CHAPTER II
On the morning of Monday, February 3, 1718, two days after Peter’s first interview with Alexis, a meeting was summoned of all the ministers, generals, prelates and other civil and clerical officials in the Audience Hall of the old Kremlin Palace. The assembly was convoked to hear the manifesto, declaring the abdication of the throne by the Tsarevitch, and to take the oath of allegiance to the new heir, Peter Petrovitch.
Battalions of the Preobrazhensky Guard were stationed within the walls of the Kremlin, in all the squares, palace galleries and staircases. A rising was feared.
In the Audience Hall nothing of the old decoration had been retained save the frescoes on the ceiling, which represented the course of the stars, the twelve months of the year, and other heavenly phenomena.
All the rest were new: Dutch tapestries, crystal chandeliers, straight-backed chairs, narrow pier glasses between the windows. In the centre of the hall, under a red silk canopy, on a raised platform, reached by three steps, stood the throne, a gilt arm-chair with a golden double-headed eagle, and the keys of St. Peter embroidered on the crimson velvet.
Slanting rays of pale sunshine fell through the windows upon the white wigs of the senators and the black hoods of the prelates. The faces of all present expressed fear and that eager curiosity which is seen in a crowd at executions. The drum rolled.
A movement passed through the crowd, it separated, the Tsar entered and took his seat on the throne.
Two huge Preobrazhensky guards, with drawn swords, led in Alexis, like a prisoner.
Without wig or sword, dressed in a plain black suit, pale, yet calm and meditative, he walked slowly, his head bent low. When near the throne and he saw his father, a gentle smile, which recalled his grandfather, the gentle Tsar Alexis, lit up his face.
Tall, narrow across the shoulders, with a thin visage surrounded by scanty tufts of straight smooth hair, suggesting now a village deacon, now the image of Saint Alexis, amid all these new Petersburg faces he seemed a being apart, a stranger as it were from another world, a phantom of ancient Muscovy. On many a face pity for this phantom mingled with curiosity and fear.
He stopped near the throne, not knowing what to do next.
“Kneel! kneel! and speak what you have prepared!” Tolstoi whispered to him from behind.
The Tsarevitch knelt and began in a loud calm voice:—
“Most gracious Sovereign and Father! On recognising my transgression towards you, as my parent and sovereign, I wrote a penitent letter and sent it to you from Naples; to-day I repeat and declare that, forgetful of my duties as a son and subject, I deserted Russia and put myself under the Emperor’s protection, entreating him to defend me. For which transgression I beseech your gracious pardon and forgiveness.”
After this he bowed low before his father, not according to ceremonial, but prompted solely by his heart.
On a sign from the Tsar, the Vice-Chancellor Shafiroff began reading the manifesto, which the same day would be read, by order, to the people in the Red Square.
“We trust that it is known to the greater number of our faithful subjects how assiduously and carefully we have striven to bring up our first-born son, Alexis. But all our efforts were in vain, the seed fell on stony soil; our son did not only not profit by it, but hated study, and has shown no inclination whatever for military and civil affairs. He has preferred intercourse with worthless, vile people of coarse habits.”
Alexis hardly listened. He was trying to meet his father’s eye. But the latter gazed past him with a motionless, impenetrable look. “Feint, dissimulation!” Alexis assured himself; “revile me, beat me, if you will, I still know you love me!”
Shafiroff continued: “And, seeing his obstinacy in wrongdoing, we declared unto him that, should he not act according to our will in future, we would disinherit him. And we granted him time to amend his ways. But he, forgetful of all responsibility, and of God’s law, which commands obedience to parents generally, and much more to a father who is a sovereign, repaid our manifold parental cares with unheard-of ingratitude. When, having left him in Petersburg on our departure for the campaign in Denmark, we wrote him thence summoning him to Copenhagen, to take part in the action and thus increase his military knowledge, he, our son, instead of joining us, furnished himself with a good supply of money, took a certain woman with whom he lived unlawfully, deserted and went to put himself under the protection of the Emperor. Having declared many untrue calumnies against his father and his sovereign, he entreated the Emperor, not only to hide him, but also to defend him with armed force against us, his enemy and torturer, from whose hands he expected to suffer death. To what shame and dishonour before the world he brought our country by this his action, is evident! It is difficult to find a precedent for it in history! Yet, though he, our son, has by all these misdoings earned death, we pity him with our fatherly heart, forgive and free him of all punishment. But——”
Here a strange hollow, husky, terrible voice interrupted the reading. It was the voice of Peter, so full of anger and grief that all formality seemed to vanish, and every one suddenly realized the horror of the situation.
“I cannot have an heir who would waste all that his father, with God’s help had gained, and would overthrow the glory and honour of the Russian people. I should fear to meet my God if I entrusted the Government to one I knew to be unfit for it. And you——”
He looked at his son, and Alexis’ heart sank, he felt there was no dissembling.
“And you remember this: though I have pardoned you, yet if you have made a single omission or reservation which comes out later, do not reproach me, it will cost you your pardon. You shall suffer death——”
Alexis leant forward, his hands raised in eager protest; he wanted to speak, to cry out to his father, but Peter looked past him with his motionless, impenetrable look. At a sign from the Tsar, Shafiroff continued reading:—
“Thus in our anxiety for our country and subjects we herewith by reason of our power as father and absolute sovereign, take from our son Alexis, for his sins and misdoings, the right to succeed to the Russian throne, even though no one of our family should survive him. And we herewith appoint and declare our son Peter, though yet a child, heir to the throne, seeing we have no other grown-up heir. And we conjure our son Alexis never to lay any claim to the succession. We desire all our faithful subjects and the whole Russian people after this our wish and declaration to consider our son Peter appointed by us as the legitimate heir, and to revere him as such, and to ratify this by oath in the sanctuary upon the holy Gospels, kissing the cross. All those who from this day forth contrary to our desire shall persist in considering our son Alexis heir to the throne, and help him with this intent, we herewith declare traitors to us and to the country.”
The Tsar rose and ordered all those present to go to the Church of the Assumption, where the oath of allegiance was to be taken.
When all except Tolstoi, Shafiroff and a few other of the highest dignitaries had retired from the hall, Peter said to his son:—
“Follow me!”
Together they crossed the vestibule into “the Secret Chamber of Replies” whence the ancient Tsars of Muscovy, concealed behind silk curtains, listened to the conferences of ambassadors in the adjoining hall. It was a small room, with bare walls and a mica window which always let in yellow-amber twilight. In the other corner before the Saviour’s icon, a dark, meek, sorrowful face in a crown of thorns, a holy lamp was always kept burning. Peter shut the door and came up to his son.
As on that terrible day at Naples in his delirium, and a few days since in Preobrazhensky, the Tsarevitch shivered and trembled. But he hoped still; surely his father would presently embrace him, say that he still loved him, and all these terrors would vanish for ever.
“I know you love me,” he kept repeating under his breath to himself, like some formula of faith. Nevertheless his heart beat with dread.
He dropped his eyes and dared not lift them, feeling his father’s heavy steadfast glance upon him. Both remained silent. All was hushed around them.
“Did you hear,” Peter said at last, “what has just been declared before the people? one concealment will cost you your life.”
“I heard it, father.”
“And have you nothing to add to what you declared the day before yesterday?”
Alexis remembered his mother, and again he felt he could not betray her, even though it meant instant death. “Nothing,” said he; as though some one else, not himself, had spoken.
“Are you sure there is nothing?” repeated Peter.
Alexis remained silent.
“Speak!”
Alexis grew dizzy, his feet hardly supported him. Yet again somebody seemed to answer for him.
“Nothing.”
“You lie,” cried Peter, seizing him by the shoulders so violently that it seemed his bones would be broken. “You lie. You have concealed all about your mother, your aunt, your uncle Dositheus of Rostoff, and their whole cursed brood, the root of all this wicked rebellion.”
“Who told you, father?” stammered Alexis, looking at him for the first time.
“Is it not true?” His father looked straight at him.
His hand grew heavier and heavier. The Tsarevitch tottered like a reed under the weight, and sank at his father’s feet.
“Forgive, forgive!—— She is my mother; she bore me!”
Peter bent over him, raised his fist above his son’s head and swore. Alexis stretched out his hands as if to ward off a mortal blow.
He raised his eyes and saw bending over him again, as in the momentary metamorphosis of a were-wolf, transformed again; only now instead of the familiar loved one, the other strange terrifying face, like a death-mask, the face of the beast, remained before him.
He gave a faint cry and covered his face with his hands.
Peter turned round to go out. But Alexis, hearing his father move towards the door, hurried after him on his knees, like a dog, which, though beaten, still begs for pardon. He clung to his feet, embraced and held on to them.
“Don’t go away, don’t—rather kill me.”
Peter tried to push him away and free himself. But Alexis held on, clinging tighter and tighter.
The touch of these hands, which convulsively gripped and held him back, sent an icy, cold shudder of disgust through Peter, such as he felt towards spiders, cockroaches, and other creeping vermin.
“Away, away, away, or else I’ll kill you!” he cried in fury, mingled with terror.
At last with a desperate effort he shook him off, spurning Alexis on the face with his foot. The Tsarevitch with a hollow groan fell to the ground, like one dead. Peter ran out of the room, as if escaping from some monster.
When he passed the dignitaries who were awaiting him in the hall, they saw in his face that something terrible had happened.
He called to them shortly: “To the Church!” And he went out.
Some followed after him; others, Tolstoi and Shafiroff among them, hurried to the Secret Chamber of Replies.
The Tsarevitch continued to lie with his face to the ground, as lifeless. They began to lift him, trying to bring him back to consciousness. His joints would not straighten out; contracted by convulsions they had become rigid. Yet it was not a swoon. His breathing was rapid, his eyes open.
At last they succeeded in putting him on his feet. They wanted to lead him into the adjacent room and lay him on a bench. He looked around him with a troubled, blank gaze and murmured, trying to recall what had happened, “What is it, what is it?”
“Don’t be afraid,” Tolstoi said to calm him, “you swooned, fell, and probably hurt yourself; it will soon pass. Here is some water, drink it, and the doctor will be here presently.”
“What is it? what is it?” Alexis repeated mechanically.
“Had we not better inform the Tsar?” whispered Tolstoi to Shafiroff.
The Tsarevitch heard him; he turned round, and his pale face suddenly grew livid. A fit of trembling seized him, and he started tearing the collar of his shirt as though he were choking, while he began to cry and laugh so wildly that all were frightened.
“What Tsar? Fools, fools, don’t you see anything? That is not he, that is neither the Tsar nor my father. He is a drummer, an accursed Jew, an impostor, a pretender. Gregory Otriópieff—a were-wolf! Ram a pike down his throat and that will finish him!”
The Court Physician, Areskin, hurried into the room. Tolstoi, unseen by the Tsarevitch, pointed to him, then touched his own forehead, as much as to say, “The Tsarevitch is going out of his mind.”
Areskin placed Alexis in an arm-chair, felt his pulse, made him smell ether, take some soothing medicine, and was just going to bleed him, when in came a messenger who stated that the Tsar was waiting in the Church and desired the Tsarevitch to come at once.
“Go and say that his Highness is ill,” began Tolstoi.
“There is no need,” interrupted Alexis, awaking as from a deep slumber. “No need. I will go presently. Only give me a moment’s rest and a little wine.”
They handed him some Tokay. He drank it eagerly, Areskin put a towel on his head soaked with vinegar and cold water. They left him alone and went aside, conferring on what had better be done.
After a few minutes he said:—
“I feel better. Let us go.”
They helped him to get up, and supported him as he walked.
The fresh air revived him while crossing from the palace to the Church; but when passing through the crowd everybody noticed his pallor.
On the platform in front of the open gates of the iconostasis, which permitted a view of the altar, Fédor Prokopovitch, the newly appointed Bishop of Pskoff, fully robed, was awaiting Alexis with Crucifix and Gospels. The Tsar stood beside him.
Alexis went up to the platform, took from Shafiroff a sheet of paper and began to read in a weak, scarcely audible voice, but the crowd was so hushed that every word was clearly heard.
“I, the undersigned, promise on the holy Gospels, that I, having forfeited my inheritance of the Russian throne on account of my sins against my father and sovereign, therefore acknowledge it to be just, and swear by the Almighty and Triune God and His judgment to submit to this my father’s will without fail, and never to seek the succession, nor accept it under any pretext whatever. I acknowledge my brother Peter to be the legitimate heir. Upon which I kiss the Holy Cross and sign with mine own hand.”
He kissed the cross and signed the abdication.
At the same time the manifesto was being read to all the people.