But it was an unequal struggle in which these two women were
engaged, for Elizabeth had on her side the power and dominion, while
Catharine had only her youth, her beauty, and her tears!
Elizabeth hated Catharine because she dared to remain young and
handsome, while she, the empress, saw that she was growing old, and her
charms were withering; and Catharine hated Elizabeth because the latter
denied her a right which the empress daily claimed for herself--the
right to choose a lover, and to love him as long as he pleased her.
She hated Elizabeth because the latter surrounded her with spies
and watchers, and required of her a strict virtue, a never-violated
matrimonial fidelity--fidelity to the husband who so far derided and
insulted his wife as to demand that she should receive into her circle
and treat with respect and kindness his own mistress, the Countess
Woronzow--fidelity to this husband, who had never shown her any thing
but contempt and neglect, and who had no other way of entertaining her
than teaching her to march in military fashion, and stand as a sentinel
at his door!
Wounded in her inmost being and her feminine honor, tired of the eternal
pin-prickings with which Elizabeth tormented her, Catharine retreated
into her most retired apartment, there in quiet to reflect upon her
dishonorable greatness, and yearningly to dream of a splendid future.
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