Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - VI
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
epaulets, were everything to him in his youth. When
Nicholas became Tsar, from enthusiastic zeal for his
authority, he excluded his brother from every position
whatever, that was in the slightest degree influential;
and, from indignation at this, the latter on all occasions
expressed himself in bitter derision about his
surroundings, sneering at everything and everybody, with the
reckless irony of a discontented man.
It was to this man that in the last year of the life of
Alexander I. (1824) the young Princess of Würtemberg,
who on being received into the Greek Church took the
name Helena Pávlovna, was married. During the
twenty-five years of her married life, she was compelled
to suppress all her interests, and to be apparently
absorbed in court festivals, audiences, and tedious drives,
and dared to occupy herself with reading and music and
to enjoy the society of artists and scientists only during
the time which etiquette dealt out as sparingly as possible.
At the age of forty-five she was a widow, and seemingly
lived some years only for her daughter Katharina
Mikhailovna and the children whom the latter had from
her marriage with the somewhat bigoted re-actionist,
Duke George of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. At the death of
the Czar Nicholas, a new epoch was begun in her life,
and she opened her palace to everything intellectual to
be found in the different parties in St. Petersburg. The
leaders not only of the Slavophile, but of the liberal
party frequented her house. Conversation there was
spirited and without restraint. The mistress of the
house was still handsome, and she liked to see
fine-looking men about her. Her household contained only
handsome men, among them Abaza, afterwards Minister
of Finance. She also patronized the distinguished
vocalist, who afterwards became the wife of the latter,
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>