“Let Katherina go to her,” muttered the Czar. “Katherina has a gentle mind and a soothing tongue.”
For himself he sought Mentchikoff, that firm and tireless friend.
Throwing an old mantle about his shoulders, for this autumn was unusually chill, even for the North, he mounted his great, rough horse and rode to the quarters of the Prince that were far more comfortable than his own.
He was humiliated and struck to the heart; with an impatience and gloomy bitterness he eyed his huge encampment; what use was it to train these men who fled at the very name of the King of Sweden? What good his pains, his example, his rewards, his punishments, to mold a nation uncivilized in every art and science?
The reactionary party was still at work; there were eager hands ready to undo his every reform; his heir, son of the repudiated Eudoxia, was a weakling, none of the children of Katherina, his chosen woman, had lived.
Almost his task seemed too great for the Russian; the war had been long and entirely disastrous; if it had taught him the art of war, it had done so in lessons rude and bitter.
His allies had fallen away from him; his enemy was in every way triumphant, had eclipsed his glory, dimmed his rising renown, made him and his attempts at greatness a laughing-stock.
Europe would not even listen to him when he complained of Karl’s breach of international law and demanded his ambassador; instead they sent their representatives to do homage to the conqueror in his camp. The Emperor of Austria cringed, Europe was at the feet of this young man--in truth a second Alexander, who had but to decide in which direction his further glory should lie; and no one troubled about Muscovy and its passionate ruler, so fiercely trying to educate his country into some semblance of his ambitious dreams.
“Sweden blocks me,” said Peter to Mentchikoff. “He must go, or all we have done is in vain. He stops my progress, Danilovitch; he wants to pull down, I to build. What am I to do--it seems that he is invincible.”
He spoke without malice or hate now, only with a sadness that was wistful in its sincerity.
“And Patkul!” he added. “Patkul will be broken, Danilovitch.”
“I would we could break Augustus,” said the Prince.