CHAPTER VII
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 torture chamber. 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 the head 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.