One of them remembered a passage in the Holy Fathers against dancing; “The twirling dances of women alienate people from God and hurl them into the depths of Hell. Laughter will be turned into mourning; dancers will be hung up by their navels.”
The Tsar came up to the old men and invited them to join the dance. Vain were their refusals, the plea of their inability and of various ailments, rheumatism, asthma, gout; the Tsar would take no excuse.
A solemn, quaint “Grossvater” was played; the sprightliest young ladies were purposely chosen as partners for the old men, who at first hardly moved, stumbled, and muddled both themselves and others; yet when the Tsar threatened them with a glass of that terrible pepper brandy, they jumped about as lively as the younger ones; they paid for it, however, at the end of the dance, when they fell back on their seats half dead with fatigue, groaning, puffing, and sighing.
They had hardly time to recover when the Tsar began a new dance more intricate even than the first, known as the “Chain dance;” thirty pairs, all tied together with handkerchiefs followed a fiddler, a small hunchback who went skipping along in front of them.
The dancers first went round the two rooms of the wing, then across the gallery they entered the main building; all over the house, from room to room, from staircase to staircase the saraband swept along, shrieking and laughing. The hunchback led the way, fiddling and leaping frantically, making faces as though some evil spirit possessed him. He was followed by the Tsar and his partner, the rest following after; as though the Tsar were leading the captives while he himself, the giant, was led and twirled along by the caprices of the little demon.
On their way back to the pavilion they saw people running towards them across the gallery waving their hands in terror and crying:—
“The water, the water, the water!”
The couples in front stopped short, but they were crushed by those running up from behind; a general confusion ensued.
They were hurled against one another, knocked down, dragging and tearing at the handkerchiefs, which bound them to one another, to undo them. The men swore, the ladies screamed; the chain was broken. A larger number headed by the Tsar hurried back through the gallery into the main building. A smaller number, those who were in front and in consequence nearer the wing, tried to follow, but before they had time to reach even the middle of the gallery, the shutter at one of the windows cracked, quivered and fell, sending the window pane in shivers; a stream of turbulent water rushed in after it. At the same time imprisoned air in the cellar below pressing against the floor began raising and bulging, and finally burst the floor up with a crash and rumble like the firing of cannon.
Peter called out from the other end of the gallery to those who were cut off:—