“I suppose that is a little more interesting,” consented Katrina. “But I still do not see what the Jews have to do with it all, as you said yesterday. They’re a funny people, and I don’t like them.”
“They are God’s chosen people, Princess,” said Fingal seriously, but without reproof in his voice. He had acquired great skill and patience in handling the princess’s objections during the two years he had been her tutor. “And in addition,” he went on, “if what Golitsyn taught Alexander is true—”
The look of question on Anna’s face brought Fingal to an abrupt stop.
“Yes, Anna, what is it?” he asked with a kindly smile.
“Pardon me, sir,” said Anna timidly. She still did not know whether she was allowed to voice her questions, and had remained silent the whole previous day. “Who is Golitsyn?”
“Ah, yes! I’m sorry, my dear. Alexander Golitsyn was Tsar Alexander’s personal counselor. He discovered his own personal faith outside the Orthodox church, and actually became a Protestant. The tsar highly respected him and listened to everything Golitsyn told him about his personal experience, not with the Church but with what Golitsyn described as his friendship with God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Golitsyn and the tsar attended Pietist and Moravian Brethren and Methodist services and prayer meetings together. Golitsyn eventually established a chapel in Moscow that drew Catholics and Protestants and a few Orthodox Russians, and the tsar was a regular participant for a time.”
“Then what happened?” asked Anna.
“Many in Russia were afraid the tsar would make the whole country Protestant,” replied the tutor, setting down the book he had intended to read from. “Some of the other men close to him despised Golitsyn and what they called his religious fanaticism. He was always going about quoting Scripture, they said, and praying during the day for every little thing. They tried to discredit him to Alexander and in the minds of the people, so that he would be seen as nothing but a ranting maniac. Yet Alexander remained loyal to him, and kept praying with him and reading from the Bible Golitsyn gave him, and even delivered speeches before the people about prophetic events foretold by the Scriptures and Russia’s key place in them. Protestants throughout Russia, and even some other parts of Europe, thought of Golitsyn as one of the great Christian leaders of the time.”
Katrina yawned and gave a distracted look out the window. Anna’s eyes, however, were fixed with intensity upon the animated face of the Scotsman.
“What finally happened?” she asked. “Which of the tsar’s men had the most influence on him?”
“Actually, the greatest influence in Tsar Alexander’s life turned out to come from another quarter altogether,” replied Fingal, “from a Frenchman by the name of Napoleon. Even you would profess some passing interest in him, would you not, Princess Katrina?” he added with a smile and a glance in Katrina’s direction.
Katrina did not reply, but did keep her eyes on Fingal’s face for the next few minutes rather than out the window.
“When Alexander marched westward and drove Napoleon back and finally defeated him,” the tutor went on, “he had accomplished what no other European leader had been able to do in twenty years. He was suddenly the hero and liberator of Europe. And as the politics of the era swept him along, whatever influence he might have had as a spiritual leader gradually vanished.”
Something seemed to spark Katrina’s interest in Fingal’s words. “I have heard my father speak of Alexander I,” she said. “I think my father admires him, even though he had all those silly religious notions about everything.”
“By the end of his own reign, Alexander was viewed as just a backward old conservative. For all his speeches about change and reform and bringing Russia into the modern age, by the end of his life it was obvious that nothing much in the way of reform was going to come about. That’s what the army’s revolt in 1825 was all about. But then after the reign of his brother Nicholas, people began to look back on Alexander with more favor. I suspect, Princess, that is what you have seen in your own father.”
“Was Tsar Nicholas a bad man?”
“Bad is a strong word, Princess.”
“My father says he was merciless and cruel.”
“As a tsar he was certainly no reformer, and there are many who now compare him to the two Ivans. And after the Crimean War and all the changes this nineteenth century has brought, many in Russia realized that his backward policies of autocratic rule had to be brought to an end. Had Nicholas lived another fifteen years, there would surely have been revolution in Russia.”
“What about Tsar Alexander II?”
“The present tsar has brought many reforms that have been good for Russia. Much of what Alexander I used to talk about, his nephew has actually carried out—freeing the serfs, establishing the new judicial system, building railroads throughout the country. He has truly been a reformer. I imagine Anna’s family knows about that.”
“Oh yes,” replied Anna eagerly. “My father and his friends in our village love the tsar. Papa says that life is still hard, but at least he is free now, and that means everything.” As she finished, however, a puzzled look came over her face.
“What is it, Anna?” asked Fingal. “Something seems to be disturbing you.”
“I was just reminded of my brother,” Anna replied. “He does not agree with my papa. He listens to those my father calls revolutionaries, and sometimes he and Papa argue. I do not understand why so many of my brother’s friends do not like the tsar when he has done so much good for the poor people of Russia.”
“Once people have a taste of freedom, of change, of independence, they want more . . . and still more. These young people do not know how it used to be. Most of them were not alive during Tsar Nicholas’s time. They do not realize what a great reformer our Alexander is. They read revolutionary pamphlets from the West and they think that everything they read about should happen in Russia, and that it must happen now. They sow seeds of discontent and strife. They are not satisfied with the changes that have come. Thus, they fuel the fires of anger with their talk, never realizing that it is their privilege to live during the reign of the most progressive Romanov tsar since Peter the Great—and the kindest and most compassionate tsar in the history of the Motherland.”
Fingal fell silent after his brief speech, and neither girl spoke. As was often the case, a historical discussion ended with an impassioned oration by the Scotsman, who dearly loved his adopted country and was devoted to its tsar.
“What do you think will happen?” asked Anna at length.
Fingal let out a long sigh that clearly had a great deal of thought behind it. “I do not know, my child,” he said. “But deep in my heart there lurks a fear that the crown of our beloved Alexander may one day be thrown into the burning crucible of revolution. I pray I am wrong. But there are forces tearing and pulling at the monarchy, even now. And if war comes in Turkey, I fear for where it will lead. Wars have a way of upsetting a nation’s balances and changing its direction—sometimes forever.”
Again silence fell in the room.
Though Anna’s mind still contained many questions, somehow the mood at that moment did not seem fit for bringing them up. Both girls, without voicing it, thought of their brothers, Paul and Sergei, and wondered how war, if it came, would change them.
The morning’s history discussion seemed to have drawn to a natural close. Fingal’s next hour was spent attempting to teach Katrina the technique behind a particularly troublesome mathematical equation, for which the princess had neither interest nor aptitude. Anna watched the process intently and listened to every word, but couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
44
The next several days for Anna were spent alternating between the dreamlike wonder of sitting with Katrina and listening to Fingal’s teaching, and going about her daily duties as the princess’s maid. Within a week she had become a full participant in the morning’s activities, and by the second week the tutor’s efforts were equally
spent on both girls. Witnessing Anna’s appetite for learning gradually had its influence on Katrina as well; her eyes began to open wider, and her ears became unstopped.
How good God has been to me! Anna thought. She had more than she could ever have wished for. Fingal had even lent her a book of Pushkin’s poems and fairy tales. A man who spoke of God and poems and history and politics all together to learn from, a warm bed to sleep in, clean clothes, good food, and Princess Fedorcenko showing her every kindness . . . how could her life be better?
The thought of Princess Katrina reminded Anna of the few items from the laundry that she had dumped upon her bed earlier. She went over and found the handkerchief the princess had given her, removed it, then walked back out to where she had been working before and ironed the lace-trimmed pink linen with care.
She returned to her room, sat down on her bed, and pulled out the top drawer of the cabinet. She removed the most precious treasures she owned. She could not even lay eyes on the single pendant and small Bible, both from her father, without tears coming to her eyes. Carefully she replaced the pendant after a moment, then with tender hands opened the pages of the Bible. There, in the second chapter of Proverbs, lay the dried yellow primrose leaves she had brought as a reminder of home.
As eyes fell upon the familiar words, she immediately thought of her father, and could almost hear his voice speaking them to her:
My son, if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments within thee, so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding, if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her . . .
As she read, tears filled her eyes. He used to quote these very words to her, changing the Scripture as he did so that it read, “My daughter, if you will receive my words. . . .” As she had grown, whenever Anna thought of her heavenly Father, she knew He loved her as His daughter, because old Yevno had loved her so much as his earthly daughter.
She continued to linger over the words that were so familiar and yet always so full of meaning to Anna’s heart: Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
Oh, God, she prayed silently, I pray for my papa and all the family. Help me to receive your words and apply my heart to understanding. Thank you, God, that I can study with Princess Katrina. I do want to learn and understand and know things. Give me your wisdom as Papa always taught me about.
Anna smiled as her fingers caressed the tattered cover of the old Bible. What fretting there had been over the princess’s large, beautiful, gold-lettered Bible. What difference did all the beautiful pictures and the gold engraving matter? Her father had always taught her that the most important thing was to do what the words said, not to admire them for their own beauty.
Nothing she could ever possess could be so special and full of meaning as her father’s Bible, and the memory of his voice speaking the words into her heart.
She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then folded the handkerchief and carefully tucked it between the pages with the primrose. She closed the leather covers. With a reminder of the love of her father, she would place this new symbol of how the worst of circumstances can be turned for good.
Anna replaced the Bible in the top drawer, then took pen and paper and sat down at the small table on the other side of her bed. It was time to write a long overdue letter home.
Dear Mama and Papa and Paul and Vera and Tanya and Ilya:
I think of all of you so often. I love you and miss you, and my dear home in Katyk! But God has given me a happy life here too. When I wrote to you shortly after arriving here, as I told you I found myself in the kitchens. I did not find life there pleasant. Though I tried hard not to complain to myself inside, the treatment of some of my fellow servants was enough to make me weep. And several times I did fall asleep with wet eyes and mournful prayers on my lips. But by circumstances so full of coincidence that I might dare call it miraculous, I have lately become personal maid to none other than the Princess Katrina Fedorcenko, the daughter of the house.
Oh the things that have happened to me since!
I will begin by telling you about the Winter Palace.
She went on to tell her family in detail about the night of the festivities, and everything she had seen in the palace. Then she recounted her adventure of getting lost in the corridors and seeing the tsar pass by.
Occasionally one hears unkind things about the tsar in St. Petersburg. But if people could see the tsar as I saw him that night, I think they would not be critical of him. For I saw in his eyes and face the look of a tender and compassionate man. He looked upon me but for the merest of an instant, yet I cannot help but believe what I saw was how the man really is in his heart. I imagined I saw suffering in his eyes too—as if the tsar of all the Russias could actually suffer. I know I shall always remember how this great man took a moment to smile at a poor, lost servant girl.
One of the most exciting things of all that has happened to me is that the princess has seen fit to include me in her studies which she receives privately from a tutor. He is a Scotsman named Fingal. I do not even know how to write his last name. It is an odd name, and he speaks in a funny accent. But I love him, and he is so kind to me. He reminds me of you, Papa. He explains things to me so patiently, and gives me books to read. Nina, the chief maid, says that it is altogether improper for a servant girl like me to receive such attention. She is probably right, but I am glad for the opportunity.
I am learning French, Mama! You should hear me! One day I will sound almost like a noble lady. But the mathematics is hard. It is called algebra. It is not like anything I have ever seen before. The princess stews and pouts a great deal over doing the problems Fingal gives her, but when she sets her mind to do it the numbers come easily to her.
Princess Katrina says we shall turn our energies to music soon, but I do not know who will teach us. She says that she shall have her brother, who is a soldier, take us to a concert. I hope he is not sent away from St. Petersburg soon, for it would be wonderful to be able to do as the princess says. There is a composer here in the city named Tchaikovsky whose music we may go hear.
So much has happened to me! And it all began with the princess taking notice of me.
After a lengthy telling about their first meeting in the garden, followed by a description of Katrina, Anna went on.
I still cannot imagine why Princess Katrina picked me to be her maid! We are as different as night and day. Yet I think that there is in my proud mistress a wide streak of generosity, though sometimes she acts as if she would hide it with a great deal of bluster and superiority. I say this in kindness, for I feel nothing but affection for her.
I am sitting in my own little room—yes, my own room next to the princess’s, with my own bed that has a silken cover on it that the princess passed on to me when she bought a new one. But still I miss my dear little village and the cozy cottage which will always be my home. No silk covers or palaces or bright chandeliers can give me the happiness of the memory of sitting with my family for a simple meal of kasha and black bread, with love enough for everyone to share and with much left over besides.
Now it seems I am at the end of the paper my mistress gave me. May God’s richest blessings be on you, my dear family. I pray for you every day and light a candle for you every Sunday when I attend Mass. You are only parted from me across the land, but never from my heart.
Love,
Anna Yevnovna
Anna laid down her pen and folded the sheets of stationery, tucking them carefully and lovingly into the pouch for posting.
It seemed she had written so little compared to all that had happened since she had come to St. Petersburg, and considering everything with which her mind was full. It seemed like years and years since she had left on the train. She stopped to count. Had it truly been only a short two months!
Should she have mentioned Sergei to her f
amily? What would they think to hear that their Anna talked about books and ideas and dreams with the son of an important Russian prince? But no, she could not have told them about him. What could she have said? How could she make them understand her thoughts and feelings when she did not understand them herself?
Anna’s imagination drifted along the path the letter would take, across long, long miles, over forested paths and drifts of snow, through many villages and hamlets, until at last the coachman delivered it to Ivanovich to give to her father. She let her mind’s eye visualize the cottage with her family gathered around the samovar, or perhaps they would deem her letter important enough to be read at the “beautiful corner,” with the image of St. Nicholas gazing down upon them. She could picture Paul reading the words in his intense voice. How important he will make my simple words sound!
Would they be proud of her? Would Papa brag all over the village about his little Anna?
She knew he would! “I had a letter from my little Anna today,” she could hear him telling his friends. “She has seen the tsar himself, and our dear ruler smiled at her—my own daughter!”
Tanya and Vera would want to know about all the pretty dresses she had seen at the ball. I shall write them a whole page about that next time, she thought. And Mama will want to know about my work in the kitchen and the cooking and what I have been eating. I will have to ask Princess Katrina for twice as much pretty paper next time!
And Paul—what will he think about what I said of the tsar? Will it stir him . . . perhaps anger him?
How Anna wished she could talk to Paul! What would he think of Sergei? They are probably a great deal alike, thought Anna. But Paul would no doubt hate him just because he was of noble birth, taking no thought for what kind of person he was inside. It had been a long, long time since she had seen her brother, yet Anna realized that she still felt the same ache in the pit of her stomach when she thought of him. Of all her family, he was the only one she really worried about, and she could not help feeling that she had somehow deserted him by coming to the city, as if she were in some measure responsible for what was to become of his future.
The Russians Collection Page 28