For some time he treated her with cold neglect, but by
degrees he became more brutal in his behaviour, until one day, when she
offended him in some trifling respect, he dealt her an inhuman blow
which stretched her, apparently lifeless, at his feet. Well pleased at
being delivered so easily from what he only regarded as a hateful
burden, he gave orders that she should be buried with all due pomp, and
hastened away to another part of the kingdom.
But when her ladies of honour came to raise the unhappy princess, they
found that she still breathed. Under the devoted attention of the
Countess of Konigsmark, who had always been her confidential attendant,
she slowly won her way back to life, and this while her funeral
obsequies were being celebrated with the greatest pomp throughout the
length and breadth of Russia, while the principal courts of Europe were
mourning her premature decease, and while her unnatural husband was
drowning the remembrance of his horrible crime in revelries and
excesses of all kinds. None knew that she was still alive but the
Countess of Konigsmark and one or two other of her most devoted
adherents.
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