The Daughter of an Empress

"Ah," said Ivan, "how beautiful you are now--how flash your eyes, and

how radiantly glow your cheeks! Would that my executioner were now

come, that he might see in you the heroine, Natalie, and not the

sorrow-stricken woman!"

"Ah, your prayer is granted; hear you not the rattling of the bolts, the

roll of the drum? They are coming, Ivan, they are coming!"

"Farewell, Natalie--farewell, forever!"

And, mutually embracing, they took one last, long kiss, but wept not.

"Hear me, Natalie! when they bind me upon the wheel, weep not. Be

resolute, my wife, and pray that their torments may not render me weak,

and that no cry may escape my lips!"

"I will pray, Ivan."

In half an hour all was over. The noble and virtuous Count Ivan

Dolgorucki had been broken upon the wheel, and three of his brothers

beheaded, and for what?--Because Count Munnich, fearing that the noble

and respected brothers Dolgorucki might dispossess him of his usurped

power, had persuaded the Czarina Anna that they were plotting her

overthrow for the purpose of raising Katharina Ivanovna to the imperial

throne. No proof or conviction was required; Munnich had said it, and

that sufficed; the Dolgoruckis were annihilated!

But Natalie Dolgorucki still lived, and from the bloody scene of her

husband's execution she repaired to Kiew. There would she live in the

cloister of the Penitents, preserving the memory of the being she loved,

and imploring the vengeance of Heaven upon his murderers!

It was in the twilight of a clear summer night when Natalie reached the

cloister in which she was on the next day to take the vows and exchange

her ordinary dress for the robe of hair-cloth and the nun's veil.

Foaming rushed the Dnieper within its steep banks, hissing broke the

waves upon the gigantic boulders, and in the air was heard the sound as

of howling thunder and a roaring storm.

"I will take my leave of nature and of the world," murmured Natalie,

motioning her attendants to remain at a distance, and with firm feet

climbing the steep rocky bank of the rushing Dnieper. Upon their knees

her servants prayed below, glancing up to the rock upon which they saw

the tall form of their mistress in the moonlight, which surrounded it

with a halo; the stars laid a radiant crown upon her pure brow, and her

locks, floating in the wind, resembled wings; to her servants she seemed

an angel borne upon air and light and love upward to her heavenly home!

Natalie stood there tranquil and tearless. The thoughtful glances of her

large eyes swept over the whole surrounding region. She took leave

of the world, of the trees and flowers, of the heavens and the earth.

Below, at her feet, lay the cloister, and Natalie, stretching forth her

arms toward it, exclaimed: "That is my grave! Happy, blessed Ivan, thou

diedst ere being coffined; but I shall be coffined while yet alive! I

stand here by thy tomb, mine Ivan. They have bedded thy noble form in

the cold waves of the Dnieper, whose rushing and roaring was thy funeral

knell, mine Ivan! I shall dwell by thy grave, and in the deathlike

stillness of my cell shall hear the tones of the solemn hymn with which

the impetuous stream will rock thee to thine eternal rest! Receive,

then, ye sacred waves of the Dnieper, receive thou, mine Ivan, in thy

cold grave, thy wife's vow of fidelity to thee. Again will I espouse

thee--in life as in death, am I thine!"