My readers are aware that until Ambroise Paré's days, and even later, the ivory of the narwhale was believed to exercise certain curative properties. The Tsar's physician, armed with this instrument of magic, was made to draw a circle on a table, and within the line some spiders were put down. These died at once, while others, placed outside the circle, ran away. 'Too late!' said Ivan; 'the unicorn's horn cannot save me now!' And he went back to his gems. 'Look at this diamond,' said he to Horsey again: 'it is the finest and most precious of all the Eastern stones. I have never cared for it. It curbs fury and lust; it instils abstinence and chastity. … I feel ill. … Take me away. … We will come back another time. …'
On the day the astrologers had fixed—March 18, 1584—the Sovereign, according to Horsey's account, felt rather better. Biélski reminded the diviners of the fate that awaited them. 'The day will not be over till the sun sets,' was their answer. Ivan, having taken a bath, asked for a chess-board. On the preceding days circulars had been sent to all the monasteries asking their prayers for the 'sick man who repented,' and who likewise besought the Divine mercy—on the faults of which the monks had been guilty with respect to himself! These documents, still in existence, prove that the Sovereign, even yet, was striving to combine his care for the safety of his own soul with that of his political interests. The legend assures us, too, that, though he treated all those about him with a most unaccustomed gentleness, and enjoined his son to follow this example, to avoid wars with Christian Princes, to reduce taxes, and set prisoners free, he never ceased indulging in every kind of physical excess, even going so far as to make an abominable attempt, so Oderborn affirms, on his daughter-in-law Irene, whom he had treated with paternal fondness.
The only points quite free from uncertainty are the date of Ivan's death and a few trifling details connected with it. He had sent for Boris Godounov to play with him, and was setting up the pieces on the chess-board when he turned faint. A few moments later the death-rattle was in his throat, and the astrologers' presage was realized. The last sacraments were administered, and at his own request the usual ceremony of putting on the monkish habit was performed upon the Tsar's person; so that it was the monk Iona who relinquished the crown into Feodor's hands, and the power into those of Boris Godounov.
I have endeavoured to show what the first Tsar of all the Russias was. I must now close by defining some features of a physiognomy by no means easy to reconstitute, athwart all the uncertainty which hangs round so obscure a past.
