like the Russian theater and that even talk of it upset him. This time, Peter would have another, more personal reason for not wishing her to go: he would not want to be deprived of the company of Elizabeth Vorontsova. If Catherine went to the theater, her maids of honor, including Elizabeth Vorontsova, would be obliged to accompany her. Aware of this, Catherine sent word to Count Alexander Shuvalov to order a carriage. Shuvalov promptly appeared to tell her that the grand duke opposed her plan to go to the theater. Catherine replied that, as she was excluded from her husband’s society, it could not matter to him whether she was alone in her room or sitting in her box at the theater. Shuvalov bowed and departed.
Moments later, Peter burst into Catherine’s room “in a fearful passion, screaming, accusing me of taking pleasure in enraging him, and saying that I had chosen to go to the theater because I knew he did not like this kind of play.” He shouted that he would forbid her having a carriage. She told him that if he did this, she would walk. Peter stamped out. As the hour of the performance approached, she sent to ask Count Shuvalov whether her carriage was ready. He came and repeated that the grand duke had forbidden any carriage being provided. Catherine replied that she would go on foot and that if her ladies and gentlemen were forbidden to accompany her, she would go alone. Furthermore, she said, she would write and complain to the empress.
“What will you say to her?” Shuvalov asked.
“I will tell her,” Catherine said, “that in order to arrange for my husband a rendezvous with my maids of honor, you have encouraged him to prevent me from going to the theater where I might have the pleasure of seeing Her Imperial Majesty. Moreover, I will beg her to send me home because I am weary of and disgusted by the role I am made to play here, alone and neglected in my room, hated by the grand duke and disliked by the empress. I do not want to be a burden to anyone any longer or to bring misfortune to whomever approaches me, especially my poor servants, many of whom have already been exiled because I have been good to them. I am going to write to Her Majesty this moment. And I will see whether you can avoid taking this letter to her.” It was a masterpiece of manipulative rhetoric.
Shuvalov left the room and Catherine began writing her letter. She began by thanking Elizabeth for all the kindnesses shown her since her arrival in Russia. She said that, unfortunately, events had proved that she had not deserved these favors because she had called down on herself not only the grand duke’s hatred but the displeasure of Her Imperial Majesty. Considering these failures, she begged the empress to put a quick end to her misery by sending her home to her family in whatever manner she judged appropriate. As for her children, she said that she never saw them, although they lived in the same building only a few yards away; therefore, it made little difference to her whether she was in the same place or hundreds of miles distant. She knew that the empress gave them better care than anything she could provide. She begged Elizabeth to continue this care, and, confident that the empress would do so, she said she would spend the rest of her life praying for the empress, the grand duke, her children, and all those who had done her both good and evil. Now, however, sorrow had so damaged her that she must concentrate on preserving her own life. For this reason, she begged Elizabeth for permission to go, first to take the waters somewhere so that she could recover her health, and then to go home to her family in Germany.
The letter written, Catherine summoned Count Shuvalov. He arrived and announced that her carriage was ready. She handed him her letter, and told him that he could tell the maids of honor who did not wish to accompany her to the theater that they were excused. Leaving her, Shuvalov told Peter that the grand duchess had said that he should decide which women should go with his wife and which should stay with him. As Catherine passed through the antechamber, she found Peter seated with Elizabeth Vorontsova, playing cards. Seeing his wife, Peter rose— something he had never done before—and Countess Vorontsova rose with him. Catherine responded with a curtsy and went to her carriage. That evening, the empress did not appear at the theater, but when Catherine returned home, Count Shuvalov told her that Elizabeth had agreed to grant her another interview.
Catherine’s behavior and her letter to the empress were a gamble. She did not want to leave Russia. She had invested sixteen years, more than half her life, all of her young womanhood, in her ambition to become “a queen.” She knew that her tactics were risky, but she believed they would succeed. She was convinced that if the Shuvalovs had any idea of actually sending her home, or of intimidating her by threatening banishment, her plea that she be allowed to leave was the best method of undermining their plan. Catherine knew that, for Elizabeth, the succession was all-important, and that with the young, deposed tsar Ivan VI still alive, the empress would not wish to see this issue reignited. Catherine also realized that the primary complaint against her was that her marriage had not been a success. She also knew that the empress fully shared her views of Peter. When talking or writing about her nephew privately, Elizabeth either burst into tears at the misfortune of having such an heir or showered him with contempt. After Elizabeth’s death, Catherine discovered among her papers two such comments in the empress’s hand; one addressed to Ivan Shuvalov, the other to Alexis Razumovsky. To the first, she had written, “Today, my damned nephew has greatly irritated me,” and to the other, “My nephew is a fool; the devil take him.”
In constructing her account of this tense, intricate situation, Catherine, as a much older woman, suspended her narrative of events to look at herself, her life, and her character. Whatever happened, she wrote, “I felt myself possessed of sufficient courage either to rise or fall without being carried away by undue pride on the one hand, or being humbled and dispirited on the other.” Her intentions, she told herself, had always been honest. Although she had understood from the beginning that to love a husband who was not lovable and who made no effort to become so was a difficult and probably impossible task, she believed that she had made a sincere effort to devote herself to him and his interests. Her advice had always been the best she could give. If, when she first came to Russia, Peter had been affectionate, she would have opened her heart to him. Now she saw that, among his whole entourage, she was the woman to whom he paid the least attention. She rejected this state of affairs:
My natural pride made the idea of being miserable intolerable to me. I used to say to myself that happiness and misery depend on ourselves. If you feel unhappy, rise above it and act so that your happiness may be independent of all outside events. I had been born with this disposition, and a face that was, at the very least, interesting, and which pleased at first sight without art or pretense. My disposition was naturally so conciliatory that no one ever spent a quarter of an hour with me without feeling perfectly at ease and talking to me as though they had known me for a long time. I easily won the confidence of those who had anything to do with me because everyone felt that I displayed honesty and goodwill. If I may be allowed to be frank, I would say about myself that I was a true gentleman with a mind more male than female, but, together with this, I was anything but masculine and, combined with the mind and character of a man, I possessed the attractions of a loveable woman. May I be pardoned for offering this candid expression of my feelings instead of trying to cover them a veil of false modesty.
This evaluation of her qualities—self-laudatory and self-justifying—led to a general commentary on the conflict between emotion and morality in the lives of human beings. It is a passionate statement—a personal confession, almost—and it brings to Catherine a sympathy and understanding that she is sometimes not given:
I have just said that I was attractive; consequently, half the road of temptation was already traveled, and it is only human in such situations that one should not stop half way. For to tempt and to be tempted are closely allied and, in spite of all the finest maxims of morality, whenever emotion has anything to do with the matter, one is already much further involved than one realizes. And I have still not learned how to prevent emotion being excited. Flight, perhaps, is the only remedy. But there are cases and circumstances, in which flight is impossible. For how can one escape, fly, or turn one’s back, in the middle of a court? Such an act itself would give rise to gossip. And if you do not run away, nothing is more difficult, in my opinion, than to escape from something that essentially attracts you. All statements made to the contrary will appear only a prudishness quite out of harmony with the natural instincts of the human heart. Besides, one cannot hold one’s heart in one’s hand, tightening or relaxing one’s grasp at will.
