Without greeting them, without inviting them to sit down, he addressed the senators with words evidently prepared beforehand.
“Gentlemen of the Senate! I have written and spoken to you many times about your negligencies, self indulgencies and entire disregard of civil laws; my words have had no effect, and all ukases have been utterly ignored. I repeat for the last time, it is vain to issue laws, if they are not kept, but trifled or played with like a pack of cards, and sorted according to their colours; a habit unheard of anywhere else except in our country. And what will this corruption lead to? If robbery is allowed to pass with impunity, few will be strong enough to remain untempted, and thus, little by little, the law will deter none, the nation will be ruined, and God’s wrath will be brought down upon it. And this, more surely than private perfidy, will bring the Empire not only to disaster but to its ultimate fall. Therefore it is meet and just to apply the same punishment to peculators as to deserters from the battlefield or traitors to the country.”
He spoke without looking at anyone. And again he was conscious of his impotence. His words dropped like water off a duck’s back. These humble, frightened faces, and averted eyes, all expressed the same thought. “Whether we are honest men or knaves, all are under sin.”
“Henceforward no one must trust to his station,” concluded Peter, his voice trembling with wrath. “I herewith declare, that a thief, whatever his rank, even though he be a senator, shall be judged by martial law.”
“This cannot be,” began Prince James Dolgorúki, a ponderous old man, with long white moustaches on his bloated purple face, fixing his bright child-like eyes on the Tsar. “This cannot be, Sovereign; soldiers cannot sit in judgment over senators. You will not only disgrace us; it is an unheard of affront to the whole Russian Empire.”
“Prince James is in the right,” rejoined Sheremetieff, a Knight of Malta; “nowadays the whole of Europe considers Russian aristocrats to be noble knights. Why should you disgrace us, Sovereign, rob us of our knighthood? Not all of us are robbers—”
“Who is innocent, traitor?” cried Peter, his face contorted with wrath. “Do you imagine I do not know you? I do, my friend, I see you through and through! Should I die to-day, you would be the first to stand up for that villain, my son. You are all siding with him.”
But again with a supreme effort of will, he mastered his wrath, and having detected Ménshikoff among the rest he said in a hollow, suppressed, yet perfectly calm voice:—
“Alexander, follow me!”
Together they went into the workshop. The prince was a small shrivelled-up man, frail-looking, but in reality strong as iron, mobile as quicksilver, with a thin agreeable face and uncommonly quick, intelligent eyes, which reminded one of the street boy, who had at one time called out “Hot pies.” He slipped in after the Tsar, cowed like a dog going to be thrashed.