Alexis grew dizzy, his feet hardly supported him. Yet again somebody seemed to answer for him.
“Nothing.”
“You lie,” cried Peter, seizing him by the shoulders so violently that it seemed his bones would be broken. “You lie. You have concealed all about your mother, your aunt, your uncle Dositheus of Rostoff, and their whole cursed brood, the root of all this wicked rebellion.”
“Who told you, father?” stammered Alexis, looking at him for the first time.
“Is it not true?” His father looked straight at him.
His hand grew heavier and heavier. The Tsarevitch tottered like a reed under the weight, and sank at his father’s feet.
“Forgive, forgive!—— She is my mother; she bore me!”
Peter bent over him, raised his fist above his son’s head and swore. Alexis stretched out his hands as if to ward off a mortal blow.
He raised his eyes and saw bending over him again, as in the momentary metamorphosis of a were-wolf, transformed again; only now instead of the familiar loved one, the other strange terrifying face, like a death-mask, the face of the beast, remained before him.
He gave a faint cry and covered his face with his hands.