I accommodate myself to her command, and obey now, that I may one day
command! But then woe to the wife this day forced upon me!"
And when the ceremony was ended, the new-married pair received with
smiling faces and radiant glances the congratulations of the court,
which in loud and ecstatic exclamations commended the love and happiness
of this young princely pair.
On the same day a second marriage was celebrated in this same imperial
palace, perhaps not so splendid, but certainly a happier one, for it
was love that united the two--love had overcome Elizabeth's aversion
to marriage, and decided her to raise her dear Alexis Razumovsky to the
position of her husband--love, and also a little superstition! As the
son born to Elizabeth some months previously had died soon after its
birth, and in this dispensation Elizabeth recognized the punishment of
heaven in disapproval of her connection with Alexis, she shudderingly,
remembered the words spoken by Eleonore Lapuschkin, and her heart was
filled with fear for the children which the future might bring her.
"I will destroy the curse which this Countess Lapuschkin has pronounced
against my children," thought Elizabeth, as she now for the second time
felt herself to be a mother.
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