Ivan the Foolish

“ Going back to Moscow, Ivan treated himself to a triumphal entry, as if he had been returning from a successful campaign, and to an entertainment in the form of one of those masquerading processions in which, at a later period, Peter the Great was to take so much delight. Preceded by one of his jesters, mounted on an ox, he was seen parading along at the head of his Opritchniki, and displaying, like them, the insignia of that dreaded confraternity—a broom and a dog's head. ”

“ Ivan is inclined to see enemies in every corner; but when, while he warns his sons against the snares that will be set for them, he counsels them to inquire personally into every business, and never to depend on others with regard to anything, unless they wish those others to obtain the real power and leave them nothing but its shadow, it is a master in the art of government who speaks, and no madman! ”

“ As the saying is, one need not be rich only so he have curly hair and is clever; and because Little Fool Ivan had succeeded so easily people hated him, and the one who hated him most was the officer who had been the Tzar's Master of Horse before his coming. Each day this man pondered how he might bring about Ivan's ruin, and at night he would creep to the stables and lie hid in the wheat bins, hoping to catch his rival in some fault. ”

“ Seeing that Ivan was a fool, all the wise men left the kingdom and only the fools remained. They had no money, their wealth consisting only of the products of their labor. But they lived peacefully together, supported themselves in comfort, and had plenty to spare for the needy and afflicted.
CHAPTER X.
The old devil grew tired of waiting for the good news which he expected the little devils to bring him. ”

“ Obediently all men prepared to bear their part in the coming comedy. The boïars betrayed the correct amount of emotion, the populace rose up, shouted aloud, and was much affected. The merchants offered money, the most eloquent fashion of proving their share in the general feeling, and the Metropolitan was called upon to intercede with the Sovereign. Ivan was entreated not to forsake his people, but to rule as best pleased him, and mete out such treatment as he deemed fit to those of whom he thought he had reason to complain. ”

“ Ivan remained standing by the gate in a gloomy mood, as he was unable to banish from his mind the harassing thoughts of Gavryl, which the latter's menacing words had inspired: "Something will burn with greater fierceness in Ivan's household before long."
"He is so desperate," thought Ivan, "that he may set fire to my house regardless of the danger to his own. At present everything is dry, and as the wind is so high he may sneak from the back of his own building, start a fire, and get away unseen by any of us. ”

“ The choute, with his jeers at the precepts of the Domostroï and the rules of an Oriental etiquette, stirred the heavy atmosphere of prison and cloister combined, which hung stagnant in every Russian household; he opened doors and broke window-panes, and let a little fresh air into these smothering stoves. In those days every house of any importance sheltered one or two such persons. Ivan had dozens of them, and some paid with their lives for the honour of rubbing elbows familiarly with their Sovereign. ”

“ No one cared much for him because he was rather a fool, could not count one, two, three, and only drank, or ate, or slept, or lay around. Why care for such a person? Every one knows life for some is brighter than for others. But Ivan was good-hearted and quiet. Ask of him a belt, he will give a kaftan also; take his mittens, he certainly would want to have you take his cap with them. And that is why all liked Ivan, and usually called him Ivanoushka the Simpleton ”

“ At last, on January 13, 1570, when nothing was left him to destroy, Ivan commanded the chief of the townsmen who had been spared, so many for each street, to be brought into his presence. The poor wretches, already more dead than alive, were asking themselves what yet more hideous fate could be reserved for them. Contrary to all their expectations, the monarch, pacified, turned a gracious eye upon them, and made them a most friendly speech, advising them to cast off all fear, and live peaceful lives, praying God to preserve the Tsar and his Empire from all such traitors as Pimenius. ”

“ Ivan the Terrible went through a great deal of suffering, and these sufferings, which he exaggerated as he exaggerated everything, have been rightly ascribed to a twofold moral cause—to his very lively consciousness of all the faults and vices of the political and social organization over which he had been called to rule, and an equally painful consciousness of his powerlessness to apply any efficacious remedy to them. ”

“ The rest of the story of Ivan the Terrible—it is strange that history has not yet called him Ivan the Great—is not very interesting, except for two shocking incidents that we shall relate in their turn. It is simply the record of a man with an Oriental mind, maddened by syphilis, abandoning himself to the most ruthless cruelty, experimenting as if to plumb the depths of human wickedness. ”

“ Ivan would never have gained the title of Great from his deeds in war. He won it, and with some justice, from his deeds in peace. He was great in diplomacy, great in duplicity, great in that persistent pursuit of a single object through which men rise to [Pg 63] power and fame. This object, in his case, was autocracy. It was his purpose to crush out the last shreds of freedom from Russia, establish an empire on the pernicious pattern of a Tartar khanate, which had so long been held up as an example before Russian eyes, and make the Prince of Moscow as absolute as the Emperor of China. ”

“ The fellow-workers to whom Ivan found himself obliged to appeal, some of them drawn from the lowest strata of society, and all incapable of understanding the nature and real object of his enterprise, were even more inclined than he himself to confuse violence with energy. And, docile instruments and complaisant courtiers as they were, they flattered and increased the taste for coarse debauchery which the Sovereign owed to his education, and to certain cruel instincts, inherent, no doubt, in his temperament. The chroniclers have preserved the names of these fellow-workers to us. ”

“ That Ivan IV., in the course of his work, may have gone somewhat beyond the atrocity usual in his century, may be. We will go back to that. But both in legendary and in critical history the surname of 'the Terrible' has become synonymous with an unreasonable and inexcusable ferocity, purely barbarous in its origin, and carried to madness in its manifestations. To anybody who knows the power there is in words the consequence cannot be doubted: the word has set its false hallmark on the thing. ”

“ Ivan, at the servant’s suggestion, is put to low work in the kitchen. Before long the kingdom is invaded, and the tsar calls upon his prospective son-in-law to drive off the enemy, for which service he shall receive the princess, but without it, not. The false Ivan begs the true Ivan to take the invaders in hand, and he assents without a word. Ivan calls for Bulat: one attacks the hostile army on the right, the other on the left, and in an hour they lay a hundred thousand low. Ivan returns to his kitchen. ”

“ This old man, whose heart was filled with gall and envy, whispered suggestions which found ready response in Ivan's diseased fancies.
"If," said he, "you wish to be absolute monarch, have no confidant wiser than yourself; give orders, but receive advice from no one; always command and never follow the lead of others; thus you will be indeed a king, terrible to your lords. Remember, above all, that a counsellor, even of the wisest prince, inevitably becomes his master." [3]
The poisonous seed bore fatal fruit. Ivan, then but thirty years of age, seemed to lose all faith in mankind. ”

“ From the first, indeed, he had stood, as it were, apart: a silent, observant young creature, not morbid nor markedly unnatural, yet holding within himself possibilities not to be found in the usual hobbledehoy of his age. And though it is probable that, in after years, he felt his aloofness far more keenly than at the present period, it was in his early boyhood that his sense of it was most apparent to others.
That Ivan should, from the first, have been a lonely child, was inevitable, considering his parentage. In the Russia of that day sons of noble families were not often kept under tutors. ”

“ It was not only that he hated and distrusted the boyars, but he was already statesman enough to discern that they could not be fitted into the new order of things which he aimed at introducing. Ivan meditated the regeneration of Muscovy, and the only men who could assist him in his task were men who could look steadily forward to the future because they had no past to look back upon, men who would unflinchingly obey their sovereign because they owed their whole political significance to him alone. ”

“ He is a fool, and cannot marry, for no one will have him; and sister does not require anything, for she was born dumb." Turning then to Ivan he continued: "Give me half the grain you have, and I will not touch the implements or fishing-nets; and from the cattle I will take only the dark mare, as she is not fit to plow."
Ivan laughed and said: "Well, I will go and arrange matters so that Tarras may have his share," whereupon Tarras took the brown mare with the grain to town, leaving Ivan with one old horse to work on as before and support his father, mother, and sister. ”

“ Ivan's clear complexion grew swarthy. In the Under-World fierce passions lie closer to the surface than in the upper, and it is not hard to bring them to the top.
"What do you mean?" he snapped, leaning forward and gripping the rim of his desk. His eyes, however, shifted from mine.
"I mean," said I, "that a man may be a thief and an enemy to Society and still be a man, with his own personal pride and self-respect. When that is gone he can't claim to be anything but a low-grade, mean-spirited sneak."
That fetched him. Ivan shed his sleek politeness as a pickpocket slips out of his coat. ”

“ But the fools would not accept his gold, nor listen to him. Thus the old devil was obliged to go to sleep hungry.
Tidings of this condition of affairs soon reached the ears of Ivan. The people went to him and said: "What shell we do? This nobleman appeared among us; he is well dressed; he wishes to eat and drink of the best, but is unwilling to work, and does not beg for food for Christ's sake. He only offers every one gold pieces. At first we gave him everything he wanted, taking the gold pieces in exchange just as curiosities ”

“ What did he offer the mass of the peasants, husbandmen yesterday, half-serfs to-day, and soon to be utterly enslaved—to these beings whose backs were bent in never-ending labour, bound to the soil, and more and more ground down, more mercilessly cheated, as the needs of the State increased? Yet the facts speak for themselves. Ivan has been sung, lauded, extolled, by the population of helots whose slavery and misery he deepened. When suffering has reached a certain pitch, any change, even if it should increase the torture, is a benefit. ”

“ Ivan the Terrible did not live to hear of the fate which overtook his envoys, nor the tragic close of the enterprise in which Ermak had just won immortal renown. In the month of August, 1584, the valiant leader lost his life, on the banks of the Irtych, in a night surprise, the details of which have never been known. According to the legend, he tried to swim the river, and was dragged down by the weight of his, cuirass, the Tsar's fatal gift. ”

“ Ivan joined heartily in all this dissipation: he smoked with the old men; he drank their punch; he roasted nuts for the ladies, and told them wonderful stories which were always readily listened to, except when some new fashion, which for several years before had been forgotten in Paris—found its way via St. Petersburgh, Moscow, and Irkoutsk, to the deserts of Siberia. Then he was silent; for the ladies had ample subject of discourse, not forgetting the great tea-table topic—scandal; causing the old men to shake their heads, and declare such things were not when they were young. ”

“ Let Ivan live or die this hour; Ivan is a fool. He left home and comfort to cross the icy seas in search of wealth, and to gain happiness; but if he had only had eyes, he would have stopped at Miouré. There he saw a girl, lively as the heaven-fire in the north, good, generous, kind; and she was an old friend, and might have loved Ivan; but the man of Yakoutsk was blind, and told her of his passion for a selfish widow, and the Yakouta maiden never thought of Ivan but as a brother!"
"What means Ivan?" asked Kolina, trembling with emotion. ”

“ He whipped Ivan's work to rags with sarcastic criticism; leaving not one measure untouched by his caustic and rather brutal wit. Next day he received his young pupil's resignation from his classes; and the gay world regained its pet. For Ivan, in a fit of childish anger, left his work behind him, and plunged into a furious round of dissipations, of which gambling now formed the chief. Dawn after dawn saw him leaving the green tables of either the "Nobility" or the Yacht clubs; and, as if to applaud his defection, fate decreed that Ivan could not lose. ”

“ The interpretations laid on the character and temperament of Ivan the Terrible seem to me based, in the first place, on a general error, which I am inclined to consider an anachronism. The subject under examination has been treated as though he had lived in our own day, and an analysis correct enough in itself falls to the ground because it has been arrived at without any regard for historical surroundings, which ought to have been taken into account. Take such a man as Louis XI., with the faculties everyone recognises him to have possessed. ”