Alexis

“ We asked her whether he was the patron saint of herself, or of her family; which she denied, affirming at the same time, however, that this saintly person had undergone so much for the love of God, that his history always affected her more than any other's. When she saw that we knew nothing about him, she began to narrate to us his history. "S. Alexis," she said, "was the son of noble, rich, and God-fearing parents in Rome, and in the practice of good works he delighted to follow their example, for they did extraordinary good to the poor. All this, however, did not appear enough to Alexis ”

“ Alexis, the shepherd's son, was now, beyond any question, the most powerful man in Russia. If he would, he might easily have taken the sceptre from the yielding hands of the Empress and played the autocrat, as Patiomkin played it under similar circumstances in later years. But Alexis cared as little for power as for rank and wealth. He smiled at his honours. "Fancy," he said, with his hearty laugh, "a peasant's son, a Count; and a man who ought to be tending sheep, a Field-Marshal!" ”

“ With the merchants and the free seamen Alexis stepped on shore, and gazed at the city of his birth. He had been brought back—for what? Blindly, joyfully, obediently, he had gone forth, to fare alone with God, and alone with God he was still to be. An hour or so later a haggard mendicant stood at the gate of a palace on the Aventine, asking for charity. That was never refused in that house, and the servants brought him in, showed him a dark corner under a stairway, close to the entrance, where they told him he might sleep, and gave him some scraps of food. ”

“ You're everything that I detest, But still I love you dearly! CHORUS. You've everything that girls detest, But still she loves you dearly! NOTARY. I caught that line, but for the rest, I did not hear it clearly! (During this verse Aline and Alexis have entered at back unobserved.) ALINE AND ALEXIS ALEX Oh joy! oh joy! The charm works well, And all are now united. ALINE. The blind young boy Obeys the spell, And troth they all have plighted! ENSEMBLE Aline & Alexis Constance Notary Oh joy! ”

“ The great bear was tracked, and, after a long and exciting chase, fell by the hand of Prince Alexis himself. Halt was made in an open space in the forest, logs were piled together and kindled on the snow, and just at the right moment (which no one knew better than Sasha) the cask of vodki rolled into its place.
When the serfs saw the Prince mount astride of it, with his ladle in his hand, they burst into shouts of extravagant joy. "Slava Bogu!" (Glory be to God!) came fervently from the bearded lips of those hard, rough, obedient children. ”

“ Alexis. Was he man or boy? Let us leave the question open and call him Monsieur Alexis; he was more French than English—and there is no such thing as boyhood in France. The infants of that country almost as soon as they can speak, are capable of affaires de cœur and tendresses, and bonnes fortunes; they mature so rapidly. While one of our young compatriots is playing heartily at leapfrog, one of theirs is swearing (Grand Dieu, je jure sur la tombe de ma mère, &c.) ”

“ Prince Alexis was never tired of gazing at his grandson and namesake.
"He has more of his mother than of Boris," he would say. "So much the better! Strong dark eyes, like the Great Peter,—and what a goodly leg for a babe! Ha! he makes a tight little fist already,—fit to handle a whip,—or" (seeing the expression of Helena's face) —"or a sword. He'll be a proper Prince of Kinesma, my daughter, and we owe it to you." ”

“ Tell this to Tatiana Nikolayevna, if you please. Beautiful, beautiful was that head. Its eyes were its only weakness. They were pale, without fire and energy.
I should not have killed Alexis had the critics really been justified in attributing to him the supreme literary gift. The roads of life are dark, and great is the need of masterly men as beacon-bearers. Each of them should be guarded as a rare jewel. It is these few who justify the existence of a thousand good-for-nothings and the commonplace. Alexis, however, was not a genius. ”

“ CHAPTER II. It is the character of young people to engage in new enterprises with ardor: it was so with Alexis, in his fur-hunting expedition. For a time, indeed, after parting with his father and sister, his heart was heavy, and tears more than once dimmed his eyes. He expected to be absent for a year at least, and who could tell what might befall him or them, during that space of time? Such thoughts came again and again into his mind, and as fancy is apt to conjure up fears for those we love, he pictured to himself many possible evils that might beset his friends at Tobolsk. ”

“ Alexis, mingling freely with the people, was acquainted with all their wants and griefs, and he coöperating with Sylvestre, inspired the emperor with a heart to conceive and energy to execute all good things. ”

“ Many years after Prince Alexis was dead, the serfs used to relate how they had seen him, in the bright summer afternoons, asleep in his arm-chair on the balcony, with the rosy babe asleep on his bosom, and the slumber-flag waving over both.
Legends of the Prince's hunts, reisaks, and brutal revels are still current along the Volga; but they are now linked to fairer and more gracious stories; and the free Russian farmers (no longer serfs) are never tired of relating incidents of the beauty, the courage, the benevolence, and the saintly piety of the Good Lady of Kinesma. ”

“ Alas! the proud predictions of Prince Alexis, and the protection of the sacred amulet, were alike unavailing. The babe sickened, wasted away, and died in less than two months after its birth. There was great and genuine sorrow among the serfs of Kinesma. Each had received a shining ruble of silver at the christening; and, moreover, they were now beginning to appreciate the milder régime of their lord, which this blow might suddenly terminate. Sorrow, in such natures as his, exasperates instead of chastening: they knew him well enough to recognize the danger. ”

“ But though a gamester may be a rogue he may still have a good heart, and it is only just to say that this was the case with the Orloffs. Alexis gained the slash which adorns his face in a tavern, and the man who gave the blow had just lost to him a large sum of money, and considered his opponent's success to be rather the result of dexterity than fortune. When Alexis became rich and powerful, instead of revenging himself, he hastened to make his enemy's fortune. ”

“ In 1716, Alexis being now twenty-six years old, the Tsar peremptorily bade him enter the monastery at Tver or join the army. He replied that he was coming to Russia, and he begged to be allowed to bring his latest passion, a young lady named Euphrosyne. After a short delay Peter heard that Alexis and Euphrosyne had fled, and in a terrible rage he sent his agents over Europe in search of his son. They traced him and his lady to an ancient castle in Austria. ”

“ Boniface, and, some two hundred years later, a most noble Roman family had established their own palace close to it, and the Church, as we know it, now includes a part of the house of Alexis. For this is where a great saint grew to manhood, the loved son of rich and affectionate parents. Alexis had every gift of mind, with beauty of countenance and strength of body ”

“ This was not a sensible statement, for General Alexis could scarcely have been more of a Russian than he was. A foreigner, of course, simply is an individual who belongs to another country than one’s own. Presumably an American is equally a foreigner to a European. What Barbara actually meant was that General Alexis was not unlike the men to whom she had been accustomed in the United States. ”

“ But all these appeals had no effect upon the stubborn will of Alexis. He declared to the envoys that he would not return with them, and he said, moreover, that the emperor had promised to protect him, and that, if his father continued to persecute him in this way, he would resist by force, and, with the aid which the emperor would render him, he would make war upon his father, depose him from his power, and raise himself to the throne in his stead. ”

“ It must be stated, as one favorable trait in the character of Prince Alexis, that, however brutally he treated his serfs, he allowed no other man to oppress them. All they had and were—their services, bodies, lives—belonged to him; hence injustice towards them was disrespect towards their lord. Under the fear which his barbarity inspired lurked a brute-like attachment, kept alive by the recognition of this quality.
One day it was reported to him that Gregor, a merchant in the bazaar at Kinesma, had cheated the wife of one of his serfs in the purchase of a piece of cloth. ”

“ Now the health of Prince Alexis was drunk,—by the guests on the floor of the hall in Champagne, by those in the galleries in kislischi and hydromel. The orchestra played; a choir of serfs sang an ode by Simon Petrovitch, in which the departure of Prince Boris was mentioned; the tumblers began to posture; the jugglers came forth and played their tricks; and the cannon on the ramparts announced to all Kinesma, and far up and down the Volga, that the company were rising from the table. ”

“ The death of his wife made but little impression on Alexis, who had been living for a long time in open adultery with his mistress, an illiterate serf from Finland. When this matrimonial attempt to reform Alexis had failed, the Czar, more than ever incensed at his obstinacy, gave him the choice between changing his ways and being sent to a convent. The Czar was the more inclined to shut him up in a solitary place of confinement because Catherine, his second wife, had just given birth to a son, and Peter might hope to have a male heir, even with Alexis out of the way. ”

“ The Russian agents at the court of Vienna demanded the surrender of Alexis. Dreading the anger of the Tsar, the Emperor sent them on to Naples, and directed his Viceroy that they must have an interview with the Prince. The doors were thrown open, and the agents persuaded Alexis, by lying representations, that Peter would forgive him. Their last argument was that Euphrosyne would be taken away from him unless he complied, and the girl—a lusty, thick-lipped peasant-girl, like Catherine, it seems—tearfully begged her royal lover to go. The jade had been bribed by Peter’s agents. ”

“ Prince Boris, no doubt, found his courage fail him when he set about writing the promised letter; for a fortnight elapsed before it made its appearance. Prince Alexis received it on his return from the chase. He read it hastily through, uttered a prolonged roar like that of a wounded bull, and rushed into the castle. The sound of breaking furniture, of crashing porcelain and shivered glass, came from the state apartments: the domestics fell on their knees and prayed; the Princess, who heard the noise and knew what it portended, became almost insensible from fright. ”

“ Crop-Ear simply threw down a stone heavier than himself, and, as it bounced and slid along the solid floor, said to Prince Alexis,—
"Am I to go back, Highness, or stay here?"
"Here, my son. Thou'rt a man. Come hither to me."
Taking the serf's head in his hands, he kissed him on both cheeks. Then [Pg 29] he rode homeward through the dark, iron woods, seated astride on the barrel, and steadying himself with his arms around Crop-Ear's and Waska's necks.
VIII.
The health of the Princess Martha, always delicate, now began to fail rapidly. ”

“ Thousands flocked to Kinesma; and when the immense procession moved away from the castle, although very few of the persons had ever known or cared in the least, for the Princess Martha, all, without exception, shed profuse tears. Yes, there was one exception,—one bare, dry rock, rising alone out of the universal deluge,—Prince Alexis himself, who walked behind the coffin, his eyes fixed and his features rigid as stone. They remarked that his face was haggard, and that the fiery tinge on his cheeks and nose had faded into livid purple. ”

“ Every sound in the castle was hushed: the serfs outside knelt and uncovered their heads.
The Princess could never afterwards describe, or more than dimly recall, the exaltation of that moment. She sang in an inspired trance: from the utterance of the first note the horror of the imminent fate sank out of sight. Her eyes were fixed upon the convulsed face, but she beheld it not: all the concentrated forces of her life flowed into the music. She remembered, however, that Prince Alexis looked alternately from her face to the portrait of his wife ”

“ 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, [Pg 259] "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...."
While Peter is aware of his unpopularity, his son is loved by the townspeople, the peasants, and the clergy. ”

“ Alexis, taken by surprise, hesitated, and summoned his ministers for consultation. The moment was critical, as a meeting of the friends under such circumstances might jeopardize all that had been accomplished; to prevent it was, for Nikon's adversaries, a matter of life or death, and their influence prevailed. The tsar refused to go to him, and sent orders that he should retire to the Voskresensk [10] Monastery, and there await the assembling of the ecclesiastical council. ”

“ On one side of Prince Alexis the bear Mishka took his station. By order of Prince Boris he had been kept from wine for several days, and his small eyes were keener and hungrier than usual. As he rose now and then, impatiently, and sat upon his hind legs, he formed a curious contrast to the Prince's other supporter, the idiot, who sat also in his tow shirt, with a large pewter basin in his hand. It was difficult to say whether the beast was most man or the man most beast. ”