The princess looked up with a dreamy smile. "Do I love him!" she then
murmured low. "Oh, my God, Thou knowest how truly, how glowingly my
heart clings to him. Thou knowest that of all the world I have never
loved any other man than him alone! And you, Julia, you who know every
emotion and palpitation of my heart, you yet ask me if I love him--when
he stood before me in all his proud manly beauty, with his conquering
glance, his heart-winning smile? Ah, my whole heart already then flew to
meet him. I revelled in the sight of him, I thought only of him, I spoke
to him in my thoughts, and my prayers, I loved only when I saw him; and
that happy, that never-to-be-forgotten day when he confessed his love,
when he lay at my feet and swore eternal truth to me--ah, why could I
not have died on that day? I was then so happy!"
"Poor Princess Anna," said Julia, sympathetically, "they soon grudged
you that happiness!"
"Yes," continued Anna with a bitter smile, "yes, the virtuous Empress
Anna blushed in the arms of her lover, Biron, at this aberration of
her sold and coupled niece. She found it very revolting that the poor
sixteen-year-old Anna Leopoldowna dared to have a heart of her own and
to feel a real love. They must therefore rob her of the only happiness
Heaven had vouchsafed her. Consequently, they wrote to Warsaw, asking,
nay, commanding the recall of the ambassador, and Lynar was compelled to
leave me."
"Ah, I well know how unhappy you were at that time," said Julia,
pressing the hand of the princess to her bosom; "how you wept, how you
wrung your hands--"
"And how I nowhere found mercy or commiseration," interposed Anna, with
bitterness, "neither on earth nor in heaven. I was and remained
deserted and solitary, and was compelled to marry this Prince Ulrich of
Brunswick, for whom I felt nothing but a chilling, mortal indifference.
But you must know, Julia, that when I stood with this man at the altar,
and was compelled to become his wife, I thought only of him I loved; I
vowed eternal love only to Lynar, and when the prince folded me in
his arms as his wife, then was my God gracious to me, and in a happy
deception it seemed to me that it was my lover who held me in his
arms--I thought only of him and breathed only his name, and loved
him, kissed him, and became his wife, although he was far, alas, so
immeasurably far from me! And when I felt a second self under my heart,
I then loved with redoubled warmth the distant one whom I had not seen
for years; and when Ivan was born, it seemed to me that the eyes of
my lover looked at me through his, and blessed my son whose spiritual
father he was! And, my child, what think you gave me the courage to
overthrow Biron and assume the regency? Ah, it was only that I might
have the power to recall Lynar to my side! I would and must be regent,
that I might demand the return of Lynar as ambassador from Warsaw. That
gave me courage and decision; that enabled me to overcome all timidity
and anxiety. I thought only of him, and when the end was attained, when
I was declared regent, the first exercise of my power was to recall
Lynar to Court. Julia, what a happy day was that when I saw him again!"