Maria Hamilton

“It was in those days, when Alexei—returned from abroad—on the Supreme Court was shouting in the audience hall at the tsar: ‘Great you are, Peter, and heavyset too, villain, murderer, and anti-Christ! God will curse Russia for you!’—in those days when ancient Rus, with its fur-trimmed cap, with its rough-spun clothing, a robber, a schismatic, a bearded Rus—face to face—stood before the tsar, cursing him with the curse of a son. In those days, to Petersburg, from all sides of the state, people were brought in kibitkas, driven along the roads, bound in pairs, in threes—by the dozens, hundreds, thousands—as witnesses, participants, their relatives, their dependents, their friends and enemies, the guilty ones of the sovereign’s ‘word and deed’…»