Catherine the Great

IN NOVEMBER, while the court was still in Moscow, Peter came down with measles and, since Catherine had never had the disease, all contact between the two was forbidden. During his illness, Catherine was told, Peter “was uncontrollable in his whims and passions.” Confined to his room and neglected by his tutors, he spent his time ordering his servants, dwarfs, and gentlemen-in-waiting to march and countermarch in parade ground drill around his bed. When, after six weeks of convalescence, Catherine saw him again, “he confided his childish pranks to me and it was not my business to restrain him; I let him do and say what he wished.” Peter was pleased by her attitude. He felt no romantic attraction for her, but she was his comrade and the only person to whom he dared speak freely.

Toward the end of December 1744, when Peter recovered from the measles, the empress decided that the court should leave Moscow and return to St. Petersburg. A heavy snowfall lay over the city, and the temperature was bitterly cold. Catherine and Johanna were to travel together with two ladies-in-waiting; Peter was in another sledge with Brümmer and a tutor. As the women were taking their seats, the empress, who was traveling separately, leaned in and tucked Catherine’s furs tightly around her; then, worried that these still might be insufficient against the cold, she wrapped her own magnificent ermine cloak over Catherine’s shoulders.

Four days later, between the towns of Tver and Novgorod, Catherine and Peter’s little procession halted for the night at the village of Khotilovo. That evening, Peter began to shiver; then he fainted and was put to bed. The next day, when Catherine and Johanna went to see him, Brümmer stopped them in the doorway. The grand duke, he said, had developed a high fever during the night, and spots—symptoms of smallpox—had appeared on his face. Johanna turned pale. Terrified of the disease that had killed her brother, she instantly pulled Catherine away from the door, ordered their sledge, and left immediately for St. Petersburg, leaving Peter to be cared for by Brümmer and the two ladies-in-waiting. A courier galloped ahead to inform the empress, who had already reached the capital. As soon as Elizabeth was told, she ordered her sledge and, with the horses under the lash, raced back toward Khotilovo. The two sledges, Catherine’s and Elizabeth’s, hurtling across the snow in opposite directions, met in the middle of the night on the road. They stopped and Johanna told Elizabeth what she knew. The empress listened, nodded, then gave the signal to proceed. As the horses pounded forward, Elizabeth stared into blackness—not just the blackness of the night outside, but also the blackness of the future of her dynasty if Peter should die.

But it was more than self-interest that drove the empress to behave as she did once she reached Khotilovo. On arriving, she seated herself by the patient’s bed and declared that she would care for her nephew herself. She was to remain at Peter’s side for six weeks, rarely lying down, hardly changing her clothes. Elizabeth, who had seemed to care for nothing as much as the preservation of her beauty, now took on all the menial duties of a sick nurse. Dismissing the risk of smallpox and consequent disfigurement, she hovered over the bed where her nephew lay. This was the same warm, maternal impulse that had compelled her to sit by Catherine’s bedside when the little German princess collapsed with pneumonia. While Peter slept, she sent couriers galloping with messages to the one person who, she believed, fully shared her affection and fears.

In St. Petersburg, Catherine waited anxiously for news. Could the grand duke, just recovered from measles, survive this more ominous disease? Catherine’s anxiety was genuine; although she found Peter childish and often irritating, she had accepted her fiancé. There was, of course, more to it than that; she was anxious for her own future. If Peter died, her life would change. Her position at court, all the honors heaped upon her, were bestowed on the wife of the future tsar. Already in St. Petersburg, certain courtiers, foreseeing the death of the grand duke, were turning away from her. Powerless to do anything else, she wrote respectful, affectionate letters to Elizabeth, asking about Peter’s health. The letters, in Russian, were drafted by her teacher, then copied by Catherine in her own hand into Russian. Elizabeth, who may or may not have known this, was touched.