CHAPTER II

The Czar Peter lay at full length on his camp bedstead, his hand at his forehead, sheltering his eyes, his mind full of bitter and angry thoughts.

Seated on a low chair near him was Danilovitch Mentchikoff, who regarded him with an expression like that of a favorite dog who has been beaten, and who waits patiently until his master chooses to forgive him.

For two reasons Mentchikoff would take anything, blows, kicks, and violent abuse, from Peter; first because of the traditional implicit obedience of a Russian towards the Czar, a sentiment that had caused men dying under torture to bless the monarch who had condemned them, and secondly because he loved and revered Peter with a deep, passionate fidelity.

Insolent towards all the world, easy and familiar even with his master, with whom he frequently presumed too far, he yet never resented any caprice that humbled him by word, look, or whip; he did not fawn from policy but from an intense devotion to the man whom he considered the greatest in the world.

There were some elements of greatness also in Danilovitch Mentchikoff; he shared not only the Czar’s views, but some of his capacity for carrying them out; he had been his companion in the labors of the dockyards of Amsterdam and Wapping, as well as in the barbaric splendors of Russia; he also had seen and judged that Western civilization that the Czar burned to emulate; he also dreamed the same dreams of the future greatness and glory of his country, and to this cause was eager to devote his strength and his intellect.

Some personal ambition colored his attitude; Peter had raised him from cook-boy to page, from page to noble, friend, minister; he was already wealthy, honored, feared, but though he might be an insolent tyrant to all the world, to the man who had raised him he was absolutely submissive, even abject in his love and admiration.

Peter, whose nature was warm and affectionate, loved this creature of his own making, to whom he allowed liberties never permitted to the most powerful of his boyars, but he had more often than once made Mentchikoff the victim of his insane furies in a manner that had nearly cost him his life; but the servant had never uttered a sound of complaint, and, when the outburst was over, had never failed to drag himself, bruised and bleeding and faint, to lick the boots and kiss the hand of the man who had chastised him.

He now was watching the Czar with some anxiety; he had been vexed for the last few weeks because Peter had made no steps in the campaign against Sweden, but, seized with one of his attacks of melancholy, had retired to Marli to brood over the plans of Cronstadt and St. Petersburg and drink himself into fits of false gayety that were followed by black and dangerous depression.

And now the blow had fallen; a new captain had arisen who in a few days had forced Denmark into peace; Poland was retiring from Riga; a young, vigorous King who had shown himself possessed of resolution and martial genius, with a perfectly equipped, trained, and victorious army behind him, was free to turn his attention to the third enemy who had so wantonly provoked him.

Mentchikoff’s long dark and rather haggard face was shadowed with anxiety.

Not only did he wish his master’s political and military schemes to fructify, he wished the Czar to be personally great and without rival in this greatness.

He was concerned that Russia should have Livonia and a port on the Baltic, he had concurred in the plans laid down by Patkul, but he was still more concerned that Peter Alexievitch should shine resplendent, without a rival, in the Northern firmament.

Already he hated Karl of Sweden, who had the advantage in education, tradition, and breed; who was controlled, humane, just, and honorable--with none of these things could even the blind devotion of Mentchikoff credit Peter--and who had the added interest of his extreme youth and the justice of his quarrels; a young warrior, stern, outraged, fighting only those who had attacked him, conquering easily, and, with a haughty generosity, claiming no benefits from his victory, but only the restoration of his friend to what was rightfully his--this was a figure on heroic lines and one sure to appeal to the imaginations of men.

And how would the world account Peter by contrast?

A half-savage monarch of an almost wholly Eastern realm, never yet taken seriously into the reckoning in the affairs of Europe, one who had taken eccentric means to learn the means of civilizing his people and who yet was notoriously incapable of controlling his own meanest passions, one who had been guilty of fierce cruelty and bitter revenge and excesses beyond ordinary debauchery--how did such a one show beside the cold, fast, calm, and mighty figure of the young King of Sweden?

Mentchikoff was jealous for his hero, who to him was the greatest man on earth; Peter’s faults were not faults to him; he came of a people long used to cruelty in their rulers, it was in his blood and in his training to submit to tyranny, but he had been the Czar’s companion in his journey through Europe and he had seen, with his strong native shrewdness and perception, the qualities admired and respected by civilized peoples, and he knew exactly where Peter failed to reach the standard of the West--it was one to which he could not attain himself, but that did not prevent him from keenly observing his master’s failure. He still passionately dreamed of seeing the Czar a King after the fashion of the Kings of France and England, and had been one with him in every effort to attain this end; so complete was the devotion and abnegation of Danilovitch Mentchikoff that his life was one with his master’s life, his glory and ambition one with the glory and ambition of Peter Alexievitch. And the Czar’s moods, melancholies, and passions, that went so far to hinder his glorious schemes and tarnish his brilliant qualities, caused the keenest pangs to the fiercely loyal heart of his servant.

And now there was this new hero to reckon with; a man such as Peter was not and never could be.

The long figure at which the Prince gazed with his small brilliant eyes stirred on the rude bed; Peter dropped the arm that shielded his eyes and stared before him.

He also had his thoughts of Karl of Sweden; they were as intense and bitter as those of Danilovitch Mentchikoff.

He was conscious of his own greatness, conscious of his own failings, and overwhelmed by the task which destiny and his own will had laid on his shoulders.

He was the master of a continent, the undisputed lord of millions of human beings, enveloped in a grandeur almost mythical, possessed of a power almost godlike; better for him if he had been content with this, satisfied as his ancestors had been satisfied by an enclosed splendor, instead of being tortured by dreams of making Russia what she had never been, what she perhaps never could be.

All the sciences, the arts, the trades and commerces that had been the result of such slow and painful growth in Europe, he hoped in one generation to implant in the sterile soil of a nation almost wholly savage from the point of view of the West.

A great capital must be built, a great port made, a trained army raised, a navy built, trade established, people educated in commerce and handicrafts--marshes drained, forests cleared, swamps turned into profitable ground--his people must learn the utmost resources of their country and how to turn them to account.

The beautiful arts of other countries must be introduced and made to flourish; all that was wonderful, fair, or great must find a home in Russia.

Such were the dreams of Peter; his breed, his tradition, his character were against these dreams.

Half an Asiatic, his type was largely Eastern, his outlook wholly so; he was nearer Timour Beg than Louis XIV, despite his admiration of this latter ideal of kingship.

He had admired Europe and copied Europe and envied Europe--he had little in common with Europe.

His story was one of a violence and terror difficult to find in the annals of any country but this, full of dark splendor, of flights, revolts, dangers, imprisonments; the brother who had shared his throne had disappeared to a mysterious death, the sister who had been his regent was languishing in a close prison; he was separated from his wife, his one son was sickly, almost witless.

In his blood lurked horrible diseases; his brother had been an idiot, tortured by convulsions, his sister was afflicted by dropsy and ulcers, he himself had been given to epilepsy since childhood; unbridled passions, unlimited power, unchecked lusts had tainted his whole race with a mental unbalance akin to insanity; melancholy, nightmare horrors of glooms and broodings, wild extravagance of thought and action were in his heritage.

Heavier burdens even than the scepter of all the Russias had come from his forefathers to Peter Alexievitch; clouding and torturing his brain and body were the dread shadows of mortal maladies, the black form of madness. No one knew his sufferings; he himself was ignorant of their cause and terrified at their power; only alcohol could allay them, and then the payment exacted was horrible as death in agonies.

The dark horrors of delirium, the monstrous fancies of fever, the tortuous labyrinths of the underground ways by which the borderland of delusions, dreams, hallucinations, and unbidden imaginings leads to the utter starless abyss of insanity were often more real to Peter than the strenuous world in which he lived; shadows from realms that he tried to deny the existence of, ghastly gleams from hells at which his soul dared not glance, clouded and colored his thoughts and his actions.

A continent was at his feet and he had undertaken a task as tremendous as any man had yet put his hand to--but even this was not sufficient to distract him from the terrors of the unseen and the unheard who haunted those foul, secret places where his soul was doomed to wander.

He was weak now after his fit and there was a dullness on his spirit almost akin to peace; he was frowning, and his beautiful eyes were well stained with blood, but his glance sought with a certain gratitude the cool peace of the green beyond the square window, and he was glad of the quiet, watchful presence of his friend.

“Danilovitch,” he said, in a low voice, “I must get back to Moscow,” then “If Cronstadt were built and I had a navy, I would batter this boy by sea.”

He sat up slowly, a languid, graceful figure in the soiled dressing-gown; he had bitten his tongue when he fell and his mouth was still marked with blood; a few tiny spots of red were on the front of the fine cambric shirt; his forehead was damp with perspiration and the soft glossy curls hung in wild disorder; yet his face, so round in the contours still, with a certain bloom and freshness, attractive, gentle in expression, was the face of a youth, sensitive and dreamy.

Prince Mentchikoff did not answer; he was not yet sure of his master’s mood and feared to say something that might irritate him.

“And if I had an army I could batter him by land,” added Peter, with a hard smile.

“Your Majesty has an army,” ventured Mentchikoff.

“Has it ever been tried in battle?” demanded the Czar grimly. “Is there anyone in the whole of Russia who knows anything of the art of war?”

“It is for you to teach them,” ventured the Prince.

“There is much I have to teach Russia,” remarked the Czar.

He stood up, to the full of his great height, and pushed back his hair impatiently with both damp hands.

“Is this how I get my Baltic port?” he cried scornfully. “Is this how I wrest a province from Sweden? I should have been in Moscow months ago.”

“God knows you should, Peter Alexievitch,” said Mentchikoff mournfully.

“But I had to labor with my hands, Danilovitch, there is no other cure for these infernal torments. I must make things, and be near the sea.”

The Prince knew that Peter alluded to the black melancholy fits to which he was subject and made no reply.

“This boy now,” continued the Czar, in a quieter tone, “he would be sober? Not chased by phantoms or mocked by the infernal ones, eh, Danilovitch?”

“A cold Norseman,” replied Mentchikoff. “They say that for this campaign at least, his life has been austere.”

“That is it,” replied Peter, with an eagerness that was almost wistful, “an austere life--to train the body, to eat bread and drink water, to sleep on the ground, to live as the meanest foot soldier--and I could do it--if he, why not I?”

Then, in a sudden fit of gloom, he added:

“I have no troops worth naming beyond the Strelitz and the Germans--savages, peasants, this King will laugh at me--and Riga is lost and Tönning? Curse both the Saxon and the Dane.”

He spoke wearily, without passion; Mentchikoff rose and touched him gently, with an infinite tenderness, on the arm.

“Come, Peter Alexievitch,” he said softly, “come out and look at the sea.”

He had never known when a glimpse even of the ocean had failed to soothe the Czar.

Peter did not reply, and Mentchikoff deftly drew off the dressing-gown and put on an old green coat of European cut that hung over a chair; the Czar silently permitted the change.

The Prince fetched a bowl of water and helped him bathe his face, a comb and smoothed out the tangled hair, performing these menial tasks with an unconscious joy in the doing of them and a tender love for the person whom he served that was touching to behold in one so stern featured and haughty as Danilovitch Mentchikoff.

Peter did not speak; he seemed in an apathy that chilled his faculties like the languor of a mortal illness; he suffered his friend to lead him from the house and showed neither dissent or assent.

It was now fading to the cool of the evening; the sky was translucent and almost colorless against the motionless forms of the trees that had not yet lost the freshness of early summer; the lake was placid beneath the borders of bright grasses and trails of wild flowers that flung themselves in lightly woven wreaths over the tiny wavelets that spent themselves against the banks.

In the distance a nightingale made the silence of the wood tremble with the intermittent rehearsal of his sharp, sweet song.

The two fine figures, the servant so splendid, the master so humble in attire, the King leaning on his minister with a sad and fatigued air, passed the little clearing round the house and through the first trees of the wood until they came to a spot where, through a break in the forest, was a view of low swamps and the distant sea which had the pale splendor of a tourmaline in the light of the sunset.

Peter sighed, with a long shiver of relief; his very muscles seemed to relax; his was the panting satisfaction of one who is fevered, and, after much delay in heat and pain, finds a cup of cool fragrant water at his lips.

The air was of a keen freshness and ocean salt; it seemed to be wafted, pure and strong, from the distant shores of some dreamland beyond the verge of the pale confining sea; the perfect silence seemed charged with a sense of vitality, of the joy of life, of nature; the song of the hidden bird, that now and then sharply broke the stillness, was like a chant of calm triumph in the eternal majesty of nature’s solitudes and untouched places; there was now no melancholy in this loneliness; a tender magic filled the marvelous hour of the twilight and something more than mortal was abroad in the gathering dusk.

The young Czar felt his lassitude fall from him; new energy shot through him like a flame touching his heart; once again all seemed possible; the grandeur of his manhood, the splendor of his rulership, again became palpable things; the nightmares fled leaving a sane world about him; the Swede no longer seemed a thing to so greatly fear or envy.

He was Czar of All the Russias, and a strong man in his youth.

With a laugh he pressed his friend’s arm, and Mentchikoff laughed also, knowing his master cured for a while.

“Shall we trouble for that Northern boy, we who are Peter?” demanded the Czar, holding up his head and staring at the sea; he spoke thickly, for his tongue had swollen where he had bitten it, but the unhealthy pallor had left his face and his eyes had the calm of a healthy man.

“Come and have supper, now that your melancholy is over,” said Mentchikoff, in a happy voice, “and I will show you a gay creature who will make you glad.”

“Until it is dark I will stay under the trees,” replied Peter, “and I shall not drink to-night.”