Читать книгу Peter and Alexis. The Romance of Peter the Great онлайн

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Alexis had met this old man some months ago in Petersburg, at St. Simeon and St. Anne’s Church. Noticing him because of his unshaven, grizzled beard—so unusual for clerks—and his zealous reading of the Psalms in the choir, the Tsarevitch had asked him his name, position, and whence he came.

The old man had introduced himself, as a clerk of the Moscow Arsenal, Larion Dokoukin by name. He had come from Moscow and was now staying in the house belonging to the woman who made the consecrated bread at St. Simeon’s; he had mentioned his poverty, the informer’s disclosure, and also, almost in his first words, had referred to Antichrist. The Tsarevitch had been touched by the pitiable condition of the old man and told him to come to his house, promising to help him with money and advice. Now that he stood before him in his torn coat he looked the very image of a beggar. He was one of those poor ordinary clerks, nicknamed in Russia “inky souls,” “pettifoggers.” Hard were his wrinkles as though fossilized, hard the cold look in the small dim eyes, hard his neglected grizzled beard, his face colourless and dull as the papers which he had been copying and had pored over may be for thirty years in his office. He had accepted bribes from agents “in all fairness”; he may have even been guilty of roguery, and this was the conclusion he had suddenly arrived at: Antichrist is coming!