Peter and Alexis: The Romance of Peter the Great

by Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky

And gradually he led the talk to the affair with the Poretzkoye peasants and his son-in-law Peter Anfimoff. A veil like a cobweb, grey, wan and sticky, spread before the eyes of the Tsarevitch, and the face which stood before him seemed to dilate and double, as in a fog; another face appeared instead, also familiar, with a red pointed nose ever scenting the air, blear-eyed and sly, the face of Peter the clerk; and it seemed as if the dignified face of the Most Reverend Father James, which resembled the face of Christ as painted on ancient icons, merged and mingled in a strange unholy way with the features of Peter the thief, Peter the rogue.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ by the grace and abounding compassion of His love, doth pardon and forgive thee, son Alexis, all thy sins!” recited Father James, covering the young man’s head with the stole, “and I, unworthy minister, unto whom He has given the power to pronounce pardon and absolution, declare thee free of thy sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!”

Alexis felt an emptiness in his heart. The words seemed to him meaningless, powerless, without mystery, without awe. He felt that what was forgiven here on earth would not be forgiven him in heaven; that absolution received here was not absolution there.

The same day towards evening, Father James went for his vapour bath; on his return, he sat down near the hearth opposite to the Tsarevitch, and began to drink the hot “sbeeten,” boiled in a kettle of red copper, which reflected the red face of the priest. He drank in leisurely fashion, glass after glass, and mopped his brow with a large chequered handkerchief. He took his bath and drank his drink as if performing a rite. In the way he drank and munched the cracknels, he maintained the same order and solemnity as when officiating at a Church service. He manifestly was a respecter of ancient traditions, and in him appeared the representative of the old Orthodoxy of Russia: “be immoveable like a pillar of marble; bend neither to the right nor to the left.”

The Tsarevitch listened to detached arguments as to what bunches of twigs were softest for use in a vapour bath, what herbs, mint or tansy, made the best scent for a bath; then to a story of how the priest’s own wife had nearly suffocated herself in a vapour bath last winter on the eve of St. Nicholas’ day. Then to an exhortation drawn from the holy Fathers: “The worm is exceedingly humble and lean, while thou art proud and renowned; but if thou wilt be reasonable, destroy thy pride, remembering that strength and power will be meat for the worms; fear vanity, eschew anger.”

Again the affair with the peasants of Poretzkoye and the inevitable Peter Anfimoff was introduced.

The Tsarevitch was sleepy, and it seemed to him, at times, that it was not a man sitting and talking before him, but a cow, interminably chewing the cud.

The twilight was falling. Outside, the snow was melting, the weather was warm; a yellow dirty fog hung in the air; the pale lineaments of the frost-flowers melted and wept on the window panes. The sky was dull, watery and lowering like the sly, vile eyes of Peter the clerk. Father James sat opposite the Tsarevitch in the place which, three weeks ago, had been occupied by the Archimandrite Theodosius; and Alexis involuntarily compared the two pastors, that of the Old and that of the New Church.

“Not prelates but riffraff! we were eagles, we have become bats,” said Theodosius. “We were eagles and have become beasts of burden,” the priest James might have said. Behind Theodosius stood the eternal politician, the ancient prince of the world; behind Father James there also was a politician, the new prince of this world, Peter the rogue. One was worthy of the other. The Old was worthy of the New. And could it be possible that, screened behind these two persons, the past and the future, there was a third, the unique image of the Church as a whole? He looked now at the dirty sky, now at the red face of the priest. In both there was something flat, trivial, eternally trivial; something which was ever present and commonplace; and yet more awful than the wildest delirium. The heart of the Tsarevitch was empty; he was weary with a weariness bitterer than death itself. Again, as on another night, a bell was heard, first far off in the distance and then louder and louder as it came nearer. The Tsarevitch listened anxiously.

“Somebody is driving up; are they coming here?” said Father James.