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."
There was silence for some moments. The last words referred to the
Delicate topic of Alexis, Peter's son by his first marriage, who was
now a prisoner awaiting his death-sentence in the Peter-Paul
Fortress.
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