CHAPTER II
The Emperor, when he took the Tsarevitch under his protection, the more securely to hide him from his father, lodged him, under the name of a Hungarian Count, in the solitary, inaccessible castle of Ehrenberg—a real eagle’s nest, clinging to the peak of a rock in the upper Tyrolean mountains, on the road from Fussen to Innsbruck. The Tsarevitch felt himself a prisoner, but safe.
“Immediately on receiving this,” ran the Emperor’s instructions to the commander of the fortress, “have two rooms ready for the chief person, with strong doors and iron-barred windows. Soldiers and their wives must not be allowed to leave the fortress under severe penalty, even death. If the distinguished prisoner expresses a desire to talk to you, you may do as he wishes, both in this case and in several others; as for instance if he asks for a book or something else for diversion, or even if he should invite you to dine or to take part in some game. Moreover, you may grant him permission to walk about in the rooms or the courtyard for fresh air, but always take precautions lest he escape.”
Alexis had spent five months at Ehrenberg; from December until April.
Notwithstanding all precautions, the Tsar’s spies, Roumiantzev, captain of the guards, together with three other officers, who had secret orders to obtain possession of a certain person at all costs, and bring him to Mecklenburg, learnt of the Tsarevitch’s sojourn in Ehrenberg. They arrived in Upper Tyrol and secretly installed themselves in the tiny village of Reite at the very foot of the Ehrenberg Rock.
The Resident Vesselóvsky declared “that his Majesty the Tsar will be exceedingly hurt by the answer, given in the Emperor’s name, that a certain person was not to be found in the Emperor’s domains, while a messenger had seen his retinue in Ehrenberg, where he is kept at the Emperor’s cost. Not only Captain Roumiantzev, but all Europe, knows that the Tsarevitch is within the Emperor’s domains. Suppose the Archduke should run away from his father and find refuge in Russia, and this refuge be accorded to him secretly, how would this affect the Emperor? Would it not be a grief to him?”
“Your Majesty,” wrote Peter to the Emperor, “may infer what we, as a father, must feel in regard to our first-born son, who, showing us such disobedience, left us without our sanction, and is now kept under a stranger’s protection or arrest, which we know not. On this point we desire an explanation from your Majesty.”
The Tsarevitch was informed that the Emperor left it to him to decide whether he would return to Russia or continue under his protection. In the latter case it was obvious that he must be transferred to some remoter place, for instance Naples. At the same time it was hinted to Alexis that the Emperor wished him to leave behind at Ehrenberg, or quite dispense with, the company of certain persons his father had raised objections to in his letter, and thus rob the Tsar of any just ground of complaint that the Emperor was extending his protection to worthless creatures. This was said with a view to Afrossinia. It really seemed unbecoming for the Tsarevitch to implore the Emperor’s protection in the name of his dead wife, who was sister to the Empress, and at the same time to bring with him a woman with whom it was rumoured he had been allied even during his wife’s lifetime.
Alexis declared his readiness to go wherever the Emperor sent him, and live in whatever way the Emperor desired, provided he was not delivered up to his father.
On the 15th of April, at three o’clock in the morning, Alexis, in spite of the spies, left Ehrenberg as an imperial officer. He had only one servant with him, this was Afrossinia in the disguise of a page.
“Our Neapolitan pilgrims have safely arrived,” reported Count Schönborn, “I will send my secretary at the very first opportunity with detailed description of this journey—very entertaining, as might be expected. Our little page, among other things, was discovered to be a woman, neither married and still less a maid. She is declared to be a mistress and indispensably necessary.”
“I take no end of measures to keep our company from drinking so often and so much, but all effort is vain,” reported Schönborn’s secretary, who was accompanying the Tsarevitch.
They passed through Innsbruck, Mantua, Florence, and Rome. On May 6, 1717, at midnight, they reached Naples and put up at the Three Kings Hotel. On the eve of the next day the Tsarevitch was taken in a hired carriage outside the town as far as the sea, then brought by a secret way into the castle. There he remained for two days, during which time the chambers especially assigned to him in the St. Elmo Fortress were being prepared. The fortress stood on a high hill overtowering Naples.
Though here also he lived as a kind of prisoner, yet he did not feel dull or oppressed by the fact; the higher the walls, the deeper the ditch round the fortress, the more trustworthy protection they were to him from his father.
The windows of his apartments, with a covered balcony, overlooked the sea. Here he spent whole days. He fed, just as he used to in Russia, the pigeons which, flocking from all sides, were soon tamed by him; he read historical and philosophical books, chanted psalms and litanies, gazed at Naples, Vesuvius, Ischia, Procida and Capri, which glowed like sapphires in the distance; but by more than anything was he attracted by the sea; he could not tear himself away from looking at it. It seemed to him that this was the first time he had ever seen the sea. The northern dull waters of Petersburg, the sea of commerce and war, so beloved by his father, was quite unlike this southern, blue, boundless expanse.
Afrossinia was with him. When he forgot his father he was almost happy.
He was guarded with great strictness. He had obtained however, after great difficulty, a pass for Æsop into St. Elmo. Æsop had already made himself indispensable. He amused Afrossinia, who was often dull; played cards and draughts with her, diverted her by jokes, tales and fables, thus acting the part of the real Æsop.
What Æsop enjoyed most of all was relating to the pair his own travels in Italy. Alexis listened to him with interest, while reviving his own impressions. Much as Æsop longed to return to Russia, much as he missed the Russian bath and vodka, it was evident that he also, like the Tsarevitch, was beginning to love the foreign country as if it were his own, to love Russia as a part of Europe, with a new all-embracing love.
“The way is extremely dreary, and difficult,” he used to narrate, describing the pass across the Alps. “The path is very narrow; on one side mountains tower high as the clouds, on the other yawn exceedingly deep precipices, which boisterous torrents fill with incessant noise like watermills. And to look down makes men shiver. Those hills are always covered with much snow because the sunbeams never penetrate among them.
“But coming down we found, although it was winter in the heights, fair summer reigning in the valleys. Along both sides of the road a mass of vine and fruit trees, lemons, oranges, and among the trees creepers formed curious figures. The whole of Italy seemed one great garden, an image of God’s Paradise! On March 7th we noticed fruit; lemons and oranges, some ripe, some not quite; others green, or yet in the germ, and even blossoms, the same tree bearing all.
“There, hard by the hills in a pleasant place stood a house called a villa, built in a very superb style. This house is surrounded by a most beautiful garden and orchards; people spend their time in walking there. And in those gardens all the trees are planted regularly, even the foliage is clipped in keeping with the rest. Flowers and grass are sown in pots and placed about according to design. A splendid perspective is maintained. And many a famous fountain is fitted up in these gardens from which springs extremely clean water in various cunning ways; and along the paths, instead of curb-stones, marble men and women are placed. Jove, Bacchus, Venus, and other heathen gods, so well made that they almost seem alive. And these statues belonging to past ages had been dug from the earth.” About Venice he recited such wonders that for a long time Afrossinia did not believe him, and confused Venice with a legendary town spoken of in Russian tales.
“You are a great inventor, Æsop,” she would say, yet listened to him with avidity.
“Venice stands in the water; sea-water covers all the streets and lanes, and boats are used to go about in. There are no horses or other beasts; neither, Madam, are there any carriages, landaus, carts; as for sledges they have never even heard of them. In summer the air is oppressive, and sometimes filled with an extremely bad smell coming from stagnant water, such as we get in Petersburg from the Fontanna canal when it is choked up. And all over the town there are lots of carrier boats, called gondolas, which are constructed in a peculiar manner: long and narrow like those made of one tree trunk, both bow and stern are pointed; an iron comb crowns the bow, and in the middle stands a hut with glass windows and damask curtains; all the gondolas are black, covered with black cloth, looking very much like coffins; as for the oarsmen, one of them stands at the bow while the other, at the stern, rows and steers with the same oar. They have no rudders yet manage perfectly without them.
“There are such wonderful operas and comedies played in Venice! Beyond one’s power to describe accurately. Nowhere in the whole world can one meet with such extraordinary comedies and operas. And the halls in which these operas are performed are large and round, the Italians call them ‘theatrum,’ and in these halls numerous closets are fitted up five stories high with ingenious gilt work. And in these operas the ancient legends of heroes, Greek and Roman gods are represented. Everyone has in his theatre that legend performed which he prefers. These operas are frequented by people wearing masks so that one should not recognise another. Also during the whole of Carnival time they wear masks and curious dresses; everybody walks just where it pleases them; they have music on their gondolas, dance, eat sweetmeats and drink fine lemonades and chocolates. Thus they are constantly amusing themselves and are not in the least inclined to do without merriment. These revels, though, often lead to sin; for when they thus come together all masked, many of the women and maidens without the slightest shame take foreigners by the arm and amuse themselves without stint.
“The women folk of Venice are extremely good-looking, tall, slender, fine and well mannered; they are rusées and dress extremely well. They despise manual labour. They spend their time in indolence; they love pleasure and have a weakness for carnality, simply because they want money. It is their only trade. Many of the wenches live in separate houses and in no way consider their profession a thing to blush at. Others who have no houses of their own live in separate streets in low small chambers on the ground floor. Every room has a door leading straight into the street, and when they see a man coming towards them each one does her best to capture him. The day that brings most visitors is reckoned the happiest. As a consequence they suffer from the French malady, and they who visit them are soon generously gratified by a share of it. The clergy sermonise, but do not otherwise interfere. They are extremely skilful,” said Æsop meditatively, “in curing the French complaint in Venice.”
The same interest which he had shown in his tales about the Venetian revels appeared in his descriptions of various Church miracles and holy relics.
“I was found worthy to see a cross in which, under glass, was a bit of the nose of St. John the Baptist; and the relics of St. Nicolas, which produce the holy oil that never dries up. I’ve also seen the boiling blood of St. Januarius, and a bone of St. Laurence himself. This bone is shut up in a crystal box, and when one kisses the box one can feel the surprising heat of the bone—through the crystal.”
With equal wonder he would describe the miracles of science.
“At Padua, in the medical academy there are embalmed children, born before their time, or else cut out of their dead mothers; they float in glass bottles filled with spirit, and thus can be preserved a thousand year, and more.”
Æsop was a lover of everything classical. All the productions of the middle ages seemed barbarous to him. He went into ecstasies over imitations of ancient sculpture, their symmetry, their perfection of line, proportion—all his eye had already got used to in young Petersburg. He did not like Florence.
“There are few really splendid, well proportioned houses. All Florentine houses are of an older date. One does occasionally come across palaces three or four stories high, but their style is plain, not in the least architectural.”
He was most of all struck with Rome. He spoke about it with that almost superstitious feeling of reverence which the Eternal City always rouses in Barbarians.
“Rome is really a great city. Even to this day the boundaries of ancient Rome can be traced and thus the vast dimensions of the old city revealed. Districts, once in the very centre of Rome, are now fields and ploughland, sown with wheat, planted with vineyards, or else used as pasturage for buffalos, oxen and sundry other cattle.
“Many an ancient edifice, ruined with age, lies scattered on these fields, even in its ruins revealing a master’s hand acquainted with symmetry, such as is no longer met with. And from the mountains leading up to Rome are seen ancient stone pillars connected by arches; they bear a stone trough which held the extremely pure spring water coming from the hills. And those pillars are called aqueducts, and the fields the ‘Campagna di Roma.’”
The Tsarevitch had had only a glimpse at Rome, but now, as he sat listening to Æsop, it seemed some awful shadow of indescribable grandeur was sweeping past him.
“In these fields,” went on Æsop, “among the ruins of Roman buildings there is an entrance to some caves. In these caves Christians sought refuge in times of persecutions and were tortured, and even unto this day many a martyr’s bones remain there. These caves, called catacombs, are so large that, it is said, they have underground passages leading to the sea, besides many others not yet explored. And close to these catacombs, in a tiny, solitary church stands an extremely large coffin—a sarcophagus—of Bacchus, hewn out of porphyry stone. This sarcophagus tomb is empty. Long, long ago, runs the legend, it contained an incorruptible body of indescribable beauty, which, by a trick of the devil, bore the likeness of the pagan god Bacchus. The holy men threw this foul thing away, hallowed the spot and built a church upon it.... Then I came to another place called the Colosseum, where the ancient Roman Emperors, who persecuted the Christians, offered holy martyrs as a prey to wild beasts. The place is round, very huge, would measure about forty yards in height; the walls are made of stone. On them the ancient torturers would walk watching the animals tear the holy martyrs to pieces. Under these walls on the ground are stone caves where the animals lived. St. Ignatius was devoured in this Colosseum, and every bit of its soil is stained with the blood of martyrs.”
The Tsarevitch remembered how, in his childhood, he was repeatedly told that, in the whole world, Russia alone was a holy land and all the other peoples were pagans. He also remembered how he himself had once said to Fräulein Arnheim, standing on the pigeon-house in Roshdestveno: “We alone have Christ.” “Is this true?” he now asked himself. “What if they also have Christ, and not only Russia? What if all Europe were holy land? The soil in that place is all stained with martyr’s blood. Can such a place be pagan?”
He was convinced that the third Rome, as Moscow was occasionally termed, was as far off the first, real Rome, as Petersburg was from the real Europe.
“At a time when Moscow was not even thought of,” declared Æsop, “there were many empires in the west older and greater than Moscow.”
The words with which he concluded a description of the Venetian Carnival remained in the Tsarevitch’s memory.
“Thus they all amuse themselves and think no evil of one another, neither do they fear anybody. Everyone does as best pleases him. And such freedom is always maintained in Venice, and the Venetians live in peace, without fear of insult, and without heavy taxation.”
The implication was clear; their life is very different from ours in Russia, where no one dares even so much as hint at freedom.
“In all European nations one course of action is especially commendable,” remarked Æsop one day, “and that is with regard to education. The children are not treated brutally either by parents or teachers; but with the help of kindly or else sharp rebuke alone, which have been found more effective than blows, they are brought up in the spirit of freedom and courage. And being aware of this, Moscow people would not send their children to be educated in foreign parts, afraid lest, once acquainted with the faith and customs and beneficent freedom of other countries, they should change their religion and neither desire nor think of returning home. They do send them nowadays, but what’s the good of it? For as the bird can’t live without air, knowledge can’t prosper without freedom; and with us they try to teach new things in the old way. The stick, though dumb, is still expected to impart knowledge.”
Thus both of them, the fugitive naval apprentice and the fugitive Tsarevitch, confusedly felt, that the Europeanism which Peter was introducing into Russia—calculation, navigation, fortifications—was not the whole of Europe, nor even European in its essential characteristic; the real Europe possessed a higher truth, not yet revealed to the Tsar. And without this truth, in spite of all knowledge, the old Moscow barbarism would only be supplanted by a new Petersburg vulgarity. To this blessed mysterious liberty it was that the Tsarevitch addressed himself in summoning Europe to judge between him and his father.
One day Æsop told the “history of the Russian sailor Basil Koriotsky and the beautiful Florentine Princess Irakli.”
To the listeners, and perhaps to the narrator himself, the meaning of the story was obscure and yet mysteriously suggestive. The marriage of a Russian sailor with a Princess of Florence—of the land where the Renaissance had its springtime, the most beautiful flower of European liberty—was a prophetic vision of the unknown, yet approaching, union of Russia with Europe.
The Tsarevitch in listening to the story thought of a picture his father had brought from Holland: the Tsar in a sailor suit embracing a buxom Dutch wench. Alexis could not help smiling at the thought that this red-faced girl was as remote from the Florentine Princess, “who was bright as the unveiled sun,” as new Russia was from what she ought to be.
“I dare say your sailor did not return to Russia,” Alexis asked.
“Why should he?” grunted Æsop, with a sudden indifference towards the Russia he had only so lately sighed for. “In Petersburg he would probably have had the cat-o’-nine-tails, and then been sent off to Rogerwick; while the Florentine Princess would have been stuck into the weaving yard for a prostitute.”
But Afrossinia suddenly interposed:—
“Well, now you see, Æsop, what your sailor gained by his education. Had he run away from his teacher, as you have, he would never have gained the Princess. What is the good of praising the freedom of this country? The mountain-ash berries are not meant for a crow’s beak. To grant you freedom is to make you good for nothing. How else can you be taught but with a stick, seeing you won’t learn of your own free will? Thanks be to our father the Tsar. You only get your deserts.”