CHAPTER VIII
On his return from the funeral to the Summer Palace, Peter took a light wherry and rowed himself across the Neva to a small wooden landing stage on the opposite shore.
Here on the river’s bank, close to the Trinity Church, stood a small, low house, one of the first buildings erected by the Dutch carpenters, in the earliest days of Petersburg—this was Peter’s first palace; it resembled the modest huts of sailors in Saardam. The frame work was made of pine, grown in the wild Keivoussary bog on the Birch Island; it was painted to imitate the colour of bricks and roofed with wooden shingles instead of tiles.
The rooms were low, small, and only three in number. On the right side of the hall was the small working-room, on the left, the dining-room, and beyond, the bedroom, the smallest of the three, only about four yards long and three wide, hardly large enough to turn round in. The furniture was simple but homely, in the Dutch style. The ceilings and walls were covered with white canvas. The leaded windows were wide, low, and provided with oak shutters on iron hinges. The doors were hardly made for Peter; he had to stoop in order to prevent his head knocking against the lintel.
After the Summer and Winter Palace had been built, this little house stood empty. The Tsar seldom slept in it; only when he wanted to be quite alone, even without Catherine. On entering the hall, he woke the servant, who lay snoring on the felt carpet, ordered a light to be brought, and passed into the working-room, turned the key, placed the light upon the table, sat down in the arm-chair, and took out of his pocket the letters sent by Tolstoi, Roumiantzev and the Tsarevitch. Yet before unsealing them he again stopped, as if hesitating; he listened to the measured, sonorous chimes of the Troïtsa Church clock. It struck nine. When the last sound had died away, a silence ensued as in those days when Petersburg was not in existence, and when there had stretched to the horizon only endless forests and impenetrable marshes.
At last he broke the seal. While reading, his face slightly paled, his hands trembled. When he reached the last words in his son’s letter: “and will leave Naples together with your envoys in a few days for Petersburg,” joy took his breath away; he could not read any further. He blessed himself with the sign of the cross.
Was not this again a miracle, a sign of God? He had been despondent, miserable, thinking God had forgotten him, and here again God’s hand was revealed.
He felt again strong and vigorous, years younger, equal to any work or exploit.
Then hanging his head, and looking at the flickering flame of the candle he fell into a reverie.
When his son returned what should he do with him? “Kill him,” he used to think in his fury, when there seemed to be no hope of his return. But now that Alexis was returning his fury had abated, and for the first time he asked himself the question, quite calmly, collectedly, “What shall I do?”
All at once he remembered the words written in his first letter, sent to Naples by Tolstoi and Roumiantzev: “I promise and declare in the sight of God that you shall suffer no punishment, but great love will be shown unto you, should you return.” Now that his son had trusted to this oath, it acquired an awful power.
But how to fulfil it?
To forgive his son,—will this not also imply forgiveness for all other traitors to Tsar and country? A number of worthless people, peculators, thieves, parasites, hypocrites, monks, the whole party of stupor and reaction will join themselves to him and grow so fearless that no law will deter them. This will bring about the ruin of the Empire. And if his son in his father’s lifetime so braves his father, what will he do after his death? “He will destroy, scatter everything, not one stone will be left in its place, he will ruin Russia——”
No, better break the oath than pardon!
This will involve renewed examinations, tortures, piles of blazing wood, axes, gibbets, blood?
He remembers how once, during the Streltsy execution, he rode on horseback to the Red Square, where on that day 300 heads were doomed to fall. The Patriarch met him with a wonder-working icon, imploring him to pardon the Streltsy. The Tsar bowed before the icon, but angrily pushed the Patriarch aside, saying: “Why have you come here? I revere the Virgin no less than you do. But duty bids me pardon the just and punish the criminal. Go! don’t detain me, old man, I know what I am doing.”
He could answer the Patriarch, but will he be able to answer God?
And he saw as in a vision an endless row of heads, which lay on a long beam for a block, their faces to the ground, fair, auburn, black, grey, bald and curly. Drunk, coming straight from an orgy together with Danilitch and other guests, he strides in with an axe, like a headsman, and cuts off one head after the other. When he is tired the guests take the hatchet in turn from his hands and also strike. Blood has intoxicated them all. Their dress is splashed with blood, blood covers the earth, their feet slip on it. Suddenly one head, over which the axe is already lifted, slowly rises, turns round and looks into his eyes. It is he—little Alexis!
“Aliósha, my darling boy!” Another vision rises before him. He had come home from abroad, and at night he had stealthily found his way into his boy’s bedroom, he bent over the bed, took him up in his arms, kissing the sleepy little body, so soft and warm under his nightgown.
“Kill his son!” only now he realized what it meant. He felt it was the most important, most awful act of his life; more important than Sophia, the Streltsy, Europe, science, the army, the fleet, Petersburg and Poltava, in that here his judgment for all eternity would lie. In one scale would be placed whatever good and great he had done; in the other the death of this son. Who could tell which would weigh the heavier? Would not all his glory be tarnished by this stain of blood? What would Europe, what would posterity, say about an oathbreaker, a murderer of his own son? Difficult it would be for any who may not know all, to discern his innocence—and who would know all?
Can a man be justified before God for shedding his son’s blood, even for the good of his country?
Which decision is he to make? Pardon his son, and ruin Russia; or kill his son and ruin his own soul and fame? He felt incapable of making any decision.
It was impossible to decide alone. But who could help him? The Church? What ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. That is how it used to be, but now, where is the Church? The Patriarch? He no longer existed. He himself had abolished that office. Or the Metropolitan, “Stephen the servitor,” who falling to the ground himself petitions the Tsar? Or the Administrator of Spiritual affairs, Theodosius, the double-faced? He and the prelates are so bridled that they will follow any lead; whatever he tells them to do they will do it. He himself is the Patriarch, the Church. He stands alone before God.
And what did he rejoice at, insensate, a moment since? Yes, God’s hand is truly spread over him and weighs heavily on him. It is terrible, terrible, to fall into the hands of the living God!——
An abyss yawned at his feet. Horror rose from it. His hair stood on end.
He hid his face in his hands.
“Depart from me, Lord! deliver me from bloodguiltiness O God, Thou God of my salvation!”
He rose and went into his bedchamber where in the corner over his bed a lamp was ever burning before the miraculous icon of Christ. This icon had been presented to the Tsar Alexis Michailovitch by the court painter, Oushakoff, and had at one time been placed in the hall of the Kremlin palace. It was a Russian replica of a very old Byzantine picture. According to the familiar tradition, our Lord on His way to Golgotha, fainting under the burden of the cross, had wiped the sweat off His brow with Veronica’s cloth, and the same had retained the imprint of His face. This was the first icon.
Ever since Peter’s mother, Tsaritsa Natalia Kirilovna, had blessed her son with this icon, he had never parted from it. On all campaigns and voyages, on ships and in tents, at the foundation of Petersburg and on the field of Poltava, the icon always accompanied him.
On entering his bedchamber he added a little oil to the lamp and trimmed the wick. The flame glowed more vividly, and in the gold, which surrounded the dark face crowned with thorns, the diamonds sparkled like tears, the rubies like drops of blood.
Peter knelt and began to pray.
The icon had grown so familiar to him that he hardly noticed its real character and quite unconsciously always addressed his prayers to the Father and not to the Son; not to the God who dying shed His blood on Golgotha, but to the living God, mighty and strong in battle, the God of armies, the just Giver of Victories, Him who spoke of Himself through the mouth of the prophets: “I have trodden the people in mine anger, and trampled them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments and I have stained all my raiment.”
But now, when he raised his eyes to the image and wanted as usual to address his prayers direct to the Father past the Son, he could not. He seemed for the first time to realise the Sufferer’s face in the crown of thorns; and the countenance had gained life and penetrated into his very soul with His meek look. He seemed for the first time to fathom, what he had often heard in his childhood yet had never really grasped: the meaning of “the Father,” and “the Son.” All at once there flashed across his mind an ancient tragic story, also about a father and a son.
“God tempted Abraham and said unto him; take thy son, thy only son whom thou lovest and offer him for a burnt-offering. And Abraham built an altar and bound his son and laid him on the altar, and Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son.”
This was only a prototype on earth of the yet more awful heavenly sacrifice. God so loved the world that He did not spare His only begotten Son. And the Father’s wrath is appeased by the blood of the Lamb, the blood of His Son which is ever flowing. Here was some near and all-important mystery, so terrible that he hardly dared to think about it. His thought grew faint, as in madness.
Did God want him, or not, to slay his son? Would this blood be forgiven or would it fall upon him? And what if this sin should be visited, not only on him, but on his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, all Russia?
He fell on his face, and remained a long time prostrate, motionless, as if dead.
At last he lifted his eyes again to the image, but now with a desperate, frenzied prayer, straight to the Father.
“Let this blood fall on me, me alone! Slay me, O Lord, but spare Russia!”