"I must therefore die!" sighed Alexis, pressing Elizabeth's trembling hand to his lips. "Kill me, princess, thrust a dagger in my heart, that I at least may not live to see you married to another!""No, you shall not die," cried Elizabeth, with fierce vehemence, throwing her arms around Razumovsky's neck. "I will know how to defend you and myself, Alexis! Ah, they would shackle me,--they would force me to marry, because they know I hate marriage. Yes, I hate those unnatural fetters which could command my heart, force it into obedience to an unnatural law, and degrade divine free love, which would flutter from flower to flower, into a necessity and a duty. It is an unnatural law which would compel us forever to love a man because he pleased us yesterday or may please us to-day, and who perhaps may not please us to-morrow, while on the next day he may excite only repugnance! Would they forge these matrimonial chains for me? Ah, Regent Anna, you are this time mistaken; you may be all-powerful in this empire, but you cannot and shall not extend that power over me!""And how," asked Lestocq, shrugging his shoulders, "how will Princess Elizabeth oppose the regent or empress? What weapon has she with which to contend?""If it must be so, I will oppose power to power!" passionately exclaimed the princess. "Yes, when it comes to the defence of my freedom and my personal rights I will then have the courage to dare all, defy all; then will I shake off the lethargy of contented mediocrity, and upon the throne will find that freedom which Anna would tread under foot!""Long live our future empress! Long live Elizabeth!" cried the men with wild excitement.
"I have long withstood you, my friends," said Elizabeth, "I have not coveted this imperial Russian crown, but much less have I desired that crown of thorns a compulsory marriage. I am now ready for the struggle, and, if it must be so, let a revolution, let streams of blood decide whether the Regent Anna Leopoldowna or the daughter of Peter the Great has the best right to govern this land and prescribe its laws!""Ah, now are you really your great father's great daughter!" cried Lestocq, and bending a knee before the princess, he continued: "Let me be the first to pay you homage, the first to swear eternal fidelity to you, our Empress Elizabeth.""Receive also my oath, Empress Elizabeth," said Alexis, falling upon his knees before her, "receive the oaths of your slaves who desire nothing but to devote their bodies and souls to your service!""Let me, also, do homage to you, Empress Elizabeth!" exclaimed Woronzow, falling to the earth.
"And I, too, will lie at your feet and declare myself your slave, Empress Elizabeth!" said Grunstein, kneeling with the others.
But Elizabeth's anger was already past; only a momentary storm-wind had lashed her gently flowing blood into the high foaming waves of rage; now all again was calm within her, and consequently this solemn homage scene of her four kneeling friends made only a comic impression upon her.
She burst into a loud laugh; astonished and half angry, the kneeling men looked up to her, and that only increased her hilarity.
"Ah, this is infinitely amusing," said the princess, continuing to laugh; "there lie my vassals, and what vassals! Herr Lestocq, a physician; Herr Grunstein, a bankrupt shopkeeper and now under-officer; Herr Woronzow, chamberlain; and Alexis Razumovsky, my private secretary. And here I am, the empress of such vassals, and what sort of an empress? An empress of four subjects, an empress without a throne and without a crown, without land and without a people--an empress who never was and never will be an empress! And in this solemn buffoonery you cut such serious faces as might make one die with laughter."The princess threw herself upon the divan and laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks.
