to give the appearance of stone, with windows, porches, and gables of many shapes and bright colors. Nevertheless, because they were built in haste, they were often uncomfortable; doors and windows did not shut, stairs wobbled, sometimes whole buildings swayed.
Worst of all was the scourge of fire. Through the icy Russian winters, palaces and houses alike were heated by tall tile stoves standing in the corners of the rooms, rising from floor to ceiling. Often the stoves were old, the tiles had cracked, rooms filled with smoke, the air became unbreathable, and headaches and swollen red eyes afflicted everyone. Sometimes sparks popped through the cracks and alighted on the wooden walls behind. In winter, which lasted for many months, with primitive stoves blazing in every house, a spark could create an inferno. Caught by the wind, flames from one burning house leaped from the roof to the next, reducing entire streets to ashes. To Muscovites the sight of a burning house with firemen struggling to localize the fire by hastily tearing down other buildings in its path was part of daily life. “No one had ever seen more fires in Moscow than in 1753 and 1754,” Catherine wrote. “More than once from the windows of my apartment, I saw two, three, four and five fires at a time burning in different parts of the city.”
On a November afternoon in 1753, Catherine and Madame Choglokova were together in the Golovin Palace when they heard shouting. The building, constructed entirely of wood, was on fire. It was already too late to save the huge structure. Catherine, hurrying to her room, saw that the stairway in the corner of the grand reception hall was already in flames. In her own apartment, she found a crowd of soldiers and servants carrying and dragging away furniture. She and Madame Choglokova could not help. Retreating to the street, deep in mud from heavy rain, they found the carriage of the choirmaster, who was coming to attend one of Peter’s concerts. Both women scrambled into his carriage. They sat and watched the fire until the heat became too great and the carriage was forced to move. Before leaving, however, Catherine saw an extraordinary sight: “An astonishing number of rats and mice were coming down the staircase in a single, orderly line without even appearing to hurry.” Eventually, Choglokov arrived and told them that the empress had ordered the young couple to move into his house. It was “a terrible place.” Catherine said, “There was no furniture, the wind blew through it on all sides, the windows and doors were half rotten, the floor was split open with cracks, and there were vermin everywhere. Even so, we were better off than the Choglokov children and servants who were living there when we arrived and were expelled to make room for us.”
The following day, their clothes and other belongings, collected from the mud where they had been sitting in front of the smoldering ruin of the palace, were brought to them. Catherine was overjoyed to find most of her small library delivered to her undamaged. What had affected Catherine most in the disaster was the thought of losing her books; she had just finished the fourth volume of Bayle’s
Peter also suffered a heavy—and embarrassing—loss in the fire. The grand duke’s apartment had been furnished with an abnormal number of large chests of drawers. As these were being carried out of the building, some of the drawers, unlocked or badly closed, had slid open and dumped their contents onto the floor. The chests contained nothing but bottles of wine and liquor. The cupboards had served as Peter’s private wine cellar.
When Catherine and Peter were moved to another of the empress’s palaces, Madame Choglokova, offering various excuses, remained with her children in her own house. The truth was that this mother of seven, famously virtuous and supposedly devoted to her husband, had fallen in love with Prince Peter Repnin. Her meetings with the prince were secret, but, feeling that she needed a discreet confidante, and that Catherine was the only person she could trust, she showed the grand duchess the letters she had received from her lover. When Nicholas Choglokov became suspicious and questioned Catherine, she pretended ignorance.
By February 1754, Catherine was pregnant for the third time. Not long after, on Easter Day, Nicholas Choglokov began suffering severe stomach pains. Nothing seemed to help. That week, Peter went riding, but Catherine remained at home, unwilling to risk the pregnancy. She was alone in her room when Choglokov sent for her and asked her to come see him. Stretched on his bed, he greeted her by unleashing a torrent of complaints against his wife. He said that she was involved in adultery with Prince Repnin, who, during Carnival, had tried to sneak into their house dressed as a clown. As he was about to provide more details, Maria Choglokova entered the room. Then, in Catherine’s presence, the husband heaped more blame on his wife, accusing her of adultery and of deserting him in his sickness. Maria Choglokova was anything but repentant. She told her husband that for years she had loved him too much; that she had suffered when he was unfaithful to her; that now neither he nor anyone else could reproach her. She concluded that he was not the spouse who should be complaining; it was she. In this argument, both husband and wife continually appealed to Catherine as a witness and judge. Catherine remained silent.
Choglokov’s illness grew worse. On April 21, the doctors declared him beyond hope of recovery. The empress had the sick man carried to his own house for fear he would die in the palace, which she considered bad luck. Catherine found herself surprisingly upset by Nicholas Choglokov’s condition. “He was dying just at a time when, after many years of trouble and pain, we had succeeded in making him not only less unkind and malicious, but even tractable. As for his wife, she was now sincerely attached to me, and she had changed from a harsh and spiteful guardian into a loyal friend.”
Choglokov died on the afternoon of April 25. During the last days of her husband’s illness, Maria Choglokova was also ill and confined to bed in another part of the house. Sergei Saltykov and Lev Naryshkin happened to be in her room at the moment of Choglokov’s death. The windows were open and a bird flew in and perched on a cornice opposite Madame Choglokova’s bed. She saw it and said, “I am certain that my husband has just died. Please send someone to find out.” Told that he was indeed dead, she declared that the bird had been her husband’s soul. People told her that it was an ordinary bird and that it had flown away. She remained convinced that her husband’s soul had come to find her.
28
The Birth of the Heir
ONCE HER HUSBAND was buried, Maria Choglokova wanted to resume her duties with Catherine. But the empress relieved her cousin of this assignment, telling her that it was improper for a new widow to appear so soon in public. Elizabeth then appointed Count Alexander Shuvalov, the uncle of her favorite, Ivan Shuvalov, to perform Nicholas Choglokov’s former role at the young court. At that time, Alexander Shuvalov was widely feared because of his position as chief of the tribunal for crimes against the state. It was this grim work, according to rumor, that had given him the convulsive movement that seized the entire right side of his face from the eye to the jaw whenever he was anxious or angry.
This was only the first planned change. Catherine heard that the empress planned to appoint Countess Rumyantseva to replace Maria Choglokova. Knowing that this woman disliked Sergei Saltykov, Catherine went to Alexander Shuvalov, the new watchdog, and told him that she did not want Countess Rumyantseva near her. In the past, she said, the countess had harmed her mother by criticizing Johanna to the empress; now she feared she would do the same to her. Shuvalov, not wishing to be responsible for any potential harm to the child Catherine was carrying, said that he would do what he could. He went to the empress and returned to say that Countess Rumyantseva would not become the new governess. Instead, the post was to be given to his own wife, Countess Shuvalova.
Neither Shuvalov was popular with the young court. Catherine described them as “ignorant, ignoble people.” Although the Shuvalovs were wealthy, their taste ran to the miserly; the countess was thin, short, and stiff;
