He threw his cloak open, and took a long and deep breath.
What was it, then, that so strangely excited Prince Stratimojeff, and shook his very bones as with an ague? It was the memory of former days; it was the painful and damning voice of Conscience which tormented him. What reason had he to inquire after Gotzkowsky the banker, and his daughter? How! Had the heart of Count Feodor von Brenda become so hardened, that when he returned to Berlin he should not long to hear of her whom he had once so shamefully betrayed?
It was indeed himself. Colonel Count Feodor von Brenda had become transformed into the Prince Stratimojeff. Four short years had passed, but what desolation had they not caused in his inner life!—four years of dissolute pleasure, of mad, enervating enjoyment; four bacchanalian years of sensual dissipation and extravagance; four years passed at the court of two Russian empresses! In these four years Elizabeth had died; and for a few days the unfortunate Peter III. had worn the imperial crown. But it had proved too heavy for him; and his great consort, Catharine, full of compassion and Russian humanity for him, had sought to lighten his load! Only, in her too great zeal, she had taken not only his crown, but his head, and changed his prison for a grave.
The Guards shouted for the new empress as they had done for the old. In the presence of their beautiful young sovereign they remembered with delight the graciousness of her predecessor, who, in the fulness of her kindness and power, had made princes of the subalterns, and great lords of the privates.
Why should not Catharine resemble Elizabeth in that respect, and show favor to the splendid soldiers of the Guards? She was merciful. She was a gracious mistress to all her subjects, but especially so to the handsome men of her empire. And the Count von Brenda was a very handsome man. He had been the favorite of Elizabeth, why should he not also be the favorite of Catharine? The former had treated him with motherly kindness, for she was old; but Catharine was young, and in her proud breast there beat an ardent heart—a heart that was so powerful and large, that it had room for more than one lover.
The young count had been for some short months the declared darling of the empress, and the whole world did homage to him, and looked upon it as a matter of course that Catharine should make him Prince Stratimojeff, and bestow on him not only orders and titles, but lands and thousands of slaves.
What a mad, intoxicating, joyous life was his! How all the world envied the handsome, rich prince, surrounded by the halo of imperial favor! But nevertheless a cloud lay always on his brow, and he plunged into the sea of pleasure like one ill of fever, who seeks something to cool the heat which is consuming him. He threw himself into the arms of dissipation, as the criminal condemned to execution, who in the intoxication of champagne revels away the last hours of life in order to banish the thought that Death stands behind him, reaching forth his hand to seize him.
Thus did the prince strive in the wild excitement of pleasure to kill thought and deaden his heart. But there would come quiet hours to remind him of the past, and, at times, in the middle of the night, he would start up from his couch, as if he had heard a scream, a single heart-piercing cry, which rang through his very soul.
But this scream existed only in his dreams, those dreams in which Elise's pale, sad face appeared, and made him tremble before her indignant and despairing grief. Near this light figure of his beloved appeared another pallid woman, whose sorrowful looks tortured him, and struck his soul with anguish. He thought he saw his wife, the late Countess Lodoiska von Sandomir, who, with weeping eyes, demanded of him her murdered happiness, her youth, her life.
She was dead; she had died of grief, for she had felt that the man for whom she had sacrificed every thing—her youth, her honor, and her duty—despised her, and could never forgive her for having cheated him into taking her for his wife. She died the victim of his contempt and hatred. Not suddenly, not as with a lightning-stroke, did his contempt kill, but slowly and steadily did it pierce her heart. She bore the torture for one desolate, disconsolate year, and then she died solitary and forsaken. No loving hand dried the death-sweat on her cold forehead; no pitying lips whispered words of love and hope to her; yet on her death-bed, her heart was still warm toward her husband, and even then she blessed him.