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There was no longer any hesitation or wavering in her, for she had come to a determined resolution, and with glowing cheeks and panting breast she hastened to the writing-table, in order to clothe it in words, and answer Feodor's note. "You remind me of my pledged word," she wrote. "I am ready to redeem it.
He spared the lad's mother, but shut her up in a convent. Dmitri was now out of the way, or, rather, he would have been if he had had an ordinary capacity for staying comfortably killed; and Boris redoubled his efforts to prepare the way for his own elevation to the throne, as Feodor's successor, when that prince should chance to let the sceptre fall from his grasp.
Matrena Petrovna spat violently also, looking with horror at her husband. "What is it? What has someone put in the vodka?" cried Feodor. "What has someone put in the vodka?" repeated Matrena Petrovna in a thick voice, her eyes almost starting from her head. The two young people threw themselves upon the unfortunates. Feodor's face had an expression of atrocious suffering.
What will your arms be for in the days left you to live, if you no longer wish to press me to your heart? Papa! Papa!" She laid her head on Feodor's knees. Her hair had come down and hung about her in a magnificent disorderly mass of black. "Look in my eyes! Look in my eyes! See how they love you, Batouchka! Batouchka! My dear Batouchka!" Then Feodor wept.
Therefore Feodor's presence was inconvenient to her; for at that time in the commencement of her reign, Catharine had still some modesty left, and the place of favorite had not yet become an official position at court, but only a public secret.
But suddenly her look clouded, and she sighed deeply. Feodor's brilliant Russian uniform pained her, and reminded her of the danger he might be incurring. He read her fear and anxiety in her countenance. "Do not be afraid, my sweet one," whispered he gently, drawing her into his arms. "No danger threatens us. My people are now masters of the town. Berlin has surrendered to the Russians.
A scream and a burst of laughter were heard. It was Elise who uttered the scream, and the colonel who greeted this unexpected turn with a merry laugh. But Gotzkowsky did not allow himself to be confused by one or the other. He laid his arm on Feodor's neck, and forced his countenance to assume a friendly expression. "Dear friend," said he, "you see it is vain any longer to deny it.
But, as she read in Feeder's darkened countenance the marks of ill-concealed anger and jealousy, she turned toward her lover with a rare, sweet smile. "Oh," said she, "there is nothing nobler, nothing more sacred and unselfish, than the love of a brother." Feodor's searching look seemed to penetrate into the inmost recesses of her heart.
The next to go was Feodor's infant son, and lastly in 1598 Feodor himself, succumbing to a mysterious illness, and leaving Boris a clear path to the throne. But he ascended it under the burden of his daughter's curse.
The tepid warmth, the perfume of a woman's boudoir, then, beyond, through two doors opening upon the dressing-room which lay between Matrena's chamber and Feodor's, the dim luster of a night-lamp showed the bed where was stretched the sleeping tyrant of Moscow. Ah, he was frightening to see, with the play of faint yellow light and diffused shadows upon him.
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