CHAPTER II
Peter fell ill. He had caught cold during the flood when, in rescuing the poor people’s chattels from the cellar dwellings, he had stood waist-deep in water. At first he paid no heed to his illness, and tried to get over it by ignoring it, but on November 15, he was obliged to take to his bed and the Court Physician, Blumentrost, declared that the Tsar’s life was in danger.
These days were to decide the fate of Alexis. On October 28, the day of Alexis’ wife’s funeral, on their return from the Peter and Paul Cathedral, Peter gave him a letter, “a declaration to my son,” which demanded immediate reform on the threat of severe anger and the loss of the crown.
“I am at a loss to know what to do,” the Tsarevitch kept saying to his friends; “Am I to become a beggar and hide myself amongst outcasts for the time being, or shall I retreat to some monastery; or shall I seek refuge in some country where fugitives are safe?”
“Become a monk,” urged Kikin, an old confidant of Alexis. “The monk’s hood is not nailed on his head; it will come off again; and meanwhile you will at least have peace.”
“I have rescued you from your father’s axe,” declared Prince Basil Dolgorúki. “Be of good cheer, there is nothing left for you to worry about. Write a thousand letters of resignation—of renunciation of the crown—if necessary. Time is with us. The old proverb says: ‘The snail has started on its way, but there’s no knowing when it will arrive.’ Your decision is not irrevocable.”
“It is well that you have not set your heart on the inheritance,” said Prince George Troubetzkoi, trying to console him; “‘is not gold the source of many tears?’”
With Kikin the Tsarevitch repeatedly talked over the possibility of a flight abroad, where he might live simply, away from everything, in peace.
“If it must be,” advised Kikin, “go to the Emperor at Vienna. You will be safe there. The Emperor said he would receive you like a son. Or else go to the Pope, or the French Court, even kings find refuge there. It would be easy for them to protect you.”
The Tsarevitch listened to these counsels, but unable to make up his mind, he lived from day to day waiting till the will of God should reveal itself.
Suddenly the whole situation changed. Peter’s death threatened to disturb not only Russia but the whole world. He, who but yesterday was thinking of hiding himself with beggars, might on the morrow ascend the throne.
Unexpected friends surrounded Alexis; they met, whispered, and consulted together,
“We must wait and see.”
“What will be, will be.”
“Our turn will come!”
“The mice will bury the cat!”
On the night between the first and second of December, the Tsar’s condition became so much worse that he ordered his confessor, the Archimandrite Theodosius, to be summoned and received the last rites of the Church. Neither Catherine nor Ménshikoff quitted the sick chamber. The residents of foreign courts, Russian Ministers, Senators, spent the night in the Winter Palace. When Alexis came in the morning to inquire about his father, the latter did not receive him, yet the sudden hush of the crowd which let him pass, the servile bows, the searching looks, pale faces, especially of his stepmother and Ménshikoff, told Alexis of the nearness of that which had always seemed to him so remote, so well-nigh impossible. His heart sank, his breath came quick and short, whether from joy or terror he knew not.
The same day, towards evening, he went to see Kikin, and the two had a long talk together. Kikin lived on the outskirts of the town, hard by the Ochta quarter. Thence the Tsarevitch returned straight home.
The sleighs dashed across the desert wood and wide empty streets, like vistas in a forest, with scarcely noticeable rows of log buildings buried in the snow drifts. The moon itself was invisible; but the air was filled with bright moonlit sparks. The snow did not fall from on high. The wind sent it in whirlwinds and in pillars like smoke. The luminous snowstorm sparkled and foamed in the dull blue sky like wine in a goblet.
He breathed the frosty air with delight. He felt bright as though his soul also was filled with a wild, luminous, intoxicating storm, and as the hidden moon lit up the storm, so also was his brightness due to a hidden thought, which though afraid to own, he yet felt to be the cause of his heady fear and joy.
Dim lights were glimmering through the bluish moonlit mist. They came from the frost-rimed windows of the huts, which, overhung with icicles, suggested drunken eyes glowing from under hoary eyebrows.
“Perhaps,” he thought, looking at them, “people are there drinking my health, the health of ‘Russia’s Hope’!” and his elation increased.
On his return, he sat down before the hearth where the embers were faintly glowing, and ordered Afanássieff to prepare him a hot drink. The room was dark, the candles had not yet been brought in. Alexis loved the dusk. Suddenly in the glow of the embers there flared up the blue centre of the spirit flame. The moonlit snowstorm peered with its blue eyes into the room through the transparent faery designs of the frost. Behind the window panes there quivered also a huge, living, blue, delirious flame.
Alexis was relating to Afanássieff his conversation with Kikin; it was the outline of a plot drawn up in case flight was inevitable and return only possible after his father’s death, which he thought would soon happen—the Tsar was suffering from epilepsy, and such people do not live long.
The Ministers, the Senators,—Tolstoi, Golóvkin, Shafiroff, Apraksin, Streshneff, Dolgorúki, were all his friends, and would side with him. Bauer in Poland, the Archimandrite Petchorski in the Ukraine, Sheremetieff with all his forces.
“From the European frontier all would belong to me.”
Afanássieff was listening with his usual stubborn, morose expression, which as much as said: The talk is all very fine, but how will it work?
“And what about Ménshikoff?” he queried, when Alexis had ended.
“Ménshikoff will be impaled.”
The old man shook his head.
“Why talk so rashly, my lord? What if some one should hear and report? Curse not the king—no, not in thy thought—and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber, for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter——”
“Oh, stop that meandering,” the Tsarevitch waved his hand in annoyance, and yet with an unrestrainable sense of joy.
Afanássieff was roused.
“I am not meandering; I am only speaking the truth. It is as well not to praise the dream before it has proved true. Your Highness indulges in building castles in the air. You won’t listen to us humble folk; you heed only those who deceive you. Both Tolstoi, the Judas, and Kikin, the Atheist, both are traitors. Be on your guard, my lord, you are not the first they have betrayed.”
“I spit upon them all, if only the people stand by me! When the time comes and my father is dead, I will whisper to the prelates, and the prelates to the priests, and the priests to their flock, and they will make me Tsar, whether I will or no.”
The old man remained silent, his face still bore the same stubborn, morose expression which clearly said, “This kind of talk is all very fine, but how will it work?”
“Why don’t you say something?” said Alexis.
“What should I say, Tsarevitch, it is for you to decide. But as for running away from your father, I do not advise it.”
“And why not?”
“Simply for this reason; it’s all very well if you succeed, but suppose you fail, I shall have to bear the consequences. As it is you are ever ready to vent your wrath on me. We are unimportant people, yet we, too, can feel.”
“Be on your guard, Afanássieff, and don’t let any one know I told you. No one, save you and Kikin, knows of my plans. But even if you should report, you won’t be believed; I will deny everything, you will be tortured.”
Alexis had made this addition about the torture just for the sake of teasing the old man.
“When you are Tsar, will you then also threaten your faithful servants with the torture-chamber?”
“Have no fear, Afanássieff! If ever I am Tsar, I will do my best by you—— But I shall never be a Tsar.”
“You will, you will.” retorted the old man with such conviction that again Alexis was half-choking with joy.
Bells, the grating of sleighs on the snow, the snorting of horses, and voices were heard under the windows.
Alexis exchanged looks with Afanássieff. Who could it possibly be at so late an hour? Not from the palace, surely!
Afanássieff ran into the hall. It was the Archimandrite Theodosius. The Tsarevitch, on seeing him, thought his father had died; he grew so pale, that the monk, notwithstanding the darkness, noticed it while giving the blessing, and faintly smiled.
When they were alone, Theodosius sat near the fire opposite to the Tsarevitch, and silently looking at him with the same scarcely perceptible smile, began to warm his hands over the fire, opening and closing his fingers, which looked like bat-claws.
“How is my father?” at last Alexis asked, plucking up courage.
“Very bad,” the monk sighed heavily, “so bad that we don’t expect him to live.”
The Tsarevitch made a sign of the cross.
“God’s will be done!”
“Man is like a cedar of Lebanon to look upon,” began Theodosius, chantingly in the church style, “yet he passes and no trace is left. His spirit will leave him; to earth will he return, and all his thoughts will perish with him on the same day”—he stopped short suddenly, and bringing his tiny shrunken face up to Alexis, he began to whisper in a quick, insinuating voice—“God waits a long time, yet when He visits He is severe. The Tsar’s illness has been brought about by his incessant drinking and voluptuousness. It is God’s revenge for attacking the clergy, whom he wanted to exterminate. No good can come while the Church is overawed by tyranny. Can this religion of ours be called Christianity; it might be the Turkish religion; yet even in Turkey such things do not happen. Our Russian country is doomed.”
Alexis could scarcely believe his ears. He had expected anything from Theodosius save this.
“But what were you prelates, guardians of the Russian Church, doing? Whose business is it but yours to stand up for the Church?” the Tsarevitch said, gazing intently at Theodosius.
“Ah, Tsarevitch, what power is left to us? Our prelates are so bridled that they will follow whichever way you lead them. They have as much power as the country police; they do the will of him who appoints them. They turn whichever way the wind blows. They are not prelates, but a mob.”
And hanging his head, he added in a low voice, as if to himself, and to Alexis it seemed to be the voice of the past, “We were all eagles, now we have become bats.”
His black hood, the wide sleeves of his gown, his ugly pointed face lit up by the blaze of the dying embers, all this made him look very much like a huge bat; only in his clever eyes there glowed the light of an eagle’s.
“It ill behoves you to talk and me to listen;” the Tsarevitch at last burst out. “Who has brought the Church under the State? Who is trying to introduce Lutheran customs among the people? Who has persuaded the Tsar to destroy all the chapels, defile icons, and close the monasteries? Who gives him dispensation for all this?”
He stopped. The monk continued to eye him with the same persistent, penetrating gaze. Alexis felt uneasy. Was this not after all a trap? Had Theodosius been sent to him as a spy by Ménshikoff, or by his father?
“Does your Highness remember a figure of speech called ‘the reductio ad absurdum’ in logic?” said the monk, winking with an infinitely cunning smile. “That is what I am doing. The Tsar has attacked the Church, yet dares not oppose it openly, only secretly he destroys, corrupts, and corrodes it. As for me, I had rather do a thing thoroughly, if I do it at all, and quickly if it has to be done. I prefer honest Lutheranism to a crooked orthodoxy; an avowed atheism to crooked Lutheranism. The worse the better! That is my way. What the Tsar indicates I carry out. What he whispers I openly declare to the people. I make him convict himself; let every one know that the Church of God is defiled. By dint of patience one can get used to anything; yet if this won’t work, the time will come when we, too, will have our fling. The cat will have to pay for all the tears it has caused the mice.”
“Now this is adroit,” laughed the Tsarevitch; he felt admiration for Theodosius, though he did not believe a single word he said. “You are sly, Father, sly as the devil himself.”
“Don’t disdain devils. Satan serves God’s purpose even against his will.”
“Does your holiness compare yourself to a devil?”
“I am a diplomatist,” modestly retorted the monk, “with wolves I howl like a wolf. Dissimulation is not only recommended by political teachers, but by God Himself; as a fisherman hides the hook with a worm, so did the Lord hide His Spirit in the flesh of His Son, and casting His line into the world’s pool, outdid and caught Satan the Fiend. Intrigue of divine wisdom! Heavenly diplomacy!”
“May I ask you, Holy Father, do you believe in God?” Again the Tsarevitch eyed him narrowly.
“How can a country be without a Church, and the Church without God?” And then with a strange simper, half timid, half insolent, he added: “But you, too, Alexis Petrovitch, are not a fool; you are more intelligent than your father, the Tsar; though he is clever, yet he does not know men; we often used to lead him by the nose. You will be a better judge of men.” And suddenly he stooped and kissed Alexis’ hand so quickly and adroitly that the latter had no time to pull it away; only a shudder passed through him.
Though he could not help feeling that the monk’s flattery was only honey on a knife, yet the honey was sweet.
He blushed, and in order to conceal his confusion, he continued with feigned curtness: “Be careful, father, and don’t over-reach yourself. The pitcher goes to the well till it breaks. As a cat tries to scratch a bear, so you dare my father; but suppose the bear objects, and, turning round, crushes you, where will you be then?”
The monk’s face fell, contracted, his eyes dilated, and looking round to ascertain that no one was standing behind him, he began to whisper in a hurried, disjointed, as it were feverish whisper:—
“Ah! your Highness, it is bad enough as it is, I always had a feeling that he will kill me! When yet I was but a child I was brought to Moscow, together with other nobles; we were led into a hall and allowed to kiss the sovereign’s hand. I first went up to your uncle, the Tsar Ivan Alexeyevitch; but when I came to kiss Tsar Peter’s hand, such fear possessed me that my knees shook; I could hardly keep upright; and ever since I have had the feeling that I shall die by that hand.”
Even now he was trembling with fear, yet hatred was stronger than fear. He began talking about Peter in such terms that Alexis almost believed them to be sincere. He discerned in this talk his own secret, wicked thoughts about his father.
“He is called Great! but in what does his greatness reveal itself? He reigns as a tyrant. He introduces civilization with axe and knout! And the axe, too, is nothing extraordinary, anybody can buy one. He is ever on the search for plots and rebellions. But he does not realize that he himself is the source of all this unrest. He himself is the first rebel. He breaks, knocks down, fells with all his might. But there is no method in it. What multitudes have been executed, what quantities of blood have been shed! Yet the wrong does not decrease. People’s consciences are not bound. Blood is not water, it cries for vengeance! Soon God’s wrath will come down upon Russia, and when civil war begins then the eyes of every one will be opened. Such an uproar, such decapitations will be set going—shwisk, shwisk, shwisk!”—he passed his hand across his throat and tried to imitate the sound of an axe. “And only then, out of this sea of blood will arise the Church of God, pure, whiter than the snow, like a woman arrayed in the glory of the sun, reigning over all rulers.”
Alexis watched his face, disfigured by passion, his eyes flashing with wild fire, and it seemed as if a madman was sitting before him.
He remembered hearing from a monk that Father Theodosius was sometimes subject to melancholy; tormented by the evil spirit, he falls to the ground and behaves like one beside himself.
“I anticipated this, and that is what I was leading up to,” concluded Theodosius, “but it seems that God has shown mercy to Russia; the Tsar is struck down, the people are spared. You are sent unto us, you are our salvation, our joy, our bright son of the Church, the most pious sovereign, Alexis Petrovitch, Autocrat of all the Russias, Your Majesty!”
The Tsarevitch started up in terror. Theodosius too had risen, fallen at his feet, embraced his knees, and lifted up his voice in a frenzied, inexorable, almost threatening prayer.
“Protect, have mercy on your servant! I will give you all! All I have kept back from your father, all I have reserved for myself. I wanted to become a Patriarch, I no longer want it. I want nothing. Everything belongs to you, my darling, my joy, my heart’s delight. Aliósha! I love you! You shall be Tsar and Patriarch! You will unite the earthly with the heavenly, the white hood of Constantine with the crown of Monomachus. You shall be greater than any other Tsar on earth. You, the first, you alone! You and God. While I, I will be your slave, your dog, a worm under your foot. Truly, your Majesty, I embrace your feet like those of Christ and adore you.”
He bowed very low before him; the wide black of his pall spread on the floor like the gigantic wings of a bat. The diamond-set panagia with the portrait of the Tsar and the Crucifix fell to the ground with a clatter. Abomination filled Alexis’ soul, a cold shudder ran through him as from the touch of some vermin. He wanted to push him back, strike him, spit into his face; yet he could not move, he was as if spell-bound by some fearful nightmare. And it seemed to him that this was no longer the miserable Theodosius, but someone strong, terrible, powerful, who lay prostrate before him, some one who had been an eagle and had become a bat; was it not the Church herself, dishonoured, dominated by the State? And through this abomination, through this terror, a mad delight, a giddying sense of power turned his head. It seemed that somebody was lifting him on black, gigantic wings and showing unto him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, saying—“If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine!”
The embers on the hearth were faintly glimmering under the thick layer of ashes. The blue flame of the spirit had all but gone out. The blue flame of the luminous storm had grown faint outside the windows.
Somebody pale with pale eyes was peering through the windows. And the flowers wrought by the frost on the window panes stood out white, like the phantoms of flowers.
When Alexis recovered he was alone. Theodosius had disappeared as if he had fallen through the ground or melted away into the air.
“What has he been raving about,” thought Alexis, as if waking from a sleep. “The white hood—the crown of Monomachus—madness—melancholy—and how can he tell that the Tsar will die! Where did he get this from? How many times did we despair of his life, God always showed mercy——”
And suddenly he remembered what Kikin had said to him this evening:
“Your father is not so ill as he seems. The last rites of the Church were administered to him on purpose to make people believe he is very ill, but it is only deception. He is only testing you and the others, trying to see how you all will act after his death. You know the fable—‘The mice gathered together to bury the cat, they pranced and danced when suddenly up leapt the cat!—There was an end to the revel.’ As for his taking communion, he has his own views on this subject.”
At the time these words had stung Alexis’ heart with shame and disgust. Yet he purposely let them pass, he was in too good a humour to trouble about anything.
“Kikin is right,” he now decided, and a dead hand seemed to grip his heart. “Yes, all was deception, pretence, dissimulation, devil’s policies, a game of cat and mouse—the cat suddenly leapt up and grabbed—Nothing has been, nothing will be. All these hopes, rhapsodies, dreams about glory, liberty, power were only visions, a delirium, a madness!”
The blue flame lit up for the last time and then went out. Darkness ensued, only the glowing embers peering from under the ashes seemed to wink, smiling like an artful blinking eye. The Tsarevitch felt uneasy. It seemed to him that Theodosius had not gone away, that he remained here somewhere in a corner hiding, holding his breath; that at any moment he would whirl round with his black bat-like wings, and whisper in his ear, “All the power will I give thee and the glory of them, for all is delivered unto me, and unto whosoever I will, I give it.”
“Afanássieff!” called out the Tsarevitch. “Bring a light! be quick!”
The old man coughed and grunted angrily at having to come down from his warm couch.
“And what did I hope for?” the Tsarevitch questioned himself, for the first time recovering full consciousness during those days. “Is it possible?”
Afanássieff, pattering with his bare feet, brought in a snuffy tallow candle. The light hurt Alexis’ eyes, it seemed blinding, dazzling after the darkness. A light as it were flashed across his soul, he suddenly saw what he neither wanted nor dared to face—the reason why he felt so happy—the thought that his father would die. And he was horror-struck to comprehend that he longed for that death.