“Why have you brought them here? This is no place for children. Go away!”
The governess looked at the Tsar and indignation gleamed in her kind eyes; she was about to reply, but seeing that the Tsarevitch had submissively let Natasha go, she shrugged her shoulders, shook the little boy, who had not yet ceased his cries, angrily caught the little girl’s hand, and silently went out, with the same commanding air which she had borne on entering the hall.
As she was passing out, Natasha turned round and looked at her father with a glance which reminded him of Charlotte. The child’s look expressed, like her mother’s, resigned despair. Alexis’ heart contracted. He felt that he would never see his children again.
They sat down to table. The Tsar between Feofan Prokopovitch and Stephen Yavorski. Opposite to them the Kniaz or mock-Pope with the entire “Most Drunken Conclave.” They had found time to break the fast, and were already beginning to squabble.
For the Tsar this was a double festival: Easter and the breaking up of the ice on the Neva. Dreaming about the launching of new ships, he cheerfully looked though the window upon the white ice blocks, which, bathed by the morning sun, floated like swans on the blue surface.
The talk centred round ecclesiastical affairs.
“Father,” asked Peter, addressing Feofan, “will our Patriarch soon be ready.”
“Soon, your Majesty! I have almost completed his cassock,” answered the prelate.
“And I have already finished his hat,” laughed the Tsar.
The “Patriarch” was none other than the Holy Synod, the “Cassock” signified the ecclesiastical regulations which Feofan was drawing up; the “Hat” the ukase which instituted the Holy Synod.