“Is this how I get my Baltic port?” he cried scornfully. “Is this how I wrest a province from Sweden? I should have been in Moscow months ago.”
“God knows you should, Peter Alexievitch,” said Mentchikoff mournfully.
“But I had to labor with my hands, Danilovitch, there is no other cure for these infernal torments. I must make things, and be near the sea.”
The Prince knew that Peter alluded to the black melancholy fits to which he was subject and made no reply.
“This boy now,” continued the Czar, in a quieter tone, “he would be sober? Not chased by phantoms or mocked by the infernal ones, eh, Danilovitch?”
“A cold Norseman,” replied Mentchikoff. “They say that for this campaign at least, his life has been austere.”
“That is it,” replied Peter, with an eagerness that was almost wistful, “an austere life—to train the body, to eat bread and drink water, to sleep on the ground, to live as the meanest foot soldier—and I could do it—if he, why not I?”
Then, in a sudden fit of gloom, he added:
“I have no troops worth naming beyond the Strelitz and the Germans—savages, peasants, this King will laugh at me—and Riga is lost and Tönning? Curse both the Saxon and the Dane.”
He spoke wearily, without passion; Mentchikoff rose and touched him gently, with an infinite tenderness, on the arm.