“Well, yes,” tenderly responded she, “since there is no other means of rendering you again cheerful and happy, I must, indeed, consent to the fulfilment of your wishes, and not let my enemies quit the country if it be yet possible to retain them.”
“They have proceeded by slow marches, and can hardly now have arrived in Riga, where they are to rest several days,” said Lestocq. “There will consequently be time for a courier yet to reach them with your counter-order.”
“And he must be dispatched immediately!” said Alexis, pressing the hand of the empress to his lips. “In this hour will my kind and gracious empress sign the command for the arrest of Anna Leopoldowna, her husband, and her son!”
“Already another signature!” sighed Elizabeth. “How you annoy me with this eternal signing and countersigning! Will it, then, never have an end? I already begin to hate my name, because of being compelled so often to write it under your musty old documents. Why did the emperor, my dear deceased father, give me so long a name!—a shorter one would now relieve me of half my labor!”
But in spite of her lamentings, Elizabeth nevertheless, a quarter of an hour later, subscribed the order to arrest the regent, her husband, and son, and shut them up, preliminarily, in the citadel of Riga.
“So now I hope you will again be happy and cheerful,” said she, throwing away the pen, and with a tender glance at Razumovsky. “Come, look at me—I have done all you wished; let us now be gay and take our pleasure.”
And while Elizabeth was jesting and laughing with Alexis, Lestocq, taking the newly-signed order, hurried away to dispatch his courier.
At length they had reached the borders of this feared, pernicious Russian empire. They now needed no longer to tremble, no longer to fear at the slightest sound. Only a short quarter of an hour and the boundary will be passed and liberty secured!
They had made a halt at a small public house near the boundary. The horses were to be changed there, and there the soldiers of the escort were to get their last taste of Russian brandy before crossing the border.
Anna and her husband have remained in the sledge. She holds her son in her arms, she presses him to her bosom, full of exulting maternal joy: for he is now saved, this poor little emperor; Anna has now no longer to fear that her son will be torn from her—he is saved—he belongs to her; she can rejoice in his childish beauty, in the happy consciousness of safety.