On the red staircase

by Mary Imlay Taylor

I assumed surprise.

“Matveief is an exile,” I exclaimed hastily.

The Russian laughed. “The czarina is his dutiful and indebted ward,” he said. “He is no longer in Archangel but at Lukh, and a summons can reach him the easier. When a guardian has set you on a throne, you cannot be ungrateful. Why, man, where are your senses? What is all this shouting about? It is the Naryshkins. I forget, though, you are a foreigner.”

“A poor gentleman,” I said at once; “a soldier of the king of France.”

The Russian’s glance was following the crowd; whatever his thoughts, they were not pleasant, for his expression was gloomy and cynical.

“You have witnessed a singular event in our history,” he said sternly; “you have seen the Moscovite rabble elect a czar. The younger son setting aside the first-born!”

“The Czarevitch Ivan is said to be indifferent to the high office,” I replied, in a low tone; “he is blind.”

“Ay, and deformed!” said the Russian, promptly. “Yet will the people of Russia demand the recognition of primogeniture. Court intrigues cannot prevail. What a flimsy pretext was this election! The States-General of Russia elected Michael Romanof; the Czar Shuisky fell because he was elected by Moscow alone; and this is not the Moscovite State, but the rabble of the city, and the retainers of the boyars![2] The Miloslavskys are down to-day, but who dares to predict for to-morrow?”

It was indeed a difficult problem, so bitter was the quarrel. The Miloslavskys were the relatives of the first wife of the Czar Alexis, the Naryshkins of his second; and, that day, the latter had succeeded in electing their candidate for the throne, Alexis’ youngest son Peter, setting aside Ivan, his half-brother, and the only surviving son of Alexis by his first wife, the Princess Marie Miloslavsky.

I was endeavoring to place my companion; that he was well born, I could not doubt; at the same time, he was evidently not an officer. I seemed to have seen his face before, and wondered if he could have been in attendance on Prince Dolgoruky, the Chief of the Department of the Streltsi. The ugly scar, which drew the right side of his face, seemed to make identification infallible; yet, it was that scar that baffled me, for I could not remember having seen it before. We were moving along now, and I did not care for his company, but did not like to shake him off too abruptly; he walked close beside me, whether unconsciously or not, I could not be sure. The Grand Square was still densely crowded, and the rabble kept up a continuous uproar. All around us, there were still prolonged shouts for Peter Alexeivitch, and here and there, there were rough-and-tumble fights in progress, due undoubtedly to the reviving sentiment of opposition. I noticed but few boyars threading their way through the mob; for days I had remarked a certain timidity on their part, an avoidance of the crowd. I had no doubt, in my own mind, that the trouble in the Department of the Streltsi was more serious than any one was willing to admit, and it was difficult to estimate the result of to-day’s coup d’état. Partisans and opponents alike were aware of the strong sentiment among the rank and file of the Streltsi in favor of the blind czarevitch, or rather of the great Czarevna Sophia Alexeievna,[3] and of their lukewarm attachment to the child Peter, who had just been so irregularly elected. I could not avoid some speculation, little as the matter seemed then to concern me. I confess that I was moved by a sentiment of gallantry to lean towards the cause of the Czarina Natalia. Her comparative youth, her beauty, and the peril of her situation appealed to me, and I felt, with some regret, that her party scarcely estimated the real strength of her opponents. I sympathized with the young and ambitious mother fighting for the rights of her son, hemmed in as she was by court intrigue and malice, and pitted against a mind that, in diplomacy and subtlety, far surpassed her own; for we were all beginning to realize that the Czarevna Sophia was a power that it was difficult to estimate.