Explore "Peter and Alexis" by Dmitri Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
That very day the Tsarevitch was again led to the torture. After he had received fifteen blows with the knout he was taken down from the strappado, as Blumentrost declared that the Tsarevitch was in a fainting condition and would die under any further infliction of the knout.
In the night his condition became so much worse that the officer on guard in alarm ran to inform the commandant of the fortress that the Tsarevitch was dying, and that a priest ought to be summoned lest he should pass away without the last rites of the Church. The commandant at once despatched the priest of the garrison, Father Matthew. The latter at first resisted and entreated the commandant: -