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"Your majesty," said Count Rasczinsky, laughing, "I am not in love, but I adore this child as my good angel. I can never do or think any thing bad in Natalie's presence. She is so pure and innocent that one casts down his eyes with shame before her, and when she glances at me with her large, deep, and yet so childish eyes, I could directly fall upon my knees and confess to her all my sins!"
No one was to enter it without a written order of the empress, and but few such written orders were given. Elizabeth, then, as it were to recompense herself for the trouble of signing the letter to the King of France, resolved to visit her daughter to-day with her husband. "Rasczinsky may precede and announce us," said she.
"On the part and by command of her illustrious majesty, the great Empress Catharine, I lay an attachment upon this house and all it contains. It is from this hour the sacred possession of her Russian majesty." "It is the exclusive property of the Count Paulo!" proudly responded Natalie. "It was the property of Count Paul Rasczinsky," said Stephano. "But convicted traitors have no property.
The work must succeed; I have pledged my word for it to the empress, and who can say that Alexis Orloff ever failed to redeem his word? This princess is mine! Count Paulo Rasczinsky is just now leaving Rome, and she has no one to protect her!" "But it is not yet to be said that she is already yours!" said Stephano, shrugging his shoulders.
The count lay stretched out upon the divan, playing with the knout, whose leathern thongs were still dripping with his servant's blood. "Let a courier take horse immediately, and give him the order countersigned by her imperial majesty for the arrest of Count Paulo Rasczinsky.
Before the villa stopped a foam-covered steed, from which dismounted a horseman, who knocked at the closed door. To the porter who looked out from a sliding window he showed the written order of Elizabeth for his admission. The porter opened the door, and with the loud cry, "Natalie, Natalie!" the Count Rasczinsky rushed into the hall of the house.
She remarked that he appeared to love her as a brother, that he constantly and fondly watched over her, and that he was never better pleased than when, as a child, he could jest and play with her. "Rasczinsky, we are about to ride out to the villa on a visit to Natalie!" she said, when the count entered. The count's eyes beamed with pleasure.
He had told her of her mother, the good Empress Elizabeth, who had made Russia so great and happy; he had explained to her how Count Paulo Rasczinsky had flown with her on the day of her mother's death, in order to preserve her from the pursuits of her mother's successor, the cunning and cruel Peter III., and to insure to her the realm at a later period.
Alexis Razumovsky stood by her bedside, weeping. Overcome, as it seemed, by his sorrow, another left the death-chamber of the empress, and rushed to his horse, standing ready in the court below! This other was Count Rasczinsky, the confidant of the empress. The bells rang in St. Petersburg, the cannon roared; there were both joy and sorrow in what the bells and cannon announced!
"He also swore to me that he would one day place an imperial crown upon my head, and elevate me to great power! I understood him as little as I understand you!" A slight scornful smile momentarily passed over Orloff's features. "Catharine has therefore rightly divined," thought he, "and her wise mind rightly understood this Rasczinsky.
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