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When I denounced him the unfrocked monk Grishka Otrepiev, would not Sigismund have verified the statement had it been true?" "The brothers Nagoy, the uncles of the dead Demetrius..." Otrepiev was beginning, when again Boris interrupted him. "Their acknowledgment of him came after Sigismund's, after long after my denunciation." He broke into oaths. "I say you lie.
Boris grunted, and moved his body irritably in his chair. His terrible eyes watched Otrepiev mistrustfully. He had reached the mental stage in which he mistrusted everything and everybody. "You lie, you dog," he snarled savagely. "Highness, I swear..." "Lies!" Boris roared him down. "And here's the proof. Would Sigismund of Poland have acknowledged him had he been what you say?
And Otrepiev spoke the whole truth at last in his great dread. "He is not my nephew." "Not?" It was a roar of rage. "You dared lie to me?" Otrepiev's knees were loosened by terror, and he went down upon them before the irate Tsar. "I did not lie not altogether. I told you a half-truth, Highness.
The Tsar leapt from a balcony thirty feet to the ground, broke his leg, and lay there helpless, to be dispatched by his enemies, who presently discovered him. He died firmly and fearlessly protesting that he was Demetrius Ivanovitch. Nevertheless, he was Grishka Otrepiev, the unfrocked monk.
He sent an envoy to Sigismund III. to proclaim the fellow's true identity, and to demand his expulsion from the Kingdom of Poland; and his denunciation was supported by a solemn excommunication pronounced by the Patriarch of Moscow against the unfrocked monk, Grishka Otrepiev, who now falsely called himself Demetrius Ivanovitch.
The false Demetrius was none other than his own nephew, Grishka Otrepiev, who had once been a monk, but, unfrocked, had embraced the Roman heresy, and had abandoned himself to licentious ways. You realize now why Smirnoy had been chosen by Basmanov for this particular mission. The news heartened Boris. At last he could denounce the impostor in proper terms, and denounce him he did.
Will you stand there and pelter with me, man? Will you wait until the rack pulls you joint from joint before you speak the truth?" "Highness!" cried Otrepiev, "I have served you faithfully these years." "The truth, man; as you hope for life," thundered the Tsar, "the whole truth of this foul nephew of yours, if so be he is your nephew."
Had that fool Smirnoy Otrepiev but dealt frankly with him from the first, what months of annoyance might he not have been spared; how easy it might have been to prick this bubble of imposture. But better late than never.
That messenger chosen in consequence of something else that Basmanov had been told was Smirnoy Otrepiev. The Tsar Boris sat back in his chair, his eyes on the gem encrusted goblet, the stem of which his fingers were mechanically turning. There was now no vestige of the smile on his round white face. It had grown set and thoughtful.
His name is Grishka Otrepiev; it is the name by which he always has been known, and he is an unfrocked monk, all as I said, and the son of my brother's wife." "Then... then..." Boris was bewildered. Suddenly he understood. "And his father?" "Was Stephen Bathory, King of Poland. Grishka Otrepiev is King Stephen's natural son." Boris seemed to fight for breath for a moment.
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