Chapter VI: The Princess Asks Me to Assist Her

The Princess locked the paper in a casket, put it away, took up a fan, and again sitting down, began looking out of the window.

“Are you willing to help me?” she asked very seriously, instead of answering my question.

I knew not what to answer.

“Are you willing to give me, should I need it, every help in your power?”

“But what sort of help?”

“Well now, you see, should the Empress Ekaterina be willing to act conscientiously and without strife peacefully to divide the empire with me,”--the Princess uttered this very slowly and distinctly,--“I am ready to agree to anything in reason. I will give up to her the north, with Petersburg, all the Baltic provinces, and all the province of Moscow. I shall retain for myself the Caucasus--practically all the south--oh! I love the south--and part of the west. Oh! be quite sure I shall respect a peaceful division. I shall be quite satisfied with the arrangement. I shall people my dominions; I shall arrange all in my own Fatherland. You will see I am a _masteritsa_.[13] First of all, of course, I shall arrange matters in Oukraine and Poland. Of course you are from Oukraine?” she asked me suddenly, fixing her eyes on me; “and I passed my childhood there. In case Ekaterina should not agree,” continued she, frowning, “of course, nothing remains for me but to try the force of arms. I intend going to Constantinople, to the Sultan. He expects me. I shall lead his army on to the Balkans, and on the borders of the Danube shall meet the army of Ekaterina. Then I will have my revenge. I shall find enough people willing to help me; all the discontented--for instance, the commodore of the fleet,--Orloff! Eh! what do you say to that?”

“Orloff!” I repeated in amazement.

“Of course; he himself. You are astonished, eh?” answered the Princess, fanning herself and looking me boldly in the face. “Yes; what do you say to that?”

“Excuse me, Your Grace, but I cannot help speaking out my earnest conviction that all this is but a child’s dream. On what do you found your hopes of such--excuse me the expression--such treason from the count?”

“Treason!”--cried out the Princess, suddenly reddening; “but, of course, you must be excused. You were so long a prisoner, there is a great deal for you to learn”; and she contemptuously smiled, nervously playing with her fan. “The power and the influence of the Orloffs have greatly fallen; their sworn and hidden foes, the Pânins,[14] are now in the ascendency. The empress’s favourite, Gregory Orloff, allow me to tell you, has been already replaced by another; he, in his anger, broke off the negotiations begun with the Sultan, and flew from the banks of the Danube to Petersburg. But he was not received at court, but exiled to Revel. Ah! you are astonished. Well, learn still further. Your chief, Count Alexis Orloff, his feelings as a brother insulted, no longer hides his opinions: he is ripe for revenge; and there is no doubt, of course, that he can be very useful to me. You see, what news! I have already sent a letter to the Count Alexis, and a short manifesto.”

“A manifesto! but what about?”

“If Orloff decides on taking my part, I advise him then to proclaim my manifesto to the fleet, take me on board, and stand up for my rights.”

“But that is impossible. Excuse me,” I tried to answer; “your actions are bold, but you have not reflected enough.”

“Why do you think so?” asked the Princess, astonished. “The malcontents are seeking revenge, the forgotten recompense for their well-known services. To Orloff alone--and that every one knows--to him alone Ekaterina owes her throne.”

The Princess rose, walked up and down the room, and at last threw the window open. She was nearly stifled. She began again explaining her plan in its smallest details: how she hoped, with the aid of the fleet, to invade Russia. She would listen to none of my arguments. It seemed as if nothing could convince her. It was plainly visible that this capricious, spoiled, self-willed woman, whose feelings burst forth like lava hidden under ashes, thought she could measure her strength with the most desperate of men.

“You doubt; you are astonished,” she exclaimed, with a nervous tremor. “You ask why I believe in the success of my enterprise? Is it possible that you do not know?… Already many of your countrymen side with me; I am in correspondence with numbers of them.… But you--are the first Russian, the first really worthy man, that I see throwing in your lot with me.… I shall never forget the fact; it is specially dear to me.… Believe me, I shall rise victorious out of every difficulty; the darkness _will_ clear away.… Is it possible that you do not know that Russia is torn asunder by her battles, the pressgang for the recruits, the fires, the plagues? Is it possible you do not know that the country is worn out with her taxations, that on the borders of the Volga there rages a terrible, bloody insurrection? Your army is badly clothed, and still worse fed; … all are discontented, all grumble.… You are not going to tell me that you, a lieutenant in the Russian navy, know nothing of all this? Yes, all the nation will hail me with delight; the army will meet with joy a Russian-born princess, Elizabeth II., just as they once met Ekaterina.”

I was indignant at her childish and blind confidence in herself.

“Well, let it be so. Do you speak Russian?” I decided on asking her.

The Princess blushed. “I do not speak it. I have, of course, forgotten it, unfortunately,” she answered, coughing. “In my infancy, when but three years old, I was taken from Oukraine to Siberia, where they nearly poisoned me; from there into Persia, where I was placed with an old woman in Ispahan, who took me to live in Bagdad, where a certain M. Fournier taught me French.… So it would have been rather strange if I did remember my own language.”

I still continued sitting, my eyes fixed on the ground. I could not raise them to her face.

“And Dimitri Tzarevitch,[15] whom all Moscow met so joyfully, did he speak Russian?” asked the Princess contemptuously. “Besides, what can languages prove? Children learn and unlearn everything so easily.”

“Dimitri spoke with a ‘Little Russian’ accent,” answered I. “And then, after all, he was but--a pretender!”

“Gran Dio!” she exclaimed; and again coughing, the Princess laughed. “And you’re not ashamed of repeating those idle tales? Listen to me, and remember my words.”…

The Princess threw herself back in her chair. Bright spots appeared in her cheeks.

“Dimitri was the real tzarevitch.” She said this in a voice of conviction. “Yes, the real tzarevitch. He was saved from the hands of the assassin Godounoff by the cleverness of those around him, almost by a miracle, just as I was saved from the poison they gave me in Siberia. Ah! you did not know that? Yes, think about it all a little more. Oh! Signor Konsov, tell your tales to some one else, but not to me, who have studied in a strange land the genealogy of our house. The Shah of Persia offered his hand and his throne to me, but I refused him; he is the eternal enemy of Russia.… I _shall_ be acknowledged. Do you hear? They _must_ acknowledge me,” said the Princess, with great dignity.

Striking her knee with her fan, and beginning again to cough, she continued,--

“I believe in the star of my destiny, and therefore I choose you as my ambassador to Count Orloff. I do not exact a speedy answer. Think over it, weigh well my words, and then give me your decision. You, again I repeat, are the first Russian in an honourable military position whom I have met abroad. You also have suffered, and also escaped from prison by a miracle. Who knows? perhaps Heaven saved you, like many others, and sent you to me.”

Having said this, the Princess rose, and, with a most majestic salute, signified that the audience was concluded.