“Feodor Sergheievitch has suffered much at the hands of his own class,” Von Gaden replied quietly. “He has a faithful follower in one of the regiments of the Streltsi, and he has assumed that disguise for safety, and also, I think, to gain a thorough knowledge of the schemes on foot. He hopes much from the Miloslavskys,—more than I do. Prince Galitsyn is his friend; but in these days, no man can feel his future a certainty.”
“Right and justice are on his side,” I remarked, musingly.
Von Gaden smiled. “Right is on the side of the blind czarevitch, and yet what would Russia do with such a ruler? She would be doomed to an indefinite regency, to intrigues, strife, division. It is not always right, M. le Vicomte, but might which conquers.”
“You are a Naryshkin partisan,” I said lightly; “Russia might do worse than leave her destiny in the hands of a wise regent—”
“You mean the Czarevna Sophia,” interposed Von Gaden. He stopped short and confronted me. We were in one of the narrow, tortuous streets; it was mid-day, but all was quiet; the life and business of the city was not in this quarter. The Jew’s thoughtful face was marked with unusual emotion.
“M. de Brousson,” he said in a low voice, pointing his long finger at the Kremlin, “it will avail nothing to advance that ambitious woman. It will avail nothing to set aside the czarina dowager, to crush the Naryshkins, to excite the Streltsi, and appeal to every passion of the rabble. The future ruler of the empire is yonder: a boy now, little considered and set aside, but the ruler born, and every inch a czar. I know the lad, I can read destiny in his eye; unless the hand of an assassin strike down that young life, this distracted country will see in him the dawn of a new power. You have the grand monarch; but not even your great Louis will be greater than Peter Alexeivitch.”
Looking back now, after forty years, upon that scene, I see again the Jew’s face as he uttered his prophecy, received by me then as the vagary of an excitable and dreamy man, but remembered in later years as the first proclamation of Peter the Great. His outburst over, Von Gaden walked beside me dreamily.
“The city is more quiet,” I remarked, “since the pravezh; the Streltsi seem to be satisfied.”
He shook his head with an air of gloom which reminded me of Pierrot.
“It is the calm before the storm,” he replied. “Every one is calling on Matveief and bringing him presents; but his son has said that it is ‘sweet money on a sharp knife,’ and that is the truth, although it is unwise for him to say it, but young blood is hot.”