“I do not know--still besieging Tönning, I suppose--at least he sent to negotiate.”
“To negotiate!” cried the Czar, looking round.
“Sire--the Baltic Sea was covered with the Swedish ships, King Karl master of Seeland, Copenhagen beseeching mercy--but our young hero must do the magnanimous--he fought not for conquest, he said, but justice. In brief, there was a congress called at Tarrenthal and there is a peace to be signed this month.”
“Sweden wants nothing for himself--Gottorp is to get his indemnity and his Duchy, and Denmark is never to meddle again against Sweden.”
Peter was silent a moment he was still very pale and one side of his face twitched convulsively.
“What news from Poland?” he asked at length.
“There were those dispatches yesterday, but you would not listen to them.”
“Why?” demanded the Czar, trembling all over.
“The excuse is that the town is full of Dutch merchandise and Poland would not offend Holland. The truth is that Augustus could not take the town.”
“Curse Augustus and curse Frederick,” said the Czar heavily.
He put down the little toy he was making and clasped his head in his hands.
“So of all the enemies of this young man there remains but yourself, Peter Alexievitch.”
The Czar was silent; he could have imagined no greater blow than this appearance of a rival to his glory in Northern Europe, a man ten years younger than himself who had already achieved what he never had.
How often had not Peter dreamed of dictating terms to a conquered city and setting conditions of peace to vanquished Kings, of seeing a great many obey his commands and thousands of fine soldiers march behind him to conquest; all things that this youth had experienced in a few days, while he, Peter, had been indulging himself in a sullen retirement broken only by those drunken debauches with which he sought to cure the terrible melancholy that periodically assailed him.
A bitter scorn of himself, a bitter envy of the King of Sweden, a wild yearning to be other than he was, settled on him like the mantle of despair.
“Tell me what this young man is like,” he asked, in a muffled voice; his curiosity as to what was admirable and good and great was insatiable; even now it dominated his emotion.