Cyril smiled to himself. A child was perfect. It would give him an excuse to feign an interest in the goings on of the household. Perhaps he could get the right sort, one ruled by fear who would do anything he said—especially if obtaining information for him would keep a peasant father out of jail. With such a pawn he could penetrate some secret of the inner workings of the Fedorcenko home.
23
Katrina tossed another rejected dress on her bed. It fell unceremoniously on top of half a dozen others, forming a brilliant pile of rich color and fabric and lace.
Anna had given up for the moment trying to rehang them in the wardrobe, for no sooner had she succeeded than her mistress asked to try on one of the rejected pieces once more, or else wanted two more in its place. After two weeks with the young princess, Anna’s awestruck astonishment at all the finery had nearly ceased. But it still struck her discordantly that in the midst of such abundance, Princess Katrina should be so dissatisfied with what she had.
Yet Anna was quickly learning not only her new duties, but the role that accompanied them. Nina proved an excellent instructor, both in precept and example, teaching Anna how to carry herself as well as what she was actually to do. Thus Anna knew better than to gape openly, or to speak whatever questions might have come to her mind.
“Oh, nothing is right!” exclaimed Katrina at length, plopping herself down ungracefully on the dressing table bench.
“There is some special occasion tonight, Princess?” asked Anna.
“My brother is home on leave from the army. And his best friend, Dmitri Gregorovich, will be with him.” She tossed her dark curls determinedly. “And I must look just right! The last time he saw me was a year and a half ago. I was but a child of fourteen. He must see how I have grown!”
“You speak of your brother, or his friend?”
“His friend, you ninny! Do you think I care what my nincompoop of a brother thinks?”
Katrina sighed and some of the spark momentarily left her countenance. “Have you ever been in love with an older man, Anna?” she asked after a moment.
Anna blushed. “I have never been in love with anyone, my lady Princess.”
Katrina giggled at her maid’s discomfort. “Why not, Anna?”
“In my village, love is not so very important when considering a match. We have a saying, ‘Choose not a bride but a matchmaker.’”
“And were you ‘matched’ before you came here?”
“Oh no, Princess. My father has high hopes for his children. I think he spoke to the marriage broker about me once or twice, though he never confided about it to me. But I doubt my father would ever be satisfied with another’s choice for his daughter. And we are very poor, you see; my father could never afford a dowry. I suppose I could one day be matched with an older man. When you are poor sometimes you have little choice in such things.”
“Well, I’m not talking about a man so old he already has a foot in the grave! I’m talking about a man just old enough to think you a child—especially if you are his best friend’s little sister!”
“And is this what Dmitri Gregorovich thinks?”
“He’s positively dense—but, oh, so divine!”
“How old is he?”
“Twenty. You should see him!” Katrina jumped up and surveyed the dresses once again. “What am I to do?”
“Shall I take another look in your wardrobe, Princess?”
“Go ahead. Not that it will do any good. I shall kill my brother for not giving us more notice of his arrival. I could have looked through the shops in the city and found something suitable, but now there is no time.”
Anna stepped back through the doors of the huge, deep wardrobe and was gone for several minutes. When she emerged she held another dress.
“This was hanging way in the back, Princess. I think it is lovely.” Katrina took it from Anna’s hand without much enthusiasm, and slipped it over her head. The instant she turned to face the mirror she let out a gasp.
“Why, I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed. “It’s perfect, Anna!”
She smoothed her hands over the wine-colored linen and spun herself quickly around to get the full effect. The deep vivid fabric of the bodice and skirt was fine enough to be mistaken for velvet, but velvet would have been too much for this occasion. She had wanted something striking but simple. She did not want it to appear that she had fussed overmuch in deciding what to wear. The neckline gathered demurely around her shoulders, set off by a ruffle of antique lace. The same lace also trimmed the sleeves at the wrist, and the hemline.
Katrina remembered now. She had gotten the dress last winter because her mother had liked it, and it had hung upon her then in a most unflattering way. To her it had looked like a matron’s gown, and she had promptly shoved it far to the back of the wardrobe and forgotten about it.
Funny how much difference a year could make. Now she loved it! The fine linen no longer hung on skimpy shoulders and a thin, girlish figure. As Katrina admired the whole effect in the mirror, she had to admit that she filled it out perfectly—and in all the right places!
“Anna, you are a godsend! For finding me this dress, you may have the entire day free tomorrow.”
Filled with delight, Katrina spun around several more times until she had made herself absolutely dizzy. Her head swirled with thoughts of the handsome Count Dmitri Gregorovich Remizov, and how she would dazzle him once and for all. Tonight, after one look at her, it would be his head that would be spinning dizzily!
24
Eight guests gathered in the drawing room of the Fedorcenko mansion that evening before dinner: Natalia’s first cousin and her husband, the Countess and Count Durnovo; Count Cyril Vlasenko and his wife Poznia from the country environs of Luga; the Princess Marya Nicolaievna Gudosnikov, a widow and close friend of Princess Fedorcenko; one Dr. Pytor Anickin and his wife; and Alex Baklanov, close friend of the prince.
Amid caviar appetizers, zakuska, and vodka, conversation flowed smoothly among the prince and princess and their visitors—including, to the prince’s astonishment, his distant relation from the country, who had thus far kept a civil tongue in spite of the vodka. It had been years since Viktor had seen Cyril. Perhaps, he thought, the fellow has moderated his plebeian boorishness.
Katrina, however, was beside herself with utter distraction. Where were her brother and Dmitri? She wouldn’t put it past the two of them to defer at the last minute an evening with this stodgy group of old folks for a wild night with their army cronies. She would kill Sergei if he pulled something like that tonight!
She glanced toward the door for the hundredth time, hardly even bothering to act interested in the dull conversation. Was politics all that people like her parents could talk about?
At the moment the round, red-faced, ebullient Dr. Anickin was speaking. “I say that if we ignore these rabble-rousers, eventually they will go away.” The doctor was a jovial man who had the distinction of being not only liked but also respected, primarily because of his fine medical reputation throughout St. Petersburg. Despite his gifts as a physician, however, Dr. Anickin was not known for being politically astute.
“You are altogether too naive, Doctor,” replied Count Durnovo, who, with his suave, patrician manners embodied the very antithesis of the doctor. “A disease allowed to run rampant in a man’s body will kill before it desists. As a physician, you ought to know that better than any.”
“There are some afflictions, however, that must simply, as we say, run their course,” rejoined Dr. Anickin. “My only point about the radicals is that I happen to think their raving will do the same—fizzle in the end.”
“What would your son Basil say to that?”
“My son? What has he to do with it?”
“He’s been in some difficulty with the university, I understand, for some of his, shall we say, remarks on the status of our government. Do you think his views will moderate and fizzle out, as you put it?”
Embarrassed to have his unto
ward son brought up, Dr. Anickin fumbled briefly as he sought the appropriate response. But one of the other guests came to his rescue.
“I believe the doctor is right,” put in Princess Gudosnikov, a bold and independent woman with a reputation for strong opinions and her readiness to assert them. “Persecution will invariably fertilize and nourish a struggling movement, and will cause it to thrive rather than die. And as for young Basil Anickin, I have met the doctor’s son and I find him an engaging young man, with intelligence and wit to match. He may be harboring some views that differ with his father’s. But what is the university for but to foster bold thinking and encourage rash actions? Young people have always been too wild in the eyes of their parents! I’ll wager your own son will cause you discomfort in a few years, Count Durnovo.”
Durnovo laughed. He knew the princess had thrust her rapier skillfully at him.
“Perhaps, perhaps,” he conceded. “Young foolhardiness may be innocent enough. But many of the intelligentsia, both in and out of the universities are preaching revolution, and they must be stopped, however it can be done.”
“But surely, Count Durnovo,” Princess Gudosnikov said, “you cannot condone Senator Shikharov’s actions. It is altogether too severe and will only make things worse. Three thousand arrests from St. Petersburg to the Volga! And for what? Merely publishing radical propaganda. It is too much, really. The trial is liable to drag out for years, and in the meantime how many hundreds of innocents will die in prison? And of the ones who survive, I shouldn’t wonder if many of them who weren’t revolutionaries when they were arrested will be hardened radicals by the time this whole sordid affair ends.”
“Hear, hear, Princess!” chimed in Dr. Anickin. “Well done. And what is your opinion, Vlasenko? How do you of the tsar’s police cope with matters down in the country?”
“We have our share of troublemakers, believe me,” replied Cyril, doing his best to lend a certain sophistication to his tone. He was not accustomed to being in the midst of so many princes and princesses at the same time. “But I take pride in keeping them where they belong—in chains if necessary.”
From where he stood sipping his drink, the evening’s host could not help smiling to himself. The man really was a country buffoon, no matter how much polish he tried to pretend!
“And you, Baklanov?” asked the doctor, trying to spread around the conversation and keep it from coming back to roost again on the subject of his son.
“It’s no secret, Doctor,” replied Baklanov, “that I’m known as a moderate. I feel we must be wary of the radicals and revolutionaries, for these are dangerous times. At the same time, however, I would say that it is imperative that we make sincere efforts to correct some of the ills in our society that these people are pointing out. Viktor and I were just speaking the other day of—”
“Speaking of our host,” interrupted Count Durnovo, “I would very much like to know what he thinks of all this.” He turned in Fedorcenko’s direction. “Tell us, Viktor, what has the tsar to say of these recent outbreaks among the radicals and troublemakers?”
“That would interest me also,” added the Princess Marya. “You are closer to him than any of us.”
“I cannot presume to speak for the tsar,” replied Fedorcenko modestly, though with more accuracy at this moment than at any time during the last twenty years. “But you know as well as I do that his views have become decidedly more conservative in recent years. Early in his tenure he made genuine efforts to bring reform and greater equality to the country, and now he is wondering why he bothered. For all the good he has done, he is still reviled, and thus now thinks the reforms may have been a mistake. In that sense, I suppose he agrees with you, Count Durnovo.”
“Stomp out the radicals, curtail all this freedom of speech and the press that is getting so bold in its attacks.”
“Those are your words, not mine, Count,” laughed Fedorcenko. “But let’s just say that two attempts on the tsar’s life have not left him favorably disposed toward the revolutionaries.”
“Well said, Viktor!” added Anickin in his enthusiastic manner, flip-flopping on the issue faster than Alexander himself. “And who could blame the tsar, eh?”
“Right you are there, Doctor!” agreed Vlasenko, saluting Anickin with his half-empty vodka glass. “I maintain that the more troublemakers we get rid of, the less trouble there will be in the end. The former tsar’s reign proved the wisdom of the ancient Russian tradition. He never had the kinds of problems his son is facing! The Emancipation was the first—”
Suddenly Vlasenko caught himself, realizing that to speak against the tsar in these circles might not be prudent. He quickly corrected himself and continued, with hardly a noticeable hesitation.
“I would not call the Emancipation a ‘mistake,’ but the implications were perhaps not fully anticipated.”
“Spare us your reactionary sentiments, Cyril,” said Fedorcenko acidly. “The tsar knows well enough the problems that accompanied the Emancipation. But it does not invalidate his attempts at reform.”
“One day he is a conservative, the next he is liberal,” said Princess Marya, the only woman of the group to engage the men on their own level of political dialogue. What she and Princess Fedorcenko had in common would have been difficult to imagine. Natalia had scarcely a notion what they were all talking about; had it not been for thinking about the approaching dinner she would have fallen asleep by this time. Marya continued, “It is no way to run a country, I tell you, and the sooner Alexander settles on a viewpoint and a consistent course of action, the sooner there will be a chance of peace in Russia. Even if he settles on the autocracy of his father in the end, it would be better than this ambivalence.”
“Now there I agree with you, Princess,” Durnovo said. “What this country needs is another solid autocrat on the throne.”
“Agree with me?” said Marya. “You mistake me altogether, Count. I said he ought to settle on some consistent political posture.”
“Even if it means the autocracy of his father.”
“Such a stand might give us more of a chance for peace than we have at present. This climate of uncertainty and indecision only breeds dissatisfaction and rebellion. But I think he ought to settle on a course of progress and reform. Freedom and popular representation in government, not monarchy, is the wave of the future. Such change is sweeping throughout Europe, yet we in St. Petersburg blind ourselves to it. I personally am opposed to absolute monarchy. It is a system whose era is nearly past.”
“You speak boldly, Princess,” replied Durnovo with a smile, “in the presence of one of the tsar’s closest advisors. . . .” He cast a glance toward their host.
Inwardly Viktor winced. But his face betrayed nothing. He continued to eye the two with a smile that said neither too much nor too little, only that he was taking everything in. They didn’t need to know of his troubles with the tsar.
“Viktor knows my views,” said Princess Marya. “He will not have me tossed in prison or sent to Siberia for expressing my opinion. Viktor may have Alexander’s ear, but he is moderate enough to recognize that the free exchange of ideas in today’s atmosphere is a healthy thing—far healthier than the repressive policies of Alexander’s predecessors. Am I right, Viktor?”
Fedorcenko nodded noncommittally. “The free exchange of ideas is one thing,” he said. “Some call it treason, however, when those ideas go too far.”
“I’m still with Count Durnovo,” said Vlasenko. “Strong autocracy is the answer.”
“Put decision making in the hands of the people,” added the count, “and you have anarchy. It might work in America, but never here. And mark my words, it won’t work there in the end either. The recent rebellion of their southern states is proof enough. The so-called democracy they are so proud of will fail in the end. Common people are not capable of governing themselves, and never will be.”
“And you insist that autocracy will work, and will continue to work in this century of cha
nge?” asked Princess Gudosnikov.
“A strong autocracy makes a nation strong,” replied the count. “Our present difficulties exist because the autocracy has grown weak, not because autocracy is no longer a viable system of rule.”
“You would have us revert to Catherine’s or Peter’s day, with their repressiveness? Or perhaps Ivan is your political mentor?” The voice of the princess contained just a hint of sarcasm.
At last their host spoke again. “Alexander is a firm believer in the autocracy. At least that part of this stimulating debate we can put to rest. There will be no intrinsic change in the Russian style of government. He believes in the autocracy of the tsar as strongly as did his father.”
“If only Nicholas had lived a few years longer,” mused Durnovo. “He would never have allowed these nihilists to have such an influential voice that the whole country is imperiled. Alexander could take a lesson from what his father did to the Decembrists.”
“But that was a mutiny of his own army, questioning Nicholas’s very right to the throne,” said Dr. Anickin. “He had no choice but to act with a decisive show of strength.”
“That, Doctor, is the operative phrase—show of strength,” Durnovo said. “Alexander needs to take a stronger hand. The situation in the Balkans is a perfect case in point—”
But before the count could elaborate further, the sound of activity filtered into the drawing room from the direction of the foyer.
25
“Prince Sergei Viktorovich and Count Remizov have arrived,” announced the footman through the doors, as he swung them open wide.
The words had barely left his lips when the two young men themselves strode into the room with a flourish.
Suddenly Katrina was jolted out of her mental slumber. Even the Princess Natalia seemed to take notice, and brightened at the sight of her son. Had any of the Fedorcenko’s guests been paying attention, they would have immediately seen a positive glow possessing Katrina’s countenance. A stranger might easily have taken the fifteen-year-old for seventeen or eighteen, so filled was she with the radiance of blossoming womanhood.
The Russians Collection Page 15