Lovers tend to share the details of their health: Potemkin and Catherine shared theirs through their lives. ''Adieu monsieur,' she scribbled one morning before going out, 'how did you sleep? How is your fever? It would be so nice to sit and talk.'33 When his fever eased, she tempted him back. 'You will see a new routine,' she promised. 'At first I will receive you in my boudoir, I will make you sit down near the table and there you will be warm and so will not get a cold ... And we will start to read a book and I will let you go at half past ten.. Л34
When he was better, it was her turn to be ilclass="underline" 'I slept very well but not much; I've got a headache and pain in my chest. I don't know if I'll go out today. If I do go out, it's only because I love you more than you love me and I can prove it as 2+2=4.1 will go to see you. Not every person is so clever, so handsome, so lovely as you are.'35
Potemkin himself was a notorious hypochondriac. But even when he was ill he was always in a state of nervous tension, so that sometimes Catherine assumed the tyrannical tone of a brisk German matron to calm him down: 'Really, it is time to settle down to the right order of things. Be quiet and let me be quiet too. I tell you sincerely that I'm most sympathetic about your illness but I will not spoil you by words of tenderness.'36 When he really was sick: 'My beloved soul, precious and unique, I can find no words to express my love for you. Don't be upset about your diarrhoea - it will clean up the bowels well .. Л37 Bowels particularly resonate through the letters of that century.
When she herself came down with diarrhoea, she was concerned, like any woman would be, that her lover did not startle her in an undignified position. 'If you really must see me, send somebody to tell me; since six this morning I have had the most atrocious diarrhoea.' Besides she did not want to visit him down the icy Tsarskoe Selo corridor: 'I am sorry but passing through the non- heated corridor ... would only make my aches worse ... I'm sorry you're ill. Try to be quiet, my friend, that is the best cure.'3®
Catherine was thrilled to have found a partner who could be an equal of sorts: 'My darling, the time I spend with you is so happy. We pass four hours, boredom vanishes and I don't want to part from you. My dearest friend, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, you are so handsome, clever, jovial and funny; when I am with you I attach no importance to the world. I have never been so happy. Very often I want to keep my feelings from you but usually my heart just blabs out my passion.'39 But even in these early idyllic days of this great love Potemkin was already tormented by his contradictory appetites: a childish hunger for attention and love versus a wild yearning for freedom and independence.
Catherine's solution to the first problem was to spoil Potemkin day and night with her attention, which he sucked up, for he was quite as greedy for love as she was. The Empress of all the Russias could not humble herself enough before this proud Russian: 'My dear dove, my precious friend, I must write to you to keep my promise. Please know that I love you and this shouldn't surprise anyone. For you, one would do the impossible and so I'll be either your humble maid or your lowly servant or both at once.40 Potemkin constantly demanded more and more attention. He wanted to know she was always thinking about him. If not, he sulked.
'I never forget you,' she reassured 'her beloved friend' after one of his moods. 'As soon as I finished listening to reports, which took three hours, I wanted to send somebody to you, especially as it was not yet ten o'clock and I was afraid of waking you up before. As you see, your anger has no foundation ... Darling I love you like my soul.'41 If she was truly angry, she let him know it: 'Fool! I am not ordering you to do anything! Not deserving this coldness, I blame it on our deadly enemy, your spleen!'42 She indulged his moods, finding his passion somewhat flattering, and tried to understand his torments: 'You are talking nonsense, my darling. I love you and I'll love you for ever in spite of yourself.' Even more sweetly: 'Batinka, come to see me so that I can calm you with my endless caresses.'43 Her role is often to sooth this angry and frustrated man with her love.
Potemkin's moods were so changeable that the two played games with each other. 'Was there anything on that sheet?', she wrote, pretending not to have read one of his raging notes. 'Certainly reproaches, for Your Excellency has sulked all evening and I, brokenhearted, sought your caresses in vain ... The quarrel took place the day before yesterday when I tried in all sincerity to have it out with you about my plans that... could be very useful to you. Last night, I confess, I deliberately did not send anyone ... But when you had not arrived by nine o'clock I sent for news of your health. Then you turned up but with a sulky face. I pretended not to notice your bad mood which ended by really upsetting you ... Wait darling, let my wounded heart heal again, tenderness will return as soon as we grant each other an audience.'44
Perhaps it was after this that Potemkin sent her a blank piece of paper. The Empress was hurt yet somewhat amused and she rewarded him with an almost complete encyclopaedia of his nicknames: 'This is not April Fool's Day to send me a blank sheet. Probably ... you have done it not to spoil me too much. But ... I don't guess the meaning of your silence either. Yet I am full of tenderness for you, giaour,, Muscovite, Pugachev, golden cockerel, peacock, cat, pheasant, golden tiger, lion in the jungle.'45
Catherine concealed an obsessive emotional neediness - 'my cruel tenderness' - beneath her cool German temperament, which was enough to suffocate any man, let alone the impossibly restless Potemkin. Rewarded lavishly, rising fast, spoilt by the woman he loved, he was such a bundle of nerves, poetical melodrama and Slavic contrariness that he could never relax and just be happy: 'Calmness is for you a state your soul cannot bear.' He needed space to breathe. His restlessness attracted her, but she could not help finding it insulting: 'I came to wake you up and ... I see you are out. Now I understand this sleep of yours was just an excuse to get rid of me. In town, you spent hours with me ... whereas here I can only see you for short moments. Giaour, Cossack, Muscovite, you are always trying to avoid me! ... You can laugh about me but I do not laugh when I see you bored in my company .. Л46 But Potemkin was as manipulative as Catherine herself. Whether it was pride or restlessness that made him avoid her, he liked to let her know it. 'I'll never come to see you if you're avoiding me,'47 she wrote pathetically on one occasion. Potemkin's quicksilver mind was easily bored, though he never tired of Catherine's company. They had too much in common.
It was difficult for a traditional Russian like Potemkin, even one educated in the classics of the Enlightenment, to maintain an equal relationship with a woman not only more powerful but also so sexually independent. Potemkin's behaviour was selfishly indulgent but he was in a difficult situation with enormous pressures on him, politically and personally. That is why he tormented Catherine. He was obsessively jealous of other men, which was foolish given her absolute devotion to him. The role of official lover was not easy on a masterful man.
First he was jealous of Vassilchikov. Now Catherine gave him the satisfaction of negotiating the terms of departure - or pay-off for 'Iced Soup'. 'I am handing over the question of deciding to someone far cleverer than me ... I ask you to be moderate.' Her letter gives us a fascinating glimpse into her generosity: 'I will not give him more than two villages,' she informed Potemkin. 'I have given him money four times but I don't remember how much. I think it was 60,000 ...'. Potemkin along with his ex-host Yelagin arranged a most generous deal for Vassilchikov, though it was positively meagre compared to what was given to his successors. Vassilchikov, who had already left the Winter Palace to stay with his brother, now received a fully decorated mansion, 50,000 roubles for setting up house, 5,000 roubles a year pension, villages, tableware, linen and a twenty-place silver service, no doubt including bowls for frozen soup. Poor 'kept' Vassilchikov humiliatingly had to 'bow low' and thank Potemkin - but he had reason to be grateful.48 This was an early example of Potemkin's lack of personal or political vindictiveness. However, he remained tortured by the inherent humiliation of his own position: Catherine could dispense with him as she had dispensed with Iced Soup.