thrust in the
ribs, many invectives, many a gross, unseemly word; the empress saw all,
heard all, laughed at all, and said to Alexis: "These gentlemen are very
practical! Two thousand rubles are estimated by them at a higher rate
than the proudest title! I comprehend that a title is a nonsensical
thing, of which no real use can be made, but what beautiful dresses can
be bought with two thousand rubles! And that reminds me that you have
not yet told me how you like this dress of mine! You take so little
notice of my toilet, dearest, and yet it is only for you that I change
my dress seven or eight times a day; I would, every hour, please you
better and better."

"Oh, no dressing is necessary for that," tenderly responded Alexis; and
stooping, he whispered some words in her ear which pleased her well, and
made her laugh heartily.

Meanwhile the dicing continued. Blind luck scattered her gifts in the
strangest manner; under-officers of the palace attained to high titles,
and high officers with laughing faces won pipes of brandy; barons of the
body-guard made of men who but a few days before had been serfs, were
seen approaching the mirrors with vain coxcombry to see the effect of
orders just won by a cast of the dice, or with greedy avidity pocketing
the rubles which fortune had thrown to them!

It was a jovial and brilliant evening, and, in dismissing her friends,
Elizabeth promised them many repetitions of it.

And she kept her word. Frenzied merry-makings, pleasures and festivals
of the roughest sorts were now the principal occupation of the new
empress. The amusement of her court, the providing it with new festivals
and pleasures, she considered as the first and most important of her
imperial duties; and these alone she endeavored to fulfil.

But who composed her court, and of what elements did it consist?

Elizabeth found the presence of her serious official councillors very
tiresome, as they knew not how to make themselves agreeable; she found
the surrounding of herself with the respectable ladies of her court to
be very incommodious, as there might some day be found among them one
with a handsomer or more tasteful toilet than herself, or, indeed, one
who might dare to be of a finer type of beauty than she! She therefore
gladly avoided inviting the distinguished men of her court with
their wives, or the higher class of state officials. It was far more
convenient, far more agreeable, to surround herself with friv