“But these are only copies,” said I; “mere translations.”
“Oh, yes; but make your mind easy: the originals are in safe hands.… How would it be possible to carry such important documents about with me; the risk would be too great,” answered the Princess, turning her head a little from me. Then she moved to the other side of the room, where, in heavy gilt frames, hung two oil paintings: one a remarkably good copy of the portrait of the late Empress Elizabeth Petrowna, with a small crown upon her head; the other that of the Princess now standing before me.
“Do you see the likeness?” she said, looking at me.
“Well, yes, there is a likeness. I noticed it as soon as I came in,” I answered. “Allow me to ask how long ago that portrait was taken?”
“This very year, at Venice.… The celebrated Piacetti painted my intended bridegroom’s portrait, the Prince Radzivill’s, and begged to be allowed to paint mine at the same time.”
“Mysterious coincidence!” I exclaimed, with uncontrollable agitation; “we see things past all imagining. The dead rise out of their graves. There beyond the Volga the Emperor Peter III., buried in the face of all the nation;[12] here, unexpected, undivined, the daughter of the Empress Elizabeth.”
“Do not, if you please, confound me with Pougachoff,” answered the Princess, slightly reddening; “although he gives himself out as the Emperor, coins his money with the legend Redivivus et Ultor (the risen Avenger), still, as yet, he is only my lord-lieutenant in that part of the country.”
“How so?” I answered, quite astonished. “Then you also confess that he is an impostor?”
“Do not ask who he is,” mysteriously answered the Princess; “afterwards you shall learn all; the time has not yet come. He has already conquered many towns—Kasan, Orenburg, Saratov—and all the shores of the Volga. I know nothing of his past. Let God be his judge; but I—I am really and truly the daughter of the Empress Elizabeth, and cousin to the Emperor Peter III.”
“But who was your father?” I ventured to ask.