Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/240

212 work with her as usual; and as they did not find her in the apartments, they waited. One hour passed; the Great Sovereign did not appear. Zatharia, her valet de chambre and confidant, thinking that she had gone to the Hermitage, her garden, went to look for her among those magic bowers, where, though the thermometer stood at 30 degrees below zero out of doors, the orange tree, jasmine, and tuberose intertwined their flowers, and embalmed the air with the sweetest fragrance. He did not find her there; uneasy, distressed, he sought her in all the apartments, and, at last, opened the door of the commodités. He uttered a cry,—the ministers rushed forward. The immortal Catherine, the mistress of one-third of the inhabited globe, had fallen on one side in her chaise percée, her garments in the greatest disorder, and scarcely affording a decent concealment from the gaze of the astonished spectators. They removed her to bed; she opened her eyes for a moment, but did not speak, being utterly insensible. Soon every assistance of art became useless;