"By this I mean to say," interposed Elizabeth, "that this conspiracy is brought to a bloodless conclusion, and that, from this hour, there is but one woman in this great Russian realm who has any claim to the title of empress, and that woman is the Regent Anna Leopoldowna!""You will therefore renounce your sacred and well-grounded claims to the imperial throne?" asked Lestocq, continuing his scribbling.
"Yes, that will I," responded Elizabeth. "I will no longer be plagued with your plans and machinations--I will have repose. In the interior of my palace I will be empress; there will I establish a realm, a realm of peace and enjoyable happiness; there will I erect the temple of love, and consecrate myself as its priestess! No, speak no more of revolutions and conspiracies. I am not made to sit upon a throne as the feared and thundering goddess of cowardly slaves, causing millions to tremble at every word and glance! I will not be empress, not the bugbear of a quaking, kneeling people, I will be a woman, who has nothing to do with the business and drudgery of men; I will not be plagued with labor and care, but will enjoy and rejoice in my existence!""For that you will be allowed no time!" said Lestocq, with solemnity.
"When you give up your plans and renounce your rights, then, princess, it will be all over with the days of enjoyment and happiness. It will then no longer be permitted you to convert your palace into a temple of pleasure, and thenceforth you will be known only as the priestess of misfortune and misery!""You have again your fever-dreams," said Elizabeth, smiling. "Come, Iwill awaken you! I have told you my story; it is now for you to give me a recipe for my inflamed eyes.""Here it is," earnestly answered Lestocq, handing to the princess the paper upon which he had been scribbling.
Elizabeth took it and at first regarded it with smiling curiosity; but her features gradually assumed a more serious and even terrified expression, and the roses faded from her cheeks.
"You call this a recipe for eyes reddened with weeping," said she, with a shudder, "and yet it presents two pictures which make my hair bristle with terror, and might cause one to weep himself blind!""They represent our future!" said Lestocq, with decision. "You see that man bound upon the wheel--that is myself! Now look at the second.
This young woman who is wringing her hands, and whose head one of these nuns is shearing, while the other is endeavoring, in spite of her struggling resistance, to envelope her in that black veil;--that is you, princess. For you the cloister, for me the wheel! That will be our future, Princess Elizabeth, if you now hesitate in your forward march in the path upon which you have once entered.
"And to persevere in this conspiracy is to give ourselves up to certain destruction, for doubt not they will be able to convict us.
Among Grunstein's enlisted friends there are drunkards enough who would betray you for a flask of brandy! Princess Elizabeth, would you be a nun or an empress? Choose between these two destinations. There is no middle course.""Then I would be an empress!" said Elizabeth, with flashing eyes, trembling with anxiety and excitement, and still examining the two drawings. "Ah, you are an accomplished artist, Lestocq, you have designed this picture with a horrible truth of resemblance. How Istand there! how I wring my hands, the pale lips opened for a cry of terror, and yet silenced by a view of those dreadful shears before whose deadly operations my hair falls to the earth, and that veil entombs me while yet living!"And casting away the drawings, the princess trod them under foot, declaring in a loud and imperious tone: "These drawings are false, Lestocq, and that will I prove to you--I, the Empress Elizabeth!""All hail, my empress!" cried Lestocq, throwing himself at her feet and kissing the hem of her robe; "blessings upon you, for you have now rescued me from the hands of the executioner! You have saved my life, in return for which I will this day place an imperial crown upon your heavenly brows.""This day?" asked Elizabeth, with a shudder.
"Yes, it must be done this very night! We must improve the moment, for only the moment is ours. Every hour of delay but brings us nearer to our destruction. Yet one night of hesitation, and they will already have rendered our success impossible. Ah, the Regent Anna has sworn to believe only you, and never to doubt you, and yet she has ordered three battalions of the guards to march early in the morning to join the army in Viborg. Our friends and confidants are in these three battalions. Judge, then, how very much Anna Leopoldowna confides in you!""Ah, if it be really so," said Elizabeth, "then can I no longer have any regard for her. Anna will remove my friends from here, and that is a betrayal of the friendship she has sworn for me. I have therefore no further obligations toward her! I am free to act as I think best.
