The young Czar felt his lassitude fall from him; new energy shot through him like a flame touching his heart; once again all seemed possible; the grandeur of his manhood, the splendor of his rulership, again became palpable things; the nightmares fled leaving a sane world about him; the Swede no longer seemed a thing to so greatly fear or envy.
He was Czar of All the Russias, and a strong man in his youth.
With a laugh he pressed his friend’s arm, and Mentchikoff laughed also, knowing his master cured for a while.
“Shall we trouble for that Northern boy, we who are Peter?” demanded the Czar, holding up his head and staring at the sea; he spoke thickly, for his tongue had swollen where he had bitten it, but the unhealthy pallor had left his face and his eyes had the calm of a healthy man.
“Come and have supper, now that your melancholy is over,” said Mentchikoff, in a happy voice, “and I will show you a gay creature who will make you glad.”
“Until it is dark I will stay under the trees,” replied Peter, “and I shall not drink to-night.”
CHAPTER III
WHEN the last glow of the sun had faded, the air of desolation, of vast gray spaces isolated from the world, returned.
The nightingale had ceased to sing and there was no other living creature abroad; the swamps beyond the wood were devoid of life, the night sky had the lead-colored look of the North, and there was no moon; there was no sense of summer now that the moon was gone.
Peter turned away; the sea being hidden from his view, he had no interest in the landscape; he moved slowly and with a ponderous step through the last trees of the woods, until he came to the chain of lilac thickets, now past their blooming, that led to Danilovitch Mentchikoff’s house, Oranienbaum, a palace that he was erecting near to his master’s cottage of Marli.