Then came the slow joyful days of convalescence. To Alexis his father’s caresses were as health-giving as the warm bright sunshine. In blissful lassitude, with a pleasurable weakness in his body, he would lie the whole day long without moving. He was never tired of looking at his father’s grand open countenance, his bright, fierce yet tender eyes, and the charming, slightly cunning smile on those finely-curved lips. The father could not do enough to show his love to Alexis. Once he brought him a small snuff-box carved by himself out of ivory, with the inscription, “A small gift, but from a loving heart.” Many a year the Tsarevitch had kept it, and every time he looked at it, something burning, poignant, akin to measureless pity for his father would surge up within him.
Another time while gently caressing his son’s hair, Peter said in a timid shy voice, as if excusing himself, “If ever I said or did anything that hurt you, for God’s sake remember it no longer and do not sorrow over it. Forgive me, Alexis! Petty annoyances are sufficient to arouse anger in an arduous life, and my life is indeed hard. I have no one to consult, not even a single helper.”
Alexis, as in the days of his childhood, threw his arm round his father’s neck and all trembling and melting in shy tenderness whispered in his ear:—
“Daddy darling, I love you; I love you!”
But in proportion as he returned to health, so his father once more receded from him. There seemed to be a merciless fate upon them both, to be companions and yet strangers; secretly loving, while openly estranged and hating one another.
And again all things fell back into the old ruts: the collection of provisions, detection of deserters, casting of cannon, felling of timber, building battlements, wandering from town to town. Again Alexis toiled like a convict and his father remained as ever dissatisfied, even suspecting his son of laziness, “leaving off work, running after idleness.” Sometimes Alexis would like to remind him of what happened at Suma, but he could never bring himself to do it.
“Son, we instruct you to depart for Dresden. During your sojourn in that city we command you to live honestly and apply yourself diligently to studies: especially languages, geometry and fortification, and also partly to political science. And inform us by letter when geometry and fortification have been successfully acquired.”
Abroad the Tsarevitch lived like an exile, neglected by everyone. His father again forgot his existence; he did not remember him save when he wanted to marry him to Princess Charlotte of Wolfenbüttel. The Tsarevitch had no liking for his bride; he had no wish whatever to marry a foreigner. “Why did they force this devil of a wife on me?” he used to cry out when flushed with wine.
Before the nuptials he had to conduct humiliating negotiations about his bride’s dowry. Peter was eager to squeeze as much money as possible out of the Germans.