over me.” One evening, she could no longer control her feelings. Pleading a headache, she rose and left the room. In her bedroom, Madame Vladislavova, who had witnessed Peter’s behavior, told her that “everyone was shocked and disgusted that this little hunchback was preferred over me. With tears in my eyes, I replied, ‘What can I do?’ ” Madame Vladislavova criticized Peter for his bad taste in women and his treatment of Catherine. Her tirade, although uttered for Catherine’s benefit, made Catherine weep. She went to bed and had just fallen asleep when Peter arrived, drunk. He woke her and began to pour out a description of the qualities of his new favorite. Catherine, hoping to escape this slurred monologue, pretended to fall back asleep. Peter began to shout. When she gave no sign of listening, he clenched his fist and hit her hard, twice. Then he lay down beside her, turned his back to her, and fell asleep. In the morning, Peter had either forgotten or was ashamed of what he had done; he did not mention it. To avoid further trouble, Catherine pretended that nothing had happened.
As Lent approached, Peter and Madame Choglokova collided over taking a bath. Russian religious tradition required that in the first week of Lent, religious believers bathe in preparation for communion; for most of the population, public baths were communal and men and women bathed naked together. Catherine was prepared to bathe at the house of the Choglokovs, and the evening before she was to do so, Madame Choglokova came and told Peter that it would please the empress if he, too, would go to the baths. Peter, who disliked all Russian customs, especially bathing, refused. He had never been to a communal bath before, he said; further, the bath was a laughable ceremony to which he attached no importance. Madame Choglokova told him that he would be disobeying a command of Her Imperial Majesty. Peter declared that whether he went to the bath or not had nothing to do with the respect he owed the empress, and that he wondered how she, Madame Choglokova, dared say that kind of thing to him; he ought not be required to do what was repugnant to his nature and would be dangerous to his health. Madame Choglokova retorted that the empress would punish his disobedience. At this, Peter became angrier and said, “I would like to see what she can do to me. I am not a child any more.” Madame Choglokova threatened that the empress would send him to the fortress. Peter asked whether the governess was saying this on her own or in the name of the empress. Then, striding up and down the room, he said that he would never have believed that he, a Duke of Holstein, a sovereign prince, would be exposed to such shameful treatment; if the empress were not satisfied with him, she needed only to release him to go back to his own country. Madame Choglokova continued to shout, the two hurled insults back and forth, and, said Catherine, “both took leave of their senses.” Finally, Madame Choglokova departed, announcing that she was on her way to report this conversation to the empress, word for word.
The married couple did not know what happened next, but when Madame Choglokova returned, the subject of conversation had entirely changed. The governess now informed them that the empress, reverting to her primary grievance against them as a couple, was furious that they had produced no children and demanded to know who was to blame. To determine this, she was sending a midwife to examine Catherine and a doctor to examine Peter. Later, hearing this, Madame Vladislavova asked, “How can you be at fault for having no children when you are still a virgin? Her Majesty should hold her nephew responsible.”
In 1750, during the last week of Lent, Peter was in his room one afternoon, cracking an enormous coachman’s whip. He snapped it right and left with sweeping strokes, gleefully making his servants run from one corner of the room to another. Then, somehow, he managed to slash himself severely on the cheek. The cut extended down the left side of his face and was bleeding profusely. Peter was frightened, fearing that his bloody cheek would make it impossible for him to appear in public on Easter and that if the empress learned the cause, he would be punished. He rushed to Catherine for help.
Seeing his cheek, she gasped, “My God, what happened?” He told her. She thought for a moment and then said, “I’ll try to help you. First, go back to your room and try not let anyone see your cheek. I will come as soon as I have what I need. I hope no one will notice what has happened.” She remembered that a few years before, when she had fallen in the garden at Peterhof and badly scratched her cheek, Monsieur Guyon had covered the scratch with an ointment of white lead used for burns. It had worked effectively and she had continued appearing in public without anyone ever noticing. She sent for this salve and took it to her husband, where she treated his cheek so well that in the mirror he himself could see nothing.
The following day, as they took communion with the empress in the court chapel, a ray of sunlight happened to fall on Peter’s cheek. Monsieur Choglokov noticed and came up, saying to the grand duke, “Wipe your cheek. There is some ointment on it.” Quickly, as if in jest, Catherine said to Peter, “And I, who am your wife, forbid you to wipe it.” Then Peter turned to Choglokov and said, “You see how these women treat us. We dare not even wipe our faces when they do not like it.” Choglokov laughed, nodded, and walked away. Peter was grateful to Catherine for supplying the ointment and for her presence of mind in fending off Choglokov, who never learned what had happened.
25
Oysters and an Actor
ON EASTER SATURDAY, 1750, Catherine went to bed at five in the afternoon in order to be up for the traditional Orthodox service, which began later that night. Before she could fall asleep, Peter came running in and told her to get up and come to eat some fresh oysters that had just arrived from Holstein. It was a double pleasure for him: he loved oysters, and these had been sent to him from his native land. Catherine knew that if she did not get up, he would be offended and a quarrel would follow; she rose and went with him. She ate a dozen oysters and then was permitted to go back to bed while he remained, eating more oysters. Indeed, Catherine noted, Peter was pleased that she did not eat too many because this left more for him. Before midnight, she rose again, dressed, and went to the Easter Mass, but in the middle of the long choral service, she was seized with violent stomach cramps. She went back to bed and spent the first two days of Easter suffering from diarrhea, which was finally subdued with doses of rhubarb. Peter had not been affected.
The empress had also left the Easter Mass with a stomach ailment. Gossip ascribed her indisposition not to something she ate but to anxiety over having to maneuver among four different men: one was Alexis Razumovsky, another was Ivan Shuvalov, the third was a chorister named Kachenevski, and the fourth a newly promoted cadet named Beketov.
While the empress and court were away, Prince Yusupov, a senator and the chief of the Cadet Corps, had arranged that his cadets perform Russian and French plays. The lines were pronounced as badly as the scenes were acted and the plays were mangled. Nevertheless, on her return to St. Petersburg, the empress ordered these young men to perform at court. Costumes were made for them in her own favorite colors and then decorated with her own jewels. It was noticed that the leading man, a handsome youth of nineteen, was the best dressed and most adorned. Outside the theater, he was seen wearing diamond buckles, rings, watches, and elegant lace. This was Nikita Beketov.
Beketov’s career as an actor and in the Cadet Corps ended quickly. Count Razumovksy made him his adjutant, which gave the former cadet the army rank of captain. At this, the court concluded that if Razumovsky had taken Beketov under his protection, it was to counter the imperial interest being shown Ivan Shuvalov. No one at court was more disturbed by Beketov’s rise, however, than Catherine’s maid of honor, Princess Anna Gagarina, who was no longer young and was eager to marry. Although she was not beautiful, she was intelligent and possessed her own large property. Unfortunately, this was the second time her choice had fallen on a man who would subsequently be drawn into the close orbit of the empress. The first had been Ivan Shuvalov, who reportedly had been ready to marry Princess Gagarina when the empress intervened. Now the same thing appeared to be happening with Beketov.
The court waited to see whether Shuvalov or Beketov would triumph. Beketov was gaining, when, on impulse, he decided to invite the empress’s choir boys, whose voices he admired, to come to his house. He developed an affection for the boys, invited them often, and composed songs for them to sing. Some courtiers, knowing the empress’s strong dislike for affection between males, gave these proceedings a sexual interpretation. Beketov, walking with the boys in his garden, was unaware that he was incriminating himself. He went down with a severe
