ACT II., SCENE 1. GEORGE AND XENIA

Xenia. Blessed in the world is that purple-bearing man who does not suppress the freedom of our souls, who elevates himself for society’s good, and with leniency adorns his royal dignity, who gives his subjects auspicious days, and whom evildoers alone have cause to fear.

George. O thou sad Kremlin! Thou art this day a witness how that virtue was cast down from the throne. Languishing Moscow trembles in despair; happiness flees its walls in sorrow; the bright days seem darker than dense night; the fair groves about Moscow are clad in sombreness. When the solemn bell rings in the city, it seems to us that it repeats the city’s general groan and that it proclaims our Church’s fall through the machinations of the pope. O Lord, remove that terror from the Russians! Already the report flies through the square that Clement has promised reward in heaven to the rebels, the foes of our country’s city, and that he in advance forgives them all their sins. Moscow will suffer as suffers the New World! There the papists have stained with blood the earth, have slaughtered its inhabitants, have plundered the surviving, have burnt the innocent in their own land, holding the cross in one hand, in the other—the bloody sword. What has happened to them in their dire fate will now, O Russia, be done to you!

Xenia. All powers of evil,—Demetrius, Clement, Hell,—will not efface you from my heart! O Heaven, remove the fury of the papal power, and with it Xenia’s unbearable distress, that Russia might raise its head, and I might be my sweetheart’s wife! Grant us to see the monarch on the throne, subject to truth, not arbitrary will! All truth has withered; the tyrant’s law is only what he wants; but on the happiness of their subjects are based the laws of righteous kings, for their immortal glory. God’s vicar is to be the Tsar. Strike me, destroy me, merciless Tsar! Megæra has swept you from Tartarus, the Caucasus has borne you, Hyrcania has nurtured you. The heretic, with his crowd of slaves, will, cursing, oust the bodies of saintly men from their graves. Their names will in Russia for ever perish, and the houses of God will in Moscow be deserted. Nation, tear the crown from the creator of dire torments; hasten, wrest the sceptre from the barbarian’s hands!