Straight ahead of her, the Empress could not miss the famous Winter Garden. This too was the biggest in Europe, for it was the same size again as the rest of a palace that covered 650,700 square feet. The huge glass hall was supported by columns in the form of palm-trees which contained warm water pipes. This was William Gould's chef d'oeuvre - an organized jungle of exotic plants, 'flowers, hyacinths and narcissuses, myrtles, orange trees in plenty' - where the walls were all mirrors that concealed more immense stoves.[103] Lamps and diamonds were hidden in mock bunches of grapes, clusters of pears and pineapples so that everything seemed alight. Silver and scarlet fishes swam in glass globes. The cupola was painted like the sky. Paths and little hillocks crisscrossed this arbour, leading to statues of goddesses. Its most striking effect was its 'infinite perspective', for Catherine could see straight through the brightness of the Colonnade Hall into the tropical lightness of the Winter Garden and, further, through its glass walls into the English Garden outside, where its 'sanded paths wind, hills rise up, valleys fall away, cuttings open groves, ponds sparkle',4 its follies and hills, still snow-covered, rolling all the way down to the Neva. The tropical forest and the snowy hills - which was real?
In the midst of the Winter Garden stood a temple to the Empress on a diamond-studded pyramid. At the feet of Shubin's statue of Catherine the Legislatrix, a placard from Potemkin read: 'To the Mother of the Motherland and my benefactress'.5 The Prince escorted Catherine to the left of the Colonnade Hall on to a raised dais, covered in Persian carpets, facing the garden. Out of the tropical gardens came two quadrilles, each of twenty-four children, 'the most beautiful in St Petersburg' according to Catherine, dressed in costumes of sky blue and pink, and covered from head to foot in 'all the jewels of the town and suburbs' - the boys in Spanish garb, the girls in Greek. Grand Duke Alexander, the future Emperor and vanquisher of Napoleon, danced a complicated ballet in the first quadrille, choreographed by Le Picq, the celebrated dancemaster. Grand Duke Constantine danced in the second. 'It's impossible', wrote Catherine afterwards, 'to see anything more gorgeous, more varied or more brilliant'. Then Le Picq himself danced a solo.
As darkness fell, Potemkin conducted the imperial family, followed by the entire party, into the Gobelins Room, where the tapestries told the story of Esther. In the midst of sofas and chairs stood a Potemkinian wonder: a life- sized gold elephant, covered in emeralds and rubies, with a clock concealed in its base, ridden by a blackamoor mahout in Persian silks who gave a signal at which curtains were raised to reveal a stage and amphitheatre with boxes. Two French comedies and a ballet were followed by a procession of all the peoples of the Empire, including captured Ottoman pashas from Ismail, in the Asiatic splendour of their national dress. While guests watched the show, servants in the other halls were lighting a further 140,000 lamps and 20,000 wax candles. When the Empress returned, the Colonnade Hall was bathed in a blaze of light.
The Prince took Catherine by the hand to the Winter Garden. When they stood before the statue in the temple, he again fell to his knees and thanked the Empress. She raised him to his feet and kissed him tenderly on the forehead: she thanked him for his deeds and devotion. Derzhavin's 'Ode' to Potemkin's victories was recited: 'Thunder of victory, ring! Brave Rus, rejoice!'6
Potemkin signalled the orchestra. The ball began at last. Catherine played cards with her daughter-in-law in the Gobelins Room, then went to rest. Just as he had apartments in her palaces, so Catherine had a bedroom in his. Their rooms here showed their cosy intimacy together. Both loved monumental palaces and tiny bedrooms: her bedroom was in Potemkin's wing and its ceiling was decorated with Classical symbols of voluptuousness, goats and shepherds. There was a secret door, concealed behind a rug hung on the wall, into Potemkin's anteroom, bedroom and study, so that they could enter each other's rooms. His bedroom was simple, snug and light, with walls of plain silk.[104] (Sometimes, when he was in residence, she is said to have stayed; she certainly held dinners there.)7
At midnight, Catherine returned for the supper in such high spirits that the forty-eight children returned to dance their quadrilles all over again. The Empress's table, placed where the orchestra in the amphitheatre had played, was covered in gold. Forty-eight magnates sat down around her. Fourteen tables surrounded hers. There were other tables and buffets in different halls. Each was illuminated by a ball of white and blue glass. On one table, a huge silver goblet stood between two more of the Duchess of Kingston's gargantuan vases. While waiters in Potemkin's livery served, the Prince stood behind the Empress's chair, looming over her like a diamond-glinting Cyclops, and served her himself until she insisted he sit down and join her. After dinner, there were more concerts and the ball began again. At 2 a.m., four hours after she usually left balls, the Empress rose to leave. The Prince of Taurida led her out as he had led her in.
In the vestibule, Serenissimus fell to his knees - the ritual submission of this scarlet-coated giant before his empress, in front of the great of the Empire and the cabinets of Europe. He had had her bedroom prepared if she wished to stay. It was unlikely, but he wanted to be able to offer it. She was too tired to stay any longer. The orchestra was primed with two different airs - one if the Empress stayed, and one if she left. If she was leaving, Potemkin had arranged to put his hand on his heart, and, when he did, the orchestra burst into the melancholic bars of a lover's lament, written, long before, by the Prince himself. 'The only thing that matters in the world', went the cantata, 'is you.' The magnificence of the ball, the sadness of the song and the sight of this unwieldy one-eyed giant on his knees touched Catherine. The partners felt old and had loved each other for a very long time. Both of them burst into tears. He kissed her hand again and again, and they sobbed together before she climbed into her carriage and drove away.8
This looked like a parting. It is often interpreted as a premonition of Potemkin's death. So much of this last stay in St Petersburg is distorted by hindsight.[105] But it was a most emotional night, the climax of their adventure together. Potemkin lingered among the debris of the party, touched by melancholy and nostalgia, almost in a trance.
When he came to say goodbye to one lady who knew him well - Countess Natalia Zakrevskaya - she noticed his air of sadness. Her heart went out to him. She knew him well enough to say: 'I don't know what will become of you. You are younger than the Sovereign. You'll outlive her: what will become of you then? You would never agree to be the second man.' Potemkin contemplated this dreamily: 'Don't worry. I'll die before the Sovereign. I'll die soon.' She never saw him again.9
'That fete was magnificent,' wrote Stedingk, who was there, 'and no other man could have given it.'10 But it had been irresponsibly extravagant - Potemkin supposedly spent between 150,000 and 500,000 roubles during those three months. Everyone knew that the Treasury was paying for the ball as it paid all his bills, but it was soon widely believed that, as Stedingk reported, 'this prodigality displeases the Empress'.
Catherine was so overexcited when she got home that night that she could not sleep. She got over her 'little headache' by writing to Grimm to rave about the 'fete superbe' with the enthusiasm of a young girl the morning after her debut. She even drew a map to show Grimm where she sat and told him how late she stayed: so much for her disapproval! Then she 'spun' Grimm the political purpose of what was clearly a joint Catherine-Potemkin production: 'There you are, Monsieur, that is how, in the midst of trouble and war and the menaces of dictators [she meant Frederick William of Prussia], we conduct ourselves in Petersburg.' There is no evidence that she grumbled about Potemkin's expenditure, colossal and excessive though it was, but she probably did. Like all of us, she may well have got a shock when she received the bill.