The Daughter of an Empress | Page 4

these
evil-doers. I will live, that I may constantly think of you, and in every
hour of the day address to God my prayers for vengeance and
retribution!"
"Live and pray for our fatherland!" said Ivan.
"No," she angrily cried, "rather let God's curse rest upon this Russia,
which delivers over its noblest men to the executioner, and raises its
ignoblest women to the throne. No blessing for Russia, which is cursed
in all generations and for all time--no blessing for Russia, whose
bloodthirsty czarina permits the slaughter of the noble Ivan and his
brothers!"
"Ah," said Ivan, "how beautiful you are now--how flash your eyes, and
how radiantly glow your cheeks! Would that my executioner were now
come, that he might see in you the heroine, Natalie, and not the
sorrow-stricken woman!"
"Ah, your prayer is granted; hear you not the rattling of the bolts, the
roll of the drum? They are coming, Ivan, they are coming!"
"Farewell, Natalie--farewell, forever!"
And, mutually embracing, they took one last, long kiss, but wept not.
"Hear me, Natalie! when they bind me upon the wheel, weep not. Be
resolute, my wife, and pray that their torments may not render me weak,
and that no cry may escape my lips!"
"I will pray, Ivan."
In half an hour all was over. The noble and virtuous Count Ivan
Dolgorucki had been broken upon the wheel, and three of his brothers
beheaded, and for what?--Because Count Munnich, fearing that the

noble and respected brothers Dolgorucki might dispossess him of his
usurped power, had persuaded the Czarina Anna that they were plotting
her overthrow for the purpose of raising Katharina Ivanovna to the
imperial throne. No proof or conviction was required; Munnich had
said it, and that sufficed; the Dolgoruckis were annihilated!
But Natalie Dolgorucki still lived, and from the bloody scene of her
husband's execution she repaired to Kiew. There would she live in the
cloister of the Penitents, preserving the memory of the being she loved,
and imploring the vengeance of Heaven upon his murderers!
It was in the twilight of a clear summer night when Natalie reached the
cloister in which she was on the next day to take the vows and
exchange her ordinary dress for the robe of hair-cloth and the nun's
veil.
Foaming rushed the Dnieper within its steep banks, hissing broke the
waves upon the gigantic boulders, and in the air was heard the sound as
of howling thunder and a roaring storm.
"I will take my leave of nature and of the world," murmured Natalie,
motioning her attendants to remain at a distance, and with firm feet
climbing the steep rocky bank of the rushing Dnieper. Upon their knees
her servants prayed below, glancing up to the rock upon which they
saw the tall form of their mistress in the moonlight, which surrounded
it with a halo; the stars laid a radiant crown upon her pure brow, and
her locks, floating in the wind, resembled wings; to her servants she
seemed an angel borne upon air and light and love upward to her
heavenly home! Natalie stood there tranquil and tearless. The
thoughtful glances of her large eyes swept over the whole surrounding
region. She took leave of the world, of the trees and flowers, of the
heavens and the earth. Below, at her feet, lay the cloister, and Natalie,
stretching forth her arms toward it, exclaimed: "That is my grave!
Happy, blessed Ivan, thou diedst ere being coffined; but I shall be
coffined while yet alive! I stand here by thy tomb, mine Ivan. They
have bedded thy noble form in the cold waves of the Dnieper, whose
rushing and roaring was thy funeral knell, mine Ivan! I shall dwell by
thy grave, and in the deathlike stillness of my cell shall hear the tones
of the solemn hymn with which the impetuous stream will rock thee to
thine eternal rest! Receive, then, ye sacred waves of the Dnieper,
receive thou, mine Ivan, in thy cold grave, thy wife's vow of fidelity to

thee. Again will I espouse thee--in life as in death, am I thine!"
And drawing from her finger the wedding-ring which her beloved
husband had once placed upon it, she threw it into the foaming waves.
Bending down, she saw the ring sinking in the waters and murmured: "I
greet thee, Ivan, I greet thee! Take my ring--forever am I thine!"
Then, rising proudly up, and stretching forth her arms toward heaven,
she exclaimed aloud: "I now go to pray that God may send thee
vengeance. Woe to Russia, woe!" and the stream with its boisterous
waves howled and thundered after her the words: "Woe to Russia,
woe!"

COUNT MUNNICH
The Empress Anna was dead, and--an unheard-of case in Russian
imperial history--she had even died