Then the Princess Catherine began to realize she had no authority over her idolized son, and that she needed great prudence and skill to avoid what would have been the most trying of failures, for all her ambition was now centred in him—an ambition even more ardent than she had ever felt for herself.
Then sprang up the earnest desire of seeing his father’s wish realized—a wish expressed while George was still in his cradle.
The Count de Walden’s neighbor in Livonia was a brother in arms, a dear and intimate friend, named the Count de Liningen. Both noblemen of the highest rank in the province, wealthy, and possessing contiguous estates, they agreed to unite their children unless their wishes were opposed to it when old enough to fulfil the agreement.
Neither of the two friends lived long enough to catch even a glimpse of the dawn of that day. Three years after the birth of his son, the Count de Walden was no longer living, and before the young Vera, who was a year younger than George, reached her eleventh year, the death of her father, and, soon after, that of her mother, left her mistress of all their possessions. The young heiress was sent to St. Petersburg till she was of age, and there was reared in strict seclusion by one of her aunts, who long before had given up the world.
The Princess Catherine had always retained a respectful remembrance of the Count de Walden’s wish, which was renewed on his death-bed; but that wish assumed another aspect in her eyes when, towards the epoch of which we have been speaking, the young Vera suddenly emerged from her retirement and was presented at court. The sensation she produced, her immediate popularity, the place at once accorded her among the empress’ maids of honor, gave an éclat to her entrance into society which the princess deeply regretted George had not witnessed. But he had been absent several months from St. Petersburg, and was now visiting Paris for the first time. His mother neglected no opportunity of seeing the young maid of honor, and this was facilitated by the friendly relations that formerly existed between the two families. These relations were now renewed on both sides with an eagerness which seemed most favorable to the project formed during George’s and Vera’s infancy, though they had never met since that time. The princess’ impatience for her son’s return increased. Vera seemed formed to captivate him, and as to George, his mother could not be anxious as to the effect he would produce.
At last he returned, and everything indeed seemed to favor the princess’ plans. George was greatly struck, almost captivated. The lovely Vera was still more so. But the princess, in her ardor for this marriage, took the false step of speaking to her son with an anxiety that had precisely a contrary effect to that she wished to produce. George had not come from Paris quite disposed to relinquish his independence at once and bind himself for ever. He became cautious. The words Vera perhaps expected to hear died away on his lips, and changed into meaningless flattery. His mother, without abandoning her hopes, felt their realization must be deferred. But they were both young. With her penetration as a woman and a mother, she was sure she was not deceived as to the effect her son had produced. She thought she could trust to the durability of the sentiment he had inspired, and believed time would bring George back to the feet of her whom she destined for him; and she doubted this the less because, in one of their conversations on this subject, he acknowledged no woman had ever attracted him more strongly, and he almost promised his mother not to offer his hand to any one else.
In this way affairs remained. George returned to Paris, and thence to Italy, where his mother had decided to live. But meanwhile, as we know, Fleurange’s sudden appearance, and other influences we have caught a glimpse of, had gradually drawn his mind and heart in a very different direction from what his mother wished him to take. At his last visit to St. Petersburg, during which Fleurange became an inmate of the princess’ house, the latter had the double displeasure of learning her son avoided Vera, and that this coolness, so cutting to the young girl, was malevolently attributed by many to George’s political opinions. This greatly troubled his mother. Whoever knew Russia at that period is aware that the privation of its ruler’s favor was not regarded as a slight misfortune. If the insulting words of a former and not very remote epoch were no longer in force, “If the emperor no longer declared a man was only something when he was speaking to him, and as long as he was speaking to him,” many people at St. Petersburg acted as if he had so spoken; and the princess could not resign herself to see her son in the position of a man in disgrace. And yet his rash and imprudent language kept her constantly anxious on this point. It was therefore with something like a maternal instinct of approaching danger she ardently desired his marriage with Vera, which would give him the liberty of remaining at court or leaving it, and in the latter case of returning to Livonia under the safeguard of favor, and taking the position his rank and their united estates would entitle him—a position in which he could dispense with the favor of the court.
“Oh! why is it not so?” sometimes exclaimed the princess with mingled anguish and impatience. “Why is he not already sheltered from all I fear?”
And then, contrary to the suggestions of her prudence, she allowed herself to broach the subject to her son, which, in the interests of her design, it would have been better not to have done. She thus, in spite of herself, provoked a resistance, the real source of which, unsuspected by her, daily became more clear to himself.
We can now imagine the effect of the confidence George had been led to repose in the princess in a fit of capricious frankness. On the whole, he did not fear his mother; and though of course he had never subjected her condescension to such a trial, he was convinced, whatever repugnance she might at first manifest to his wishes, a little persistence on his part would triumph sooner or later.