The Daughter of an Empress

  THE REGENT ANNA LEOPOLDOWNA

  Anna had succeeded, she was regent; she had shaken off the burden ofthe Bironic tutelage, and her word was all-powerful throughout theimmeasurable provinces of the Russian empire. Was she now happy, thisproud and powerful Anna Leopoldowna? No one had ever yet been happyand free from care upon this Russian throne, and how, then, could AnnaLeopoldowna be so? She had read the books of Russian political history,and that history was written with blood! Anna was a woman, and shetrembled when thinking of the poison, the dagger, the throttling hands,and flaying sword, which had constantly beset the throne of Russian, andin a manner had been the means in the hands of Providence of clearingit from one tyrant, only, indeed, to make room for another. Anna, as wehave said, trembled before this means of Providence; and when hereyes fell upon Munnich--upon his dark, angry brow and his secretlythreatening glance--she then with inward terror asked herself: "May notProvidence have chosen him for my murderer? Will he not overthrow me, ashe overthrew his former master and friend Duke Biron?"

  Anna now feared him whom she had chiefly to thank for her greatness. Atthe time when he had made her regent he had satisfactorily shown thathis arm was sufficiently powerful to displace one regent and hurl him tothe dust! What he had once done, might not he now be able to accomplishagain?

  She surrounded this feared field-marshal with spies and listeners;she caused all his actions to be watched, every one of his words to berepeated to her, in order to ascertain whether it had not some concealedsense, some threatening secret; she doubled the guards of her palace,and, always trembling with fear, she no longer dared to occupy any oneof her apartments continuously. Nomadically wandered they about in theirown palace, this Regent Anna Leopoldowna and her husband Prince Ulrichof Brunswick; remembering the sleeping-chamber of Biron, she dared notselect any one distinct apartment for constant occupation; every eveningfound her in a new room, every night she reposed in a different bed, andeven her most trusted servant often knew not in which wing of the castlethe princely pair were to pass the night.

  She, before whom these millions of Russian subjects humbled themselvesin the dust, trembled every night in her bed at the slightest rustling,at the whisperings of the wind, at every breath of air that beat herclosed and bolted doors.

  She might, it is true, have released herself from these torments withthe utterance of only one word of command; it required only a wave ofher hand to send this haughty and dangerous Munnich to Siberia! Norwas an excuse for such a proceeding wanting. Count Munnich's pride andpresumption daily gave occasion for anger; he daily gave offence byhis reckless disregard and disrespect for his chief, the generalissimo,Prince Ulrich; daily was it necessary to correct him and to confine himwithin his own proper official boundaries.

  And such refractory conduct toward a Russian master, had it not in alltimes been a terrible and execrable crime--a crime for which banishmentto Siberia had always been considered a mild punishment?

  Poor Anna! called to rule over Russia, she lacked only the first andmost necessary qualification for her position--a Russian heart! Therewas, in this German woman's disposition, too much gentleness andmildness, too much confiding goodness. To a less barbarous people shemight have been a blessing, a merciful ruler and gracious benefactor!

  But her arm was too weak to wield the knout instead of the sceptreover this people of slaves, her heart too soft to judge with inexorableseverity according to the barbarous Russian laws which, never pardoning,always condemn and flay.

  It was this which gradually estranged from her the hearts of theRussians. They felt that it was no Russian who reigned over them; andbecause they had no occasion to tremble and creep in the dust beforeher, they almost despised her, and derided the idyllic sentiments ofthis good German princess who wished to realize her fantastic dreams bytreating a horde of barbarians as a civilized people!

  The slaves longed for their former yoke; they looked around them with afeeling of strangeness, and to them it seemed unnatural noteverywhere to see the brandished knout, the avenging scaffold, and thetransport-carriages departing for Siberia!

  Much as Ostermann importuned her, often as her own husband warned her,Anna nevertheless refused; she would not banish Field-Marshal Munnichto Siberia, but remained firm in her determination to leave him inpossession of his liberty and his dignities.

  But when Munnich himself, excited and fatigued with these never-endingannoyances, and moreover believing that Anna could not do withouthim, and therefore would not grant his request, finally demanded hisdismission, Anna granted it with joy; and Munnich, deceived in allhis ambitious plans and expectations, angrily left the court to betakehimself to his palace beyond the Neva.

  Anna now breathed easier; she now felt herself powerful and free, forMunnich was as least removed farther from her; his residence was nolonger separated from hers only by a wall, she had no longer to fear hisbreaking through in the night--ah, Munnich dwelt beyond the Neva, and awhole regiment guarded its banks and bridges by night! Munnich could nolonger fall upon her by surprise, as she could have him always watched.

  Anna no longer trembled with fear; she could yield to her naturalindolence, and if she sometimes, from fear of Munnich, troubled herselfabout state affairs and labored with her ministers, she now felt it tobe an oppressive burden, to which she could no longer consent to subjectherself.

  Satiated and exhausted, she in some measure left the wielding of thesceptre to her first and confidential minister, Count Golopkin. He ruledin her name, as Count Ostermann was generalissimo in the name of herhusband the Prince of Brunswick. Why trouble themselves with the painsand cares of governing, when it was permitted them to only enjoy thepleasures of their all-powerful position?

  The minister might flourish the knout and proclaim the Siberianbanishment over the trembling people; the scourged might howl, and thebanished might lament, the great and powerful might dispose of the soulsand bodies of their serfs; rare honesty might be oppressed by consumingusury; offices, honors, and titles might be gambled for; justiceand punishment might be bought and sold; vice and immorality mightuniversally prevail--Anna would not know it. She would neither see norhear any thing of this outside world! The palace is her world, in whichshe is happy, in which she revels!

  Ah, that charming, silent little boudoir, with is soft Turkish carpet,with its elastic divans and heavily curtained windows and doors--thatlittle boudoir is now her paradise, the temple of her happiness! In itshe lingers, and in it is she blessed. There she reposes, dreaming ofpast delightful hours, or smiling with the intoxication of the stillmore delightful present in the arms of the one she loves.