Tolstoy [antikvár]

1. Before Leo Tolstoy Napoleon and Alexander I might exchange sociable letters or recall their ambassadors, promise their peoples peace or plunge them into war, sacrifice thousands of soldiers at Eylau or embrace at Tilsit; but old Prince Nicholas Sergeyevich Volkonsky, who had been living in retirement on his family estate of Yasnaya Polyana since 1800, turned a deaf ear to the clamor of a world in which he no longer had a place. No one knew quite why he had suddenly withdrawn from public life. Some of the people who knew him best intimated that he had too much character to remain in the shadow of the throne: years before, he had refused to marry young Varenka Engelhardt, niece-and mistress-of Potemkin, the dreaded favorite of Catherine II, with the comment, "Whatever possessed him to imagine that I would marry his whore?" Yet, despite this arrogant retort, or perhaps because of it, the empress had favored him. Appointed captain in the Guards, he accompanied her to Mogilev to meet Joseph II of Austria. Then, rising swiftly through the ranks, he became ambassador extraordinary to the king of Prussia, commander of the Azov Musketeers, and finally general and military governor of Arkhangelsk, on the shores of the White Sea. This little-to-be-envied post in a glacial climate had been conferred upon him by Tsar Paul I, who succeeded Catherine the Great, but whether as a mark of special favor or disgrace it was impossible to tell. In any event, Prince Volkonsky wasted no time in coming to blows with his new sovereign, whose splenetic and capricious temperament had already terrified all Russia. When, after some trivial professional incident, he received a letter from the emperor omitting the traditional "I remain your benevolent sovereign" at the bottom of the page, he surmised that his career was at an end and, taking the initiative, quickly asked to be relieved of active duty.