CONTENTS

PAGE
BookI.The Venus of Petersburg[9]
BookII.Antichrist[51]
BookIII.The Private Journal of the Tsarevitch Alexis[99]
BookIV.The Flood[171]
BookV.Desolation of the Holy Places[227]
BookVI.The Tsar’s Son in Exile[271]
BookVII.Peter the Great[333]
BookVIII.The Were-Wolf[373]
BookIX.The Red Death[415]
BookX.Father and Son[461]
Epilogue
The Christ Who is to Come[513]

Book I
THE VENUS OF PETERSBURG


CHAPTER I

Antichrist is coming. He, the last of devils, has not yet come himself; but the world is teeming with his progeny. The children are preparing the way for their father. They twist everything to suit the designs of Antichrist. He will appear in his own due time, when everywhere all is prepared and the way smoothed. He is already at the door. Soon will he enter!”

Thus spake an old man of fifty, a clerk, judging by his clothes, to a young man, who, wrapped in a nankeen dressing gown, with slippers on his bare feet, was seated at a table.