On The Red Staircase
9781465678850
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The Patriarch Joachim was standing on the balcony, in front of the Church of the Savior, looking down upon the dense mass of people below in the Grand Square of the Kremlin at Moscow. A purpose was pulsing in the keen face, and he was measuring his audience, weighing too, perhaps, the peril and the cost. They were still; every eye was fixed on the tall figure in the magnificent pontificals of the Greek Church; every ear strained to catch his first word. It was the climax of the day, the chief act in the great drama. He raised his hand, with a majestic gesture, over the people. “Hear ye, voters of the Moscovite State,” he cried, in a loud voice, “to which of the two princes do you give the rule?” I could not restrain a smile. I had been long enough about the Russian court to know how fierce was the undercurrent, how intense the resentment felt against the family of the dowager czarina. An old Russian, who had stepped back with me out of the path of the crowd, suddenly addressed me. “A short-lived triumph!” he muttered, in a gruff tone. “It is one shout to-day, another to-morrow. Here is only the rabble of Moscow!” I looked at the man in surprise; it required courage to express an opinion in the open air, and to a stranger. He had the bearing of a soldier, and there was an ugly scar on his cheek. His long cloak slipping aside a trifle, I saw the uniform of the Streltsi, and caught my breath; a trivial remark from one of that body might be significant. Russia, at that time, had no army, only a few troops officered by foreigners, and the peasantry brought into service, in time of war, under the command of the feudal chiefs. The Streltsi therefore occupied a peculiar position; they constituted a national guard, consisting of twenty-two regiments, about a thousand men in each regiment, named after their officers, who were always Russians. The Streltsi had quarters set apart for them, and their own shops, being tradesmen when off duty, and were exempt from taxation. The service was hereditary, a son entering the father’s regiment as soon as he was of age. The root of much discontent was the difficulty with their own officers, whom they charged with the misappropriation of a portion of their pay and interference with their civil occupations,—their privilege to trade being especially dear to them. They had always enjoyed such peculiar liberties that they fretted under injustices, some real and some fancied, and all no doubt deeply colored by the bitterness of the political situation, and the fact that their petitions for redress had been treated with contempt before the Czar Feodor’s death; but now they were strong enough to be courted by both parties, and I was interested at once in my companion. “I am a stranger here,” I said, purposing to draw him out, “and know little of these matters.” He turned a keen glance on me, seeming to search my face. “You are a Frenchman,” he said, addressing me in excellent French, which was the more astonishing because so unusual, especially in his rank in life. Without waiting for my reply, he directed my attention to the balcony. “The patriarch is going to bear the glad tidings to the Czarina Natalia,” he remarked grimly, “and, I presume, to anoint the young czarevitch with all haste; but it takes more than holy oil to make an emperor in these days.” We were less pressed now, for the crowd was surging away towards the palace, shouting as it went. I examined my new acquaintance with curiosity. If his face had been less rugged and fierce it would have been handsome on the side that had escaped the disfiguring scar. It was a remarkable face: a keen eye, a large straight nose, a strong mouth, and an expression of relentless resolution,—a face that had had a past as dark, as cold, as grim as that close-shut mouth. My curiosity was excited.
