Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/257

courtiers already filled the apartments, when I saw all at once this crowd moving, separating left and right, and opening before a man wearing five ribbons and a miniature of the Empress in his button hole, set with large diamonds. This was Zubow, the widowed lover of Catherine II, rather a pretty than a handsome man, with large black eyes, but an exhausted and excessively worn out countenance. This creature, who crawled rather than walked, was nobody now; such is, however, the force of habit, that the crowd of courtiers still bowed before Zubow as at the time of his grandeur. He bent his steps to the large hall, where the body of the deceased was lying. Curiosity drew me thither, but, as I did not like the ceremony, and was not inclined to throw myself on my knees and kiss the hand of a corpse, I stopt at the door. Upon a state bed above a flight of twelve steps, lay the inanimate remains of her who, a few days ago, was the absolute sovereign of one-third of the world. She was dressed in a Russian velvet robe, trimmed with sables, and richly embroidered around with gold.