Elizabeth laughed. "Well," said she, "I shall finally be obliged to
comply with your wishes, that you may leave me in peace. For three
years I have patiently borne your importunities for this signature. My
patience is now at an end, and I will sign the letter, that I may be
freed from your solicitations. Give me, therefore, that intolerable pen,
but first pour out a glass of Malvoisie, and hold it ready, that I may
strengthen myself with it after the labor is accomplished."
Elizabeth, sighing, took the pen and slowly and anxiously subscribed her
name to this three-years-delayed letter of congratulation to the King of
France.
"So," said she, throwing down her pen after the completion of her
task--"so, but you must not for a long time again trouble me with any
such work, and to-day I have well earned the right to a very pleasant
evening. Nothing more of business--no, no, not a word more of it! I will
not have these delightful hours embittered by your absurdities! Away
with you, Bestuscheff, and let my field-marshal, Count Razumovsky, be
called!"
And when Alexis came, Elizabeth smilingly said to him: "Alexis, the air
is to-day so fine and fresh that we will take a ride. Quick, quick! And
know you where?"
Razumovsky nodded. "To the villa!" said he, with a smile.
"Yes, to the villa!" cried Elizabeth, "to see my daughter at the villa!"
She therefore now had a daughter, and this daughter had not died like
her two sons. She lived, she throve in the freshness of childhood, and
Elizabeth loved her with idolatrous tenderness!
But precisely on account of this tenderness did she carefully conceal
the existence of this daughter, keeping her far from the world, ignorant
of her high birth, unsuspicious of her mother's greatness!
The fatal words of the Countess Lapuschkin still resounded in the ears
of the empress: "Give this Elizabeth a daughter, and let that daughter
experience what I now suffer!"
Such had been the prayer of the bleeding countess, flayed by the
executioners of the empress, and the words were continually echoing in
Elizabeth's heart.
Ah, she was indeed a lofty empress; she had the power to banish
thousands to Siberia, and was yet so powerless that she could not banish
those words from her mind which Eleonore Lapuschkin had planted there.
Eleonore was therefore avenged! And while the countess bore the torments
of her banishment with smiling fortitude, Elizabeth trembled on her
throne at the words of her banished rival--words that seemed to hang,
like the sword of Damocles, over the head of her daughter!
Perhaps it was precisely for the reason that she so much feared for her
daughter, that she loved her so very warmly. It was a passionate, an
adoring tenderness that she felt for the child, and nevertheless she
had the courage to keep her at a distance from herself, to see her but
seldom, that no one might suspect the secret of her birth.