At the triumphal entry into Moscow on December 17, 1704, to celebrate the Narva victory, the Tsarevitch marched with the Preobrazhensky regiment shouldering his gun like a common soldier. The frost was intense. The boy was nearly starved to death with the cold. In the palace at the usual orgies he drank a glass of vodka to warm himself, and at once became drunk. His head went round, it grew dark, blurred red and green circles danced before his eyes; only one thing he saw clearly, the face of his father who was looking at him with a disdainful smile. Alexis was cut to the quick. He got up and with unsteady steps, lurched towards his father; he looked at him furtively like a young wolf at bay, tried to say something, but suddenly turned pale, shrieked, staggered forward and fell at his father’s feet.
CHAPTER III
“Already my earthly life is drawing to a close: my voice is going, I am growing deaf and blind. I beseech you to relieve me from my office of sacristan, grant me permission to end my days in a monastery!”
The Tsarevitch, lost in dream-memories, scarcely noticed the monotonous wail of Father John, who returning from his cell sat down beside him on the bench.
“My small house, chattels and superfluous furniture, could be sold; my two orphaned nieces placed in some nunnery, and the little money I have scraped together, I would bring as my gift to the monastery. Thus I would not live on the bounty of others; and my offerings might be acceptable to God, like the two mites of the widow. Then I might live for a little while in silence and repentance, until God wills to take me from this into eternal life. I feel that I have reached the end of my span, for even so did my parent die at the same age——”
Awakening, as from a deep slumber, the Tsarevitch saw it was night. The white church towers, tinged with palest blue, more than ever suggested gigantic flowers, huge lilies of paradise; the golden domes shone silvery in heaven’s dark blue vault, studded with stars. The Milky Way glimmered but faintly. And the fresh breezes of heaven, even as the breathing of a slumberer, seemed to bring with them from the heavens a foreboding of eternal rest, and unbroken quietude. The slow murmuring words of Father John mingled with the stillness:—
“Give me but leave to go to my resting place, a holy monastery, and let me live in silence until the time that I shall be taken hence——”
He continued to mumble for some time, stopped, again resumed, went away; and soon returning called the Tsarevitch to supper. Alexis had again closed his eyes and fallen into that dark dreamy abode, where twixt sleep and waking hover the shadows of the past. Again memories, visions, image after image passed before him, like a long chain, link after link; above them all towered one awe inspiring image, his Father. And as a wanderer looking back at night from a summit beholds in a flash of lightning all the road he has traversed, so the relentless light from that figure laid bare his whole life.