Indeed, there were no more than two hundred, in all, that now awaited in the terem of the palace in the Kremlin the verdict of the Tsar or of those who would choose for him.
I spoke with many of those who, like Mazeppa, had been entrusted with the duty of selection. Of these some made very merry over their commission.
‘One would suppose that every maiden in my district,’ said one, ‘was of the age of seventeen, and beautiful, and virtuous, and healthy. I had crowds to deal with and none would take “no” for an answer. Believe me if you will, of the thousand or more that offered themselves from Novgorod, I am here at last with five maidens. I know not how I shall dare return to my home, for I have now nearly one thousand inveterate enemies, ready, I doubt not, to tear me to pieces!’
‘How is a man to say this one is beautiful or that one?’ said another. ‘As for me, I brought all who offered themselves, which was luckily only eight girls, my district being a narrow one. How should I say whom the Grand Duchess might think handsome, and whom plain? It is her affair, not mine; her eyes are the judges.’
‘What! is the Tsar to have no word in the choice?’ I asked, laughing.
‘Lord—as if he could say yea or nay for himself! He would weep and ask to be taken back to his play-room. “I desire none of them,” he would say. “Why should I marry any of these strangers?”’
All present laughed at this, but one said:
‘It is of the maidens I think. Were I one of them I should pray to God from this moment until the last hour of the choice that the Tsar might choose any one of the maidens rather than myself. Imagine, my brothers, the being mated with such a thing! A Tsar that dribbles at the mouth and chatters to himself, but will speak to no other if he can avoid it. A Tsar that falls in a fit if startled or loudly spoken to; a creature that—if he were not a Tsar—must be laughed at, or wept over; a thing to be hidden from the eyes of his fellows! Yet here is this frolic of nature paraded as though he were a man like another, in order that he may condemn one of God’s fairest creatures to the unspeakable horror of marrying him!’
‘That is foolish talk, Katkof,’ said another. ‘These young women come to marry the crown, or the throne, or the sceptre—what you will. What matter who it is that sits arrayed as king? Moreover, what signifies a marriage with such as Ivan? It is to be another nurse, another attendant, and there is the end; only that she will be called Tsaritsa, and will sit higher than every other woman in the land!’
I suppose that both opinions were right and both wrong. Some maidens there be, the majority I doubt not, who would accept all things if only they might have the title and position of Tsaritsa. A few would pray to God with tears night and day that the Tsar, in making choice, would pass them over. They would grimace, or develop a weary look by keeping awake at nights, or they would cry their noses red and their eyes swollen! Anything to escape so hateful a destiny as to be chosen Tsaritsa to such a Tsar!