“Well!” asked Ekaterina, looking up from some papers she had been glancing at.
“Incredible.—So much slander! It’s difficult to give an opinion.”
“To me, it’s all clear,” said Ekaterina. “Just a second edition of the Marquis Pougachoff; and you must agree, prince, with me, that it is impossible to have any pity for this ‘victim,’ if you like, ‘of foreign intrigues.’”
Galitzin received another order. He was to put down the impudence of the adventuress, especially, as in the words of the English ambassador, “she was no princess, but the daughter of an innkeeper of Prague.”
The information of the ambassador regarding her was told to the Princess, at which she was very indignant.
“If I only knew who slandered me thus,” she exclaimed furiously, “I would scratch his eyes out.”
“Good God! what can all this mean?” she would cry out, horrified at her position. “I so ardently, so blindly believed in myself, in my mission. Can it be that they are right? Is it possible that under the load of these horrible proofs which are constantly cropping up, I shall have to bid adieu to all my convictions, to all my hopes? Never, that shall never be. I will rise above all; I will never give in!” That her pride might be taken down, the captive was treated much more severely. She was deprived for some time of the services of her maid, and of many other little comforts. Her food was much more simple, almost coarse; but all in vain. Neither prayers, nor threats to take away from her her own garments and furnish her with prison clothes could awaken any repentance in her, or extort from her the confession that she was an impostor and not a princess.
“I am not a pretender, do you hear?” she would scream in furious indignation to Galitzin. “You are a prince; I only a feeble woman.… In the name of the All-Merciful God, do not torment me; have pity upon me.”
The prince, forgetting his orders, would begin consoling her.
“I am pregnant,” inadvertently said the captive, crying. “I shall perish, but not alone.… Send me where you like—to the Eskimos, to the snows of Siberia, to a convent.… No, on my word of honour, I’m innocent.…”