is all over with Holland; on to the rubbish-heap with it! I hold on to
England, since France is also declining.”
“Should one abandon one’s old friends?...”
“Certainly, when they are no more good. Moreover, there is no friendship
in love and in politics. Do you think I like this wretched August of
Poland? No! I am sure you don’t. But I must go with him through thick
and thin, for my country, for Russia. He who cannot sacrifice his little
humours and passions for his country is a Don Quixote, like Charles the
Twelfth. This fool, with his mad hatred against August and myself,
has worked for Sweden’s overthrow and Russia’s future. But that this
Christian dog should incite the Turks against us was a crime against
Europe, for Europe needs Russia as a bulwark against Asia. Did not the
Mongol sit for two hundred years on our frontier and threaten us? And
when our ancestors had at last driven him away, there comes a fellow
like this and brings the heathen from Constantinople upon us. The
Mongols were once in Silesia, and would have destroyed Western Europe
if we Russians had not saved it. Charles XII is dead, but I curse his
memory, and I curse everyone who seeks to hinder me in my laudable
endeavour to raise Russia from a Western Asiatic power to an Eastern
European one. I shall beat everyone down, whoever he may be, who
interferes with my work, even though it were my own son.”
There was silence for some moments. The last words referred to the
Delicate topic of Alexis, Peter’s son by his first marriage, who was now
a prisoner awaiting his death-sentence in the Peter-Paul Fortress. He
was accused of having endeavoured to hinder his father’s work in the
civilisation of Russia, and was suspected of having taken part in plots
of rebellion. The Czar’s first divorced wife Eudoxia was confined in the
convent of Suzdal.
Katharina naturally did not love Alexis, since he stood in the way of
her children, and she would have been glad of his death, but did not
wish to incur the guilt of it. Since Peter also did not wish to take
the responsibility for it, he had appointed a court of a hundred and
twenty-seven persons to try his son.
The topic therefore was an unwelcome one, and, with his extraordinary
facility for quick changes of thought and feeling, Peter broke the
silence with the prosaic question, “Where is the brandy?”
“You will get no brandy so early, my boy.”
“Kathrina!” said Peter in a peculiar tone, while his face began to
twitch.
“Be quiet, Lion!” answered his wife, and stroked his black mane, which
had begun to bristle. She took a bottle and a glass out of a basket.
The Lion cheered up, swallowed the strong drink, smiled, and stroked his
spouse’s expansive bust.
“Will you see the children?” asked Katherine, in order to bring him into
a milder mood.
“No, not to-day! Yesterday I beat them, and they would think I was
running after them. Keep them at a distance. Keep them under, or they
will get the better of you!”
Katherine had taken the last letter, as though absent-mindedly, and
began to read it. Then she coloured, and tore it in two. “You must not
write to actresses. That is too great an honour for them, and can only
disgrace us.”
The Czar smiled, and was not angry. He had not intended to send the
letter, but only scribbled it in order to excite his wife, perhaps also
to show off.
There was a sound of approaching footsteps underneath.
“See! there is my friend, the scoundrel!”
“Hush!” said Katherine, “Menshikoff is your friend.”
“A fine friend! Already once I have condemned him to death as a thief
and deceiver; but he lives still, thanks to your friendship.”
“Hush!”
Menshikoff (he was a great soldier, an able statesman, an indispensable
favourite, enormously rich) came hurrying up the wooden stairs. It was
in his house that the Czar had found his Katherine. He was handsome,
looked like a Frenchman, dressed well, and had polished manners. He
greeted the Czar ceremoniously, and kissed Katherine’s hand.
“Now they are there again,” he commenced.
“The Strelitzil? [Footnote: a Russian body-guard first established by
Ivan the Terrible.] Have I not rooted them out?”
“They grow like the dragon’s seed, and now they want to deliver Alexis.”
“Have you any more exact information?”
“The conspirators meet this evening at five o’clock.”
“Where?”
“Number fourteen the Strandlinje, at an apparently harmless meal.”
“Strand--14,” wrote the Czar on his tablets. “Any more?”
“To-night at two o’clock they fire the city.”
“At two o’clock?” The Czar shook his head, and his face twitched.
“I build up, and they pull down. But now I will extirpate them root and
branch. What do they say?”
“They look back to Holy Moscow, and regard the building of Petersburg as
a piece of godlessness or malice. The workmen die, like flies, of marsh
fever, and they regard your Majesty’s building in the midst of a marsh
as an act of bravado a la Louis Quatorze, who built Versailles on the
site of a swamp.”
“Asses! My town is to command the mouth of the river, and to be the Key
to the sea, therefore it must be there. The marsh shall be drained off
into canals, which will carry boats like those of Amsterdam. But so it
is when monkeys judge!”
He rang; a servant appeared; “Put the horses to the cabriolet”; he
called down, “and now, goodbye, Katherine; I shall not be home till
to-morrow. It will be a hot day. But don’t forget the letters. Alexander
can help you.”
“Will you not dress, little son?” answered Katherine.
“Dress? I have my sabre.”
“Put at least your coat on.”
The Czar put on his coat, drew the belt which held the sabre some holes
tighter, and sprang at one bound from the platform.
“Now it will come off,” whispered Menshikoff to Katherine.
“You have not been lying, Alexander?”
“A few lies adorn one’s speech. The chief point is gained. To-morrow,
Katherine, you can sleep quietly in the nursery with the heirs to the
throne.”
“Can any misfortune happen to him?”
“No! he never has misfortune.”
* * * * *
The Czar ran down to the seashore; he never walked, but always ran.
“Life goes fast,” he was wont to say, “and there is much to do.”
When he reached the gravel bank he found a boat landing, with five
men and the Dutch prisoner. The latter sat stolidly by the rudder, and
smoked his pipe. But when he saw the Czar, he took off his cap, threw it
in the air, and cried, “Hurrah!”
Czar Peter shaded his eyes, and, when he recognised his old teacher and
friend, Jaen Scheerborck from Amsterdam, he jumped into the boat over
the rowers’ shoulders and knees, rushed into Jaen’s arms and kissed him,
so that his pipe broke and the seaman’s great grey beard was full of
smoke and nearly took fire. Then the Czar lifted the old man up, and
carried him in his arms like a child to the shore.
“At last, you old rascal! I have you here with me! Now you shall see my
city and my fleet, which I have built myself, for you have taught me.
Bring the cabriolet here, boy! and a grapnel from the boat; we will go,
and tack about. Quickly!”
“Dear heart alive!” said the old man, picking the tobacco-ashes out of
his beard, “to think that I have seen the Carpenter-Czar before I die;
that is....”
“Into the cabriolet, old fellow! Boy, hang the grapnel behind. Where are
you to sit? On my knees, of course!”
The cabriolet had only room for one person, and the captain actually had
to sit on the Czar’s lap. Three horses were yoked to it tandem-fashion,
and a fourth ran beside the leader. The whip cracked, and the Czar
played being at sea. “A good wind, isn’t it? Twelve knots! Furl the
sheet! so!”
A toll-gate appeared, and the captain, who knew the Czar’s wild tricks
but also his skill, began to cry “There is a toll-gate! Stop!”
But the Czar, who had found again his youth with his old friend of
former times, and with his indestructible boyishness, liked practical
jokes and dangers, whipped on the horses, whistled and shouted, “Let her
go! Clear for action! Jump!”
The toll-gate was burst clean open, and the old man laughed so that he
swayed on the Czar’s knees. And so they drove along the shore. At the
town gate the sentinels presented arms and saluted; on the streets
people cried “Hurrah!” and when they reached the Admiralty, cannon were
fired and the yards manned. But the Czar seriously or in play, as though
he were on the sea, shouted “Anchor!”
So saying, he so threw the grapnel towards the wall, that it caught in
a torch-holder, which bent but did not break. But the horses, which were
still running, were suddenly forced back, and sank on their knees. The
first of the three rose no more; it had been fatally injured by bursting
in the toll-gate.
Three hours later, when the fleet and docks had been inspected, the
Czar and Jaen Scheerborck sat in a seamen’s tavern. The cabriolet stood
without, and was “anchored” to a thatched roof. Brandy was on the table,
and their pipes had filled the room with smoke. The two friends had
discussed serious matters. The Czar had paid six visits, one to his
staff of generals, from which he returned in a very excited state to the
waiting captain. But, with his extraordinary capacity for shaking off
what was unpleasant and for changing his moods, he now beamed with
hilarity.
“You ask whence I shall get the inhabitants for my new town. I first
brought fifty thousand workmen here. That was the nucleus. Then
I commanded all officials, priests, and great landowners to build
houses--each of them, one--whether they intended to live in it or not.
Now I have a hundred thousand. I know they talk and say that I build
towns, but don’t dwell in them myself. No! I build not for myself,
but for the Russians. I hate Moscow, which smells of the Khan of the
Tartars, and would prefer to live in the country. That is no one else’s
affair. Drink, old man! We have the whole day before us till five
o’clock. Then I must be sober.”
The old man drank cautiously, and did not know exactly how to behave in
this grand society, which was at the same time so nautical.
“Now you must tell me some of the stories which the people relate about
me. You know lots of them, Jaen.”
“I know some certainly, but it is not possible....”
“Then I will tell some,” said Peter, “Do you know the story of the pair
of compasses and the cheese? No? Well, it runs thus: ‘The Czar is so
covetous that he always carries a box of drawing instruments in his
pocket. With a pair of compasses he measures his cheese, to see whether
any of it has been stolen since the last meal!’ That is a good story!
Here is another! ‘The Czar has a Tippler’s Club. Once they determined to
hold a festival, and the guests were shut up three days and three nights
in order to drink. Each guest had a bench behind him, on which to sleep
off his intoxication, besides two tubs, one for food and one for ... you
understand?’”
“No, that is too absurd!”
“Such are the stories they like to tell in Petersburg. Have you not
heard that I also extract teeth? In my palace, they say, there is a sack
full of them. And then I am said to perform operations in hospital. Once
I drew off so much water from a dropsical woman that she died.”
“Do the people believe that?”
“Certainly they do. They are so stupid, you see; but I will cut off
their asses’ ears and singe their tongues....”
His eyes began to sparkle, and it was plain what direction his thoughts
were taking. But however confidential he might be, there always seemed
to be secret checks at work, so that, even when intoxicated, he always
kept his great secrets though he told unimportant ones.
Just then an adjutant came in, and whispered something to the Czar.
“Exactly at five o’clock,” answered the Czar in a loud voice. “Sixty
grenadiers, with loaded guns and cutlasses! Adieu! Jaen,” continued the
Czar, giving a sudden turn to his thoughts, “I will buy your loom, but I
will not give more than fifty roubles for it.”
“Sixty, sixty.”
“You Satan of a Dutchman! You skinflint! If I offer fifty, that is an
honour for you! Indeed it is!”
The Czar’s anger rose, but it was connected with the adjutant’s message,
not with the loom. The pot was boiling, and the cover had to fly. “You
miserable peddlers of groceries! Always fleecing people! But your time
is past! Now come the English! They are another sort!”
Jaen the seaman became gloomy, and that annoyed the Czar still more.
He wanted to enjoy Jaen’s company, and therefore sought to divert his
thoughts. “Landlord,” he cried, “bring champagne!”
The landlord came in, fell on his knees, and begged for mercy, for he
had not the luxurious drink in his store-cellar. This superfluous
word “store-cellar” might sound ironical and provocative, though
unintentionally. Still it was welcome as an occasion for using the
stick.
“Have you a store-cellar, you rascal? Will you tell me that the keeper
of a seaman’s alehouse has a cellar of spirits!” And now the stick
danced. But as the Dutchman turned away with a gesture of disapproval,
the Czar’s fury broke loose. From time to time his disposition
necessitated such outbreaks. His sabre flew out of its sheath; like a
madman, he broke all the bottles on the dresser and cut all the legs
off the chairs and tables. Then he made a pile out of the fragments, and
prepared to burn the landlord on it.
Then a door opened, and a woman entered with a little child on her arm.
When the child saw its father prostrate with his neck stretched out, it
began to scream. The Czar paused, quieted down, went to the woman, and
accosted her. “Be easy, mother; no mischief is going on; we are only
playing at sailors.”
Then he turned to the landlord: “Send the account to Prince Menshikoff;
he will pay. But if you scratch me.... Well, I forgive you this time....
Now let us go, Jaen. Up with the anchor, and stand by the sheet!”
Then they drove into the town. The Czar ran up into various houses and
came down again, until it was noon. They then halted before Menshikoff’s
palace. “Is dinner ready?” asked the Czar from the cabriolet.
“Yes, your Majesty,” answered a lackey.
“Serve up for two! Is the Prince at home?”
“No, your Majesty.”
“Never mind. Serve up for two.”
It was the Czar’s habit thus to make himself a guest in his friends’
houses, whether they were at home or not, and he is said once to have
thus quartered himself upon somebody, with two hundred of his courtiers.
After a splendid dinner, the Czar went into an ante-room and laid down
to sleep. The captain had already gone to sleep at the table. But the
Czar laid a watch beside him; he could wake whenever he wished.
When he awoke, he went into the dining-room, and found Jaen Scheerborck
sleeping at the table.
“Bring him out!” commanded the Czar.
“Is he not to accompany your Majesty any more?” the chamberlain, who was
a favourite, ventured to ask.
“No! I have had enough of him; one should not meet people more than once
in a lifetime. Carry him to the pump--that will sober him, and then
take him to his ship”--and with a contemptuous glance he added, “You old
beast!”
Then he felt whether his sabre was secure, and went out.
After his sleep, Peter was again the Emperor--lofty, upright, dignified.
He went along the promenade, serious and sedate, as though to a battle.
When he had found Number 14, he entered at once, sure of finding his
fifty men there. On the right hand ground-floor towards the courtyard,
all the windows stood open. There he saw the conspirators sitting at a
long table and drinking wine. He stepped into the room, saw many of his
friends there, and felt a stab at his heart.
“Good-day, comrades!” was his cheery greeting.
The whole company rose like one man. They exchanged looks and put on
faces for the occasion.
“Let us drink a glass together, friends!” Peter threw himself on a
chair; then he looked at a clock in the room, and saw it was only
half-past four. He had made a mistake of half an hour. Was it his own
error, or was Menshikoff’s clock wrong?
“Half an hour!” he thought to himself, but in the next second he had
emptied a huge glass, and began to sing a very popular soldiers’ song,
keeping time by knocking the glass against the table.
The effect of the song was magical. They had sung it as victors at
Pultowa; they had marched to the accompaniment of its strains; it
carried their memories to better, happier times, and they all joined in.
Peter’s strong personality, the winning amiable air he could assume when
he liked, had an attractive power for all. One song led to another, and
singing relieved the terrible embarrassment. It was the only possible
way of avoiding a conversation. Between the songs the Czar proposed
a health, or drank to an old friend, reminding him of some experience
which they had shared in common. He dared not look at the clock lest
he should betray himself, but he found the half hour in this den of
murderers intolerably long.
Several times he saw two exchanging glances, but then he threw in a
jesting word and the thread was broken. He was playing for his life, and
he played well, for he misled them with his cheerfulness and naivete, so
that they could not tell whether he knew anything or not. He played with
their irresolution.
At last he heard the rattle of arms in the courtyard, and with one bound
he was out of the window.
“Massacre!” was his only word of command, and then the blood-bath began.
He himself stood at the window, and when any one tried to jump out, the
Czar struck off his head. “Alles tot!” he exclaimed in German, when it
was all over. Then he went his way in the direction of the Peter-Paul
Fortress.
He was received by the Commandant, and had himself conducted to Prince
Alexis, his only surviving and eldest son, on whom he had built his hope
and Russia’s destiny.
With the key in his hand, he remained standing before the cell, made the
sign of the cross and prayed half-aloud:--“O Eternal God of armies, Lord
of Hosts, who hath put the sword into the hands of rulers that they
may guide and protect, reward and punish, enlighten thy poor servant’s
understanding that he may deal righteously. Thou hast demanded from
Abraham his son, and he obeyed. Thou hast crucified Thine own Son in
order to redeem mankind. Take my sacrifice, O Terrible One, if Thou
requirest it. Yet not my will be done, but Thine. May this cup pass if
it be Thy will. Amen! in the name of Christ, Amen!”
He entered the cell, and remained there an hour. When he came out again,
he looked as though he had been weeping; but he said nothing, handed
the key to the Commandant, and departed. There are many varying rumours
regarding what passed that evening between father and son. But one thing
is certain: Alexis was condemned to death by a hundred and twenty-seven
judges, and the verdict was entered on the State records. But the Crown
Prince died before the execution of the sentence.
* * * * *
The same evening, about eight o’clock, the Czar entered his
country-house and sought Katherine. “The old has passed away,” he said.
“Now we will begin the new--you and I and our children.”
The Czarina asked no questions, for she understood. But the Czar was
so tired and exhausted, that she feared lest he should have one of the
attacks which she knew so well. And the only way of quieting him was the
old customary one.
She sat down in the corner of the sofa; he laid down resting his head on
her capacious bosom; then she stroked his hair till he fell asleep. But
she had to sit for three hours without moving.
A giant child on a giant bosom, the great champion of the Lord lay
there, his face looked small, his high brow was hidden by his long hair;
his mouth was open, and he snored like a little child asleep. When at
last he awoke, he looked up at first astonished, to find himself where
he was. Then he smiled, but did not say Thank you, and did not fondle
her.
“Now we will have something to eat,” was the first thing he said. “Then
something to drink, and then a great firework. I will light it myself
down on the shore. But Jaen Scheerborck must be present.”
“You have thrown him out.”
“Have I? He was drunk, the fellow. Send for him at once.”
“You are so strange, Peter! Never the same for two minutes together.”
“I will not be the same; it would be too monotonous. Always something
new! And I am always new. What! I do not weary you with everlasting
sameness.”
His orders were carried out. Jaen was brought, but had to be bound
first; he was angry with Peter because of his ducking at the pump, and
refused to come. But when he landed, he was embraced and kissed on the
mouth, and then his wrath blew over.
They ate and drank and had their firework display, which was a great
pleasure for the Czar.
So ended the fateful day which secured the succession to the throne
to the house of Romanoff. And such was the man who termed himself “the
Great, the Self-ruler, the Emperor of All the Russias.”
The Barbarian, who civilised his Russia; who built towns and did not
dwell in them himself; who beat his wife, and allowed extensive liberty
to women,--his life was great, copious, and useful on the public side of
it; in private, as it might chance to be. But he had a beautiful death,
for he died in consequence of an illness contracted when saving a life
from shipwreck--he who, with his own hand, had taken the lives of so
many!
THE SEVEN GOOD YEARS
Monsieur Voltaire, gentleman-in-waiting to Frederick the Great,
possessor of the much prized Order Pour Le Mérite, Academician, and many
other things besides, had been for three years a guest at Sans-Souci,
near Potsdam. He was sitting this beautiful evening in the wing of the
castle where he lived, busy writing a letter. The air was still and
warm, so that the sensitive Frenchman, who was always shivering, could
leave the window open.
His letter, only half written, was directed to the Marquise, the friend
of Cardinal Fleury, who carried on a sort of superior spy-service
by means of correspondence with foreign countries.... “Everything is
transitory,” he wrote, “and it was plain that this would not last.
I have to act as a tutor and correct his bad verses, though he knows
neither German nor French properly. Malicious as an ape he has written
satires on all the ruling heads of Europe which are certainly not fit
for printing, but are quite vulgar and unjust. With a view to the future
dear friend, I have caused his pamphlet to be copied, and at the moment
when he strikes, I shall strike back. If you only knew what this Prussia
is, and threatens to become! It is an eagle sketched in outline with
the tip of one wing resting on the Rhine, and the other on the Russian
frontier. There are gaps here and there in the outline, but when they
are filled up the whole of North Germany will hang like a vulture over
Austria’s two-headed imperial eagle. France must control her
hatred against the House of Hapsburg, and not compromise with the
Hohenzollerns, for you know not what you do. One hears much talk of
plans here, but I dare not write them all down, for he is not to be
jested with.”