Peter and Alexis: The Romance of Peter the Great

by Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky

The company were hushed, silenced; something strange and terrifying seemed to pass through the air; all suddenly became conscious of doing something they ought not to do.

Lower and lower sank the sky shrouded in black clouds. Brighter and brighter grew the bluish flashes of thunderless lightning. And these sudden flashes of light in the dark vault seemed to reflect the bluish flame on the altar which continued to glow at the feet of the statue; or else in the vault, as in an overturned bowl of a gigantic altar, hid by a bank of clouds, black as charcoals, there glowed the Bacchantic flames, sallying forth from time to time in the shape of lightning. The fire of the sky and the flame on the altar, responding to one another, seemed to hold converse about some terrible mystery unrevealed to mankind, yet already enacting itself in earth and sky.

The Tsarevitch, who was sitting not very far from the statue, gazed intently at her, for the first time after the reading of the newspaper cuttings. The nude white body of the goddess seemed so familiar to him, he was almost sure he had seen it before now, and even more than seen it—these very dimples on the shoulders, this virginal curve of the back appeared to him in his most passionate, secret visions, visions he felt ashamed to confess even to himself. Suddenly he remembered to have seen this same curve, these same dimples on the shoulder of his mistress, the serf girl Afrossinia. He felt dizzy, probably from the wine, the heat, the close atmosphere, and all this monstrous festival, so like a nightmare. He glanced again at the statue, and suddenly the white nude body, in the double light of the red smoky illumination vessels and the bluish flame of the tripod, appeared so real, terrible and enticing to him, that he was obliged to cast down his eyes. Was it indeed possible that the goddess Venus should appear to him also, as she did to Avrámoff, in the guise of a were-wolf—the serf girl Afrossinia? He crossed himself in thought.

“Not the Hellenes are to be wondered at, who, ignorant of the Christian law, bowed before lifeless idols,” rejoined Theodosius, continuing the conversation interrupted by the reading, “but, rather we Christians, who, ignorant of true reverence for icons, worship them as idols!”

This started one of those conversations which Peter specially delighted in, about all sorts of false wonders and signs, the deceitfulness of monks, the possessed, nervous epileptic women, saintly madmen, old wives’ tales, and the superstition of Russian priests. Again Alexis had to listen to all these oft-repeated odious tales: about the shift of the Queen of heaven, which the monks had brought from Jerusalem, as a gift to Catherine, and which was supposed could neither burn nor rot. When the material was experimented on it turned out to be woven of a special fireproof fibre—amianth: about the incorruptible body of the Finnish girl von Grot, whose skin “was like prepared pigshide and when pressed returned like a ball to its shape”; and about other false relics made of ivory which Peter had ordered to be sent in to the Petersburg Kunstkammer as a memento of “superstition now being exterminated by the zeal of the clergy.”

“Yes, there is much deception in the Russian Church concerning miracles,” concluded Theodosius, in his tone of plaintive malignity. He mentioned the last false wonder on record. In a small church near Petersburg an image of the Virgin had appeared, which shed tears, prophesying as it were great mishaps, even the final destruction of the new city. Peter, informed of it by Theodosius, went himself to the church, examined the icon, and exposed the deception. This had happened quite recently. The icon had not yet been sent into the Kunstkammer, and it had meanwhile been kept in the Tsar’s Summer Palace, a small Dutch house, here in the garden, only at a distance of about two yards from the gallery, on the corner between the Fontanna and the Neva. The Tsar, desirous showing it to his guests, ordered one of his servants to fetch the icon. When the man returned Peter left the table and coming out in front of the statue, where there was more room, he, leaning with his back against the marble pedestal and holding the image in his hand, began to give a careful and elaborate explanation of the deceptive mechanism. The guests again thronged round him, crowding, rising on tiptoe, striving to catch a glimpse across one another’s shoulders and heads, just as at the beginning of the festival, when the case containing the statue was being opened. Theodosius was holding the candle.

The icon was an old one. The face was dark, almost black; only the large sorrowful eyes, swollen as with tears, seemed alive. Alexis had always loved and honoured this image of “God’s mother, the Joy of all the sorrowing.”

Peter removed the silver trimming set with priceless gems; it came off easily, having been already loosened during the first examination. He then unscrewed the brass screws, which fastened a small piece of new limewood to the back of the icon. In its centre was fixed a smaller piece; it moved easily on a spring, a pressure of the hand was sufficient to work it. Removing both boards Peter pointed to two little cavities hollowed out in the wood just against the eyes of the image. Two tiny sponges soaked with water were placed in them, the water oozed through the almost imperceptible holes bored in the eyes, forming drops which looked like tears.

Peter proved it by an experiment; he moistened the sponges, put them into their cavities, pressed the board and the tears began to flow.

“This is the source of these miraculous tears,” said Peter. His face was as calm as if he had just been describing a curious trick of nature, or some unusual object in the Kunstkammer.