From the windows of her palace Elizabeth had witnessed the preparations
for this pretended execution; and as she knew that at last their
punishment would be commuted, she was amused to see the solemn
earnestness and the death-shudder of the condemned. It was a very
entertaining hour that she and her friends passed at that window, and
the comical face of old Ostermann, the proud gravity of Count Munnich,
the folded hands and heaven-directed glances of Golopkin and Lowenwald,
had often made her laugh until the tears ran down her cheeks.
"That was a magnificent comedy!" said she, retreating from the window
when the condemned were released from their bands and raised into the
vehicles that were immediately to start with them for Siberia. "Yes, it
was, indeed, very amusing! But tell me, Lestocq, where are they about to
take old Count Ostermann?"
"To the most northerly part of Siberia!" calmly replied Lestocq.
"Poor old man!" signed Elizabeth; "it must be very sad for him thus to
pass his last years in suffering and deprivation."
Lestocq seemed not to have heard her remark, and laughingly continued:
"To Munnich I have thought to apply a jest of his own."
"Ah, a jest!" cried Elizabeth, suddenly brightening up. "Let me hear it.
You know I love a jest, it is so amusing! Quick, therefore, let us hear
it!"
"Perhaps your majesty may remember Biron, Duke of Courland," said
Lestocq. "Count Munnich, as you know, overthrew him, and placed Anna
Leopoldowna in the regency. Biron has ever since lived at Pelym in
Siberia, and, indeed, in a house of which Munnich himself drew the
plan, the rooms of which are so low that poor Biron, who is as tall as
Munnich, could never stand erect in them. The good Munnich, he was very
devoted to the duke, and hence in pure friendship invented this means of
reminding him, every hour in the day, of the architect of his house, his
friend Munnich!"
"Ah, you promised us a jest, and you are there repeating an old and
well-known story!" interposed the empress, yawning.
"Now comes the joke!" continued Lestocq. "We have transferred Biron to
another colony, and Herr Munnich will occupy the poetical pleasure-house
of his friend Biron at Pelym."
"Ah, that is delightful, in fact!" cried Elizabeth, clapping her little
hands. "How will Munnich curse himself for cruelty which now comes home
to himself! That is very witty in you, Herr Lestocq; very laughable, is
it not, Alexis? But, Alexis, you do not laugh at all; you look sad. What
is the matter with you? Who has disobliged, who has wounded you?"
Alexis sighed. "You yourself!" he said, in a low tone.
"I?" exclaimed the astonished empress. "I could not be so inhuman!"
"No, only to wound me by refusing the first request I addressed to you!"