“Is it the father you believe to be a wolf?”
“Wolf or no wolf, if ever I should fall into his hands not one of my bones will remain whole. Why should we two try to mystify one another? You know the truth as well as I do.”
“Alexis Petrovitch, it is all very well doubting my words, but see here, in the Tsar’s own handwriting, ‘I promise before God—’ Don’t you hear, he swears by God. Will it be possible for the Tsar to break his oath in the sight of Europe?”
“What does he care for oaths?” interrupted Alexis, “if he cannot get out of them himself, Theodosius will absolve him. The archdeacons won’t lag behind, and the absolution will be granted by the Council. It is something to be a Russian autocrat. Two people on earth consider themselves gods, the Tsar and the Pope. They do exactly what pleases them. No, Tolstoi, don’t waste words! You won’t get me alive.”
Tolstoi took from his pocket a golden snuff-box. On its lid was depicted a shepherd loosening the girdle of a sleeping shepherdess. Without any haste, in his usual way he took a pinch, lowered his head on his breast, and said, as if to himself, deliberately:
“There is nothing for it, then; do as suits you best. You will not listen to me, may be you will listen to your father, he will be here ere long himself.”
“Where! Here? are you again lying?” gasped the Tsarevitch, growing pale and looking round at the door.
Tolstoi leisurely, put the pinch first in one nostril, then in the other, sniffed, shook off the dust with a handkerchief from his lace front, and said:—
“I had no orders to inform you about it, still it seems I have let it out. I received some time ago a letter from the Tsar, telling me of his immediate departure for Italy. Who can prohibit a father interviewing his son? Don’t imagine this to be impossible, there is not the slightest difficulty, everything depends on the Tsar’s own wish, and for the rest, you know yourself of the Tsar’s desire to visit Italy. And now this circumstance has quite decided him.”