Well, now, you are
regent, and I come to proffer my request!"
"It will make me happy, field-marshal, to discharge a small part of my
obligations toward you, by yielding to your demand. Ask quickly, that I
may the sooner give!" said Anna Leopoldowna, with an engaging smile.
"Make me the generalissimo of your forces!" responded Munnich in an
almost commanding tone.
A cloud gathered over the smiling features of the regent.
"Why must you ask precisely this--this one only favor which it is
no longer in my power to bestow?" she sadly said. "There are so many
offices, so many influential positions--ah, I could prove my gratitude
to you in so many ways! Ask for money, treasures, landed estates--all
these it is in my power to give. Why must you demand precisely that
which is no longer mine!"
Munnich stared at her with widely opened eyes, trembling lips, and
pallid cheeks. His head swam, and he thought he could not have rightly
heard.
"I hope this is only a misunderstanding!" he stammered. "I must have
heard wrong; it cannot be your intention to refuse me."
"Would to God it were yet in my power to gratify you!" sighed the
regent. "But I cannot give what is no longer mine! Why came you not a
few hours earlier, field-marshal? then it would have been yet possible
to comply with your request.
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