October 1805
Before the mirror, Anna adjusted the amber combs in her upswept auburn hair.
“Anna!” Zofia called from below. “The carriage is waiting! What’s keeping you?”
“Coming!” Anna called, frowning at her reflection, then smoothing the folds of her slate blue gown. She pulled on a wrap and made for the stairs. Once inside the coach, she made her confession. “I wish you didn’t insist I come to the Potocki party, Zofia.”
“Oh, don’t be silly.”
“I’m not capable of being civil to the Prussian commandant. Prussia is no friend to Poland.”
“One has to be pragmatic, darling. All right, then, you don’t have to speak with General Kalkreuth. But it wouldn’t hurt. You may need a favor sometime, and he’s in charge of all of Warsaw.”
“I don’t care! You should have brought your friend Charlotte to this reception instead.”
“Charlotte! My God, no! She’s French! And she’d be sure to say the wrong thing and have us all arrested. She can be a rattlebrain at times.”
Anna laughed, settling back for the drive to the fashionable Wilanów district where Zofia’s friend Countess Anusia Potocka lived out the winter months with her husband Aleksandr and his parents. Anna had deferred to come along because Zofia had treated her with great warmth and generosity since she and Barbara had come to live in Warsaw. That was four years ago, she realized with a start. Four years! And in that time she had seen Jan only once. Once! Her heart and feelings—held at bay most of the time—began to stir at the thought.
Four years. Ten years of marriage in all. But so few days spent with Jan. Marriage was not what she had dreamed of, hoped and prayed for. A guest at her wedding had said that husband and wife are two windows, each letting light into a home, light that seamlessly blends, brightening and sanctifying the marriage. But for years now, there had been but one lone window. And every day the worry that Jan would be wounded or killed preyed upon her, the worry that a letter would arrive saying he would not be coming home at all.
She had received a letter from Jan a fortnight before. “Both Jan and Paweł are well and off on a new assignment,” she had told Zofia, who received fewer letters from Paweł these days. “Once a soldier,” Zofia clucked, “always a soldier,” failing to inquire as to the nature of the assignment. It had become her stock phrase, and its stinging effect on Anna never lost potency. Zofia seemed not to miss Paweł and did little commiserating with Anna on Jan’s absence.
Nonetheless, coming to Warsaw had been the right thing to do. Here Anna was able to see her sons more frequently and provide a life for her daughter that was more varied and rich. Barbara and Izabel had become like sisters. If only it had been like that for her and Zofia years before—
“What are you thinking about, Anna?”
“Me? I was thinking I should thank you—for bringing me to Warsaw.”
Zofia’s eyes fixed on Anna’s. “My judgments are not always so very wrong. Anusia is a Tyszkiewicz and niece to the former king, as you know. Look! We’re coming to their drive now. You should have seen her wedding, Ania! It was splendid. Did I tell you that a gypsy once predicted she would marry a Potocki? And who would have believed, she did! Now you are to enjoy yourself today!”
“Thank God you’re here at last, Zofia!” Lady Anusia Potocki called as Zofia and Anna alighted from the coach. “Hello, Anna! Come in, come in!”
The house was warm and alive with music, conversation, and delicious aromas. Anna had met the Countess Potocka on two or three occasions, but only now was introduced to her in-laws and her uncle, Prince Stanisław Poniatowski, namesake and nephew of the late king. She could see the resemblance—although the prince was much more masculine and handsome. His sister—Anusia’s aunt—Lady Constance Tyszkiewicz, arrived later.
Twenty guests were scattered about the huge reception hall, talking in little clusters. General Hans Kalkrueth sat ensconced in a cushioned high back chair, speaking in low tones with several other Prussian officials—sycophants—standing nearby. Anna thought he hardly seemed a military man. Were it not for a strong nose, his fleshy face and simple smile would remind one of an elderly aunt. Anna could not fathom why he and his companions had been invited. After all, Lady Anusia Potocka’s father had supported the Constitution, and the whole household favored a free Poland.
Seated in a chair at the east end of the room—opposite to the Prussians—was a man in Russian uniform. He seemed to be staring at Anna. “Who is that, Zofia?”
Zofia, not always one to lower her voice, did so. “That’s General Bennigsen.—one of the five assassins who murdered Tsar Paul.”
“Tsar Paul!” Anna blurted. The assassination of the Russian Tsar—rumored to have been at the hands of officers bribed by British agents—had shocked the continent in 1801.
“Shush! You’ll be heard.”
He had looked away, affording Anna closer observation. He had glittering, deep-set eyes and a protruding chin. His gray hair was drawn and tied at the back of his head. He seemed genteel enough. “It was a British-instigated assassination, wasn’t it?” Anna asked, holding her fan to her face.
“Yes, and he’ll talk freely of it, too, if you bring it up. The tsar fought off the five with more valor than they expected. As for Bennigsen, he’s quite proud of his part in the murder. Considers himself a modern Brutus. You know what they say,” Zofia intoned, giving a flick of her hand, “‘the doorstep of the palace is slippery.’ Our own Stanisław also learned that little lesson.”
Zofia’s comment was said in passing, but the proverb haunted Anna every time she thought of the Brotherhood’s scheme to make Tadeusz king.
The meal was delayed and delayed again. It soon became apparent that other guests were expected. “Who are we waiting for, Zofia?” Anna asked at last.
“Prince Adam Czartoryski.”
“Oh?”
“And a surprise visitor.”
“Who? Tell me!”
“You’ll see.” Zofia pulled one of her smug faces.
Anna didn’t have to wait long. Within half an hour, a young, handsome man in a shimmering Russian uniform, tightly tailored, entered the Potocki home, followed by Prince Czartoryski and others. Everyone’s obeisance to the Russian made it clear that he was no mere officer. He was Russia’s Tsar Aleksandr!
Anna felt a heat come into her face. Zofia had played her a dirty trick. Her cousin had certainly known that Anna would not have attended had she known the Russian Tsar was to be entertained. Despite the passage of years, her memories of Catherine and of Russians in Warsaw were still raw.
Anusia’s father-in-law, Count Stanisław Potocki, introduced the tsar to his guests, eventually directing him to where Anna and Zofia stood. Anna attempted to wipe her face of any emotion as she curtsied before him. Zofia smiled, her eyelids sinking seductively. “I am honored to meet you, Your Highness.”
Tsar Aleksandr’s own eyes widened slightly. He mumbled like a schoolboy and moved on.
At the earliest opportunity, Anna pulled Zofia aside. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you wouldn’t have come! Isn’t that so?”
“Yes. But it should have been my decision to make. I’m leaving now!”
Zofia grasped Anna by the arm. “You can’t, Anna!” she hissed. “Anusia has you seated at his table. It would be an insult.”
“And what was it when Catherine sent her legions down on Praga massacring everyone—and I might add, burning your home to the ground? Did that not rise to the level of insult?”
“It was, Anna. I agree. But one must think about today.”
“Just what’s going on here, Zofia?” Anna disengaged herself from her cousin. “The Prussian commandant—and now the Russian emperor—under the same roof?”
Zofia smiled. “Aleksandr is rather good looking, don’t you think?”
“Yes, in a doll-like sort of way. But what is he doing here?”
“It’s as I told you earlier, cousin. Pragmatism is the best course. You see, while we have Polish legions fighting with the French against a coalition of our longtime enemies, Adam Czartoryski has worked his way in at the Russian court. Aleksandr is said to be about to give us our country back—but with himself as King of Poland.”
Anna shrugged. “I’ve heard the rumors to that effect. The thought does not thrill me. Now that hardly explains Kalkreuth’s presence here.”
“It’s a precautionary measure on the part of the Prussians. They’re not allowing Aleksandr to pass through the city unescorted because they’re afraid the people would become too enthusiastic for the idea of him as king. They fear a coup. Kalkreuth and his detachment are here to see him safely through the Prussian cordon.”
“Is that what some of the Russians are snickering about?”
Zofia nodded. “Of course, the Prussians don’t think it’s too funny, what with this little enterprise coming at the same time as Napoléon’s threats from the west. But they need Aleksandr as an ally.”
The late afternoon meal commenced. To her amazement Anna was seated next to the tsar. He seemed irritated that too much room was left on either side of his place at the table, so he moved his armchair a pace to the right—next to Anna’s chair.
“I have no communicable diseases, my dear,” he said, “and I don’t bite.”
Anna affected a smile. It was enough to make her heart race with an ambivalent mixture of emotions. She held in her heart deep bitterness for Russia’s past treatment of Poland—and yet fought off a sense of awe at sitting next to the Tsar of all the Russias. His handsomeness and off-hand attitude were disarming. In fact, he seemed rather ordinary in speech and manner, with no sense of hubris about him. One could easily forget that he was an emperor. And he talked like a magpie—in stentorian tones because he himself had poor hearing.
Most of the talk was in French, a language Anna learned as a child and one widely used by the nobility across Europe. How odd it was that Poles, Prussians, and Russians sat at table, and their language in common was the same as that of a little French general who was moving—even at that moment—toward Poland and the East.
“Have you been to Russia?” the emperor asked, turning to Anna.
“I have not,” Anna said. “However, my husband’s estate was not so very far west of your borders, near Halicz. But it fell behind the Austrian cordon when Poland was carved up. The same fate befell my cousin’s estate.”
Anna saw Zofia—who sat directly across the table—wince at the boldness of the comment, but Aleksandr seemed not to take in the meaning, or chose not to.
“Have you no wish to travel the steppes?” the tsar asked.
“Should I?”
As the tsar rambled on in a litany of Russia’s strengths and sights, Anna glanced down the table and realized that General Bennigsen’s hooded eyes were fastened on her, a slight smile playing on his lips. She turned back to the tsar.
He made no mention of the plight of the Russian peasant, and Anna thought she might play devil’s advocate by bringing up the Polish proverb that people behave “in Russia as one must, in Poland as one will.” But then she realized that Zofia was still closely following her little tête-à-tête with the tsar. Almost as if her cousin could read her mind, Zofia tossed her a glance that cautioned her to be more affable.
The truth was, Anna could scarcely believe her own nerve. She could not help but wonder, though, if it was possible for Aleksandr to intercede with Austria on behalf of the lost estates. She remembered that before the meal Anusia’s mother-in-law had joked about asking the tsar outright for all of Poland back, then noting in a whisper that one didn’t ask for something a monarch had not already deigned to grant before the asking.
The tsar finally wearied of reciting Russia’s virtues without inciting more than a raised eyebrow from Anna. He fell silent and used his fork to put his mouth to better use. Soon another topic at the table took his attention.
During the course of the evening—to every patriot’s disappointment—Aleksandr only alluded in the vaguest way to his purpose regarding Poland. But in the reception room the after-supper wines prompted his bolder and flirtatious generals to ask the women what trifles in the way of fashions and perfumes they might wish from Paris, so presumptuous were they that their victories would one day soon take them to the heart of Napoléon’s power.
“Now, aren’t you glad you came?” Zofia asked on the return trip to Praga. “Remember, you’re the one who has always loved politics.”
Anna had been listening passively to the clattering of the wheels on the cobblestones. “I wish to know only those politics that pertain to my country.”
“Anna, I do appreciate your bringing up my estate at Halicz. What nerve—sometimes you surprise me.”
Anna shrugged. “Do you think it will come to pass—that Aleksandr will declare himself King of Poland?”
Zofia gave her characteristic flick of her wrist. “Not if Napoléon finds his way into Warsaw first. He undoubtedly has similar intentions.”
“Ah—so we will be a prize fish over which they’ll contend—the East and the West!” Anna spoke with a sharp edge. “Why can’t monarchs be content with what they have? Why must they always meddle with Poland?”
“It’s their way, I suspect.”
“What did you think of Aleksandr?” Anna asked.
Zofia smiled, then winced. “ He’s nice enough looking, but a bit too—too elegant—for my taste. And fidgety rather than frisky, if you know what I mean. I like a leader to be, well, more in command. He was kind enough to you, though.”
“Those who seem always kind may not be kind always.”
Zofia laughed. “Too true!—Now, Napoléon Bonaparte—there’s an emperor I want to meet.”
“Why is that?” Anna asked. “What intrigues you about him—his new title?”
Zofia shook her head. “His power, cousin,” she pronounced in a languishing drawl. “His power.”
Late into the night, Anna sat in a chair before a window that looked out on Piwna Street. The room had once been Paweł’s bedchamber. For the second time that night Anna took stock of the Warsaw years. At the time Zofia’s invitation to come live in Warsaw had been extended, Anna had inwardly laughed. The idea of once again living with her cousin seemed ludicrous. They were too much at odds.
But her mind had changed in a moment that very day as her carriage came into Sochaczew on the return trip to her estate. They were stopped by Prussian guards, and Anna found herself once again in Lord Doliński’s clock-filled office.
While he made no overt move toward her, something had changed in his demeanor. She sensed something had shifted in the balance of power, and she was learning to trust impulses of this kind. Did he doubt Jan would ever return? Did he no longer care if the Brotherhood got wind of any action taken against the mother of a possible candidate for the monarchy? Whatever it was, she drew in the scent of imminent danger, especially when he hinted he might send a carriage for her, as before.
It was in that room and at that moment that she made her decision to leave Sochaczew. The next day was spent in preparation. In the dead of night, she hurried Barbara and Katarzyna into the carriage where the sheep dog, placed there by Jacob, happily waited, tongue slobbering over each one entering.
Anna made certain that the driver knew what country roads to take so as to avoid the main district of Sochaczew. Emma offered to come along, maintaining her position as the children’s governess, but Anna would not hear of separating her from her husband, who had the estate to manage. At the last moment, Lutisha came huffing out of the house with a pitiful valise. “You’ll not leave me behind, Lady Anna. Please allow me. I’m old now but not without value. And I would die sooner in an empty house.” She was in her seventies now, her frame less corpulent and a bit bent, and although she moved slower, she seldom stopped moving. Anna nodded and motioned her forward, tears filling her eyes. She was family. Soon there were tears all around as the goodbyes were made, no one forecasting that four years would pass—and still no end in sight.