The Princess Tarakanova. G. P. Danilevskii
she ascended the throne she never played at games of chance again. She did not care very much for masquerade balls, only taking part in them on solemn occasions.
On her accession she found all legislation, all administration of justice in most frightful chaos, but reduced everything to order. “Of darkness she made light.” Justice could no longer be bought or sold.
She was never proud: to the meanest of her subjects always easy of access. Nor was she ever offended at hearing the unvarnished truth—witness her polemic with Von Viesing. She did not resent the most bitter criticism.
By an ukase she put down a most horrible institution called Slovo-i-diélo,[1] which somewhat resembled the Star Chamber. So strict had the laws been that people could be brought to the torture for having whispered at their own tables one to another; for not having drunk the health of the reigning Sovereign; for having scratched out the Imperial name and rewritten it; for having dropped money on which was stamped the Imperial effigy. Very differently from one of her predecessors, Anna Johannovna, she did not exact that her courtiers should be sitting on baskets in rows along the rooms through which she had to pass from the chapel to her own rooms, and cackle like hens. Nor used she to slap her courtiers’ faces. She built no ice palace to marry her jester and jestress in; she allowed none of her favourites to blacken with soot the faces of the proud old aristocracy, “to make an empress laugh.” She was the first to teach her subjects self-respect. She wrote an excellent moral tale for her grandson, in which, admonishing him to shun flatterers, she told him that to be invulnerable to slander, “Do no ill, and the bitterest traducer will stand before the world a convicted liar.” She abolished torture on reading the interrogation of Volhynski, a Russian boyar, brought to torture for supposed treason, and in her testament she willed that her descendants should read that piece of conviction to stifle in them any inclination to cruelty.
She was the first to divide the Russian Empire into provinces, and to give each province self-government. She opened the first national schools, cadet-corps, and two splendid half-school, half-convent-like institutions for the education of the daughters of the nobility. She promulgated an ukase allowing landlords to work the mines of gold and silver found on their own properties, which before had been strictly forbidden; and made all the rivers and seas free of access to every one—i.e., every one might sail on them, use them for mills, etc. She tried to encourage weaving, spinning and sewing, science and commerce, and gave permission to all her subjects to travel—then an unknown liberty. It is the boast of Russians that in her reign no beggars were to be found, owing, no doubt, to her humane laws regarding the serfs. Every landlord was compelled to keep on his estate, and to provide for, every serf, whether the serf were able to work or not. It would, in fact, take too long to enumerate all the numerous acts of clemency, justice, and wisdom of this wise, prudent, and far-seeing empress. If her frailty as a woman calls for the world’s censure, no one, on reading her history, can forbear bringing to her feet the tribute she so well deserves as an empress.
In the present translation I have tried to preserve, as far as possible, the quaintness and piquancy of the original Russian, but I fear that in thus endeavouring to produce a faithful copy of the author’s work I have often sacrificed elegant and correct English. Only those who know how terse and vigorous a language the Russian is will be able to appreciate the translator’s difficulties, which are greater than those of an author of a new work, so far as the mere writing of it is concerned. Whilst it is often impossible to adhere strictly to the author’s words without producing obscurities, the use of lengthy phrases and even whole sentences to express the full sense of the original, means, on the other hand, the annihilation of the author’s style. As a rule, translators of Russian works, in their endeavour to make their renderings readable, only succeed in producing a tale in common-place English, with a foreign plot, long drawn out, devoid of colour, and wearisome to read,—barely recognisable sometimes by those who are conversant with the original.
To assist those who are not familiar with Russia and Russian history, I have explained various references in the text by means of footnotes; and to excite a more lively interest in the characters, I have included portraits. The frontispiece is a reproduction of an engraving taken from a celebrated painting which embodies the popular legend concerning the Princess Tarakanova’s last hours.[2] The portraits of Orloff and Ekaterina are reproduced from old and rare engravings. Danilevski’s likeness is from a photograph taken some years ago.
In conclusion, conscious of many faults and oversights in a translation originally not intended for publication, I have to acknowledge that I am most indebted to Mr. F. Dillon Woon, of Wallington, England, for his kind aid and criticism, and to accord him my best thanks.
IDA DE MOUCHANOFF.
Pskov.
PRINCESS TARAKANOVA.
PART I.
DIARY OF LIEUTENANT KONSOV.
“There can be no doubt she is an adventuress.”—Letter of Ekaterina II.
CHAPTER I.
TEMPEST-TOSSED.
May, 1775: Atlantic Ocean,
Frigate Northern Eagle.
A storm has been raging for already three days. We have been so tossed about that it has been impossible to write. Our frigate, the Northern Eagle, is not far from Gibraltar. We have lost our rudder, and our sails are all torn, and now the current is carrying us south-eastwards. Where shall we land? what will become of us?
It is night; the wind has fallen, and the sea is calmer. I am writing in my cabin. All that I have time to write of what I have seen and undergone, I will place in a bottle, and cast it upon the waters; and you who may chance to find it I entreat, by all that is sacred, to send it to its address. Ah! all-powerful God, grant me powers of memory; enlighten my poor soul, so torn with doubt!
I am a sailor, Pavel Konsov, an officer in the navy of our most gracious Majesty, Empress of all the Russias, Ekaterina II. Five years ago, by the mercy of God, I succeeded in distinguishing myself at the famous battle of Chesma. All the world knows of our brave companions, Lieutenant Elien and Lieutenant Klokachov, who, on the night of the twenty-sixth of June, 1770, with four fire-ships and a few Grecian boats, hastily equipped, bravely advanced upon the Turkish fleet at Chesma, and rendered valuable assistance in its destruction. I, though so insignificant, had the good fortune, under cover of the fire-ships and the dark, to throw with my own hand, from our ship, January, the first fire-ball at the enemy. It was this fire-ball which, falling into and igniting the powder magazine, caused the explosion near the ship of the Turkish admiral from which the whole fleet took fire.
Next morning, of over a hundred formidable men-of-war, some of sixty and some of ninety guns, frigates, galliots, and galères,—not one remained! On the surface of the waters were visible only wreckage and numbers of dead bodies.
Our victory was sung in odes by the celebrated poet Heraskov, and several lines were dedicated to my humble self, until then unknown to the world. This poem was in every one’s mouth. The English in the Russian service—for instance, Mackenzie and Dugdale, who served on one of the fire-ships—took to themselves the credit for the greater part of the glory won at the battle of Chesma. But they did not really much surpass our own officers and men, who all distinguished