Then Mazeppa began and told me the tale of that eventful week.
The Tsar having shown himself unwilling to go among so large a company of maidens, it had been decided to weed out the greater number, and to leave only those whose supreme beauty gave them particular claim to the Tsar’s regard. Among these chosen six were the girl Soltikof, whom I had brought to the palace with a message from young Peter. I was not surprised that she should have been chosen to be among the selected, for indeed she was both beautiful and vivacious, a maiden who might wring admiration from a very stone. My chosen love of former days, the Cossack maiden Olga Panief, was another of the six, the remaining four being no less beautiful maidens, each in her own way, though their names are not necessary to these records. To these six was added Vera Kurbatof, found and brought to the terem in the nick of time.
The seven were then paraded before the Tsar, who on the first occasion was sulky, or timid, or what not, and refused to raise his head to look at them, declaring that he would not marry; that they had assembled these wenches in vain for him. ‘Let them go,’ he said. ‘Let who will have them; I want none of them.’
Then the seven were returned to the terem, and for that day the farce was over. But in the night, when all slept or were supposed to sleep in the dormitory set apart for them, the Regent, with the Tsar at her side, passed among the beds and examined carefully each sleeper’s face and any part of the beautiful forms or limbs which might have escaped by accident or design from the coverings. It was known well enough that it was customary for the bridegroom Tsar thus to feast his eyes, before finally choosing his bride, upon the most beautiful of his maidens, rendered unconscious of his presence by sleep. Therefore, if one were proud of a beautiful arm or neck, she was careful to fall asleep with this exposed to view, that the Tsar might observe and admire.
Vera had cried herself to sleep, and lay—supremely beautiful—with the tears still upon her cheek. The Tsar flushed as he glanced at her. ‘She hates and fears me,’ he said, pointing at her with his chin, ‘and therefore I fear her also.’
But when he came to the bed on which the Soltikof maiden lay modestly covered, the flush of sleep upon her beautiful cheek, his breath came and went.
‘Holy Mother!’ he exclaimed, ‘here is one I have not seen. What is her name?’
The Regent named the girl, thanking her saints that Ivan seemed at last to take an interest in one, at least, of the lovely models of womanhood wasted upon him.
‘This one is well enough,’ said Ivan, passing on, ‘if she too does not hate me, like that other!’
The nightly inspection was not the only trial through which these chosen seven were compelled to pass. They were constantly questioned and examined by the Court doctors and dentists and by experienced women appointed for the purpose.