Two centuries go by and now we come to the third novel, "Peter and Alexis." The scene is in Russia, and the hero is Peter the Great, whom Merezhkovsky represents as a worshipper of things Olympian. He gives a magnificent description of the orgies held by the emperor in honor of Bacchus and Venus, especially the latter, whose statue he expressly ordered from Rome and installed in the Summer Garden at St. Petersburg.
In a veritable fairyland of avenues, of yoke-elms and flower-beds in geometric designs, of enormous baskets filled with the choicest flowers, of straight canals, of ponds, of islets, of magnificent fountains, such a fairyland as Watteau would have dreamed of, there is a Venetian fête with all sorts of fire-works and illuminations; small crafts, adorned with flags, are filled with men in golden garments, girded with swords, and wearing three-cornered hats and buckled shoes; and the women are dressed in velvet and covered with jewels.
The Tsar himself opens the case, and helps in placing the goddess on her pedestal. Again, as two hundred years before in Florence, the resurrected goddess, Aphrodite, emerges from the grave. The cords stretch, the pulleys creak; she rises higher and higher. Peter is almost of the same superhuman height as the statue. And his face, close to that of Aphrodite, remains noble: the man is worthy of the goddess....
"The Immortal One—Aphrodite—was still the same that she was on the hillside in Florence; she had progressed further and further, from age to age, from people to people, halting nowhere, till in her victorious march she had reached the very ends of the earth, the Hyperborean Scythia, beyond which there is naught but darkness and death...."
But what miseries this magnificent façade conceals! Not far off, on an island in the river, one can see people who are watching the fête and who think that they are present at one of the spectacles forerunning doomsday. Among the crowd are seen the "raskolnik" Cornelius, old Vitalya of the "runners," deserters, the merchant Ivanov, the clerk Dokounine ... and several others. In the few remarks that they exchange, we can see that, for them, Peter the Great is the Antichrist, "the beast announced by the Gospel."
Such is the tie that binds Peter the Great, Julian, and Leonardo together. But this tie is weakened by the fact that Peter, an essentially practical and utilitarian genius, was not the man to become inspired with Hellenic poetry, and if the author introduces the Tsar into the society of Julian the Apostate and of Leonardo da Vinci, it is because Peter the Great was one of those indefatigable strugglers, who, to attain their ends, put themselves above the obligations of ordinary morality, one of those supermen, who hesitate at nothing in satisfying the instincts of their egoisms, of their dominating wills. In fact, the heroes of Merezhkovsky's novels all belong in the category of the Nietzschean type of superman, which explains their philosophical relationship and the sort of trilogy which these three novels form. Thus, Julian the Apostate, who tried in vain during his life to make history repeat itself, by transplanting pagan traditions into a plot which had become unfit to receive them, and who died in the effort to preserve a faith—does not this man, then, incarnate that implacable pursuit of the "integral personality" so extolled by Nietzsche? Leonardo da Vinci, that great universal and keen mind, who gave himself over to all the impulses of his creative genius, not caring whether the impulses are worthy or harmful, appears as a luminous manifestation of that state of the soul "beyond good and bad" which characterizes the superman. And is not Peter the Great also a veritable superman; a man who, through his iron will, upset all the ancient institutions of aged Russia, and who did not even prevent the assassination of his son Alexis, inasmuch as he thought that it was for the good of his country?
At all events, the interest and value of "Peter and Alexis" does not rest in its philosophic ideas and in the Nietzschean obsession, but rather in the art with which Merezhkovsky faithfully depicts the psychology of his heroes. The successive phases of this terrible tragedy lead up to a striking climax, and set off, one against the other, temperaments so entirely opposed that the reciprocal tenderness of the father and son is transformed finally into suspicion and hate, and the father resolves to sacrifice the life of his son to what appears to him to be the right of the State. The novel, although a little overburdened with details, is an excellent analysis of the customs of the Russia of former times.
The source of the struggle between Peter and Alexis was known. Peter represented the West and the new ideas, while Alexis represented the Russia of old, rebellious to innovations which she considered dangerous. The author thus symbolizes the eternal conflict between the past and the future. He has analyzed with consummate art the characters of his two heroes. Peter is a man full of contrasts; he is, like many Russians, "a brute and a child," by turns violent and gentle, knavish and simple, cruel and kind, practical and mystical, proud and modest. Possessed of a prodigious activity, he conceives tremendous projects which he immediately wants to put into execution, inspecting everything, verifying everything, finding no care beneath his dignity, talking to the workingmen as if he were one of them, not making long speeches, and fiercely, with cries of rage, fighting dishonest contractors and tradesmen.
Set over against this irascible father, endowed with herculean strength, the Tsarevich Alexis, thin, pale, and delicate, makes a sad figure. Most historians, following the example of Voltaire, have represented this prince as a narrow-minded person, a victim of the bigoted and intolerant education of the clergy. Merezhkovsky, a more discreet psychologist, does not rely on these superficial data, but shades the portrait admirably. He makes Alexis an intelligent man, not like his father, but a man with a comprehensive, subtle spirit. He probably was crushed by the powerful individuality of his father. As he is closely in touch with the people, and knows their aspirations, Alexis judges the work of his father with delicate insight: "My father hopes," he says, "to do everything in a great hurry. One, two, three, and the affair is settled. He does not realize that things done hastily do not last...."