THE ORDER OF PROCEDURE AT THE TORTURE OF THOSE UNDER ACCUSATION
“The examination under torture of those accused of crime shall
take place in a specially reserved spot termed Sasténok,
surrounded by fences and covered with a roof. The judges shall
be present at the proceedings with a secretary, and a clerk
shall register the words of him undergoing torture.
“In this place a strappado shall be erected; which shall
consist of three beams, two driven into the ground the third
connecting them transversely at the top. At the appointed
hour the administrator of the torture is to come in with his
instruments—a wooden collar to which is attached a rope, a
knout, and some strips of leather.
“On the arrival of the judges the torturer shall throw one end
of the long rope across the transverse bar, and taking the
accused shall draw his arms behind him and confine them in the
collar; he and his assistants appointed for the task shall
then throw their weight upon the rope in such a fashion that
the victim cannot touch the ground, but shall remain suspended
by his arms which are twisted behind him. Then his feet shall
be strapped together, and fastened to a beam erected for the
purpose in front of the strappado. The prisoner being thus
pinioned and fully outstretched, the flogging shall commence
and at the same time the interrogation of the accused, and the
official registration of every word extracted shall take place.”
When on the morning of June 19 the Tsarevitch was brought into the
torture chamber he was still ignorant of the sentence of the court.
The headsman Kondrashka Tioutioune came up to him and said:
“Undress.”
The Tsarevitch still did not understand.
Kondrashka laid his hand on his shoulder. Alexis looked at him and
understood, but no fear took possession of him. His soul was devoid of
all feeling. He felt as if he were asleep and in his ears rang the song
of an old foreboding dream:—
Fierce fires are burning,
Cauldrons are steaming,
Blades of knives sharpened
All to butcher thee!
“Raise him!” said Peter to the headsman.
The Tsarevitch was suspended on the strappado. He received twenty-five
blows with the knout.
Three days later Peter sent Tolstoi to his son.
“Go to-day after mass to the lodging of the Tsarevitch, question him on
the following points and note down his replies:—
“(1) For what reason has he refused to act according to the least of my
wishes? He knew such conduct was wholly indefensible; why then has he
felt neither shame nor remorse?
“(2) Why was he then so boldly defiant of all the punishment which he
knew would ensue?
“(3) Why has he sought to win his paternal inheritance by other means
than obedience?”
When Tolstoi entered the dungeon of the Troubetzkoi bastion where
the Tsarevitch was incarcerated, the latter was lying on his couch.
Blumentrost was preparing a medical dressing; he was examining the scars
on the back, exchanging old bandages for new ones soaked with some
cooling fomentation. The court physician had been ordered to cure the
Tsarevitch as quickly as possible so as to fit him for the next torture.
Alexis lay in a fever and was delirious:—
“Fédor Franzovitch! send her away for God’s sake, send her away. Don’t
you see her there, mewing like a cat? the cursed thing, who caresses!
Suddenly she will fly at my throat and tear my heart out with her
claws——”
All at once he recovered consciousness and recognised Tolstoi.
“What do you want of me?”
“Your father sent me——”
“Again to torture me?”
“No, no, Tsarevitch! Fear nothing! It’s not for examination, only for
information....”
“I know nothing more, nothing more,” groaned the Tsarevitch tossing on
his couch. “Leave me alone! Kill me, only don’t torture me again! If you
are afraid to kill me, give me poison or a razor, I will do it myself.——
Only be quick, be quick!”
“What are you talking about, Tsarevitch? Come, come, be quiet!” began
Tolstoi in his gentle mellow voice, looking kindly at him. “If God be
willing, all will come right. This world is full of strange events. Slow
and sure. God Himself has suffered and we too must bear our share of
suffering. Do you think I do not pity you, my poor fellow?”
He took out the inevitable snuff-box with the Arcadian shepherd and
shepherdess, took a pinch and wiped a tear from his eye.
“Ah, I am sorry for you. I pity you with all my heart. I would give my
life for you!——”
And leaning over him he added in a hurried whisper:—
“Whether you believe me or no, I have always wished you well, and to-day
still——”
He stopped short, alarmed by the fixed gaze of the eyes of the Tsarevitch
who was slowly endeavouring to rise:—
“Judas the Traitor! This for your good wishes!” He spat in his face, and
then with a dull moan fell back upon the bed.
Blumentrost rushed up to him, crying to Tolstoi:—
“Go away at once; if not, I cannot be responsible for anything.”
The Tsarevitch had again fallen into delirium.
“There see how she lies in wait for me—— Her eyes are just like two
blazing coals, her whiskers bristle like those of my father! Get
away!——Fédor Franzovitch, for heaven’s sake drive her away I implore
you!”
Blumentrost gave him some spirit to smell and laid some ice on his head.
At last he recovered consciousness and glanced at Tolstoi without the
least anger, evidently oblivious of what had just happened.
“Peter Andreitch, I know you have a kind heart. Oblige me by an act
of friendship. Heaven will recompense you. Beg my father to grant me
permission to see Afrossinia——”
Tolstoi gently kissed the bandaged hand and said in a voice tremulous
with sincere tears:
“I will obtain this permission! I will do all that is possible for you.
Only we must first answer some little questions. There are but three.”
He read aloud the list of questions which the Tsar had drawn up.
The Tsarevitch closed his eyes in exhaustion.
“What further answer can I make? God is my witness I have already said
all I had to say! I have neither words nor thoughts left. I have become
quite idiotic.”
“Never mind, never mind, Tsarevitch,” rejoined Tolstoi hastily. He drew
up a table and brought out paper, pen and ink.
“I will dictate, all you have to do is to write——”
“Will he be able to write?” Tolstoi suddenly inquired of the physician
with a look in which the latter thought he saw the inexorable eyes of the
Tsar.
Blumentrost shrugged his shoulders, and murmuring to himself
“Barbarians!” he took the bandage off the patient’s right hand.
Tolstoi began to dictate. The Tsarevitch wrote with difficulty in
trembling characters; several times he was obliged to stop; he almost
fainted with weakness and the pen often slipped from his fingers.
Blumentrost was obliged to give him some medicine to revive him. But
Tolstoi’s words acted as an even greater stimulant:
“You shall see Afrossinia. Perhaps you will be pardoned, and even be
allowed to marry her. Only write, write!”
And the Tsarevitch set himself again to the task.
“On June 22, 1718, I replied in the following terms to the
questions which were laid before me by M. Tolstoi:—
“(1) My insubordination towards my father is explained by
the fact that I have been brought up by ignorant women who
sought only to amuse me: they made a fanatic of me, a state
of mind towards which I was by temperament already disposed.
My father, anxious for me to receive instruction worthy of
a prince, desired me to apply myself to the study of German
and the sciences, but such study was hateful to me. I worked
most lazily, simply to while away the time. Since my father
was often absent on campaigns of prolonged periods the people
around me, observing that I took pleasure in talking to priests
and monks and also that I had an inclination for wasting time
in drinking, far from keeping me back, themselves encouraged
me and took part in these visits and drinking bouts. Thus they
estranged me more and more from my father, and, by degrees, not
only his military and other exploits, but his very presence
became utterly repugnant to me.
“(2) My reckless defiance of and contempt for all punishment
are the outcome of my naturally bad disposition; of this I am
fully aware. Though I feared my father, my fear was not of the
kind which should be present in the relation of a son to a
father.
“(3) I can easily explain why I sought to obtain power
otherwise than by submission to my father. Since I had
abandoned the right path and would not imitate my father in
anything, I was compelled, in order to obtain power, to have
recourse to foreign aid. And if events had brought it to pass
that the Emperor had given me, in fulfilment of his promise,
the support of his army to enable me to gain the Russian crown
by conquest, then I, indifferent to everything else, would have
acted as follows. Should the Emperor have asked of me in return
Russian troops to help him against his own foes, or even a
large sum of money, I should have done as he wished, as well as
liberally rewarded his ministers and generals. And I would have
taken upon myself to provide for his troops which he would have
supplied me for the purpose of winning the Russian crown; in
short I would have spared nothing to gain my end.
“ALEXIS.”
Only when he had signed the statement did he suddenly recover as if from
a trance and realise what he had done. He would have cried out that it
was all false and have snatched the paper away and destroyed it; but
tongue and limbs refused to act, he was like those who have been buried
alive and who hear and feel everything, yet cannot move in the lethargy
of their death-like sleep. Speechless and motionless he watched Tolstoi
fold the paper and put it in his pocket.
On the ground of this last confession, which was read in the Senate on
June 24, the High Court made the following decree:—
“We the undersigned ministers, senators, officers of the crown, military
and civil, after mature deliberation following the dictates of conscience
and taking our stand upon the divine commandment embodied in the Old and
New Testaments, in the Holy Gospels, in the Acts, canons and rules of
assemblies of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church, and in like
manner also upon the statutes of the Roman, Greek and other Christian
emperors, as well as upon the law of Russia, have unanimously and without
contradiction agreed and passed sentence that the Tsarevitch Alexis,
culpable of revolt against his father, the Tsar, whose Empire he coveted
ever since his childhood and desired to grasp it with the help of rebels
and foreign sovereigns and troops, which would have brought complete ruin
upon the country,—is worthy of death.”