Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

by Robert K. Massie

A young woman, the distressed eighteen-year-old betrothed of an imprisoned and wrongly condemned young officer caught up in the rebellion, is walking in the park. She happens to meet a plainly dressed, unaccompanied, middle-aged woman sitting on a bench. The older woman asks why she is upset. The young woman tells her story and says she hopes to find a way to beg for mercy from the empress. The questioner, who “seemed to be about forty,” has “a plump and rosy face … an expression of calm and dignity … blue eyes … a slight smile … and an indescribable charm.” She tells the anxious girl that she often goes to court and will pass her story along to the empress, encouraging her not to lose hope. Soon after, the young woman is summoned to the palace and taken to the empress’s dressing room, where she realizes that the woman she met in the park was Catherine herself. The young officer is pardoned and despair is transformed into joy.