The prince wanted to say something more, but could only sob. Tears were choking him. He merely nodded, and, pulling himself together as well as he could, he briskly walked out on the perron. Here he glanced at the dismal grey sky, covered with big heavy clouds. A whole flight of ravens was whirling round over the Ravelin. The iron leaves[48] of the roof, half torn away by the storm, were creaking dismally. The field-marshal drew his sable collar close round him, jumped into his carriage, and shouted, “Home!”
“God has had pity on her, poor thing; in past years, how often these small casemates have been flooded during the inundations. Yes, of course, it’s quite clear,” he went on musing. “The unfortunate girl has only been a toy in the hands of others. A usurper or not, who can tell? That’s just what I shall write to Her Imperial Highness—her death will not be on our heads.”
The carriage rolled along quickly over the newly-fallen snow, now passing carts loaded with wood or hay, now an elegant carriage, or a pedestrian feeling his way carefully through the pools and the snow,—those very same houses, churches, the same bridges, ensigns, that the prince had looked at for so many years, rushed past unnoticed by the now anxious and gloomy commander-in-chief of the northern capital. Then came the Police Department, at the Green Bridge over the Nevski, and at last the apartment of the field-marshal. His heart was very heavy.
“Well! and if, after all, she’s no pretender,” flashed through the mind of the prince, as he saw the Elizabeth Palace rising in the gloom, near the bridge on the Moïka, and a little farther on, on the Nevski, the Anitchkoff Hall, the residence of Razoumovski.
Galitzin remembered now all the late reign, the great of that time, his connections, his own youthful years, and the years and persons that time had carried away.
On the evening of 4th of December, 1775, the Princess Tarakanova, Dame d’Azow, Ali Emeté, and Princess Wladimirskaya, expired. No one was present at her last moments; she was found lying still, as though she had fallen asleep. Her dim open eyes were fixed on the image of the Saviour. On the next day the invalid watch of the garrison of the Petropavlovski fortress dug a grave, with the help of crow-bars[49] and spades, in the middle of the little yard in the Ravelin of Alexéef, under the shade of the lindens. And there, secretly from all, they buried the body of the unfortunate girl, filling the grave up with clods of frozen earth. The invalid watchman, Antipitch, on his own initiative, planted a birch tree over that grave. The servitors of the Princess, her maid Meshade, and secretary Charnomski, as the inquest now was terminated, were sent away to foreign parts, after having been sworn to secrecy.
Father Peter guessed at the death of the captive, from the tears and insinuations of the commandantsha, and said to himself, “Oh, God! Thou hast at last delivered the poor unfortunate captive from her burden, and given rest to her soul.” And, without any fuss or noise, went immediately to the church and celebrated a funeral mass, for the fallen asleep bond-slave of God, Elizabeth; and at the oblation, remembering her soul, cut a small piece from the consecrated loaf.
“For whom did you have that funeral mass?” asked Vâra of her uncle, noticing the loaf on the breakfast table.
“For that person you know of, that poor sufferer.”
“But who was she?”