“They do not know you, Peter Alexievitch,” replied Mentchikoff.
“He breaks all international law--if Patkul had been the envoy of any other country but Russia the world would have cried out against this treatment.”
Despite his passionate nature and his autocratic position he saw shrewdly enough just how Europe held him.
“I will make my protest, but who will take any notice of it?” he continued.
“Peter Alexievitch, you must make your own protest,” said Mentchikoff, in an energetic tone. “Cannot you defeat Sweden?” added this fiery Russian.
“It has been done,” responded the Czar, with a sudden smile. “You beat them at Kalisz!”
He spoke warmly and without a trace of envy of his subject’s success in a war where he had every time failed himself, thereby, had he known it, showing himself greater than Karl, who had not been able to restrain his jealousy on hearing of Mardenfeldt’s victory at Fraustadt.
With equal generosity and selflessness Mentchikoff replied:
“I was in a little way the forerunner of you, Peter Alexievitch--when you strike, Sweden will quiver to the shock!”
The Emperor fixed on him soft and lustrous eyes, tired and earnest.
“I must call a council,” he said, “but I know what to do--I will descend on Poland with my new army. Karl is likely to remain at Altranstadt?”
“There is no talk of his leaving. The English are sending an envoy to him--at least a rumor says so.”
“They are afraid he will fall on the Empire,” said Peter instantly.
“He will not,” replied Mentchikoff simply. “His design is solely against Russia.”
“He troubles himself not at all about the West?”
“Not at all, I think. He would be Alexander--Saxony is but his Thrace--Russia must be his Persia, and he thinks all his conquests little things beside that battle that must be his Gaugamela!”
“He would dethrone me, and I would break him utterly,” remarked Peter. “It only is to be seen which is the stronger man.”
He pressed Mentchikoff’s hand and left the room abruptly, seeking that comfort which never failed to soothe him in his most gloomy and bitter moods, Katherina, now his wife.
He found her in the garden amid the lilac thickets that were just beginning to be covered with their pale flowers.
The Livonian peasant girl was now rather stout, heavy and indolent in habit, slow in her movements, generally silent, with a good-natured smile on her full lips.