CHAPTER IV
“My Son,—When I said good-bye to you, and asked about your resolution concerning a certain matter, on which you always gave me the reply that owing to your weakness you were not fit for the throne, but would prefer the monastery, I again told you to think it well over, and communicate to me your decision. I have waited for it these seven months, but to this day you have written me nothing. Now, therefore, as you have had ample time for consideration, on receipt of this letter, decide at once one way or the other. Should you choose the throne, do not tarry longer than a week, but come to me here, for you will yet be in time to take part in the campaign. But should you choose the monastery, write me when and where and what day, so that knowing what I may have to expect from you, my heart may be at rest. To this messenger entrust the final answer. Should it be the first, state the day of your departure from Petersburg; should it be the second, the date of your entry into the cloister. And again we emphasize that this choice must be final, for I perceive that, as usual, you are spending your time to no purpose.”
The courier Saphnov brought this letter to Roshdestveno, where Alexis had returned on leaving Moscow. The Tsarevitch sent his father word that he was coming to him at once, but in reality decided nothing. To him the two alternatives, either to become a monk or to prepare himself for the duties of the throne, were but a double trap. To become a monk with the idea that the hood was not “nailed to the head” would mean to lose his soul before God by a false vow. And as to fitting himself for the duties of a future monarch in the sense his father demanded, it was like asking him to enter his mother’s womb and be born anew.
The letter neither frightened nor grieved Alexis. It found him in that senseless, listless torpor which had of late repeatedly laid hold of him. When in that condition he spoke and did everything as in a dream, never knowing a moment beforehand what he would say or do next. His heart was light and empty; whether from reckless cowardice or despairing insolence, it was difficult to say.
He went to Petersburg and put up at his house near the church dedicated to the Virgin of all the Sorrowing. He ordered his valet, Ivan Afanássieff, to pack what he needed for the journey like the last time he went abroad.
“Are you going to join your father?”
“I am going, the Lord knows best, either to him or somewhere else,” Alexis said drowsily.
“Tsarevitch! How somewhere else?” The valet was frightened, or else feigned to be so.
“I should like to see Venice,” began Alexis smiling, but in the next moment he added in a mournful voice, as if to himself, “I only do this to save myself. Yet, mind you keep silence. There is no one else besides you and Kikin who know anything about it.”
“I will keep your secret,” answered the old man in his usual gruff manner, though at this moment his eyes lit up with devotion. “Only we’ll have a rough time of it when you have left. Bethink yourself what you intend doing——”
“I did not expect any message from my father,” continued the Tsarevitch in the same drowsy tone, “and it never came to my mind; but now I see it is God who guides me. I dreamt last night that I was building churches, which means I have a journey to take——”
He yawned.
“Many in your station have sought refuge in flight,” remarked Afanássieff, “but it has never happened in Russia within the memory of man.”
From his house Alexis went straight to Ménshikoff and informed him that he was going to join his father. The Prince spoke amiably, and before parting asked:—
“And where will you leave Afrossinia?”
“I’ll take her as far as Riga and then send her back to Petersburg,” answered Alexis at random, hardly realising what he said; afterwards he marvelled at his instinctive cunning.
“Why send her back?” said Ménshikoff looking him straight in the face, “better take her with you.”
Had Alexis been more attentive he would have been surprised. Ménshikoff must have known that a son “desirous of fitting himself for the throne,” could not appear in his father’s camp, “to study military duties” with his mistress Afrossinia. What did the advice mean? When in the course of time Kikin heard about it, he suggested that Alexis should thank the prince by letter for his advice: “Your father might chance to find the letter at the prince’s house, and suspicion at his having been an accomplice in your flight might be aroused.”
Ménshikoff told him to come to the Senate for the passport and money for the journey before leaving.
In the Senate all vied with one another in trying to render a service to the Tsarevitch, as if they wanted to show secretly a sympathy for him, which they did not dare to confess openly. Ménshikoff provided him with 2,000 gold roubles; the Senate another 1,000, and at the same time arranged with the High Commissioner of Riga for a loan of 5,000 in gold, and 2,000 in small money. No one asked awkward questions; they all seemed to have agreed not to inquire why Alexis should need so much money. After the meeting was over, Prince Basil Dolgorúki took him aside: “Are you going to your father?”
“Where else, Prince?”
Dolgorúki looked carefully round, and then bringing his aged effeminate lips close to Alexis’s ear, he whispered:—
“What else? Come, I’ll tell thee”—— and after a short silence he added, still in a whisper, “Had I considered only the Tsar’s temper, and had there been no Tsaritsa, I would have been the first to desert at Stettin myself.”
He pressed Alexis’ hand, and tears stood in his sly, kindly eyes. “Could I serve thee in any way later on, I would gladly lay down my life for thee.”
“Don’t forget me,” murmured Alexis quite mechanically, prompted by no thought or feeling.
He learnt in the evening that Jacob Dolgorúki, one of the Tsar’s most devoted servants, had indirectly sent him word not to join his father: “a bad reception awaits him there.”
The next morning, September 26, 1706, Alexis left Petersburg, in a mail coach, together with Afrossinia and her brother Ivan, a freed serf. He had not yet decided where he was going. On leaving Riga he still took Afrossinia with him, saying that he “had orders to proceed incognito to Vienna in order that he might arrange an alliance against the Turks.”
In Libau he was met by Kikin, who was returning from Vienna.
“Have you found me a refuge?” inquired the Tsarevitch.
“I have. Go straight to the Emperor, they will not betray you there. The Emperor himself told the Vice-Chancellor, Schönborn, that he will receive you like a son.”
“Should envoys from my father meet me at Dantzic, what shall I do then?”
“Escape at night,” answered Kikin, “with one of the lads, leaving the luggage and other servants behind. If two envoys are sent, pretend to be ill, send back one in advance and run away from the other.”
Observing his indecision, Kikin continued:—
“Remember, Tsarevitch, your father will not let you become a monk now, even if you should want to. Your friends, the Senators, have persuaded him to keep you always near him, and to make you accompany him everywhere, hoping thus to kill you by overtaxing your strength, and your father said it was well thought of. Further, Prince Ménshikoff reasoned with him, saying that you would have too much peace in the monastery and might live too long. Knowing these plans I am surprised they have not laid violent hands on you before now. They might, however, do this, get you on to Danish soil and then your father, under pretext of instruction, will put you on board a man of war, the captain of which will have orders to engage with a Swedish vessel standing by, and thus get you shot—this rumour comes from Copenhagen, and it will explain why you are now wanted. Nothing but flight can save you. To voluntarily run your head into a noose would be the height of idiocy,” continued Kikin, gazing intently at Alexis.
“What’s the matter with you? You look so sleepy! Do you not feel well?”
“I am very tired,” Alexis replied simply.
They had already taken leave of one another, when Kikin suddenly turned and ran back to Alexis, stopped him, and looking him straight in the face, said slowly, accentuating every word, and so great was the conviction behind them that the Tsarevitch, notwithstanding his indifference, shuddered:—
“Should your father send some one to try and persuade you to come back, and promise you absolute pardon, do not, on any account, listen to him. He will publicly behead you.”
On quitting Libau, Alexis was as undecided where to go as on leaving Petersburg. Besides, he had hoped that there would be no need to come to a decision, since he expected to find envoys from his father at Dantzic.
In Dantzic the road branched out, one led to Copenhagen, one across Breslau to Vienna. No envoys were there. It was impossible to waver any longer. When the landlord at the hostel where Alexis had put up for the night, came in to ask where the horses had to be ordered for on the morrow, the Tsarevitch looked at him for a moment with an absent gaze, as if he were thinking about something else, and then said, hardly conscious of what it was,
“For Breslau.”
The next moment this word, decisive of his fate, frightened him. Yet he thought there would be time to cancel the order on the morrow. In the morning the horses were ready, nothing remained but to enter the coach and be off. He postponed altering his decision till the next station, at the next station till Frankfort on the Oder, at Frankfort till Tübingen, at Tübingen till Grossen and so on. He went on and on, and already it was beyond his power to stop; he seemed to have broken loose and was now rolling down a slippery slope. The same sense of fear which before had kept him back now seemed to drive him on and on, and the fear increased with the travelling. He realized that his fright was groundless, that his father could as yet know nothing about his flight, yet his blind, senseless fear he could not quell. Kikin had supplied him with false passes. Alexis gave out that he was now a Polish cavalier Kremenétzky, now the Lieutenant Colonel Kochánsky, now the Lieutenant Bálka, now a Russian merchant. Yet it seemed to him that all the innkeepers, coachmen, drivers, and post-masters knew that he was the Russian Tsarevitch, escaping, escaping from his father! When sleeping at night in an inn he would start and jump out of bed alarmed at the least sound, noise of steps or creaking of the floor. Once, when a man of about the same height as his father, dressed in a grey coat such as Peter was wont to wear, entered the dusky dining room where Alexis was just having his supper, he nearly fainted. He saw spies everywhere. The liberality with which he spent his money made the careful Germans suspect, indeed, that they were dealing with a person of royal blood; he was given the best horses on the extra posts, and the coachmen went at their fullest speed. Once in the twilight, noticing a coach driving behind them, he fancied it was in pursuit. He promised the driver ten gulden; the latter went at a mad pace. On turning a corner the axle was caught on a stone, and the wheel flew off. They were obliged to stop and get out. The people driving behind caught them up. Alexis was frightened to such an extent, that he wanted to leave everything and alone with Afrossinia run on foot to hide in the wood. He was already dragging her, and it was only after considerable effort that she succeeded in holding him back.
After Breslau he hardly stopped anywhere. He travelled night and day without rest. He could neither eat nor sleep. Every morsel he tried to swallow seemed to choke him. No sooner did he doze off than the next moment he awoke, shuddering all over, bathed in cold sweat. He would rather have died or be at once caught, anything to escape this torture.
At last, after five sleepless nights, he fell into a deep slumber.
He woke in the coach; it was early; dawn had not yet broken. The sleep had refreshed him, he felt almost vigorous.
Afrossinia lay sleeping next to him. It was cold, he wrapped her up and kissed her sleeping face. They were passing through some small unknown city, with tall narrow houses, and streets which echoed noisily the rattle of the wheels. The shutters were closed, all seemed asleep. In the middle of the market place before the town hall, bubbled a fountain which flowed over the edges of a moss-grown stone shell, supported by stooping tritons. A holy lamp was burning in the niche before a Madonna.
On leaving the town they ascended the hill, thence the road led down into a wide, gently sloping plain. The coach was driven by six horses as swift as an arrow; the wheels softly rustled through the damp dust, the mists of night were still clouding the valleys; yet round the slopes the shroud had already began to grow less and less dense; the mist lifted slowly like a curtain, leaving behind it the dry grass and the sticky threads of cobweb beaded with sparkling dewdrops. A gleam of blue sky pierced the wafted vault. A flock of cranes passed across it, caught by the rays of the rising sun not yet visible from below; through the autumnal air rang their gathering cry. Hills appeared on the borders of the plain wrapped in a bluish haze; these were the mountains of Bohemia. Suddenly a dazzling ray flashed from behind them straight into Alexis’ eyes, the sun was rising, and joy rose within his breast like the sun. It was God who had saved him, no one but God!
He laughed and wept for joy, as if it was for the first time he saw earth and sky and mountains. He watched the cranes, and it seemed to him that he too had wings, he too was flying. He breathed deep, again and again.
“Freedom, Freedom!”