Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/150

 126 Even the Orthodox Church held aloof,though the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch vied with each other in their zealous acceptance of the accomplished fact, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem went still farther, and proclaimed the new Tsar 'the head of Christendom.' The great body of the Eastern clergy refused to follow this lead, and the Tsarate was fain to enter this community, wherein it claimed the highest place of all, by a low-browed door, and to stumble on the threshold. But the Muscovite people knew naught of these details. In the poetry of the bylines, wherein facts and dates were hopelessly confused, the national pride and the popular fancy worked in unison, casting a veil of fascinating fiction over humble beginnings and early discomfitures. In these the bearer of the Imperial insignia, passing from Babylon to Constantinople, where he found the Empire laid in ruins and the Orthodox faith endangered, travelled from the shores of the Bosphorus to the banks of the Volga, never halting till he reached the camp before Kazan, and there fell in with the true Defender of the Church, the conqueror of Islam. On the panels of the symbolic throne still shown in the Cathedral of the Assumption, the native artists spent their skill on representations of other and similar myths, and, within the limits of his huge dominions at all events, Ivan felt himself girdled by a radiance of power and glory such as no ancestor of his had ever known.

His marriage was to bring him a happiness such as few of them, we may be sure, had tasted, either. The bride had been chosen, this time, according to the accepted rule. All the marriageable girls in the Empire belonging to the class of the 'men who serve' had been ordered to repair to Moscow. A huge building containing many rooms, each with twelve beds in it, had been prepared for their reception. On the occasion of Vassili's first marriage, 500 beauties, according to Francesco da Collo, or 1,500, according to Herberstein, had thus been brought together. These figures probably apply to two successive choices out of the general mass of competitors, and a preliminary selection had no doubt been made in the various provinces. At Byzantium, where the same practice was in vogue, the provincial governors received detailed instructions for the purpose, with directions as to the height and other qualifications required. When the seraglio had received all its inmates, the Sovereign, accompanied by one man, chosen among his oldest courtiers, took his way there. He walked through all the rooms, and presented each fair lady with a kerchief embroidered with gold and gems, which he threw upon her bosom. His choice once made, gifts were bestowed on the companions of the bride, and the were sent back to their own homes.