The Memoirs of Catherine the Great (38 page)

In any case my decision was made, and I viewed my being sent home or not with a very philosophical eye. In whatever situation it should please Providence to place me, I would never find myself without those resources that intelligence and talent give to each according to his natural abilities, and I felt the courage to rise and fall without my heart and my soul feeling either pride or vanity or, in the opposite case, shame or humiliation. I knew that I was human, and therefore a limited being incapable of perfection. My intentions had always been honest and pure, as I had understood from the very beginning that to love a husband who was not amiable, nor took any pains to be so, was a difficult thing, if not impossible. At least I had given both to him and his interests the sincerest devotion that a friend and even a servant could give to his friend and master. My advice had always been the very best I could devise for his welfare. If he did not follow it, this was not my fault but that of his judgment, which was neither sound nor just. When I came to Russia, and during the first years of our union, had this Prince shown the least desire to make himself bearable, my heart would have been opened to him. When I saw that of all possible objects I was the one to whom he paid the least attention, precisely because I was his wife, it is not at all strange that I found this situation neither pleasant nor to my taste, and that it bothered and perhaps even pained me. This latter sentiment, that of pain, I suppressed infinitely more than all the others. My soul’s natural pride and mettle made the idea of being unhappy intolerable to me. I would say to myself, “Happiness and misery are in the heart and soul of everyone. If you feel misery, rise above it, and act so that your happiness does not depend on any event.” I had been born with this turn of mind and endowed with very great sensitivity, and an appearance that was at the least very interesting and pleasing at first sight, without art or affectation. My disposition was naturally so accommodating that no one was ever with me a quarter of an hour without falling comfortably into conversation, chatting with me as if they had known me for a long time. Naturally indulgent, I easily won the trust of those who dealt with me, because everyone felt that the strictest probity and goodwill were the impulses that I most readily obeyed. If I may dare to use such terms, I take the liberty to assert on my own behalf that I was an honest and loyal knight,
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whose mind was infinitely more male than female. But for all that, I was anything but mannish, and in me others found, joined to the mind and character of a man, the charms of a very attractive woman. May I be pardoned this description in recognition of the truth of this confession, which my self-esteem makes without covering itself with false modesty. Besides, this writing itself should prove what I say about my mind, my heart, and my character.

I have just said that I was attractive. As a result, I was already halfway along the road to temptation, and it is the essence of human nature that in such a situation the other half will not go untraveled. For to tempt and to be tempted are very close to each other, and despite the finest moral maxims engraved in the mind, when sensibility joins in, by its very presence, one is already infinitely further from these maxims than one thinks. Even now I still do not know how one can prevent sensibility from appearing. Perhaps flight alone can remedy this. But there are cases, situations, circumstances where flight is impossible, for how can one flee, avoid, or turn one’s back in the middle of a court? The very action would cause gossip, but if you do not flee, there is nothing as difficult in my opinion as escaping what profoundly pleases you. Everything that they will tell you to the contrary will only be prudishness, and not drawn from the human heart. No one holds his heart in his hand and restrains or releases it by closing or opening his hand at will.
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I return to my narrative. The day after the play, I declared that I was unwell and did not go out anymore, waiting calmly for Her Imperial Majesty’s decision about my humble request. However, the first week of Lent I judged it fitting to attend services to show my devotion to the Greek Orthodox faith.
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The second or third week of Lent brought me another bitter disappointment. One morning after I had risen, my servants informed me that Count Alexander Shuvalov had sent for Madame Vladislavova. This seemed somewhat strange to me. I waited anxiously for her return, but in vain. Around one in the afternoon, Count Alexander Shuvalov came to tell me that the Empress had seen fit to remove Madame Vladislavova from my service. I burst into tears and replied to him that Her Imperial Majesty was certainly free to remove from me or place with me whomever she pleased, but that I regretted seeing more and more that all those who came near me were as many victims doomed to the disfavor of Her Imperial Majesty. So that there would be fewer unfortunates, I begged and beseeched him to appeal to Her Imperial Majesty to put an end as soon as possible to the state to which I was reduced, in which I only made others miserable, by sending me home to my family. I assured him again that Madame Vladislavova would not be of any use in shedding light on anything, because neither she nor anyone else was in my confidence. Count Shuvalov wanted to speak, but seeing my sobs, he began to weep with me and told me that the Empress would speak to me personally on the subject. I begged him to hasten the moment, which he promised to do. Then I went to tell my attendants what had just happened and told them that if any duenna I happened to dislike took the place of Madame Vladislavova, she should be prepared to receive from me every imaginable mistreatment, including even blows. I begged them to repeat this to whomever they pleased, so as to repulse all those that they might want to place in my service from rushing to accept the position, for I was tired of suffering. Seeing that my mildness and patience had brought about nothing but to make everything around me go from bad to worse, I was consequently going to change my behavior thoroughly. My servants did not fail to repeat what I told them to.

That evening, after I had cried much and eaten very little, I was walking up and down in my room quite agitated in both body and mind, when I saw one of my ladies-in-waiting, named Katerina Ivanovna Sharogorodskaia, enter my bedroom, where I was alone as always. With tears and great affection, she said, “We all fear that you will succumb to the state in which we see you. Permit me to go today to my uncle, who is your own confessor as well as the Empress’s. I will talk to him and tell him everything you order me to, and I promise you that he will be able to speak to the Empress in a manner that you will be happy with.”
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Seeing her goodwill, I recounted to her very clearly the state of things, what I had written to the Empress, and everything else. She went to her uncle, and after speaking to him and disposing him in my favor, she returned around eleven o’clock to tell me that the confessor, her uncle, advised me to declare during the night that I was ill and to ask to make my confession, and for this purpose have him sent for, so that he would be able to tell Her Imperial Majesty what he heard from my own mouth. I very much approved of this idea and promised to carry it out, and then dismissed her, thanking both her and her uncle for the devotion they were displaying. As planned, I rang between two and three o’clock in the morning; one of my ladies entered. I told her that I felt so ill that I wanted to make my confession. Instead of the confessor, Count Alexander Shuvalov came running into my room, and in a weak and broken voice I repeated to him my request to have my confessor summoned. He sent for the doctors. I told them that I needed spiritual aid, that I was suffocating. One felt my pulse and said it was weak. I said that my soul was in danger and my body no longer needed doctors. Finally the confessor arrived and we were left alone. I had him sit next to my bed and we had a conversation for at least an hour and a half. I described and recounted to him the past and present state of affairs, the Grand Duke’s conduct toward me, mine toward His Imperial Highness, the Shuvalovs’ hatred, and how they were bringing Her Imperial Majesty’s disfavor down on me, and finally the continual exile or dismissal of many of my servants, and always those who were most devoted to me, and then where matters stood at present, which had brought me to write the Empress the letter by which I requested my dismissal. I begged him to obtain a prompt response to my plea. I found he had the best intentions in the world for me and that he was less stupid than he was said to be. He told me that my letter was having, and would have, the desired effect, that I should persist in asking to be dismissed, and that I would certainly not be sent away, because they could not justify this dismissal in the eyes of the public, whose attention was on me. He agreed that I was being treated cruelly and that the Empress, having chosen me at a very tender age, was abandoning me to the mercy of my enemies. She would do much better to dismiss my rivals, above all Elizabeth Vorontsova, and to rein in her favorites, who had become leeches on the people through all the monopolies that the Shuvalovs were constantly establishing. Moreover, everyone was crying out at their injustice: witness the affair of Count Bestuzhev, of whose innocence the public was convinced. He ended this interview by telling me that he would go to the Empress’s apartment immediately, where he would await her awakening to speak to her and hasten the interview that she had promised me, which was going to be decisive, and that I would do well to remain in my bed. He would say that sorrow and pain could kill me if a swift remedy was not applied and I was not rescued, one way or another, from the state I was in, alone and abandoned by everyone. He kept his word, and described my state to the Empress with such vivid and immediate colors that Her Imperial Majesty summoned Count Alexander Shuvalov and ordered him to see if I was in a state to come and talk to her the following night. Count Shuvalov came to tell me this. I told him that for this purpose I would gather all my remaining strength.

Toward evening I was getting up when Alexander Shuvalov came to tell me that after midnight he would come to accompany me to the Empress’s apartment. Through his niece, the confessor also informed me that things were going rather well and that the Empress would speak to me the same evening.
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I therefore got dressed toward ten o’clock in the evening and lay down fully dressed on a couch, where I fell asleep. At around half past one, Count Alexander Shuvalov came into my room and said that the Empress was asking for me. I got up and followed him; we crossed the antechambers, where there was no one. Arriving at the door of the gallery, I saw that the Grand Duke was crossing the opposite doorway and that just like me, he was going to see Her Imperial Majesty. I had not seen him since the day of the play. Even when I had said that my life was in danger, he had neither come nor sent to ask how I was doing. I learned afterward that on that same day he had promised Elizabeth Vorontsova that he would marry her if I happened to die, and that they both greatly rejoiced at my state. Finally, having reached Her Imperial Majesty’s apartment, where I found the Grand Duke, as soon as I saw the Empress I threw myself at her knees and begged her with tears to immediately send me back to my family. The Empress wanted to make me get up, but I stayed at her feet. She seemed to me to be more pained than angry, and said to me with tears in her eyes, “Why do you want me to send you back? Remember that you have children.” I said, “My children are in your hands and could not be better off. I hope that you will not abandon them.” Then she said, “But what shall I tell the public is the reason for sending you back?” I replied, “Your Imperial Majesty will tell them, if she sees fit, the reasons that I have incurred your disfavor and the hatred of the Grand Duke.” The Empress said, “And what will you live on at your family’s home?” I replied, “On that which I lived before you did me the honor of choosing me.” At this she said, “Your mother is in exile. She was obliged to withdraw from her home and went to Paris.”
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At this I said, “I know this. She was believed to be too devoted to the interests of Russia, and the King of Prussia drove her away.” The Empress told me a second time to get up, which I did, and she walked away from me a little, in thought. The room we were in was long and had three windows, between which there were two tables with the Empress’s gold toiletries. There was no one in the apartment aside from her, the Grand Duke, Alexander Shuvalov, and me. Across from the windows there were large screens before which a sofa had been placed. From the first, I suspected that Ivan Shuvalov was certainly behind these screens, and perhaps also Count Peter, his cousin. I learned later that I had guessed correctly in part and that Ivan Shuvalov was there. I stood next to the dressing table closest to the door by which I had entered and noticed that in the basin there were some folded letters. The Empress came toward me again and said to me, “God is my witness how much I cried when you were deathly ill upon your arrival in Russia, and if I had not loved you, I would not have kept you here.” Now with this, in my opinion, she was excusing herself after what I had said about incurring her disfavor. I responded by thanking Her Imperial Majesty for all the favors and kindness that she had shown me, then and later, saying that their memory would never be effaced from my mind, and that I would always consider having incurred her disfavor as the greatest of misfortunes. Then she came even closer to me and said, “You are extremely proud. Remember that at the Summer Palace I approached you one day and asked you if your neck hurt, because I saw that you hardly bowed to me and that it was out of pride that you greeted me with only a nod.” I said to her, “My God, Madame, how can you believe that I wanted to affect pride toward you? I swear to you that it never even crossed my mind that this question you posed to me four years ago could have meant such a thing.” At this she said, “You imagine that no one is more intelligent than you.” I replied, “If I did believe this, nothing would more thoroughly disabuse me than my present state and this very conversation, because I see that out of stupidity I have not understood until now what you deigned to say to me four years ago.” While the Empress was speaking to me, the Grand Duke whispered with Count Alexander Shuvalov. She noticed this and approached them. They were both standing in the middle of the room. I did not hear too well what they said among themselves. They did not speak very loudly, and the room was large. At the end, I heard the Grand Duke say, raising his voice, “She is terribly wicked and very stubborn.” Then I saw that he was speaking of me, and addressing myself to the Grand Duke, I said to him, “If you are speaking of me, I am quite happy to tell you in the presence of Her Imperial Majesty that in truth I am spiteful toward those who advise you to commit injustices, and that I have become stubborn ever since I saw that my acts of kindness bring me nothing but your enmity.” He said to the Empress, “Your Imperial Majesty herself sees how wicked she is by what she says.” But my remarks made a different impression on the Empress, who had infinitely more intelligence than the Grand Duke. I saw clearly that as the conversation continued, although it had been recommended to her or she herself had resolved to be harsh with me, her mind was gradually softening in spite of herself and her resolutions. However, she turned toward him and said, “Oh, you do not know everything she has said to me against your advisers and Brockdorff regarding the man whom you had arrested.” To the Grand Duke, this must have seemed a formal act of treason on my part. He did not know a word of my conversation with the Empress at the Summer Palace, and now he saw his Brockdorff, who had become so dear and so precious to him, accused before the Empress and by me. This therefore put us more at odds than ever and perhaps made us irreconcilable and deprived me forever of the Grand Duke’s trust. I almost fell over hearing the Empress recount to the Grand Duke in my presence what I had told her for the well-being of her nephew, and seeing it turn into a lethal weapon against me. The Grand Duke, utterly astonished by this secret, said, “Ah, here is a nice little story that I did not know. It proves her wickedness.” I thought to myself, God knows whose wickedness it proves.