THE ORDER OF PROCEDURE AT THE TORTURE OF THOSE UNDER ACCUSATION“The examination under torture of those accused of crime shall take place in a specially reserved spot termed Sasténok, surrounded by fences and covered with a roof. The judges shall be present at the proceedings with a secretary, and a clerk shall register the words of him undergoing torture.“In this place a strappado shall be erected; which shall consist of three beams, two driven into the ground the third connecting them transversely at the top. At the appointed hour the administrator of the torture is to come in with his instruments—a wooden collar to which is attached a rope, a knout, and some strips of leather.“On the arrival of the judges the torturer shall throw one end of the long rope across the transverse bar, and taking the accused shall draw his arms behind him and confine them in the collar; he and his assistants appointed for the task shall then throw their weight upon the rope in such a fashion that the victim cannot touch the ground, but shall remain suspended by his arms which are twisted behind him. Then his feet shall be strapped together, and fastened to a beam erected for the purpose in front of the strappado. The prisoner being thus pinioned and fully outstretched, the flogging shall commence and at the same time the interrogation of the accused, and the official registration of every word extracted shall take place.”
THE ORDER OF PROCEDURE AT THE TORTURE OF THOSE UNDER ACCUSATION
“The examination under torture of those accused of crime shall take place in a specially reserved spot termed Sasténok, surrounded by fences and covered with a roof. The judges shall be present at the proceedings with a secretary, and a clerk shall register the words of him undergoing torture.
“In this place a strappado shall be erected; which shall consist of three beams, two driven into the ground the third connecting them transversely at the top. At the appointed hour the administrator of the torture is to come in with his instruments—a wooden collar to which is attached a rope, a knout, and some strips of leather.
“On the arrival of the judges the torturer shall throw one end of the long rope across the transverse bar, and taking the accused shall draw his arms behind him and confine them in the collar; he and his assistants appointed for the task shall then throw their weight upon the rope in such a fashion that the victim cannot touch the ground, but shall remain suspended by his arms which are twisted behind him. Then his feet shall be strapped together, and fastened to a beam erected for the purpose in front of the strappado. The prisoner being thus pinioned and fully outstretched, the flogging shall commence and at the same time the interrogation of the accused, and the official registration of every word extracted shall take place.”
When on the morning of June 19 the Tsarevitch was brought into the torture chamber he was still ignorant of the sentence of the court.
The headsman Kondrashka Tioutioune came up to him and said:
“Undress.”
The Tsarevitch still did not understand.
Kondrashka laid his hand on his shoulder. Alexis looked at him and understood, but no fear took possession of him. His soul was devoid of all feeling. He felt as if he were asleep and in his ears rang the song of an old foreboding dream:—
Fierce fires are burning,Cauldrons are steaming,Blades of knives sharpenedAll to butcher thee!
Fierce fires are burning,Cauldrons are steaming,Blades of knives sharpenedAll to butcher thee!
Fierce fires are burning,
Cauldrons are steaming,
Blades of knives sharpened
All to butcher thee!
“Raise him!” said Peter to the headsman.
The Tsarevitch was suspended on the strappado. He received twenty-five blows with the knout.
Three days later Peter sent Tolstoi to his son.
“Go to-day after mass to the lodging of the Tsarevitch, question him on the following points and note down his replies:—
“(1) For what reason has he refused to act according to the least of my wishes? He knew such conduct was wholly indefensible; why then has he felt neither shame nor remorse?
“(2) Why was he then so boldly defiant of all the punishment which he knew would ensue?
“(3) Why has he sought to win his paternal inheritance by other means than obedience?”
When Tolstoi entered the dungeon of the Troubetzkoi bastion where the Tsarevitch was incarcerated, the latter was lying on his couch. Blumentrost was preparing a medical dressing; he was examining the scars on the back, exchanging old bandages for new ones soaked with some cooling fomentation. The court physician had been ordered to cure the Tsarevitch as quickly as possible so as to fit him for the next torture.
Alexis lay in a fever and was delirious:—
“Fédor Franzovitch! send her away for God’s sake, send her away. Don’t you see her there, mewing like a cat? the cursed thing, who caresses! Suddenly she willfly at my throat and tear my heart out with her claws——”
All at once he recovered consciousness and recognised Tolstoi.
“What do you want of me?”
“Your father sent me——”
“Again to torture me?”
“No, no, Tsarevitch! Fear nothing! It’s not for examination, only for information....”
“I know nothing more, nothing more,” groaned the Tsarevitch tossing on his couch. “Leave me alone! Kill me, only don’t torture me again! If you are afraid to kill me, give me poison or a razor, I will do it myself.—— Only be quick, be quick!”
“What are you talking about, Tsarevitch? Come, come, be quiet!” began Tolstoi in his gentle mellow voice, looking kindly at him. “If God be willing, all will come right. This world is full of strange events. Slow and sure. God Himself has suffered and we too must bear our share of suffering. Do you think I do not pity you, my poor fellow?”
He took out the inevitable snuff-box with the Arcadian shepherd and shepherdess, took a pinch and wiped a tear from his eye.
“Ah, I am sorry for you. I pity you with all my heart. I would give my life for you!——”
And leaning over him he added in a hurried whisper:—
“Whether you believe me or no, I have always wished you well, and to-day still——”
He stopped short, alarmed by the fixed gaze of the eyes of the Tsarevitch who was slowly endeavouring to rise:—
“Judas the Traitor! This for your good wishes!” He spat in his face, and then with a dull moan fell back upon the bed.
Blumentrost rushed up to him, crying to Tolstoi:—
“Go away at once; if not, I cannot be responsible for anything.”
The Tsarevitch had again fallen into delirium.
“There see how she lies in wait for me—— Her eyes are just like two blazing coals, her whiskers bristle like those of my father! Get away!——Fédor Franzovitch, for heaven’s sake drive her away I implore you!”
Blumentrost gave him some spirit to smell and laid some ice on his head.
At last he recovered consciousness and glanced at Tolstoi without the least anger, evidently oblivious of what had just happened.
“Peter Andreitch, I know you have a kind heart. Oblige me by an act of friendship. Heaven will recompense you. Beg my father to grant me permission to see Afrossinia——”
Tolstoi gently kissed the bandaged hand and said in a voice tremulous with sincere tears:
“I will obtain this permission! I will do all that is possible for you. Only we must first answer some little questions. There are but three.”
He read aloud the list of questions which the Tsar had drawn up.
The Tsarevitch closed his eyes in exhaustion.
“What further answer can I make? God is my witness I have already said all I had to say! I have neither words nor thoughts left. I have become quite idiotic.”
“Never mind, never mind, Tsarevitch,” rejoined Tolstoi hastily. He drew up a table and brought out paper, pen and ink.
“I will dictate, all you have to do is to write——”
“Will he be able to write?” Tolstoi suddenly inquired of the physician with a look in which the latter thought he saw the inexorable eyes of the Tsar.
Blumentrost shrugged his shoulders, and murmuring to himself “Barbarians!” he took the bandage off the patient’s right hand.
Tolstoi began to dictate. The Tsarevitch wrote with difficulty in trembling characters; several times he was obliged to stop; he almost fainted with weakness and the pen often slipped from his fingers. Blumentrost was obliged to give him some medicine to revive him. But Tolstoi’s words acted as an even greater stimulant:
“You shall see Afrossinia. Perhaps you will be pardoned, and even be allowed to marry her. Only write, write!”
And the Tsarevitch set himself again to the task.
“On June 22, 1718, I replied in the following terms to the questions which were laid before me by M. Tolstoi:—“(1) My insubordination towards my father is explained by the fact that I have been brought up by ignorant women who sought only to amuse me: they made a fanatic of me, a state of mind towards which I was by temperament already disposed. My father, anxious for me to receive instruction worthy of a prince, desired me to apply myself to the study of German and the sciences, but such study was hateful to me. I worked most lazily, simply to while away the time. Since my father was often absent on campaigns of prolonged periods the people around me, observing that I took pleasure in talking to priests and monks and also that I had an inclination for wasting time in drinking, far from keeping me back, themselves encouraged me and took part in these visits and drinking bouts. Thus they estranged me more and more from my father, and, by degrees, not only his military and other exploits, but his very presence became utterly repugnant to me.“(2) My reckless defiance of and contempt for all punishment are the outcome of my naturally bad disposition; of this I am fully aware. Though I feared my father, my fear was not of the kind which should be present in the relation of a son to a father.“(3) I can easily explain why I sought to obtain power otherwise than by submission to my father. Since I had abandoned the right path and would not imitate my father in anything, I was compelled, in order to obtain power, to have recourse to foreign aid. And if events had brought it to pass that the Emperor had given me, in fulfilment of his promise, the support of his army to enable me to gain the Russian crown by conquest, then I, indifferent to everything else, would have acted as follows. Should the Emperor have asked of me in return Russian troops to help him against his own foes, or even a large sum of money, I should have done as he wished, as well as liberally rewarded his ministers and generals. And I would have taken upon myself to provide for his troops which he would have supplied me for the purpose of winning the Russian crown; in short I would have spared nothing to gain my end.“Alexis.”
“On June 22, 1718, I replied in the following terms to the questions which were laid before me by M. Tolstoi:—
“(1) My insubordination towards my father is explained by the fact that I have been brought up by ignorant women who sought only to amuse me: they made a fanatic of me, a state of mind towards which I was by temperament already disposed. My father, anxious for me to receive instruction worthy of a prince, desired me to apply myself to the study of German and the sciences, but such study was hateful to me. I worked most lazily, simply to while away the time. Since my father was often absent on campaigns of prolonged periods the people around me, observing that I took pleasure in talking to priests and monks and also that I had an inclination for wasting time in drinking, far from keeping me back, themselves encouraged me and took part in these visits and drinking bouts. Thus they estranged me more and more from my father, and, by degrees, not only his military and other exploits, but his very presence became utterly repugnant to me.
“(2) My reckless defiance of and contempt for all punishment are the outcome of my naturally bad disposition; of this I am fully aware. Though I feared my father, my fear was not of the kind which should be present in the relation of a son to a father.
“(3) I can easily explain why I sought to obtain power otherwise than by submission to my father. Since I had abandoned the right path and would not imitate my father in anything, I was compelled, in order to obtain power, to have recourse to foreign aid. And if events had brought it to pass that the Emperor had given me, in fulfilment of his promise, the support of his army to enable me to gain the Russian crown by conquest, then I, indifferent to everything else, would have acted as follows. Should the Emperor have asked of me in return Russian troops to help him against his own foes, or even a large sum of money, I should have done as he wished, as well as liberally rewarded his ministers and generals. And I would have taken upon myself to provide for his troops which he would have supplied me for the purpose of winning the Russian crown; in short I would have spared nothing to gain my end.
“Alexis.”
Only when he had signed the statement did he suddenly recover as if from a trance and realise what he had done. He would have cried out that it was all false and have snatched the paper away and destroyed it; but tongue and limbs refused to act, he was like those who have been buried alive and who hear and feel everything, yet cannot move in the lethargy of their death-like sleep. Speechless and motionless he watched Tolstoi fold the paper and put it in his pocket.
On the ground of this last confession, which was read in the Senate on June 24, the High Court made the following decree:—
“We the undersigned ministers, senators, officers of the crown, military and civil, after mature deliberation following the dictates of conscience and taking our stand upon the divine commandment embodied in the Old and New Testaments, in the Holy Gospels, in the Acts, canons and rules of assemblies of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church, and in like manner also upon the statutes of the Roman, Greek and other Christian emperors, as well as upon the law of Russia, have unanimously and without contradiction agreed and passed sentence that the Tsarevitch Alexis, culpable of revolt against his father, the Tsar, whose Empire he coveted ever since his childhood and desired to grasp it with the help of rebels and foreign sovereigns and troops, which would have brought complete ruin upon the country,—is worthy of death.”
That very day the Tsarevitch was again led to the torture. After he had received fifteen blows with the knout he was taken down from the strappado, as Blumentrost declared that the Tsarevitch was in a fainting condition and would die under any further infliction of the knout.
In the night his condition became so much worse that the officer on guard in alarm ran to inform the commandant of the fortress that the Tsarevitch was dying, and that a priest ought to be summoned lest he should pass away without the last rites of the Church. The commandant at once despatched the priest of the garrison, Father Matthew. The latter at first resisted and entreated the commandant:—
“Excuse me this office, your Honour! I am but a novice in such matters as these. It is dreadful to touch anything wherein the Tsar is concerned. Once in the trap there will be no means of getting out of it again. I have a wife and children. Have mercy on me!”
The commandant promised to take all the responsibility upon himself, and Father Matthew went with a heavy heart, sorely against his own inclination.
The Tsarevitch lay unconscious; his mind was wandering, he did not recognise anybody.
Suddenly he opened his eyes and stared at Father Matthew.
“Who are you?”
“The priest of the garrison, Father Matthew. I have been sent to receive your confession.”
“To receive my confession? Why do you bear a calf’shead on your shoulder?—— and shaggy hair upon that moon face of yours, and horns upon your forehead?”
Father Matthew remained silent, his eyes fixed on the ground.
“Do you desire to confess, my lord Tsarevitch,” he asked at last with a timid hope that the Tsarevitch would refuse.
“Are you acquainted, Father, with the Tsar’s ukase, by which all treason or seditious plot, of which confession has been made to a priest, has to be revealed to the secret chancery?”
“I know it, your Highness.”
“And should I reveal to you something of this kind in my confession would you betray me?”
“How could I help it? we are no longer masters of our actions. I have a wife and children.” murmured Father Matthew, with the despairing thought, “this is a good beginning!”
“Away, get away from me, blockhead!” exclaimed the Tsarevitch in a fury. “You slave of the Russian Tsar! Sold, sold, all of you, down to the last man! You were once eagles, you have become as oxen bowed under the yoke! You have delivered the Church over to Antichrist! I will die unconfessed, and I will receive no sacrament from your hands. You viper’s brood! You incarnations of Satan!”
Father Matthew recoiled in horror. His hands trembled so violently that he almost dropped the vessel which contained the Host.
The Tsarevitch glanced at it and repeated the words of the Raskolnik monk:—
“Do you know what your Lamb can be likened unto? It can be likened unto a dead dog which has been cast into the streets of the city. If you receive the Host you will die. Your Eucharist has the same effect as arsenic or sublimate: it permeates bone and marrow, the very soul itself! Afterwards you will lie and groan in the Gehenna of fire, like Cain the fratricide, the hardened sinner—— You would like to poison me, but I will not give you the chance!”
Father Matthew fled from the room.
The black were-wolf leapt upon the neck of Alexis, and began to strangle him, and to pluck at his heart with its claws.
“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” he moaned in mortal anguish.
All at once he felt that near his bed, on the spot occupied a moment ago by Father Matthew, another person was now seated. He opened his eyes to see.
He beheld a small white-haired old man, whose head was inclined in such a way as to make it impossible for Alexis to discern his features. The old man partly resembled Father John, the Sacristan of the Church of the Annunciation at Moscow, and in some way also the centenarian beekeeper, whom Alexis had once met in the depth of the Novgorod woods, who used to spend his days among the hives, basking in the sun, his hair white as snow, and bearing ever about himself the scent of honey and wax. His name, too, was John.
“Are you Father John, or the old greybeard?” asked the Tsarevitch.
“I am John, yes John,” said the old man kindly with a gentle smile, and his voice was low and murmuring like the humming of bees or the sound of distant chimes. The Tsarevitch felt awed and yet soothed by this voice. He tried to see the old man’s face but could not.
“Fear not, fear not, my child!” continued the voice in yet sweeter and lower tones. “The Lord hath sent me to you! He will Himself soon be here!”
The old man raised his head and thereupon the Tsarevitch saw a face full of the grace of celestial youth, and recognised John, the Son of Thunder.
“Christ is risen, Aliósha!”
“Truly, he is risen!” answered the Tsarevitch, and a great and strange radiance of joy filled his soul as on that night in Trinity church during the celebration of the Easter Matins.
John seemed to hold the sun in his hands: it was the chalice containing the Body and Blood of Christ.
“In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!”
He it was who administered the communion to theTsarevitch. The sun became light within him, and he felt there was neither grief nor fear, neither pain nor death, but only eternal life, eternal Light—the Christ.
Who was that healing ministrant, that John, the Son of Thunder, that little white-haired old man, of a countenance so full of peace?
He will appear again in this book, He will appear to another sufferer, who amongst the poor folk of this great Russian people, was seeking in lowly life, what Alexis the Tsarevitch was seeking near the throne.
Blumentrost was amazed when he examined the patient in the morning; the fever had gone down, and the wounds were healing up. The change for the better was so sudden that it almost seemed miraculous.
“Thank the Lord, thank the Lord!” rejoiced the German, “there is hope for a recovery now!”
All through the day the Tsarevitch felt well; an expression of serene joy did not leave his face.
At noon his death sentence was read to him.
He remained calm during the reading, blessed himself with the sign of the cross, and asked when it would be put into execution. He was told that the day had not yet been fixed. His dinner was brought in. He ate with a good appetite; then asked for the window to be opened.
The day was fresh and sunny as in spring. The wind carried a scent of water and grass. Under the window, among the cracks of the prison wall, dandelions were flowering.
Alexis looked for a long while out of the window. Swallows darted past it with joyous twitter. The sky had never appeared to him so blue and deep as now, when viewed through the iron bars of the prison window.
Towards evening the sun caught the white wall at the head of the couch. Alexis imagined he saw the white-haired old man with the young face, the gentle smile, holding a chalice radiant as the sun.
He fell asleep with this vision; it was a long time since he had slept so peacefully.
On the morrow, Thursday, June 26, at eight in the morning, Ménshikoff, Tolstoi, Dolgorúki, Shafiroff, Apraksin and other ministers assembled in the torturechamber. The Tsarevitch was so weak, that he had to be carried from his cell.
Again he was questioned: “What more have you to say? Have you concealed anything, or kept any names back?” He did not reply.
He was raised upon the strappado. Nobody knew how many blows he received, nobody counted them.
After the first blows he suddenly grew quiet, neither groaned nor moaned; his body became rigid. He did not lose consciousness; his gaze remained bright, his face calm; yet there was something about him which terrified even those men so used to the sight of suffering.
“He must not be beaten any more, your Majesty,” whispered Blumentrost to the Tsar. “He may die of it. Besides, it is quite useless; he can feel nothing, he is in a state of catalepsy——”
“What?” asked the Tsar in astonishment.
“Catalepsy is a state——” Blumentrost began to explain.
“You are in a catalepsy yourself, you fool!” cried Peter and turned away.
The executioner had stopped for a moment to take breath.
“Don’t dawdle! flog!” ordered the Tsar. The man resumed his work. Yet to the Tsar it seemed his blows were less hard, out of pity for the Tsarevitch. Peter thought he saw pity and indignation on all faces.
“Flog, flog!” Peter started up and stamped with his foot. All looked at him with terror: he seemed to have gone out of his mind.
“Strike as hard as you can! or have you forgotten how flogging is done?”
“I strike; how else should I strike?” Kondrashka grumbled in an undertone, and again he stopped. “I do my work in the Russian way; I have not learnt it from the foreigners. I am an Orthodox. It is so easy to commit a crime. So easy to kill. See he scarcely breathes, poor fellow! He is not a beast after all, but a Christian!”
The Tsar rushed towards the man.
“You just wait, you devil’s son; I will teach you how to strike!”
“Do what pleases you, your Majesty.” He looked askance at the Tsar.
Peter snatched the knout from his hands. All hurried up towards the Tsar to stop him, but too late. He had already raised the knout and struck his son with all his might. The blows, though from an unskilled hand, were yet so terrific, that it seemed they would break the very bones.
The Tsarevitch turned round and looked at his father, as though wanting to say something. Peter remembered the gaze of the Saviour’s face, surrounded by a crown of thorns, as portrayed on the ancient icon, before which he, Peter, had once prayed, oblivious of the Son, direct to the Father, and asked with dread: “What is the meaning of Father and Son?” And again a bottomless chasm yawned at his feet, so deep and fearful, that his hair stood on end.
He overcame this dread, raised heavily the knout once more; but he felt it stick to his fingers; it was slippery with blood; he threw it away in disgust.
All surrounded the Tsarevitch; he was taken off the strappado and laid on the ground.
Peter approached his son.
The Tsarevitch lay with his head thrown back; his lips were parted as with a smile; his face was bright, pure and young like that of a boy of fifteen. He continued to gaze at his father, with a look which indicated he wanted to say something to him.
Peter knelt, bent over his son and embraced his head.
“It is nothing, nothing, dearest,” murmured Alexis,“I am all right. All is well. God’s will be done!”
The father kissed him on the lips; but Alexis had already grown weak and lay heavy in Peter’s arms; his eyes had become dim, his gaze lost its clearness.
Peter rose. His feet trembled.
“Will he die?” he asked Blumentrost.
“He may live till the evening,” the doctor replied.
The Tsar was surrounded by dignitaries and led out of the chamber.
Peter had suddenly broken down, he was quiet and obedient as a child; he went wherever he was led, and did as he was bidden.
Tolstoi, noticing the Tsar’s hands were bloody, ordered a hand bowl to be brought. Peter submissively washed his hands. The water became ruddy.
He was taken outside the fortress, and rowed in a small boat to the palace.
Tolstoi and Ménshikoff were careful not to leave the Tsar. To distract and occupy him, they discussed various indifferent affairs. He listened calmly and replied reasonably. He issued decrees, and signed papers. Afterwards he never could remember what he had done that day. It was as though he had spent it in a trance or a swoon. He did not talk about his son; he seemed to have forgotten him.
At last about six o’clock in the evening, when Tolstoi and Ménshikoff were informed that the Tsarevitch was dying, they were obliged to remind the Tsar of him. He listened to them with an absent air, as though not realizing what they were talking about. Nevertheless he went in a boat to the fortress.
The Tsarevitch had been removed from the torture chamber to his cell. He did not regain consciousness.
The Tsar, accompanied by his ministers, entered the room of the dying man. When it was known that Alexis had not yet had the last rites of the Church administered to him, all became agitated and flurried. The priest of the Cathedral, Father George, was sent for. He came running along with the same frightened expression as the rest. He prepared for the sacrament, went through a dumb confession, mumbled the absolution, ordered the head of the dying man to be raised, and brought to his lips the spoon with the Host. But the lips remained closed, the teeth fast set; the golden spoon knocked against them, for the hand of Father George was trembling. Drops of the sacred wine fell on the cloth. Consternation was on the face of every one.
Suddenly Peter’s immovable face flushed with anger. He went up to the priest and said:—
“Leave it alone. It is unnecessary.”
And it seemed to him (or was it our fancy?) that his son smiled to him his last smile.
At the same hour as on the eve, on the same spot, at thehead of the bed, the sun caught the white prison wall: A white old man was holding a chalice radiant as the sun.
The sunlight faded. The Tsarevitch sighed like a child who is falling asleep.
Blumentrost felt his pulse, then whispered something to Ménshikoff. The latter blessed himself with the sign of the cross and pronounced in a solemn voice:—
“His Highness, the Tsarevitch Alexis Petrovitch, has passed away.”
All knelt except the Tsar. He remained motionless. His face was more white and lifeless than his son’s face.
“All things will end one day in Russia by some fearful revolution; the Autocracy will fall, because millions of people cry out to God against the Tsar,” wrote the Hanoverian resident, Weber, from Petersburg, announcing the death of the Tsarevitch.
“The Crown Prince died, not of apoplexy, as is officially stated, but of a sword or axe,” wrote Pleyer to his Emperor. “No one was admitted to the fortress the day of his death, and just before evening it was locked up. A Dutch carpenter, who worked on the new tower of the Cathedral and who had remained there for the night unnoticed, saw, towards evening, strange men near the torture chamber; this workman told it to his mother-in-law, who is the midwife at the Dutch resident’s. The body of the Crown Prince was laid in a coffin of inferior make; the head was partly covered, while a neckerchief was wound round the neck as for shaving.”
The Dutch resident, James de Bie, reported to the States General, that the Tsarevitch had had his veins opened, and that a rebellion was expected in Petersburg.
The Resident’s letters were opened at the post office and presented to the Tsar. James de Bie was arrested, brought to the ambassador’s chancery and questioned. The Dutch carpenter and his mother-in-law were also taken into custody.
To refute all rumours, a circular was drawn up by Tolstoi, Shafiroff and Ménshikoff, and was sent in the Tsar’s name to the Russian residents at foreign courts:—
“After the pronouncement of the verdict on our son, we, his father, assailed by pity on the one side, and the desire to assure our country’s peace on the other, couldnot come to a decision all at once, in this highly difficult and important matter. Yet it pleased God Almighty, whose judgments are always just, to deliver the Sovereign, his house, and the empire from all danger and blame by means of His all-divine goodness. Yesterday, on June 26, our son Alexis was taken from this life; when the verdict and the list of crimes he had committed against us and the empire, were being read to him, the Tsarevitch was seized with a kind of apoplexy.
“He recovered consciousness and had, according to Christian usage, the last rites of the Church administered to him; he also asked us to come to him; and we, disregarding the trouble he had caused us, went to him with all our ministers and senators. He confessed all his faults and crimes against us, shedding abundant tears of repentance, and asked for pardon, which we, conscious of our Christian and parental duty, readily granted him. Thus, on June 26, at 6 in the evening, he died as a Christian.”
On June 27, the day after the death of Alexis, the ninth anniversary of Poltava was celebrated in the usual way. The standard, a black eagle on a yellow field, was hoisted on the fortress; mass was said at the cathedral, cannons saluted, and a banquet was held in the Post Office Court in the daytime, while at night the revels were continued on the gallery overlooking the Neva, in the Summer Gardens at the foot of Venus.
It said in the report that the merry-making was great, the music sweet as the sighings of love in the kingdom of Venus.
’Tis time to cast thy bow away,Cupid, we all are in thy sway!
’Tis time to cast thy bow away,Cupid, we all are in thy sway!
’Tis time to cast thy bow away,
Cupid, we all are in thy sway!
That same night the body of the Tsarevitch was laid in a coffin and removed from the cell into a large empty log-built hall in the fortress.
In the morning it was carried into the cathedral, and permission was given to the people, without distinction of rank or position, to come up to the coffin, see the body, and take leave of the Tsarevitch.
Sunday, June 29, was another holiday—the Tsar’s name’s day. Again mass was said, cannons saluted,church bells rang; dinner was served in the Summer Palace; in the evening a new frigate,The Old Oak, was launched from the Admiralty dockyards; an orgie took place; at night fireworks were burnt and again there was great merry-making.
The funeral of the Tsarevitch was fixed on Monday, June 30. The ceremony was very solemn. Stephen, Metropolitan of Riazan; Feofan, Bishop of Pskoff; six more bishops, two metropolitans from Palestine, archimandrites, priests, hiero-monks, archdeacons and eighteen ordinary priests officiated. The Tsar, the Tsaritsa, the ministers and senators, all high officials, military and civil, were present. Innumerable crowds surrounded the church.
The coffin, covered with black velvet, stood on a high catafalque under a canopy of golden brocade. Four officers of the Preobrazhensky Guards with drawn swords formed a guard of honour.
Many of the dignitaries had headaches from last night’s drinking bout; the old buffoons’ songs were still ringing in their ears:—
My mother bare me while she danced,And christened me in the Tsar’s tavern——
My mother bare me while she danced,And christened me in the Tsar’s tavern——
My mother bare me while she danced,
And christened me in the Tsar’s tavern——
The dim flames of candles and the subdued funeral singing seemed singularly sombre on this bright summer’s day.
“Let the soul of Thy servant, O Christ, rest in peace with the saints, where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighings, but life everlasting.”
The deacon responded in a monotone:—
“We pray for the soul of the departed servant of God, Alexis. May every transgression, voluntary and involuntary, be forgiven him.”
The choir chanted:——
“The sobs of those who bewail the dead are: Hallelujah!——”
In the crowd some one burst into sobs; a tremor passed through the church, when the last verse was sung:—
“You who see me voiceless and lifeless come hither, You who love me, give me the last kiss.”
The Metropolitan Stephen was the first to approach the coffin. The old man could scarcely walk. Two deacons supported him. He kissed the Tsarevitch on his head and hands, then bending over the coffin he gazed for a long time at his face. The Metropolitan Stephen was burying with Alexis all he loved; ancient Muscovy, the Patriarchate, the freedom and grandeur of the ancient church; his last hope, the hope of old Russia.
After the clergy, the Tsar ascended the steps of the catafalque. His face was as white and impassive as it had been all these latter days. He looked at his son. The countenance of the Tsarevitch was bright and young. It seemed to have grown even brighter and younger since his death. His smile was saying, “All is well! God’s will be done!”
Something twitched and trembled in Peter’s immovable face; something seemed to be struggling forth with great effort. At last it succeeded. The face became reanimated, radiant, as though illumined by the light coming from the dead man’s countenance.
Peter bent down to his son and pressed his lips on the cold lips. Then he lifted his eyes towards heaven—all saw he was weeping—made the sign of the cross and said:—
“God’s will be done!”
He knew now that his son would justify him before God’s throne, and would explain to him there what he could not fathom here: the meaning of “Father” and “Son.”
It was announced to the people, precisely as it had been to foreign courts, that the Tsarevitch had died of apoplexy.
But the Russian people did not believe it. Some asserted he had died under his father’s blows; others shook their heads dubiously, as much as to say, “the affair went off too quickly to be quite straightforward.” Others again maintained that the Tsarevitch had not died; that an officer of the Guards who resembled him had been buried in his stead, while he himself had fled from his father, away to the monasteries beyond the Volga, or else to the Cossacks in the steppes beyond the “free rivers,” where he was in hiding.
A few years later, there appeared, among the Yamen Cossacks, a certain Timofée, the Worker; who looked like a mendicant, and when asked his name and whence he came, he would say:—
“From the clouds, from the air. The staff is my father; the wallet my mother. My name is Worker, because I am working at a great work of God’s.”
At times he would secretly say about himself:—
“I am neither a moujik, nor a moujik’s son; I am an eagle and the son of an eagle; an eagle I shall be! I am the Tsarevitch, Alexis Petrovitch. I have the mark of a cross on my back and that of a sword on my thigh——”
So people said about him:—
“He is not an ordinary being; he will one day make the earth tremble.”
In the anonymous letters he used to distribute among the Cossacks, it was said:—
“Blessed be our God! We, Alexis Petrovitch, are goingto reclaim our ancestral rights; we count upon you Cossacks, as on a stone wall, to help us protect the Old Faith and the people. And you, bourlaks, shelterless, barefooted poor folk, whenever you hear our call, hasten, day and night, to rejoin us.”
The “Worker” went through the steppes collecting an army, promising to discover a city which held the insignia of the Virgin Mary, the gospel, the cross, and the standards of Alexander of Macedonia; then he, the Tsarevitch Alexis Petrovitch, will reign, and when at the end of the world Antichrist appears, he will wage war against him and all his armies of evil spirits.
The “Worker” was arrested, put to the torture and had his head cut off as a pretender.
But the people went on believing that the Tsarevitch Alexis Petrovitch would come in his own good time, that he would take his place on the ancestral throne, have all the boyars executed and be gracious unto the poor common folk.
Thus, even after his death, Alexis remained for the people, “Russia’s Hope.”
After he had brought to an end the investigations connected with his son’s trial, Peter left Petersburg for Reval on August 8, at the head of a fleet, consisting of twenty-two men-of-war. The Tsar was on board the new ninety-gun frigate,The Old Oak, which had only quite recently been launched from the Admiralty dockyard. This was the first ship which had been built according to the Tsar’s own designs, by Russian workmen, from Russian wood, without the help of foreigners.
One evening, as they were passing out of the Finnish Gulf into the Baltic Sea, Peter stood at the helm and steered.
The weather was bad. Black, heavy iron clouds massed over the black, heavy, also as it were, iron waves. It was rough. The sea was fretted with hoary surge, suggesting the pale arm of menacing phantoms. At times the waves would wash over the ship and a shower of salt water would drench all those upon deck, the Tsar-helmsman most of all. His clothes were wet through; the cold icy wind cut his face. Yet nevertheless he felt, as he usually did when on the sea, vigorous, strong and joyous.
With his gaze fixed on the gloomy distance he piloted the vessel with a firm hand. The huge body of the frigate trembled under the pressure of the waves, yetThe Old Oakwas strong and obeyed the rudder like a good horse obeys the bridle; she was tossed from wave to wave; sometimes the colourless deep would all but engulf her, it seemed well-nigh impossible for her to come up again; yet every time she reappeared—triumphant.
Peter was thinking about his son. For the first time he thought about all that had happened as belonging to the past. There was infinite sadness in his reflections, but no dread, no anguish, no repentance. He felt here,also, just as all through his life, the manifestation of the divine will.
He remembered his son’s words addressed to the Senate: “Peter is great, very great, but he is heavy, he crushes. The earth groans under the burden.”
How else could it be? thought Peter. The anvil groans under the hammer. He, the Tsar, was only the hammer with which God was forging Russia. He had roused her with a massive blow; but for him Russia would be still sunken in a deep sleep.
And what would have happened had the Tsarevitch remained alive?
Sooner or later he would have come to the throne, and returned the power to the priests, the monks, the “long-beards,” and they would have turned away from Europe back to Asia, extinguished the light of civilization, and Russia would have slowly crumbled and perished.
Peter had founded the new empire; but he had knowingly sealed that foundation-stone in the blood of Alexis, his son.
“There will be a storm,” said the old Dutch captain, approaching the Tsar.
Peter made no answer and continued to gaze into the distance.
Darkness was swiftly approaching. The black clouds descended lower and lower towards the black waves.
Suddenly, at the very edge of the sky, the sun peered through a narrow cleft from under the clouds; it seemed as if blood was gushing from a wound. The iron clouds and waves became flushed as with blood. Wonderful and terrible was the aspect of this sea of blood.
“Blood! Blood!” thought Peter, and to his mind came his son’s prophecy.
“You are the first to stain the block with the blood of a son, the blood of Russia’s Tsars; this blood shall descend upon successive generations of thy lineage unto the last Tsar; all will perish in blood. God will visit your sin upon Russia!”
“Not this, O Lord!” again, as on that night before the ancient icon, portraying a dark face surrounded by a crown of thorns, Peter was praying direct to the Fatherwho sacrificed His Son. “Let it not be so! Let his blood come upon me, me alone! Punish me, O God! Spare Russia!”
“There will be a storm,” repeated the old captain; thinking the Tsar had not heard him. “I advised your Majesty to return——”
“Never fear,” answered Peter with a smile. “Our new ship is strong; she will weather this gale. God is with us.”
And with a firm hand the helmsman steered his vessel across the blood-red waves towards the unknown.
The sun had set; it grew dark, the storm began to howl.
“Our faith is not the true one; it is not worth perishing for. Oh could I but find the true faith, I would let my body be cut to pieces for it!”
Tichon often remembered these words while on his long wanderings after he had fled from Cornelius and the Red Death: they were the words of a wanderer, too; one who had tried all creeds and accepted none.
Once, late in the autumn, after his flight from the priests of the Vetlouga, Tichon was resting at the Pestchersky monastery in Nishni-Novgorod, doing the duties of a copyist, one of the monks, Father Nicodemus, talking with him about religion, said:—
“I know what you need, my son. Wise people are living in Moscow. They possess the water of life. Having once drunk of it, you will never thirst again. Go to them. Should you be found worthy, they will reveal to you a great mystery.”
“What mystery?” Tichon asked eagerly.
“Don’t be so hasty, my son,” retorted the monk with kindly severity. “The more haste the less speed. If you really desire to be initiated in that mystery, accept the trial of silence. Whatever you hear or see, keep it to yourself. You know the prayer: ‘I will not deliver your secret to the enemy, I will not give you the kiss of Judas.’ Do you understand?”
“I understand, Father; I will be as silent.”
“Good,” continued Father Nicodemus. “I will give you a letter to the Moscow flour merchant, Saphiannikoff. Take him my greetings, and, as a humble gift from me, a small barrel of smoked cloud-berries. We are oldfriends; he will receive you. You are skilled in bookkeeping and he will employ you in his shop. Will you go now, or wait until the spring? Winter will soon be here, and your clothes are but poor. You might easily get frozen to death.”
“I will go now, Father, at once!”
“Well, God speed your journey, my son.”
Father Nicodemus gave Tichon his blessing and the promised letter, which he allowed him to read:—
“To my beloved brother in Christ, Parfen Paramonitch, grace be unto thee. The bearer of this letter is the youth Tichon. He is no longer satisfied with stale bread, he craves for savoury cakes to satisfy his hunger. Peace be unto you all, and grace from our Lord.
“The humble Father Nicodemus.”
Tichon started for Moscow with a cart-load of fish, as soon as the winter roads could be depended on.
Saphiannikoff’s flour stores were at the corner of the third Mieshanski Street and the small Suhareff Square.
In spite of the letter from Father Nicodemus, Tichon was received not without suspicion. For a trial he was appointed to assist the house-porter in heavy manual work. When they found he did not drink, but worked well and knew how to cast figures up correctly, he was taken into the shop, and entrusted with the account books.
There was nothing special about this shop. There was buying, selling, and talks about gain and loss. Only now and then, in corners, mysterious whispers were exchanged.
One day, Mitka the porter, an awkward kindly giant, white with flour dust, while removing the flour sacks, began to sing in Tichon’s presence a strange song:—