Catherine the Great: A Private Life

1796, Tsarskoye Selo

The table is crowded again. Packets tied in ribbon, sealing wax, a knife for the quills, my spectacles, three notes not yet answered, and flowers that have gone stale in the warmth of the room but are left there because stale flowers still flatter a sovereign. Footsteps slow outside the door and then move on. That small hesitation tells more truth than most courtiers now dare. They are already thinking in the next tense. My body has begun to interrupt me without warning. There comes over me at times a heaviness in the chest, a confusion in the head, a moment’s refusal in the hand when I reach for a paper, and in such moments every drawer becomes dangerous. Paul waits in grievance. Alexander waits more quietly, which is not comfort. Secretaries sort, attendants observe, physicians murmur, and all of them know that whatever is not fixed now may be used against me the moment I cannot correct it.