Chapter one

Even on Thursday, Tsar Peter drank and walked, and today he screamed in pain and died. Petersburg was being built, the canals were unfinished. Peter died "in the midst of the works of the unfinished" and did not know who to leave the state to, that great science that he himself had begun.

Sister Peter kicked out - "she was cunning and evil." He could not stand his ex-wife, nun, stupid woman, he destroyed his stubborn son, and his favorite Danilych turned out to be a thief. And her beloved wife, Katya, judging by the denunciation, was preparing her husband a "special drinketo". But when she leaned over Peter, he calmed down.

Meanwhile, Alexander Danilych Menshikov sat in his chambers and waited for Peter to call him to account. The Most Serene Prince was greedy, he loved that he had a lot of land, houses, slaves, but most of all Danilych liked to take bribes. You will not pinch houses and lands in a handful, and a bribe - here it is, in your hand, like a living one.

And Danilych took wherever possible. He imposed bribes on the city and men, foreigners and royal courts. He executed contracts in a strange name, supplied rotten cloth for the army, and robbed the treasury.

He loved that everything burned with fire in his hands, that there was a lot of everything and everything was the best, that everything was harmonious and careful.

At night, Danilych did not sleep, he considered profit. He could not talk to his wife — it was painfully stupid — so he went to his sister-in-law, with whom he talked “this way and that, right up to the morning,” not considering it a sin.

Menshikov was awaiting trial and was afraid that his nostrils would be torn out and sent to hard labor. He only hoped to escape to Europe, where he had transferred a large amount in advance. For two nights he sat dressed, expecting to be summoned to the dying king.

Suddenly, Count Rastrelli, the chief architect of St. Petersburg, came to Menshikov. He came to complain about his rival, the artist de Caravacchus, who was entrusted with portraying the Battle of Poltava.

Having learned that Tsar Peter was dying, Caravacus wanted to make his death mask. From the court physician, Rastrelli knew that the king "would die in four days." The count said that only he could make a good mask, and spoke about the posthumous copy of the French king Louis VIV from white wax, which, thanks to the built-in mechanism, could move.

For the first time hearing so clearly about the death of Peter, Danilych calmed down and allowed Rastrelli to make a mask. He became interested in the brightest and wax copy. Then Menshikov was finally called.

Peter I rushed about in the heat and raved. When he woke up, he realized: "Peter Mikhailov is coming to an end, the most finite and fastest." He looked at the drawings on the stove tiles of Dutch work and realized that he would never see the sea again.

Peter cried and said goodbye to life, with his state - "a considerable ship." He thought that in vain did not execute Danilych and Catherine and even allowed her to come. If he had executed, “the blood would have received relief”, and he could have recovered, and now “the blood has gone down”, has stagnated, and the disease will not let go, “and do not have time to put an ax on that rotten root”.

Suddenly on a tile stove Peter saw a cockroach. In the king’s life “there were three fears”. As a child, he was afraid of water, and therefore fell in love with ships as protection from large waters. He began to fear blood when he saw his uncle killed as a child, but it soon passed, "and he became curious about blood." But the third fear - the fear of cockroaches - remained in him forever.

Cockroaches appeared in Russia during the Russian-Turkish campaign and spread everywhere. Since then, couriers have always jumped in front of the king and looked for cockroaches in the allotted space for Peter.

Peter reached for the shoe - to kill the cockroach - and lost consciousness, and when he woke up, he saw three people in the room. These were senators, appointed by three to be on duty in the bedroom of the dying king.

And in the closet next to the bedroom was a "small man" Alexey Myakinin and collected fiscal reports about Danilych and Ekaterina. Sick, Peter himself put him beside himself and ordered him to report daily.

Myakinin found out about the sums sent by Menshikov to Europe, and sniffed something about Catherine. But on this day they forgot about him, they didn’t even bring lunch. Myakinin heard walking and rustling in the king’s bedroom. He hastily tore up papers relating to Catherine, and wrote down the numbers "in an unusual place."

An hour later, the queen entered the closet and drove Myakinin away. Catherine got his notes, in which there were many things about Menshikov and gentlemen from the Senate. On the same day, many convicts were freed to pray for the health of the sovereign.

Great things began: the owner still spoke, but could no longer be angry.

Danilych ordered the guard to be doubled in the city, and everyone found out that the king was dying. But in the tavern, which was in fortress with the royal eagle, this was known for a long time. they knew there that they bought white wax all over the country and were looking for a strong oak for the torso of the royal copy. The Germans sitting in the tavern believed that after Peter Menshikov would rule. And the thief Ivan walked and listened.

Chapter two

The "considerable farm" of the Kunstkamera began in Moscow and occupied a small closet. Then she was given a stone house at the Summer Palace in St. Petersburg, and after the execution of Aleksey Petrovich they transferred “to the Foundry part - to the Kikiny Chambers”.

These chambers were on the outskirts, and the people went there reluctantly. Then Peter ordered to build chambers for the Kunstkamera on the main square of St. Petersburg, and while they were being built, he came up with the idea of ​​treating every visitor with a drink and a snack. People began to enter the Kunstkamera more often, others - and twice a day.

In the Kunstkamera there was a large collection of alcoholic infants and freaks, both animal and human. Among them was the head of a child born in the Peter and Paul Fortress, the mistress of Tsarevich Alexei. In the basement were kept the heads of the executed - the royal mistress and lover of Catherine, but outsiders were not allowed there. There was in the Kunstkamera a large collection of animal and bird stuffed animals, collections of minerals, stone "boobs" found in the ground, as well as the skeleton and stomach of a giant.

They looked for freaks for the Kunstkamera all over Russia and bought them from the people. Living human freaks were valued the most. Three of them lived under the Kunstkamera. Two of them were two-fingered fools - their arms and legs resembled claws.

The third "monster", Jacob, was the smartest. From his father he got an apiary, and he knew the secret of making white wax. Yakov’s brother, Mikhalko, was fifteen years older than him and went into the soldiers before his birth.

Twenty years later, in the village he became a regiment. One of the soldiers turned out to be Mikhalka. He settled in the house as the owner, but worked as before Yakkov. After some time, Mikhalka decided to take the whole farm to himself and sold his brother to the Kunstkamera as a freak. When leaving, Jacob took with him the money accumulated secretly from his mother.

In the Kunstkamera, Jacob became a stoker, then he began to show visitors alcohols "naturals", command the rest of the freaks and healed "for his own pleasure." He knew that after death he would also become "natural."

Mikhalko returned home, began to housekeeping, but his wax turned out to be dark. Since the mother said that white wax is now in price - the “German Tsar” eats it to remove freckles. Then the soldier reported to his mother and went to hard labor with her.

They were released under an amnesty when the king fell ill.

And it flooded the villages, as if the Neva penal servitude had overflowed the shores, went along the roads and entered the village streets.

Returning home, the soldier discovered that strangers occupied his house. Mother died immediately, and the soldier returned to Petersburg.

Yakov became bored in the kunstkamera, and he decided to file a petition to let him go. For this, he undertook to supply the Kunstkamera with freaks for free.

Chapters Three-Four

At half past five in the morning, when manufactories and workshops were opened, and the tufts doused the lights, Tsar Peter died.

The body had not yet been ritualized, and Menshikov had already taken power into his own hands. Catherine opened the treasury, and Danilych bought allegiance to the guard. And then everyone understood: Catherine would become empress.

And then great sobs began over the deceased king. Even Menshikov remembered from whom he "received his state power", and for a moment he returned to the past, became Aleksashka, faithful dog of Peter.

In the midst of this turmoil, Rastrelli quietly entered the palace, made a posthumous mask of the tsar and mines of his hands, feet and face from white wax. The mask remained in the palace, and the sculptor carried the rest to himself, in the Formal Barn, which is next to the Foundry. Rastrelli drew a sketch for a long time, and then, together with the apprentice, he began to sculpt a copy of Peter, cursing that the king was very large and there wasn’t enough wax.

Meanwhile, Empress Catherine dreamed of her youth. She, Marta, grew up in a village near the Swedish city of Marienburg. As a child, she milked cows, and then she was taken to the city, a servant of the pastor. The son of the pastor began to teach it the German language, and taught a completely different way - Marta mastered this language perfectly.

When Martha was sixteen, the city was filled with Swedish soldiers, and she married the corporal, but soon abandoned him for the lieutenant, and from that she went to the commandant of the city, and the old women called her "little female word."

Then the Russians took the city, and Martha was taught the Russian language for a long time Sheremetyev, Mons, Menshikov and Peter himself, for whom she "did not speak, but sang."

And she understood only one human language, and that language was like a growing child, or leaves, or hay, or girls in a young courtyard that sang a song.

Waking up, Catherine dressed up and went to sob over her husband’s body, simultaneously deciding to bring a young nobleman closer to her.

Soldier Mikhalko returned to Petersburg. In a tavern under a state eagle, he met a guy who worked as a “fool” for three wealthy merchants. In order not to pay tax, merchants pretended to be blind beggars, and the "fool" was their guide. Through them, a soldier was attached as a watchman “in the wax yard”.

Rastrelli began to assemble the model, simultaneously scolding the tasteless design of the tsars, the funeral - he was not entrusted with this business. In revenge, he decided to create an equestrian statue, "which will stand a hundred years."

Finally, the royal copy was ready. A wooden disc with a thin mechanism was mounted in her body - now the wax person will be able to move. Yaguzhinsky appeared and instructed Rastrelli to make details for the design of the funeral, and he willingly agreed.

Catherine celebrated Shrovetide. She was compared with the ancient rulers, and among themselves they said that she was "weak in the morning ... she couldn’t wait." Even before the funeral, during a magnificent feast, the empress retired with her first chosen one.

Finally, Peter was buried. Catherine felt like a mistress, but a wax person really bothered her. She herself dressed her in Petrova’s clothes, put her in the throne room, and didn’t come close so that the mechanism didn’t work and the person didn’t get up - she looked very much like a living king.

Sits day and night, and when it is light and in the dark. He sits alone, and it is not known why he is needed. From him embarrassment, he interferes with swallowing at dinner.

Finally, it was decided to send the person to the Kunstkamera as an intricate and very rare subject.

From white wax Rastrelli fashioned a model of an equestrian statue. On the forehead of the rider is a laurel wreath, and the horse stands on an intricate pedestal with cupids.

Chapter five

Prosecutor General Count Pavel Ivanovich Yaguzhinsky, white-toothed, funny, with a loud voice, was Menshikov's first enemy and rival. Danilych called him a "lard" and a rowdy, and his house was called a tavern. Yaguzhinsky put his crazy wife into the monastery, and he married a pockmarked, but smart woman. Menshikov also called his enemy a libertine and a "farce" for knowing foreign languages ​​and was proud of it. Danilych himself remained illiterate.

Yaguzhinsky, for stealing, called Menshikov a "zagreba" and a "grip."He said that he does dirty tricks to “lower people,” and flattens “upper”, dreams of “crawling into the boyar stratum” and pocketing the Russian treasury, hinted at Danilych’s relations with his sister-in-law.

Now, when Menshikov went uphill, Yaguzhinsky was sitting at home and thinking about whom to rely on. And it turned out that he had no supporters, but Yaguzhinsky was not afraid of exile, because there were “lower people” for him - merchants, artisans, black people, which meant that Alexashka would not be in the kings.

At night, the wax person was transported to the Kunstkamera and put on a platform upholstered in red cloth, under which a mechanism was carried out - you step on a certain place, and the person rises, as if alive, points to the door with his finger. Next to them were the stuffed animals of Peter's favorite dogs and a horse, on which he participated in the Battle of Poltava.

In the following days, Yaguzhinsky met with many people, including Alexei Myakinin, with whom he had a long conversation. Then, after drinking, he staggered around for a long time, enumerated Menshikov’s crimes and did not know now, “whether to be in St. Petersburg”.

And everything does not go from the spot, but around the city has become unfaithful and can run into the summer. Trembles and crawls.

And Yaguzhinsky decided tomorrow to begin to disturb the brightest, “like a dog with a stick”, and his wife supported him.

In recent years, Menshikov recalled his childhood three times. His father baked pies for sale and often came home drunk and without pants. All his brightest life has changed. At first he was handsome, thin, mischievous and lurking. Then five years went "tight, and prudent, and dignified." Then he became a “ugly face”, greedy, forgot who he was.

Now Danilych ascended, there were a lot of expensive things, only there was no joy from them, and he could not say everything to his sister-in-law. He began to call Catherine “the mother” and was cruel to her, dreamed of becoming a prince and generalissimo, and giving his daughter his son for Petrov — then he, Danilych, would become regent, he would rule, and the empress would bring him to pieces.

In the Tatar camp - the large St. Petersburg market - soldier Mikhalko sold wax and met with a thief Ivan. Pretending to be asking the price of the goods, the thief brought the soldier into a tavern, found out everything about his guard work and left without buying anything.

Yaguzhinsky had a fight “with naked swords” with Menshikov, and everyone turned away from him. Then Pavel Ivanovich got drunk, gathered the company and went to “make noise” and play tricks around St. Petersburg. The company swept through the city and reached the Kunstkamera.

A living bird flew into the kunstkamora, wild, areal, fat, in blue silk, and with a star and a sword, and this was a man, and he did not go, he flew.

Everyone dispersed to watch the “naturals,” and Yaguzhinsky reached the portrait chamber, where the wax person was sitting, and she stood in front of him. And Pavel Ivanovich began to complain to the person about the atrocities of Danilych, and the six-fingered Yakov was here and heard everything.

Menshikov was angry with Yaguzhinsky, but still did not want to put him on the block. Having heard about the Kunstkamera, he went there. Under his gaze, Jacob told everything that he remembered, although at first he did not want to speak. And then the person stood in front of Danilych, and he ran away in dismay.

At night, Yaguzhinsky read his horoscope, according to which victory came to him, and recalled his beloved woman - a smooth, arrogant gentry from Vienna. That very night, a soldier Mikhalka was hit on the head and a barn with a treasury was opened. Menshikov, at that time, planned to exile Yaguzhinsky to Siberia, to go on vacation to his estate and to call the empress there. And the six-fingered, who knew a lot, he ordered to kill and alcohol.

Chapter six

In the morning, the townspeople were awakened by cannon volleys - it sounded the alarm due to the fire. Everything stirred. The foundry, where the "bomb supplies" were stored, was fenced with felt shields and sails. Thieves fled to the fire - to drag what was necessary, and it was not clear where it was burning.

Finally, it seemed to everyone that the Foundry part was on fire, and fenced it with sails so that the wind would not fan the fire.

And the brave jumped forward, and the cowards hit back. And there were many both.

Rastrelli was frightened, but when he saw the sails, he decided that these were “military and naval rehearsals” and calmly returned home.

Panic also began in the Kunstkamera. Using it, Jacob took his belt with money, put on mittens to hide his six-fingered hands, and fled. And Catherine laughed "until you drop and before raising her legs" - the panic in the city was her April Fools' joke. Two weeks had passed since Peter was buried, and the Empress had fun.

Jacob stumbled around Petersburg, bought new clothes, shaved at the barber, and completely changed. Passing by the torture chamber, he saw how the guilty soldier was being punished, recognized his brother in him and walked by, "as the light passes through the glass."

In the morning, Menshikov dressed up and went to the empress, thinking of deciding with her the fate of Yaguzhinsky. But, upon arrival, the brightest saw Pavel Ivanovich, who joked and made Catherine laugh with Tsarina Elizabeth - this smart wife reconciled Yaguzhinsky with the Empress. Catherine made the enemies shake hands and kiss. Now, Menshikov dreamed of sending Yaguzhinsky not to Siberia, but as an ambassador to some land "off to the ground, but only to hell."

Then both danced, but Menshikov looked aged, and Yaguzhinsky did not feel like a winner. Thus ended the evening of April 2, 1725.

In the Kunstkamera “two naturals” were eliminated - a baby born of Tsarevich Alexey’s mistress and a six-fingered freak Yakov. Two cans of alcohol remained empty, and one of them was drunk by two-fingered fools.

The six-toed was a valuable "natural", and he was ordered to catch. At this time, Jacob sat in a tavern and told the thief Ivan what treasures and stones are stored in the kunstkamera. Then Ivan called Jacob “to the Bashkirs, to nobody’s lands”, and they left.