“He was splendid!” said Ivan with kindling eyes; “I am proud to bear his name.” Petrovitch felt shocked by the disclosure of Ivan’s ignorance of the history of his native country, that country which was to himself the object of proud and passionate love. “Can it be,” he said to him the next day--“can it be that no one has ever even told you about the great Czar Peter?” “I have heard of the Czar Peter,” said Ivan: “he ordered all the mujiks to cut off their beards, threatening to cut off their heads if they refused. ‘God will make your beards grow again,’ he said; ‘but will he do the same for your heads?’” Petrovitch built a long and interesting narrative upon this very meagre foundation of historical knowledge. He had little Feodor for a listener as well as Ivan, and the intelligent questions of the boys drew out the information he loved to impart. Especially graphic was his account of the Swedish defeat at Pultowa, and the horrors of the retreat that followed--horrors that seem to have prefigured those of a yet more awful retribution near at hand, though still wrapped in the mysterious veil of the future. “File after file the stormy showers benumb, Freeze every standard sheet, and hush the drum; Yet ere he sank in nature’s last repose, Ere life’s warm torrent to the fountain froze, The dying man to Sweden turned his eye, Thought of his home, and closed it with a sigh: Imperial pride looked sullen on his plight, And Charles beheld, nor shuddered at the sight.” Then, gradually bringing down the narrative to more recent times, he told of the great Czarina Catherine--of the splendours of her court and the triumphs of her arms--especially of the conquest of Poland, in his partial eyes only a just retribution for the past wrongs, and a glorious achievement of the prowess of holy Russia. At last, though with some reserve, he spoke of the short, sad reign of the Czar Paul. “God sent him for our sins,” he said. This reserve only piqued the curiosity of the boys.