‘If Mazeppa had the word of a Tsar to back his chance, so had I: there are two Tsars in Russia.’
‘Oh, oh!’ laughed the Boyar, ‘and each Tsar will nominate one Hetman, and the stronger of these shall cut the throat of the other. Is that how the matter shall be? Or shall the greater liar or deceiver prevail over the lesser, both being Cossacks?’
‘Well, I will bring you the Tsar Peter’s word,’ I said angrily, ‘and we shall see whether you dare speak thus of him whom the Tsar has promised to support.’
‘Now this grows interesting,’ said the Boyar. ‘What! are the joint Tsars to unjoin in order that Chelminsky may oust Mazeppa, or Mazeppa Chelminsky, in the headship of a few Cossack thieves? Leave the Tsar alone, Chelminsky, and leave my girl alone also, and return among your Cossacks. The wench shall marry a Russian. She might have called herself Tsaritsa: maybe she still might, if she would! If she will not marry the Tsar, she shall marry some Russian who lags not so very far behind him in power and in wealth, but neither a Mazeppa nor a Chelminsky.’
I left Kurbatof in wrath, vowing that he should sing a different tune when the Tsar Peter, that young lion, began to roar. Meanwhile I presented myself at Preobrajensky, where I found the ‘Pleasure Regiment’ grown larger than ever, and its drilling busily proceeding; and though the tall young Tsar himself played with the troops as though they were no more realities than so many companies or squadrons of tin soldiers, there were many officers, both young and old, who were much in earnest.
The Tsar was greatly diverted by my story of Vera, and of how Mazeppa had nearly carried her away to the Ukraine and I had brought her back.
‘Is she so fair that she has made fools of two Cossacks?’ he laughed.
‘Ask his Highness Ivan Alexeyevitch whether she is fair,’ I said: ‘this is she who so nearly was Tsaritsa!’
‘Hey, but our little Praskovia was not to be surpassed. What said we, Chelminsky, eh? Who would have thought my poor Vanushka would prove himself a man of such good taste, or went he solely on the advice I sent him? My mother declared it would be all one to Ivan whether he married this maid or that; but I say he knows one from another, and some, I am told, would have given an eye to marry him!’
The Tsar Peter laughed much over this matter, namely, that Ivan should have shown preference for a maiden and that some should have desired to marry him. ‘Well, then,’ he ended, ‘as to this Vera Kurbatof, what would you do?’