The Daughter of an Empress

Where was Grunstein? Banished, cast off, like Lestocq.

Where was Alexis Razumovsky?

Ah, well for her! He stood at her bedside, he pressed her cold hand in

his; he yet, in the face of death, thanked her for all the benefits she

had heaped upon him. But alas! she was also surrounded by others--by

wild, pale, terrible forms, which were unseen by all except the dying

empress! She there saw the tortured face of Anna Leopoldowna, whom she

had let die in prison; there grinned at her the idiotic face of Ivan,

whose mind she had destroyed; there saw she the angry-flashing eyes and

bloody form of Eleonore Lapuschkin, and, springing up from her bed, the

empress screeched with terror, and folded her trembling hands in prayer

to God for grace and mercy for her daughter, for Natalie, that He would

turn away the horrible curse that Eleonore had hurled at her child.

Alexis Razumovsky stood by her bedside, weeping. Overcome, as it seemed,

by his sorrow, another left the death-chamber of the empress, and rushed

to his horse, standing ready in the court below! This other was Count

Rasczinsky, the confidant of the empress.

The bells rang in St. Petersburg, the cannon roared; there were both joy

and sorrow in what the bells and cannon announced!

The Empress Elizabeth was dead; the Emperor Peter III. ascended the

throne of the czars as absolute ruler of the Russian realm. The first to

bow before him was his wife. With her son of five years old in her arms,

she had thrown herself upon her knees, and touching the floor with her

forehead, she had implored grace and love for herself and her son; and

Peter, raising her up, had presented her to the people as his empress.

In St. Petersburg the bells rang, the cannon thundered--"The empress is

dead, long live the emperor!"

Before the villa stopped a foam-covered steed, from which dismounted a

horseman, who knocked at the closed door. To the porter who looked out

from a sliding window he showed the written order of Elizabeth for his

admission. The porter opened the door, and with the loud cry, "Natalie,

Natalie!" the Count Rasczinsky rushed into the hall of the house.

The bells continued to ring, the cannon to thunder. There was great

rejoicing in St. Petersburg.

Issuing from the villa, Count Rasczinsky again mounted his foaming

steed.

Like a storm-wind swept he over the plain--but not toward St.

Petersburg, not toward the city where the people were saluting their new

emperor!

Away, away, far and wide in the distance, his horse bounded and panted,

bleeding with the spurs of his rider. Excited constantly to new speed,

he as constantly bounds onward.

Like a nocturnal spectre flies he through the desert waste; the

storm-wind drives him forward, it lifts the mantle that enwraps him like

a cloud, and under that mantle is seen an angel-face, the smile of a

delicate little girl, two tender childish arms clasping the form of

the count, a slight elfish form tremblingly reposing upon the count's

breast.