“Calamity overtook usWhen Azov was lost to us.”
“Calamity overtook usWhen Azov was lost to us.”
“Calamity overtook us
When Azov was lost to us.”
The other depicted upon a sea of startling blue the god Neptune, a red-hued man astride a monster with green scales. He is made to brandish a harpoon and say:—
“We compliment you on the taking of Azov and tender you our submission.”
He admires the German scholar Vinnius, attired in Roman military dress, who is declaiming Russian verses by the aid of a tube, four yards long. In the ranks, side by side with the common soldiers’ walks a bombardier of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. He wears a dark green coat with red lapels and a three-cornered hat. He is taller than the rest,and is conspicuous from a distance. Alexis knows him to be his father, but his face is so youthful, almost child-like, that he seems in reality only an elder brother, a dear comrade, a little boy just like himself. It feels very stuffy in the carriage among the downy pillows and plump nurses. He longs to get out into the sunshine, and join that bright, curly-headed, quick-eyed boy.
The father sees his son, they smile at one another and Alexis’ heart beats with joy. The Tsar approaches the carriage doors, opens them, and takes his son almost by force from the grandmother’s arms, amid the exclamations of the nurses—he embraces and kisses him tenderly, more tenderly than a mother, then lifting him high in his hands, he shows him to the army and the people, and finally placing him on his shoulders, he bears him aloft above the regiments. At first quite near, then further and further away, across the sea of heads, like a peal of thunder rolled the joyful cry from thousands of voices:
“Vivat, vivat, vivat! Long live the Tsar and Tsarevitch!”
Alexis feels that they all look at him, that all love him. He feels frightened and yet happy. He holds tightly to his father’s neck, and nestles closer to him; his father carries him so carefully that there is no fear he will drop him. And it seems to him that his father’s movements are his, his father’s strength his too, and that he and his father are one. He is ready to laugh and cry, so joyful are the shouts of the people, the roar of cannon, the chiming of bells, the golden cupolas, the blue sky, and the sun. His head goes round and round, he is short of breath, he seems to fly straight up into the sky, towards the sun!
He sees his grandmother’s head leaning out of the carriage window, her kind old wrinkled face looks so droll and yet so dear to him. She beckons with her hand and calls out, beseeching almost in tears:
“Peter, Peter, dear, don’t tire Alexis!”
And again his nurses put him to bed, and cover him with a golden damask quilt, lined with the softest sable; they fondle and caress him and gently stroke his feet, to make him sleep the sweeter. They tuck him in securely against the slightest breeze. As one guards the apple of the eye, sothey watched over him, the Tsar’s own babe. He is secluded, like a fair maiden, behind the inevitable curtains which, when he goes to church, surround him on all sides so that no one should see the Tsarevitch, until he is “proclaimed,” according to an ancient custom, and after his proclamation people will flock from distant parts to have a look at him, as at some prodigy.
It is close in the low terem rooms; the doors, shutters, windows, stoppers, all are carefully nailed round with felt to exclude the least draught. The floor is also covered with felt for “warmth and quiet.” The glazed stoves are overheated. The air is saturated with spirit of yarrow and calamus, which is added to the fuel “for scent.” The daylight, penetrating through the slanting mica panes, changes to a yellow-amber. Little lamps glimmer everywhere before the images. Alexis feels languid, but at the same time happy and snug; he seems to be ever dozing and cannot wake. He dozes listening to the monotonous conversations about the ordering of a godly household: everything should be kept in its place, clean, swept, secured from all damage lest it might rot or go mouldy; everything should be kept locked up, and not open to theft or waste; the good should receive honour; and severity should be the lot of the evil doers; and how to be careful with the scraps, how to twine bast round split and dried fish, how to preserve different sorts of soaked mushrooms in tubs, and how to maintain an ardent faith in the undivided Trinity. He dozes while listening to the wailing sounds of stringed instruments played by blind bards who are chanting old legends, and to the narratives of old men whose tales had once amused his grandfather, Tsar Alexis Michailovitch. He slumbers—and the tales of pilgrims and mendicants bring him vivid visions, of Mount Athos, pointed like a fir-cone, on its summit above the clouds, stand the Holy Virgin spreading her cloak about it; of Simeon Stylites who allowed his body to rot till it was alive with worms; of the place where the earthly Paradise stood, which Moïsláv of Novgorod had seen afar off from his ship, and of many another divine wonder and diabolic suggestion. When he feels dull, by order of his grandmother all sorts of jesters, orphan girls, Kalmuck women, blackamoors dance before him, fight, roll on thefloor, pull at one another’s hair, and scratch one another. Or again his grandmother would take him on her lap, and begin to play with his fingers, touching them one after another, starting from the thumb, repeating the little nursery rhyme, “A magpie crow, having boiled some gruel, hopped to the door and invited his guests. She gave to this and she gave to that and none was left to feed the last.” And then she would tickle him, and he would laugh and try to shield himself. She overfeeds him with rich pancakes, onion patties, “levashnik,” sour apple fritters fried in nut oil, gruel boiled in poppyseed milk, white gruel, pears and burrels in syrup.
“Eat! Alexis, eat, it’s good for you, my treasure!”
And when Alexis suffered from stomach-ache a wise woman would be summoned, whose incantations were supposed to benefit the tender young. She knew herbs which cure internal ailments and epileptic fits. Whenever Alexis sneezed or coughed, they at once would give him raspberry tea, rub him with camphorated wine-spirit or make him sweat in a bath prepared with althea.
Only on the hottest days is he taken out for a walk in the beautiful “Upper Garden,” laid out on a wooden platform inside the Kremlin. This imitation of the hanging gardens is a continuation of the Terem. Here everything is artificial: hothouse flowers in boxes, tiny ponds in tubs, and tame birds in cages. He looks down and forth on Moscow which lies spread at his feet; he sees streets he had never been in, roofs, towers, belfries, the distant town beyond the Moscow stream, the bluish outlines of the Sparrow hills, and over all the airy gilded clouds. And he feels weary; he longs to get out of the Terem, out of the toy garden away to real forests, fields and rivers, away into the unknown distance; he is eager to run, to fly like the swallows whose flight he envies. It is very close and heavy. The hothouse flowers, and medicinal herbs, marjoram, thyme, savory, hyssop, tansy, fill the air with a spicy and sickly perfume. A cloud of leaden hue creeps slowly up, fast thronging shadows fall around him, a fresh breeze sweeps past and it begins to rain. He stretches out his face and hands and greedily tries to catch the drops, while his nurses in great agitation are already searching for him.
“Alexis, Alexis, come in, child, you’ll get your feet wet.”
But Alexis does not heed them; he hides among the sweet-briar bushes. The air is now filled with a scent of mint, dill, and moist earth; the foliage glistens in its fresh green, the double peonies glow like balls of fire. A last ray of sunshine pierces the cloud, and the sun mingling with the rain forms one tremulous net of gold. He is already wet through. Yet he delights in watching the heavy drops break into radiant dust, as they splash on the surface of the pools. He jumps, skips, and sings a gay song to the patter of the rain, which resounds in the hollow vault of the water tower—
“Cease, gentle rain,Lest we should yearn in vainTo reach the river Jordan’s banksAnd bring to God and Christ our thanks!”
“Cease, gentle rain,Lest we should yearn in vainTo reach the river Jordan’s banksAnd bring to God and Christ our thanks!”
“Cease, gentle rain,
Lest we should yearn in vain
To reach the river Jordan’s banks
And bring to God and Christ our thanks!”
Suddenly right above his head a blinding flash of lightning burst through the cloud, the thunder rolled, a whirling wind rose and died away. He felt again the same mingled sensation of joy and fear which once before possessed him, when his father carried him shoulder high during the triumph of the Azov campaign. To his mind came the bright curly-headed, quick-eyed boy, and he felt his father loved him just in the same way as he loved that terrible lightning. His breath came quick and short, he was delirious with joy. He fell on his knees and stretched both hands towards the black sky, fearing and yet wishing for another flash more awful and more blinding; but trembling old hands already catch hold of him, carry him indoors, undress him and put him to bed; he is rubbed with camphorated wine-spirit and made to drink medicated vodka and lime-tea, until he sweats seven times, and then they wrap him up and again he sleeps. And he dreams about that terrible slate dragon, who lives in the “Stone Mountains,” and has a maiden’s face, a serpent’s mouth and nose, and the feet of a basilisk, with which he breaks the iron; he can only be caught with the sound of a trumpet, for he is unable to bear it, and when its blast rings out, he pierces his ears and dies shedding a blue blood on the surrounding stones. Alexis dreams about the Siren, the bird of Paradise, singer of royal songs, denizen of Eden,who tells of the joys which the Lord has in store for the Righteous. Not every one in the flesh can hear its voice, those who do, are so charmed that they follow its lead and pass peaceably away listening to its strains. Alexis believes that he too is following the singing Siren, and that while listening to its sweet melodies he is dying, sinking into eternal slumber.
Then suddenly it seems as if a hurricane swept into the room, threw open the door, curtains, hangings, tore the coverings off Alexis and sent a chill over him. He opened his eyes and saw his father’s face. He was not in the least frightened, not even surprised; he seemed to have known and felt that he would come. The song of the Siren still ringing in his ears, with a sweet half dreamy smile he stretched out his hands and cried, “Daddy! daddy darling!” and threw his arms round his father’s neck. His father embraces and hugs him, kissing his face, neck, naked feet and all his little warm sleepy body. His father had brought him from abroad a clever toy; in a wooden box with a glass cover, lo, four waxen figures, three dressed as foreign women and one as a child, stand before a mirror. Underneath is fixed a bone handle, which makes the women and child dance to a tune. Alexis is pleased with the toy, yet he hardly looks at it: his father absorbs all his attention. He soon notices a change in his father’s countenance. The face has become thin and gaunt; he has grown more manly and seems taller. Yet to the child’s gaze, tall as he is, he still remains the curly-headed quick-eyed boy of old. A smell of wine and fresh air comes from him.
“Daddy’s moustache is showing! But how tiny the hairs are, they can hardly be seen.”
And with curiosity he passes his little fingers over the black down on his father’s lip.
“And you have a dimple on the chin, just like Granny!”
He kisses it.
“Why are Daddy’s hands so hard?”
“It is from the axe, Alexis. I have been building ships beyond the seas. Wait until you grow up and I’ll take you with me! Would you like to go across the seas?”
“Yes, I would. Where daddy goes, I would like to go too. I want to be with daddy always.”
“And are you not sorry for granny?”
Here Alexis notices in the half-open door the frightened face of his grandmother, and his mother with a deadly pallor on her countenance. They both watch him from that distance, afraid to come nearer; they bless him and themselves with the sign of the cross.
“Yes, I am sorry for granny,” murmurs Alexis, and at the same time he wonders why his mother is not mentioned.
“And whom do you love most, granny or me?”
Alexis does not answer immediately; it is difficult for him to decide. Suddenly clinging closer still to his father, trembling and shrinking in shy tenderness, he whispers in his ear:—
“I love daddy, love him more than any one!”
And suddenly all vanishes, the squat Terem, the downy bed, his mother, grandmother, and nurses. He seems to have fallen into some dark hole, like a bird from its nest, on to the hard frozen earth. He is in a large cold room with bare walls and iron-barred windows. He no longer dozes. On the contrary he is always longing for sleep; he cannot get enough, he is roused so early. Through a fog, which makes the eyes smart, loom long barrack buildings, earthen ramparts with pyramids of shot, muzzles of cannon, the Sokolinki field covered with grey thawing snow, dotted with wet crows and ravens, under a leaden sky. He hears the roll of the drums, the drill commands: “Eyesfront!” “Shoulderarms!” “Presentarms!” “Rightturn!” the dry rattle of the musketry and again the roll of the drums. His aunt, the Tsarevna Natalia Alexeyevna, is with him; an old maid with sallow face, bony fingers which hurt so in pinching, and cross piercing eyes which seems to eat him: She cries:—
“O scurvy brat of thy mother!”
It was not until long after he learnt what had actually happened. How the Tsar on his return from Holland had banished his wife, the Tsaritsa Eudoxia, to a nunnery, forcing her to take the veil under the name of Elena, while he removed his son from the Kremlin residence to the new Potíeshny Palace in the village Preobrazhensky. Side by side with this palace were the torture-chambers of the Privy Chancery, where the trial of the Streltsy Mutiny took place.They daily burnt more than thirty wood fires, at which the rebels were tortured. Was his remembrance true or only a nightmare? He could no longer tell. It was as if he were stealing along the huge pointed piles of the wall which surrounded the prison; groans issue from within, a streak of light reveals a chink in the log-built wall. He put his eye to the hole and saw a veritable hell:—
Hot fires are burning,Cauldrons are steaming,Knives are being sharpened,All to butcher thee!
Hot fires are burning,Cauldrons are steaming,Knives are being sharpened,All to butcher thee!
Hot fires are burning,
Cauldrons are steaming,
Knives are being sharpened,
All to butcher thee!
Human bodies are actually roasting over the fires; they are slung on a post and so stretched that their joints crack; their ribs are broken with red-hot tongs, and their nails are scraped with red-hot needles. The Tsar is among the torturers. His face is so terrible that Alexis can hardly recognise him—himself and yet not himself, rather his double, his “were-wolf.” He is examining one of the ringleaders, who in stubborn silence endures all. His body already resembles a bloody carcase from which the butchers had torn off the skin, yet he remains dumb and looks defiantly straight into the Tsar’s eyes.
The boy Alexis swooned; soldiers found him in the morning lying at the foot of the wall close to the moat. He lay unconscious for many days.
He had hardly recovered, when by command of the Tsar he had to be present at the dedication of the Lefort Palace to Bacchus. He wears a new German coat with stiff wired folds, and a huge wig which oppresses him. His aunt is in a gorgeous “robe ronde”; they are in a separate room, adjacent to the Banqueting Hall. Damask curtains, the last remnant of the Terem seclusion, hide them from the guests. Yet Alexis sees all that goes on among the members of “The Most Drunken Convocation,” whose insignia were cups of wine, flagons of mead and beer, instead of the Holy Vessels; in place of the Gospels, a case shaped like a Bible containing different vodkas; for incense, tobacco smouldering in braziers. The high priest, the Kniaz-Pope, attiredin mock vestments imitating those of a patriarch, trimmed with playing cards and dice, with a pewter mitre on his head crowned by a naked Bacchus, and in his hand a staff decorated with a naked Venus, blesses the guests with two pipes folded on the cross. The orgy begins. The buffoons revile the aged boyars; punching them, spitting in their faces, spilling wine over them, pulling their hair, cutting their beards or plucking them out by the roots. The revelry degenerates into an inquisition. As in some terrible nightmare Alexis beholds all this. And again he cannot recognise his father; rather it is his father’s double, his evil genius!
“His Serene Highness, the Tsarevitch Alexis, beginning with the alphabet, and having in a short time mastered it, now, following the order of instructions, is learning the breviary,” thus reported to the Tsar the tutor Nikíta Viasemski, “his lowliest slave.”
It was according to the Domostroi that he taught Alexis how to approach sacred things; the way to kiss wonder-working icons, and relics, taking heed not to moisten them with lips, nor to tarnish them with the breath, for the Lord dislikes our dirt and breath; how to eat the holy loaf without scattering crumbs on the ground, or biting it with the teeth like other bread, but breaking it into little pieces put them one by one into the mouth and so eat in faith and fear. Listening to these instructions of his tutor, Alexis could not help recalling how this same tutor at the Lefort Palace amongst the buffoons, in a drunken frenzy was used to dance before the foreign courtesan Mons, whistling and singing.
The learned German, Baron Huissen, presented a “Methodus instructionis” to the Tsar. “A syllabus to which he who shall be instructed with the education of the Tsarevitch must conform.” “In his feelings and heart, at all times implant and strengthen love for virtue; also strive to inculcate in him disgust and repulsion for all that is called sin before God; adequately represent the heavy consequences that result from it, and exemplify by application from Holy Writ and profane history.”
“Also instruct in the French language, which cannot be done better than by daily use. Show coloured geographicalmaps. Gradually accustom to the use of the compasses, and indicate the importance and utility of geometry. Commence the preliminary military exercises, storming, dancing, and riding. Develop a good Russian style. Diligently read on all mail days the French newspapers and the ‘Historical Mercury,’ and present political and moral reflections thereon. Always use ‘Fenelon’s Telemachus,’ in the instructions of his Highness, as a mirror and guide for his future government. And to prevent weariness by continual work and instructions, use for diversion in a moderate measure the game ‘Truktafel.’ This scheme can easily be completed in two years, and then his Highness without delay may proceed to perfect himself in general knowledge, so that he may be equipped for the thorough study of the world’s politics, the real needs of this empire, all the useful sciences such as fortification, artillery, civic architecture, navigation, and so on, to his Majesty’s complete satisfaction and his Highness’s own immortal glory.” To carry out this programme they chanced to hit upon a certain worthy named Martin Neubauer. He taught Alexis the rules of “European Compliments and Politeness,” from a book entitled “The Youth’s Mirror of Honour.”
“Children must, above all, greatly honour their father. When a son receives instructions from his father, he should always stand hat in hand, not in the same line with his father but a little behind to one side, like a page or servant. When a son meets his father he ought to stop at a distance of three paces; take off his hat and greet him in an agreeable manner. It is better to be accounted a gracious cavalier, than a proud blockhead. Do not lean on tables or benches, like a peasant who delights to lounge in the sun. Youths must not sniff with their noses, nor blink with their eyes. And this also is no small nuisance, to blow one’s nose like a trumpet or sneeze loudly, and so startle people or frighten young children at church. Keep your nails cut and don’t let them suggest a velvet border. Behave well at table, sit upright; do not pick your teeth with a knife, but with a tooth-pick, and cover the mouth with your hand during the operation. Don’t munch over your food like a pig; don’t scratch your head, for even so do the peasants. Youths should always converse in foreign tongues amongthemselves to gain a ready fluency, and also the better to distinguish themselves from the ignorant.”
Thus droned into his august pupil’s ear on one side the German; while from the other the Russian repeated:—“Don’t spit to the right, Alexis, for that is your angel’s side; always spit to the left, where Satan is. In dressing don’t begin with your left foot, it is a sin. Carefully keep the parings of your nails in paper, to climb Zion’s Hill with on your way to Heaven.”
The German tutor sneered at the Russian and the Russian laughed at the German, and Alexis knew not whom to believe. The touchy student, a burgher’s son from Dantzic, hated Russia. “What language is this?” he used to say. “It has neither rhetoric nor grammar. The Russian priests are themselves incapable of explaining what they read in the churches; only darkness and ignorance results from the Russian language.” He was generally drunk, and in that state his diatribes increased.
“You know nothing, you are all barbarians! Dogs! dogs! rogues!”
The Russian mockingly called the German “Martin Marmoset,” and informed the Tsar that instead of instructing the Tsarevitch he, Martin, set his Highness a bad example; creating in him a repugnance for learning and a horror of all foreigners. To Alexis both the Russian and German tutors were equally humbugs.
Sometimes Martin would weary him to such an extent during the day that even at night in his dreams he would come to him in the shape of a learned ape, which grimaced according to the rules of “European Compliments and Politeness” in front of “The Youth’s Mirror of Honour.” Around stood the figures from the Golden Hall, Moscow’s ancient Tsars, patriarchs and saints. The ape mocked and railed at them, “Dogs! dogs! rogues! None of you know anything, you are all barbarians!” And Alexis seemed to discern a likeness between this monkey face and another disfigured by convulsions, belonging not to the Tsar, but to that awful double of his, the were-wolf, his evil genius. And Alexis felt the shaggy paw stretched out to grasp him and drag him away.
And again the scene changed. Now it is the very endof the world, a flat seashore, bogs with mossy hillocks, a pale lurid sun, and a low hanging oppressive sky. All is misty, phantom-like, and he himself seems but a phantom, who dead long ago, has descended into the realm of shadows.
At the age of thirteen the Tsarevitch joined the bombardier regiment and took part in the Noteburg campaign. From Noteburg to Ládoga, from Ládoga to Jamburg, Koporie and Narva he was dragged everywhere with the baggage waggon and train to familiarise him with military life. Although but a child, he shared dangers, privations, cold, hunger and weariness with the men. He saw the bloodshed, squalor and all the horrors and abominations of warfare. He caught glimpses of his father from afar; and every time he beheld him, his heart beat in wild anticipation, he might come to him, he might call for him, he might caress him. Just one word or a look and Alexis would have been roused to new life and have understood what was expected from him. But his father had no time to spare; his hand was ever occupied, now with a sword, now a quill, now a compass, now an axe. He waged war against the Swedes, and at the same time he was pile-driving for the first dwellings at Petersburg.
“My gracious Lord Father,—
“I pray thee grant me a favour and let me be informed by letter for my joy, about thy health, of which I always anxiously desire to hear.
“Thy son Alexis invokes thy blessing and presents his homage.
“Written in Petersburg, August 25, 1703.”
He dared not add a single genuine word, whether of endearment or complaint, to the letters dictated by his tutor. He grew up a cowed, timid, lonely boy, like a weed in the moat round the arsenal wall.
Narva had been stormed. The Tsar celebrated the victory by reviewing his troops with music and salutes from the guns. In front stood the Tsarevitch, watching the young giant with his bright awe-inspiring face coming towards him, no longer his double, his evil genius, but himself, his own dear father. The boy’s heart beat quicker, and again it throbbed with eager hope; their eyes met, and it was as if a lightning flash had blinded Alexis. His desire had beento rush to meet his father, to throw his arms round his neck, embrace him, kiss him in a paroxysm of joy.
But sharp and decisive, like the rattle of the drum, were the words that greeted him, words so familiar in rescripts and articles.
“Son, the reason I took you with me on this campaign was to show you that I shrink from neither toil nor dangers. Being only mortal and liable to be summoned this day or to-morrow, I charge you to remember that you shall taste little joy if you shun to follow my example. Shun no toil for the common weal! But should you cast my advice to the wind, and refuse to do as I bid you, then I will deny you as my son, and will implore God to punish you in this life and the life to come.”
The father takes hold of the boy’s chin between his two fingers and looks intently into his eyes. A cloud passes over Peter’s face. He seems to see his son, such as he really is, for the first time: this weakly lad with sloping shoulders and narrow chest, with his stubborn and morose looks—is he indeed his only son, the heir of the throne, with whom the culmination of all his schemes and toil will rest? Can it be? Whence came this puny starveling, this raven, into the eagle’s nest? How could he be the father of such a son?
Alexis shrank into himself and strove to efface himself, as if he guessed his father’s thoughts, and was guilty before him of some crime unknown and irreparable. He felt so ashamed and terrified that he was ready to burst out crying like a child before the assembled army. But mastering himself with a supreme effort, he uttered in a trembling voice the salutation he had been made to learn.
“Most gracious Lord Father, I am very young at present and do what I can, but your Majesty may be assured that, as a dutiful son, I will strive with all my might to imitate your actions and example. May God keep you for many years to come in perfect health and thus grant that I may long continue in the enjoyment of so illustrious a parent!”
And then, according to the instructions of Martin, uncovering his head in an agreeable manner, like a gracious cavalier, he makes a German bow, saying:—
“Meines gnädigsten Papas gehorsamster Diener undSohn.” He knew he looked like a puny, deformed, silly monkey, in front of this giant, handsome as a young god. The father proffers his hand, the son kisses it. Tears burst from the boy’s eyes, and it seemed to him that his father feeling the warm tears pulls away his hand in disgust.
At the triumphal entry into Moscow on December 17, 1704, to celebrate the Narva victory, the Tsarevitch marched with the Preobrazhensky regiment shouldering his gun like a common soldier. The frost was intense. The boy was nearly starved to death with the cold. In the palace at the usual orgies he drank a glass of vodka to warm himself, and at once became drunk. His head went round, it grew dark, blurred red and green circles danced before his eyes; only one thing he saw clearly, the face of his father who was looking at him with a disdainful smile. Alexis was cut to the quick. He got up and with unsteady steps, lurched towards his father; he looked at him furtively like a young wolf at bay, tried to say something, but suddenly turned pale, shrieked, staggered forward and fell at his father’s feet.
“Already my earthly life is drawing to a close: my voice is going, I am growing deaf and blind. I beseech you to relieve me from my office of sacristan, grant me permission to end my days in a monastery!”
The Tsarevitch, lost in dream-memories, scarcely noticed the monotonous wail of Father John, who returning from his cell sat down beside him on the bench.
“My small house, chattels and superfluous furniture, could be sold; my two orphaned nieces placed in some nunnery, and the little money I have scraped together, I would bring as my gift to the monastery. Thus I would not live on the bounty of others; and my offerings might be acceptable to God, like the two mites of the widow. Then I might live for a little while in silence and repentance, until God wills to take me from this into eternal life. I feel that I have reached the end of my span, for even so did my parent die at the same age——”
Awakening, as from a deep slumber, the Tsarevitch saw it was night. The white church towers, tinged with palest blue, more than ever suggested gigantic flowers, huge lilies of paradise; the golden domes shone silvery in heaven’s dark blue vault, studded with stars. The Milky Way glimmered but faintly. And the fresh breezes of heaven, even as the breathing of a slumberer, seemed to bring with them from the heavens a foreboding of eternal rest, and unbroken quietude. The slow murmuring words of Father John mingled with the stillness:—
“Give me but leave to go to my resting place, a holy monastery, and let me live in silence until the time that I shall be taken hence——”
He continued to mumble for some time, stopped, again resumed, went away; and soon returning called the Tsarevitchto supper. Alexis had again closed his eyes and fallen into that dark dreamy abode, where twixt sleep and waking hover the shadows of the past. Again memories, visions, image after image passed before him, like a long chain, link after link; above them all towered one awe inspiring image, his Father. And as a wanderer looking back at night from a summit beholds in a flash of lightning all the road he has traversed, so the relentless light from that figure laid bare his whole life.
He is seventeen, at the age when in olden days the Tsarevitch was proclaimed to the people, who would flock from all parts to gaze at him, as at some wonder. But on Alexis a man’s toil is imposed, too heavy for his young strength; he is perpetually travelling from town to town, buying provisions for the army, felling and despatching timber for the fleet, printing books, casting cannon, writing ukases, levying armies, searching for young deserters under penalty of death—himself only a lad relentlessly executing the law on those of his own age; he supervises everything to prevent defalcations of any kind.
He hurries from German declensions to fortifications, from garrisons to orgies; from orgies to deserters, until his brain is in a whirl. The more he attempts the more is demanded. He has neither leisure nor rest. He feels ready to drop like an over-ridden hack. And at the same time he knows that his efforts are all in vain; it is impossible for him ever to please his father.
At the same time he continues his studies, as if he were a schoolboy. “Two weeks shall be devoted to the German language, to master well the declensions, and then attention shall be given to French and arithmetic. Instruction to take place each day.”
At last his strength gave way. During the severe frost in January 1709, he was bringing to his father, then at Suma in the Ukraine, five regiments from Moscow which he had himself levied and which were destined to take part in the battle of Poltava. On the journey he caught cold, fell ill, and lay for weeks insensible. His life was despaired of.
He regained consciousness one sunny morning, early inspring. Slanting rays of sunlight flooded the room. Snow was lying outside, wet drops hung already on the icicle tips. Brooks were murmuring on their way, and from the sky the lark showered his song in melodious strains. Alexis sees his father’s face bent over him, the one so dear to him in years gone by, a face full of tenderness.
“My son, my love, do you feel better?”
Too weak to answer Alexis can but smile.
“Well, glory and thanks be to God!” exclaims his father piously. “The Lord hath shown mercy upon me and heard my prayer. Now you will soon be well!”
Alexis was told later that his father never left him during the whole of his illness. Neglecting all other work, he had spent night after night without sleep. When the patient grew worse, he ordered the celebration of mass and made a vow to erect a church in the name of “St. Alexis, the man of God.”
Then came the slow joyful days of convalescence. To Alexis his father’s caresses were as health-giving as the warm bright sunshine. In blissful lassitude, with a pleasurable weakness in his body, he would lie the whole day long without moving. He was never tired of looking at his father’s grand open countenance, his bright, fierce yet tender eyes, and the charming, slightly cunning smile on those finely-curved lips. The father could not do enough to show his love to Alexis. Once he brought him a small snuff-box carved by himself out of ivory, with the inscription, “A small gift, but from a loving heart.” Many a year the Tsarevitch had kept it, and every time he looked at it, something burning, poignant, akin to measureless pity for his father would surge up within him.
Another time while gently caressing his son’s hair, Peter said in a timid shy voice, as if excusing himself, “If ever I said or did anything that hurt you, for God’s sake remember it no longer and do not sorrow over it. Forgive me, Alexis! Petty annoyances are sufficient to arouse anger in an arduous life, and my life is indeed hard. I have no one to consult, not even a single helper.”
Alexis, as in the days of his childhood, threw his arm round his father’s neck and all trembling and melting in shy tenderness whispered in his ear:—
“Daddy darling, I love you; I love you!”
But in proportion as he returned to health, so his father once more receded from him. There seemed to be a merciless fate upon them both, to be companions and yet strangers; secretly loving, while openly estranged and hating one another.
And again all things fell back into the old ruts: the collection of provisions, detection of deserters, casting of cannon, felling of timber, building battlements, wandering from town to town. Again Alexis toiled like a convict and his father remained as ever dissatisfied, even suspecting his son of laziness, “leaving off work, running after idleness.” Sometimes Alexis would like to remind him of what happened at Suma, but he could never bring himself to do it.
“Son, we instruct you to depart for Dresden. During your sojourn in that city we command you to live honestly and apply yourself diligently to studies: especially languages, geometry and fortification, and also partly to political science. And inform us by letter when geometry and fortification have been successfully acquired.”
Abroad the Tsarevitch lived like an exile, neglected by everyone. His father again forgot his existence; he did not remember him save when he wanted to marry him to Princess Charlotte of Wolfenbüttel. The Tsarevitch had no liking for his bride; he had no wish whatever to marry a foreigner. “Why did they force this devil of a wife on me?” he used to cry out when flushed with wine.
Before the nuptials he had to conduct humiliating negotiations about his bride’s dowry. Peter was eager to squeeze as much money as possible out of the Germans.
Six months after his marriage Alexis left his wife for another tour: from Stettin to Mecklenburg, from Mecklenburg to Abo, from Abo to Novgorod, from Novgorod to Ládoga—again interminable fatigue, interminable fears.
The dread he felt before each interview with his father developed into a nervous terror. Approaching the door of his father’s room he would mutely repeat a prayer: “Remember, O God, King David and all his humility!” He would jerk out disconnected fragments of lessons on navigation, it being beyond his power to remember the barbarous terminology of such words as: “krup-kamer, balk-vegerse,haigen-blok (anchor-stock),” and he would fumble for his amulet, the gift of his nurse, a blade of grass embedded in wax, with a paper bearing an ancient charm to soften the anger of a father:—
“On a momentous day was I born. I fenced myself with iron, and went unto my father. My parent became wrathful, began to break my bones, to pinch my body, to trample on me with his feet, and drink my blood. Bright sun, clear stars, still sea, ripe fields! Ye all stand peaceful and still. May my father throughout all his hours and days, his nights and midnights, be as quiet and still as ye!”
“Well, my son, I must say this is a first-rate fortress,” said his father with a shrug of his shoulders, looking at his son’s plan. “You have apparently learnt a great deal abroad.”
Alexis grew only more confused, and winced like a guilty schoolboy before the rod.
To escape such torture at times he used to take medicine and “feign illness.”
Terror was merging into hatred.
Just before the Pruth campaign, Peter fell seriously ill, “he did not expect to live.” When the news reached Alexis he experienced for the first time a feeling of pleasure at the possible death of his father. This joy frightened him; he banished it but could not destroy it; it hid itself at the bottom of his heart, ready to spring forth like a lurking beast.
One day at a feast when Peter, as was his wont, made his drunken guests quarrel with one another so that he might learn from their recriminations the thoughts of those around him, Alexis, also drunk, began to talk about the state of the empire, and the oppression of the people. All grew silent, even the buffoons stopped their shouting. The Tsar listened attentively. Alexis’ heart was beating with hope, what if he were heard? understood?
“Enough of this nonsense!” the Tsar stopped him suddenly with that mocking smile, so familiar and hateful to Alexis. “I perceive, my boy, that you know as much about political and civic affairs as a bear does of a hand-organ.”
And turning aside Peter signed to the fools to resume their shouting. Ménshikoff with other nobles, all drunk,began to dance. The Tsarevitch continued to speak in a high-pitched voice. But his father, paying him no attention, was stamping, clapping and whistling to the dancers:—
“Tare-bare, rastobare!White snow was falling,Grey hares were running,Hurry! hurry up!”
“Tare-bare, rastobare!White snow was falling,Grey hares were running,Hurry! hurry up!”
“Tare-bare, rastobare!
White snow was falling,
Grey hares were running,
Hurry! hurry up!”
His face was that of a soldier, unrefined, the rugged face of him who wrote: “The enemy received such good treatment from us that only a few infants survived.”
Suddenly Prince Ménshikoff, breathless with dancing, stopped short before the Tsarevitch, his hands on his hips and on his lips an impertinent smile—a reflection of the Tsar’s.
“Tsarevitch,” he cried, pronouncing the word, so that it meant an insult, “Tsarevitch, why are you melancholy? Come, join our dance!”
Alexis grew pale and seized his sword, then bethought himself, and turned aside ejaculating:—
“Rapscallion!”
“What? What did you say, puppet?”
Alexis turned round and, looking him straight in the face, said in a loud voice:—
“I said, ‘Rapscallion!’ A rascal’s look is worse than defilement!”
At the same moment his father’s face, contorted, flashed before him. He struck his son so hard in the face that the blood gushed from mouth and nose; then he caught him by the throat, threw him on the ground and began to strangle him. The senior nobles, Romodanovsky, Sheremetieff, Dolgorúki, who were authorized by the Tsar himself to restrain him in his attacks of madness, fell upon Peter, seized him, and dragged him away from his son, lest he should murder him.
“In order to give satisfaction” to Ménshikoff, the Tsarevitch was sent from the hall and placed on sentry duty at the doors like a naughty schoolboy who is sent into the corner. It was a cold winter’s night, frosty and snowing; he had only his kaftan on, and no fur coat. Tears andblood froze on his face. The wind moaned and whirled round and round, like a drunkard dancing and singing. And behind the lighted windows, in the room he had left, that old buffoon, the drunken princess-abbess Rjévskaya was also dancing and singing. The wild moans of the storm mingled with the wild strains of the song:—
My mother bore me while she danced,She christened me in the Tsar’s tavern,And bathed me in the headiest wine.
My mother bore me while she danced,She christened me in the Tsar’s tavern,And bathed me in the headiest wine.
My mother bore me while she danced,
She christened me in the Tsar’s tavern,
And bathed me in the headiest wine.
Such anguish filled Alexis that he felt like braining himself against the wall.
Suddenly some one crept up to him in the dark and, throwing a fur-lined coat round his shoulder, fell on his knees before Alexis and began to kiss his hands like some affectionate dog; it was an old soldier of the Preobrazhensky regiment, who happened to be on the same watch—a secret Raskolnik.
The old man looked up with such love to Alexis as though he would sacrifice his soul for him; he cried and whispered to him as in adoration:—
“Lord Tsarevitch, our light and sunshine, poor orphan, no father nor mother! May the Heavenly Father and the pure Virgin protect and keep thee!”
Alexis had often been beaten, with or without ceremony, with fist or cane. In everything else the Tsar followed the new ideas. Only his son he beat according to the old tradition, following the advice of Father Sylvester, author of the Domostroi, councillor to the Tsar Ivan the Terrible, (who killed his son, you remember).
“Do not let your son gain mastery in his youth, but beat him as he grows. Strike him with a stick, it won’t kill, but make a man of him!”
Alexis shrank in bodily fear from the blows, “He will kill, maim me”; but the moral suffering and shame he had grown used to. At times a hard joy kindled within him, “Well! what of it! Strike me, it is you who are shamed, not I,” he seemed to say to his father, fixing on him a look at once infinitely submissive and infinitely insolent.
His father probably divined this, for he ceased beatinghim and devised another punishment. He broke off all intercourse with him. When Alexis addressed him, he remained silent, pretended not to hear, looked past him, as into space. The silence would last weeks, months, years. Alexis was conscious of it at all times and wherever he went. It grew more intolerable, more insulting than scolding, more terrible than blows. He felt it to be slow murder, a cruelty which neither man nor God could wipe out.
This sheer silence was the end of everything. Beyond, there was nothing but darkness, and through the darkness he saw the immovable face of his father, motionless as a stone mask, as it had appeared at their last interview. And the terrible words coming from lips that were dead to him: “I’ll cut you off like a gangrenous limb!”
The thread of reminiscence snapped; he opened his eyes The night was as quiet as ever; the white church towers were still wrapped in a bluish haze. The golden domes shone silvery in heaven’s dark blue vault, studded with stars; the Milky Way glimmered but faintly; and the fresh breezes of heaven, even as the breathing of a slumberer, seemed to bring with them from the heavens a foreboding of eternal rest, infinite quietude.
Alexis seemed to experience in this moment the weariness of his whole life. His back, hands, legs, his whole body was an ache, his bones were full of pain.
He wanted to get up but had no strength left. He could but raise his hands to heaven and moan, as if calling to Him who could respond:
“My God, my God!”
But no one answered. Silence reigned on earth as in heaven, it seemed his Heavenly Father had forsaken him, like his earthly one. He hid his face in his hands and leaning with his head against the stone bench he began to weep, first quietly, plaintively, as do neglected children, then louder and louder, more poignantly. He sobbed, beat his head against the stone, crying from the insult, indignation and terror. He cried because he had no father now, and in that cry was the cry from Golgotha—the eternal cry of the Son to the Father:—
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Suddenly he felt, just as that night when posted as sentry, some one approach in the darkness, stoop over and embrace him. It was Father John, the old sacristan of the Annunciation.
“What ails you, my lord? The Lord be with you. Who has grieved you?”
“Father! Father!” was all that Alexis could utter.
The old man understood it all. He sighed heavily, remained silent for a while, and then began to whisper in the spirit of hopeless resignation. The time-worn wisdom of the past was speaking through him.
“What can be done, Alexis? Submit yourself my child. The whip cannot outdo the axe, neither can you vie with the Tsar. God is in the heavens, the Tsar on earth. The Tsar’s will must not be questioned. He is responsible to God alone. And to you he is not only the Tsar but our parent ordained by God.”
“Not a father but a villain, a torturer, a murderer,” cried Alexis, “curse him, curse him, the monster!”
“Lord Tsarevitch, your Highness! Invoke not God’s wrath, use not such violent language. Great is a father’s power. It is written: Honour thy father——”
Alexis suddenly stopped weeping, turned round abruptly and fixed on the old man a searching look.
“But something else too, is written: ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father.’ Do you heed, old man? God it is who turned me against my father; I have been sent from God as a sword, an enemy, to pierce the heart of my parent, I am his heaven-sent judgment and execution. I stood up not for my own sake, but for the sake of the Church, the Empire, the whole Christian people. Zealous, I was zealous for the Lord. No! I will not humble myself, nor submit, not even if it should mean my death. The world cannot hold us both. Either he or I!”
The face distorted by convulsions, the trembling jaw, the fierce fire in the eyes, suddenly bore an unsuspected likeness to his father.
The old man gazed at him in terror, as at one possessed,he made the sign of the cross, shook his head and with his time-worn lips mumbled the words of time-worn wisdom:—
“Submit! submit! bow before your father’s will”
And it seemed as if the ancient Kremlin walls, the palaces, churches, yea the very ground itself, together with the tombs of the patriarchs, echoed the words: “Submit!Submit!”
When the Tsarevitch entered the house of the sacristan, the latter’s sister, who had been nurse to Alexis, Martha by name, glancing at his face thought him ill. Her anxiety only increased when he refused to share their supper, but went straight to his chamber. The old soul offered to give him lime-tea and to rub him with camphorated spirit. To pacify her he was obliged to take some brandy. With her own hands she put him to bed, on a couch softer, with its mountain of eiderdown and pillows, than any he had slept on for an age. The holy lamps burned peacefully before the images; the air was saturated with the familiar scent of dried herbs, cypress and myrrh. So soothing was the monotonous babbling of his nurse, while relating the old tales about the Tsar John and the grey wolf, about the Cock with the golden comb, about the Bast shoe, the baboon and the wisp of straw, who wanted to cross the river together—the straw broke, the bast shoe sank, and the baboon swelled until it burst—that it seemed to Alexis in his half-sleep he was only a little boy and was lying in his tiny bed in his grandmother’s terem, and that all which had been was not; that it was not Martha, but his granny, bending over him, covering him up, tucking him in, blessing him and whispering, “Sleep darling, sleep, may God watch over thee.” And all is still and peaceful. Only the siren bird, denizen of Eden, is again singing its royal songs, and as he listens to its melodious strains, he seems to die, to sink into an eternal, dreamless slumber.
But just before the break of day he dreamt he was walking inside the Kremlin, across the Red Square, through the throng of people.
It was Palm Sunday and Christ’s entry into Jerusalem was being solemnised. Arrayed in regal robes, with the golden mantle and crown and barma of Monomachus, he leads by the reins the ass on which sits the patriarch, awhite-bearded old man, all in white and radiant in his whiteness. But looking more closely, Alexis perceives that the figure is no longer an old man, but a youth, in robes whiter than snow, with a face luminous as the sun—Christ Himself. The crowd does not see or cannot recognise Him. They all have terrible, lurid, corpse-like faces. All are silent, so silent that Alexis can hear his own heart beat. And the sky is also terrible, a livid grey, as if before an eclipse of the sun. At his feet there lolls a hunchback, in a three-cornered hat and a clay pipe in his mouth, who puffs straight into his face stinking Dutch tobacco. He babbles something, grins insolently, and points with his finger to a place whence comes a noise growing nearer and louder, like the rumbling of an approaching storm. And Alexis perceives that it comes from a procession. The Archdeacon of the ‘Most Drunken Convocation of Tsar Peter’ leads by the reins not an ass but some outlandish beast. Some one with a dark face rides on the beast. Alexis cannot distinguish it but it seems to resemble, only more terrible and repulsive than they, the scoundrel Theodosius and Peter the thief. Before them walks a shameless wench, naked; it might be Afrossinia or else the Petersburg Venus. All the bells are ringing, including the great bell of the John tower, called the Roarer, and the people shout as they had done some time before at the wedding of the Kniaz-Pope:—
“The Patriarch is married! The Patriarch is married!” Falling on their knees, they worshipped the beast, the wench and the low scoundrel.
“Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is he that cometh!”
Abandoned by every one, Alexis remains alone with Christ, alone amidst the maddened throng. The wild procession hurries straight upon them, with shouts, shrieks, bringing with it smoke and stench, which tarnish the gold of the royal robes and even dims the very sunlight of Christ’s face. Now the roysterers will be upon them, trampling, crushing, sweeping all before them, and great will be the abomination of desolation in the holy place.
And all disappears. He stands on the banks of a wide dreary river, it seems to be the highway from Poland to the Ukraine. It is late in a mid-autumn day. Wet snow andblack mud. The wind sweeps the last leaves from the trembling aspens. A beggar in tattered rags, blue with the cold, plaintively asks a kopeck for Christ’s sake; some branded one too, thinks Alexis, as he notices his hands and feet covered with bloody wounds, probably a recruit who has deserted. He pities the youth and decides to give him, not merely a kopeck but a seven gulden piece. And he remembers in his dream, how he had entered in his diary along with other expenses: “November 22. For transport across the river three gulden, for quarters at a Jewish tavern five gulden, for a young lad starving seven gulden.” Already he is holding out the coins to the beggar when suddenly a rough hand is laid on his shoulder and a gruff voice, probably that of the sentinel, speaks, “For bestowing alms, a fine of five roubles; the beggar after due castigation and torture to be sent off to the Rogerwick.”
“Have pity!” pleads Alexis. “Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.” And looking closer at the deserter, the shivering lad, he perceived that his face is like the sun. The lad he dreamed was Christ Himself.