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He rang again. A second servant appeared. “Tea! and brandy–plenty of brandy!”

The servants ran, the household was aroused, and the Czar occupied the interval by making notes on slate tablets. When he became impatient, he got down, and knocked at all the shutters with his stick. Then a voice was heard from within: “Wait a moment.”

“No! that I won’t; I am not born to wait. Hurry! or I will set the house on fire!”

He went into his gardens, cast a glance at his medicinal plants, plucked up some weeds, and watered here and there. He went into the cattle-sheds, and looked at some merino sheep which he himself had introduced. Here he found a trave which had been broken; he took a saw and plane, and mended it. He threw some oats in the manger of his favourite trotting-horse. He drove for the most part, when he did not go on foot; riding seemed to him unworthy of a seaman, and it was as a seaman that the Czar chiefly wished to be regarded. Then he went into the lathe-shop, sat for a while on the turning-bench, and worked. At the window stood a table with a copper-engraver’s tools; with the graving-tool he drew some lines which were wanting in the map plate. He was about to proceed to the smithy, when a woman’s voice called him under the lime-tree.

On the platform stood his wife the Czarina, in her morning dress. She had massive limbs and large feet; her face was stout and plain, her eyes were not level, but had a steady expression.

“How early you are up this morning, Little Father?” she said.

“Is it early? It is six at any rate!”

“It is only just five.”

“Five? Then it shall be six.”

He pushed the hand of the clock an hour forward. His wife smiled a little superciliously, but took care not to irritate him, for she knew how dangerous it was to do so. Then she gave him his tea.

“There is some occupation for you,” said Peter, pointing to his letters.

“But how many there are!”

“If there are too many I can get help.”

The Czarina, did not answer, but began to look through the letters. The Czar liked that, for then there would be occasion for quarrelling; and he always wished for a quarrel in order to keep his energies active.

“Pardon me, Peter,” said his wife, “but is it right that you should apply to the Swedish Government about the Dutch ships?”

“Yes, it is! All that I do is right!”

“I don’t understand it. Our Russians fired by mistake at friendly Dutch vessels, and you demand indemnity from the Swedes because the mischance occurred in Swedish waters.”

“Yes, according to Roman law, the injury must be made good in the land where it happened….”

“Yes, but….”

“It is all the same anyhow: he who can pay, pays; I cannot, and the Dutch will not, therefore the Swedes must! Do you understand?”

“No.”

“The Swedes have incited the Turks against me; they must pay for that.”

“May be! But why do you write so harshly to the Dutch Government since you like the Dutch?”

“Why! Because since the Peace of Utrecht, Holland is on the decline. It is all over with Holland; on to the rubbish-heap with it! I hold on to England, since France is also declining.”

“Should one abandon one’s old friends?…”

“Certainly, when they are no more good. Moreover, there is no friendship in love and in politics. Do you think I like this wretched August of Poland? No! I am sure you don’t. But I must go with him through thick and thin, for my country, for Russia. He who cannot sacrifice his little humours and passions for his country is a Don Quixote, like Charles the Twelfth. This fool, with his mad hatred against August and myself, has worked for Sweden’s overthrow and Russia’s future. But that this Christian dog should incite the Turks against us was a crime against Europe, for Europe needs Russia as a bulwark against Asia. Did not the Mongol sit for two hundred years on our frontier and threaten us? And when our ancestors had at last driven him away, there comes a fellow like this and brings the heathen from Constantinople upon us. The Mongols were once in Silesia, and would have destroyed Western Europe if we Russians had not saved it. Charles XII is dead, but I curse his memory, and I curse everyone who seeks to hinder me in my laudable endeavour to raise Russia from a Western Asiatic power to an Eastern European one. I shall beat everyone down, whoever he may be, who interferes with my work, even though it were my own son.”