Great Catherine

by Erickson, Carolly, 1943-

  Though many women died under such punishment, the law did not view their husbands as guilty of any crime. Should a wife turn on her tormentor and kill him, however, the law was severe: a pit was dug in the earth and the guilty woman was buried in it, with only her head above ground, and left to die of thirst. Nor was this cruel punishment rare; one visitor to Russia in the early eighteenth century wrote that he often saw such burials and that the women he observed sometimes took seven or eight days to die. An even more common sight were women who had had their noses cut off for offending their husbands.

  To a young woman as strong-willed, intelligent and opinionated as Catherine, the thought of being subject to the callow Peter must have made her shudder. Yet her desire to please the empress was overwhelming, and it was Elizabeth's pleasure that Catherine marry Peter. Besides, if not Peter, some other man would one day claim mastery over her, unless she chose to live like the outlandish (though enticing) Countess of Bentinck, free of all conventions and viewed with horror by nearly everyone. And she could not, except in fantasy, envision that.

  Now that she was grand duchess Catherine was given her own household, with three chamberlains, three chamber gentlemen, three waiting maids and, as mistress of the household, Countess Maria Rumyantsev, once mistress of Peter the Great and a commanding personality. All but one of her menial servants were Russian, and among them was a girl only a year older than Catherine who quickly became a friend. Like Catherine herself the girl had extremely high spirits, and loved to have fun. The friendship was limited to giggles and horseplay and dumb show, since, as Catherine recalled later, she still knew very little Russian. But it was genuine enough, even without words, and it brought relief from the tensions of court life.

  Johanna, smarting and raw from the empress's rebuke and indignant over being reduced to insignificance in her daughter's entourage, attacked the innocent friendship between Catherine and the young Russian girl in an effort to reassert her importance. Johanna lectured Catherine on the unsuitability of showing special favor to her inferiors—something Catherine was prone to do— and insisted that she treat all her woman servants with the same degree of distant affability. Catherine protested, but in the end, chastened, she complied.

  Meanwhile Johanna, elated by her one small success, sought others. Having won over Catherine's chamber gentleman Count Zernichev, and relying on him to do her bidding, she insinuated herself into every small intrigue and ongoing quarrel in Catherine's establishment and where there was harmony, introduced discord. Slighted by many of the courtiers, she continued to find a haven with the Prince and Princess of Hesse-Homburg, and confined herself to their circle. Spiteful gossip said that she found more than a haven there. The princess's handsome brother Ivan Betsky was a frequent visitor to the Hesse-Homburg apartments, and Johanna was attracted to him. Ignoring the letters that arrived periodically from Zerbst, in which Christian August urged his wife to return home immediately, Johanna lingered at the imperial court, determined to stay on as long as she could, unwilling to leave before Catherine's wedding though it was clear that no one, apart from Catherine herself, the Hesse-Homburgs and probably Count Betsky, would mind a bit if she did.

  Summer had arrived with its long, hot days and warm scented nights. Elizabeth, as was her custom in warm weather, became a nomad, camping in the countryside and playing at peasant life. Her mother, Peter the Great's second wife, had been a Lithuanian peasant, radiant, flower-faced, buxom, and unaffected, to whom the pretenses and artificialities of court life were foreign. Elizabeth took after her, and was at her happiest when away from her palaces, exploring the sparsely populated hinterlands, living as she had in her childhood among the villagers who made up the vast majority of her subjects.

  And where the empress went, the court followed. Hundreds of carts, piled high with trunks, boxes and chests of clothing and provisions, trundled along freshly repaired roads to the vicinity of where the empress was staying. Thousands of weary, dust-covered servants clung to the carts or walked along behind them, coughing and wheezing and slapping at the thick black clouds of gnats that rose up from the dust and seemed to attack everything that lived. Elizabeth never traveled without her court and household, and she never left anything behind. Her enormous wardrobe (with four thousand fewer gowns than usual—they had been destroyed in a huge palace fire earlier in the year), her linens and plate and woven hangings, her icons and chapel furnishings, her dogs and hunting mounts and hairdressers all followed her, as did each member of the government and each household officer, no matter how menial.

  Like a swarm of locusts the migration of the courtiers spread itself out over the countryside, engulfing every available horse and cart in its path, devouring sheep and chickens by the thousands and commandeering every sackful of stored grain. Two thousand gallons of wine, beer and honey were needed each day to quench the thirst of the travelers, and uncounted thousands of pounds of meat and cheese, eggs and vegetables to satisfy their insatiable hunger. Provisioners rode ahead of the main columns of riders, stopping in each village to strip barns and granaries of their contents, leading away horses and seizing carts, all but stealing the unripened crops from the fields.

  The villagers endured these visitations without outward complaint, gaping open-mouthed at the parade of dignitaries and liveried retainers as they rode by in all their dusty splendor, dropping worshipfully to their knees or prostrating themselves when the empress came into distant view.

  To them the empress was a divinity, yet a divinity of a remarkable sort. She passed among them quite without hauteur, taking a kind and sincere interest in their crops and their children, talking to them knowledgeably about their fruit trees and their breeding stock. She liked to stride from cottage to cottage, impulsively entering one after another to sample the housewife's blinis and cabbage soup and pickled pork. She drank kvass with the men and went mushrooming with them, leaving them in no doubt as to how much she enjoyed their company and basking in their unabashed admiration.

  For in truth she preferred handsome, lowborn men to aristocrats, and she flaunted her opulent charms, gratified when she attracted gazes that were more than worshipful from her admiring subjects. Elizabeth was well aware that, should her passion for her morganatic husband Alexei Razumovsky wane, she could easily find a replacement for him. As she made her swift way through the villages, ordering cottages renovated and new ones built, instigating new agricultural ventures with a wave of her imperial wand, she kept an eye out for attractive men.

  For the first month of the summer the empress contented herself with her rural rambles, driving her troika at a reckless pace along the narrow roads, her head thrown back and her whip flicking over the lathered backs of her fleet horses, hunting wolves and hyenas, putting flowers and ribbons in her hair and dressing in peasant costume to join in the dancing at local festivals. Folk songs delighted her, she had her court musicians write them down and attempted to compose at least one herself.

  But when August came she put her hunting and dancing clothes aside and became a pilgrim. Without her customary finery, with boots covering her sturdy, fleshy legs she set out to walk to her favorite shrines, keeping a fast pace while an entourage of hundreds followed in her wake in case she should have need of a drink of water or a change of boots or a frugal meal. She walked for hours, covering seven or eight miles before halting to rest, eventually reaching a monastery where she would stay several days and make her devotions.

  The entire court did as the empress did, though most people did not follow her example to the extent of descending from their carriages to tramp the roads on foot. Towns offered hospitality— Serpukhov, Tula, Sefsk, Glukhov, Baturin, Negin. They stayed for three weeks at Kozelsk, where Razumovsky had a huge mansion, and there, Catherine recalled, they enjoyed constant music, balls and gambling for high stakes. The monasteries and convents at which the travelers halted sometimes put on entertainments, mounting ballets and comedies, mock battles and grand fishing scenes. After many hours of suc
h spectacles Elizabeth grew weary, and commanded the actors to quit the stage. Even so more entertainments followed: banquets and masquerade parties, magnificent albeit dangerous fireworks displays, expeditions to local landmarks and visits to churches.

  The summer's peregrinations gave Catherine the opportunity to see more of the country over which her husband would one day rule. Thick forests of birch and pine, so dense they seemed never to end; fields of yellow wheat and rye stretching to the horizon; fresh meadows, full of blooming daisies, lilac and cornflowers, their grasses tall and ready for harvest; cool lakes bordered by stands of sycamore and willow; marshy swamps, overgrown with brown reeds and waist-high sedge: all this she drank in, her eye caught by tiny deserted churches, farmsteads and millponds, villages whose wooden houses, black with age, leaned at crazy angles and huddled together as if for protection against the surrounding emptiness. The holy city of Kiev inspired her awe, with its splendid churches and whitewashed, slate-roofed monasteries, their golden cupolas shining in the warm sunlight, their well-watered gardens in full summer bloom.

  The vastness of Russia, and the vastness of the empress's entourage, dwarfed Catherine despite her newly acquired stature. She was but one among thousands in the great imperial household, one more mouth to feed, one more young body requiring shelter. That she was now grand duchess did not stop Peter from teasing her roughly about how he would have to keep her in line once they were married, nor did it stop Johanna's persistent incivilities and irritating moodiness. Johanna, who had not wanted to come along on the summer wanderings of the court because Ivan Betsky was not included, took out her irritation on her daughter, and on Peter, coming close to slapping him when he provoked her, and on the ladies in waiting, with whom she quarreled constantly.

  Riding in her carriage with the irascible Johanna, sharing a tent with her, and trying to keep peace between Johanna and Peter put Catherine under a constant strain. The empress, who had been keeping Catherine by her side and sending her costly presents each day, grew more distant, caught up in her hunting and her strenuous devotions. Elizabeth could not in any case protect Catherine from the rancor of those closest to her, she could only offer her own warmth and ebullience to counteract it. As the long summer's ramble drew to its end, and the first frost chilled the air, Catherine took her place in the huge procession returning to Moscow, feeling more keenly than ever that she was young, vulnerable, and alone.

  Chapter Six

  IN OCTOBER PETER TOOK TO HIS BED with a dry cough and pains in his side. His doctor watched him closely, and forbade him to exert himself, but his symptoms evoked no great concern as he had been ill many times before and this episode appeared to be no worse than the others. Catherine, perhaps relieved to be free of her fiance's teasing and rough play, sent him notes and went on happily without him.

  She had found new friends to replace the Russian girl Johanna had sent away. They were Praskovia and Anna Rumyantsev, daughters of her chief lady-in-waiting Maria Rumyantsev. Close to Catherine in age, the two girls shared Catherine's taste for energetic games and silliness, and in their company she was able to forget the worries that beset her and lose herself in boisterous pleasure. Maria Rumyantsev let the romping and dancing in Catherine's apartments go on, she thought it harmless enough. The empress, who continually told Catherine how pleased she was with her, how she loved her "almost more than Peter," did not inquire too closely into what went on in the grand duchess's apartments. Johanna, who only a few months earlier had stepped in to destroy the burgeoning friendship between her daughter and her young waiting maid, did not intervene this time, preoccupied as she was by her growing involvement with Count Betsky and housed at the Winter Palace in rooms distant from Catherine's.

  Night after night, when the balls and parties were over, Catherine went back to her rooms and invited Praskovia to sleep in her bedchamber—sometimes in her bed—"and then the whole night went in playing, dancing, and foolishness," she wrote in her memoirs, "sometimes we only went to bed toward morning, there was no end to our mischief."

  Weeks went by, and Peter developed chickenpox. Now alarm spread through the court, and fears for his safety. At the same time there were rumors of scandal. People were saying that Johanna's increasingly turbulent affair with Count Betsky had led to complications, and that she was pregnant. Whether or not Catherine believed these rumors, and whether or not she knew the actual truth about her mother, a cloud of dishonor hung over both Johanna and herself, and once again she had reason to be anxious about her situation. If Johanna disgraced the family, or if Peter should die, Catherine would be shipped back to Anhalt-Zerbst at the earliest opportunity.

  Winter closed in, another brilliant season of parties and entertainments preoccupied the court, with Catherine drawing admiration for her slender figure, smooth fair skin and long elegant neck. She spent and far exceeded the allowance the empress gave her on gowns and finery—along with expensive gifts for her friends— and, like the other courtiers, developed a consuming passion for French styles. When Peter at last began to improve and was able to join the others at evening gatherings, Catherine was greatly relieved. At the end of November they both appeared at a masquerade, Peter slightly wan-looking but clearly recovered, Catherine brimming with vitality and charm, wearing an expensive gown and looking happier than she had for months.

  But this interval of contentment was not to last. Several weeks later, as the court was migrating to Petersburg for Christmas, Peter again became unwell. Two hundred and fifty miles from Moscow the cortege halted while he rested, Dr. Boerhave hovering over him. His fever grew worse, he lay inert, hardly able to move, gripped by stomach pains. A day later skin eruptions appeared, the dreaded indicators of smallpox.

  At once Boerhave took extreme precautions. No one was to be allowed in the room with Peter except himself and a few expendable servants. Within hours Catherine and Johanna were in a sleigh on their way to Petersburg, where Catherine would be kept in seclusion, and in ignorance of Peter's condition. A messenger was sent to the empress, who was already in the capital, to inform her of the disastrous turn Peter's illness had taken. She came in haste to his bedside and insisted upon nursing him herself.

  The cold, dark Christmas season was made somber by the gravity of Peter's illness. Catherine, shut away for six weeks, applied her agile mind to the study of Russian and, with her tutor's help, produced several letters that were sent to the empress and that pleased her. Catherine had begun to understand and speak the language; now she learned, imperfectly, to write it. She saw few people other than her servants during January, as Johanna was kept away from her, even at meal times. The empress had given orders that Johanna be ignored and treated with coldness. Probably she hoped that Johanna would decide to return to Anhalt-Zerbst. But Johanna, as stubborn as she was angry, refused to be accommodating. She clung to her rights, as she saw them, determined to stay in Russia until her daughter was married, which would not be for many months. And in defiance of Elizabeth's severe chastisements, she continued to write to Emperor Frederick and to carry on ineffectual intrigues with Frederick's diplomats and others.

  Despite his history of chronic illness, Peter proved to have a hardy constitution. He survived his attack of smallpox, and at the end of January 1745 was back at court. Yet he was not himself: his face was misshapen and so swollen that his features were distorted. The marks of the pox made him repulsive, as did the huge wig he wore, his own hair having been shaved off.

  "He had become hideous," Catherine wrote in her memoirs. "My blood ran cold at the sight of him." This repulsive creature, his once good-looking face altered beyond recognition, was to be her bridegroom. He supped with her every night, and she, desperately eager to please, swallowed her revulsion and endured his company, but secretly she longed to run away, back to Germany, to someplace where she would not have to face the horrifying prospect of becoming his wife. The closer the date of the wedding came, the more she longed to forget all that had happened in Russia and go home.
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  In March Elizabeth declared that the wedding would take place in the first ten days of July. Catherine shuddered at the announcement. "I had a very great repugnance to hear the day named," she wrote in her memoirs, "and it did not please me at all to hear it spoken of." She had a presentiment of disaster, she felt more and more certain that she was about to make a very bad marriage. Yet she had too much pride to let anyone see her fears and thought of herself as an embattled heroine, steeling herself to endure what was to come. She knew that Peter did not love her, that at best he showed her a fitful brotherly affection and a qualified friendship, which was clearly to be maintained only at his suffrance; his broad flirting with the empress's maids of honor upset her and made her uneasy, but she knew that to complain about his behavior would be the height of folly, and would do no good besides.

  She hid her inner trepidation when in public, but among those closest to her, her maids o{ honor and personal servants, it was difficult to mask her qualms. She tried to dispel her fears by throwing herself into playing vigorous games and tiring herself out striding through the gardens of Peterhof, but her dark moods always returned. "The closer my wedding day came," she wrote looking back on these events many years later, "the more I became dejected, and often I began crying without knowing why." Her women were aware of her crying spells and tried to cheer her up, yet their efforts only lowered her spirits further. She feared that to give in to tears was a mark of weakness, and would lay her open to scorn.