to enter, and with her most fascinating smile said: “Ah, I think I now know the reason of your coming, gentlemen! Your loyal and faithful hearts yearn for a sight of your young emperor. It is true, his faithful subjects have not seen him for a long time! Even a sovereign is not guaranteed against the evil influences of the weather, which has lately been very rough, and for that reason the young czar has been unable to show himself to his people. Ah, it pleases me that you have come, and I am obliged to my husband for bringing you to me so unexpectedly. You may now satisfy yourselves that the emperor lives and is growing fast. Julia, bring us the young emperor!”