The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  Paul felt a little guilty for reading Kazan’s pamphlets by the light of his mother’s precious candle. But this would be the last time. He had decided it would be best to burn all the reading material he still possessed that was prohibited by the government. He had not changed his views. If anything, the night in jail had made them stronger. But according to Kazan, now that he had once been in trouble he would be watched. The authorities had spies everywhere, Kazan said, who would add the young son of Yevno to their list.

  Paul’s radical attitudes had not yet affected his familial loyalties. He would never want to be responsible for bringing trouble to his parents’ doorstep. He was still too young to realize, however, that no matter how far away from Katyk he journeyed, any trouble which came upon him would come to his father’s door. Paul had not yet begun to understand the heart of Yevno Pavlovich Burenin.

  The light of the candle flickered before he heard the crunch of a footstep in the crusty frozen snow outside the stable door. Hurriedly, he shoved the books underneath the straw.

  “Paul?” said his father.

  “I’m here, Papa.”

  Yevno came into view, peering through the door as he opened it. The dim light of the candle barely illuminated his coarse but gentle bearded face.

  “I would like to talk to you,” said Yevno. “Do you mind if I interrupt your thoughts?”

  “Of course not, Papa.”

  “Is there enough of your candle left before it burns to the bottom and sets this place ablaze?” Yevno grinned.

  “I am always careful,” replied Paul.

  “I know, my son. It was merely spoken in jest.”

  Yevno paused. Even as his face became serious, the gleam of expectation remained in his eyes.

  “I have been thinking,” he said. “It is perhaps not the best thing I do,” he added with a smile, “but I think this tired old brain of mine may have produced a good idea this time.”

  “What is it?” asked Paul, looking up.

  “It is concerning the money Anna sent. If I know your sister, I doubt those ten rubles will be the end of it. I never imagined that her wages would give her enough to send so much money back to her family. But if that is the case, it would not surprise me for her to do so again . . . and perhaps yet again.”

  “Do you really think Anna has so much?”

  “I do not think she is paid much. But I think whatever she has she will probably send to us, perhaps five rubles every month or two. This time I must use it for flour and oil that your mother needs. But next time . . .”

  “What are you thinking, Papa?”

  “That perhaps a portion of it could be set aside.”

  “How could you do that? We are behind in the barschina.”

  “Everyone is behind. The promieshik would not know what to do if we paid him for back rent. Yes, I do think it would be possible to set a ruble or two, maybe even three or four, aside each time.”

  “I suppose it would be good for you and Mama to have some hidden away,” said Paul, not knowing where his father was leading.

  “In a few months there might be enough to afford the Gymnasium in Pskov.”

  “The Gymnasium, Papa!” exclaimed Paul, sitting suddenly bolt upright. “Do you mean it, Papa—school?”

  “It is what you have long wanted, is it not, Pavushka?” Yevno tried very hard to remain solemn as the occasion demanded, but he could not restrain a grin.

  “But why would you do this, Papa, after what I have just done—the trouble I have been? It is all because of me that you cannot put away the whole of Anna’s ten rubles.”

  “Because I hope and pray that in setting you upon the path you want to follow, it will eventually lead you to the very best path.” Yevno paused and took in a breath. “An education for a young mind can lead to many things,” he went on at length. “Some of them good; some of them, I suppose, not so good. For you I hope it will be good. Perhaps school will open your eyes to ideas other than those of Kazan and your other friends. There is an old proverb I recall often these days: ‘Let your child follow his own path, and it will always lead him back to you.’”

  He stopped, and a deep silence descended upon the old man and the youth. The flickering of the dying candle sent out eerie shadows among the many shapes of the dark stable. At last Yevno spoke up again.

  “I do not understand all these notions of yours, my son,” he said, “but I cannot allow my ignorance to cause them to come between us like a wall of stone. Let us have peace between our hearts, Pavushka.”

  “Oh, Papa!” Tears streaming from his eyes, Paul threw his arms around his father. For the moment he was a child again.

  Yevno returned his son’s embrace, a tightness gripping his throat.

  They held one another for a moment, then Yevno relaxed his hold around Paul’s shoulders. One practical matter had yet to be addressed. He hoped it would not bring a cloud over their happy time.

  “Pavushka, I must speak to you of one thing more.”

  “Yes, Papa?”

  “You must understand that this is in no way a threat or a bribe. I am not the magistrate that I would resort to such methods with my son.”

  “I know that, Papa.”

  “But the school in Pskov is very strict. They will not take a student who is thought to be a troublemaker.”

  “I understand, Papa.”

  “One offense they might overlook—I do not know. But after that, I do know what they would do. You could not have friends such as Kazan visiting you there. I do not think he would be looked upon with favor. This is something you must consider, weighing the importance of the one thing over the other. It is a choice only you can make.”

  “I understand, Papa. It is not a difficult choice to make. To have the chance to attend the Gymnasium will be worth almost any sacrifice.”

  “Even the sacrifice of your new friendships?”

  “Even that, Papa. My beliefs cannot change, but I know what is most important for right now.”

  Yevno bent forward and kissed his forehead.

  “You are a good boy, Pavushka.”

  Then he jumped up and rubbed his hands together. “It is cold out here! Are you ready to come in?”

  Paul nodded, stood up and retrieved the candle. The literature could wait until tomorrow.

  Yevno placed a strong arm around his son’s shoulder. “Tomorrow,” he said, “I must go to market in Pskov. I will make inquiries at the school. I will also use a few kopecks of Anna’s money to buy some paper and ink so you can write her a letter. She will be pleased to know how her labors are spent, eh?”

  Paul would indeed have much to write his sister! Suddenly his whole world had changed. Dreams that an hour ago had been as remote as the moon and the stars had suddenly come within reach.

  ———

  Paul undressed and burrowed into the bed, pulling the blankets tightly around his shoulders. He remembered Anna’s words to him the day before she left for St. Petersburg—that God had a reason for keeping him here, and that he should use his wisdom to find it.

  Perhaps he had been acting stupidly until now, allowing his frustration and discontent to lead him astray. How well did he really know Kazan, anyway? Did Kazan or any of the others really love him as did Anna and his father? Would they make sacrifices for him? He knew the answer, even though it was a bitter realization. Yet he had listened to them and ignored his father.

  But none of that anymore! If he really was an intelligent young man, as people told him, perhaps it was time he began to use whatever intelligence or wisdom he possessed. He didn’t necessarily have to alter his beliefs. But surely he could refrain from voicing his political views in return for the prospect of school.

  With a proper education, he would be far better equipped to make his ideals a reality. Even in Russia—or so he thought—a peasant with an education can go far. Why shouldn’t I be one who does?

  ———

  Yevno did not often lie awake at night burdened with his th
oughts.

  But tonight, even though everyone else, including Paul, now slumbered peacefully, he still could not sleep.

  The day had ended on a joyous note. He had been able to grant his son his dearest wish. Yet he could not keep the doubts and anxieties of earlier in the day from assailing him.

  What was truly best for Paul? Was Yevno pampering him? Had he done the right thing in offering him the prospect of attending the Gymnasium? What other possibilities lay open to him?

  For a long time Yevno had sensed his son slipping away. They no longer wanted the same things, as a father and son should. They looked out upon the same life, yet each had a different perception. They did not dream the same dreams. The very cores of their beings were different—so different that Yevno found himself wondering if they would ever be able to understand one another again. Yevno’s parental instinct was to grasp his son, make him alter his lofty vision, and bring his focus back upon the things that mattered in life—church, home, village, and family.

  Those were the things that mattered to Yevno. But it was now painfully clear that they were not the things that mattered to Paul.

  He could force his son into submission. No one would think less of him for it—that’s what parents did. Most in the village would applaud him for giving his son a sound drubbing.

  But Yevno never worried much about what his neighbors thought—or even cared, for that matter. He was as apt to brag about his children as any proud father, and tomorrow he would make sure everyone knew of Anna’s adventure in the Winter Palace. But doing so was not a passion with him. And he did not need the envy and praise of his friends to raise his esteem for his family. However he dealt with Paul, the motives of his actions would stem purely from what he felt was for Paul’s good.

  Forcing Paul into a life he hated could not be to his benefit, no matter how content Yevno was with such a life. There were times when, knowing what was best for a child, a parent had to insist upon blind obedience. But Paul had grown beyond that point. He was no longer a child, and the decisions now confronting them about Paul’s future went deep into the core of the lad’s inner person. What Paul thought was at the root of the person he was becoming. Yevno might just as well tell his son that he was worthless and good for nothing as to tell him he could not express his opinions.

  Paul was one of those rare creatures in whom age was not an accurate barometer of the progress of his thoughts toward maturity. In this respect, as difficult as it was, Yevno knew that he must accept his son as a man.

  50

  At last spring came to the Russian Motherland.

  This year, as always, it arrived in a flurry of anticipation. Although the breaking up of the ice brought mud, mire, and sludge, the new season and the warmth of the sun were enough to instill hope and optimism in even the coldest of souls. This year, however, thunderclouds accompanied the warming of the earth. The budding blossoms and new shoots of grass emerged into the northern landscape under the pervading shadow of impending war.

  Tsar Alexander Romanov was at Kishinev, a garrison near the Black Sea, reviewing troops when the final blow to peace came. The telegram arrived from St. Petersburg on the April morning of his birthday, though it was hardly a happy present. The news made the future course of events unmistakable: Turkey had rejected another bid by the European Powers for a peaceful solution to the Balkan problem.

  What more he could have done to prevent war Alexander did not know. But he knew that histories yet to be written would no doubt lay the blame for the conflict squarely upon his shoulders. Russian leaders had long borne this curse in a Europe that looked eastward with apprehension and skepticism. Both Peter and Catherine, his predecessors termed “the Great” by their loyal subjects, had been viewed by western eyes as, respectively, a barbarian and a feminine war-monger. Western Europe could not understand Russia; they did not seem even to want to. The Great Bear to the east was a convenient scapegoat for Europe’s ills. They pursued their own policies, then pointed fingers at Russia when they failed.

  Alexander had desperately tried to avoid war. But he would preserve his honor, and that of the brave men he ruled. If war had to come, though he disdained it, he would not attempt to evade it.

  Still holding the telegram from the north, he stood to address the circle of advisors who had just toasted his health and success.

  “If there is war,” the tsar said in solemn tones, “the responsibility for it must fall on the English government, which has so greatly encouraged the Turks. This is not a conflict I seek. No one can imagine what I feel in this plunge into a war which I so greatly wish to avoid. Yet we must not shrink from our duty. Therefore I shall pass my birthday with my brave army, before it takes the field for the holy cause which we alone are willing to defend.”

  Wounds from the Crimean humiliation still festered. No doubt on the tsar’s mind these days was the fact that war had quite literally been the death of his father—the proud despot, the self-styled militarist, he who would reign with an iron hand in the tradition of the Ivans and Peters of old, brought to his knees before all of Europe. Just when she had finally reached the pinnacle of prestige and might in the Western world, Russia had been resoundingly defeated. Russia, the giant with feet of clay; Russia, the vanquished.

  Nicholas I had not been able to live with such a bitter stigma. He had died along with his dream.

  Now his son, Alexander II, wondered how he could possibly fare any better. His father had been a man of steel and might, and he had failed. How could Alexander, a tsar many critics called weak and indecisive, possibly hope to prevail? Nicholas had once called his son “an old woman,” adding, “there will be nothing great done in his time.”

  Such a stinging paternal indictment is never forgotten, especially by a man of Alexander’s sensitivities. Could he succeed where his father had failed? Even as he sounded the battle cry, the thing seemed doubtful.

  But forces outside himself had, little by little, finally forced Tsar Alexander into a confrontation—not only with the Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire, but also with his own fears and insecurities.

  The troops cheered when the declaration of war was read, but the tsar’s enthusiasm was perfunctory at best. For good or ill, Alexander had set his nation’s course toward war, wondering silently if he himself would live through it.

  ———

  Weeks later, Tsar Alexander arrived back in St. Petersburg. The weather was dismal, and his mood was worse. A gray, slashing rain greeted him as his railway coach entered the city. He could scarcely see through to the trains on parallel tracks, and later as his enclosed carriage sped him through the streets to the palace, all he could think was what a miserable place this was that his great-great grandfather had built. These frigid spring blasts from off the Gulf of Finland were as bad as any winter’s storm in the southern latitudes. Drenching rain and bitter cold presented a dreary welcome home for the leader of the world’s largest nation, a man already weary from the burden of a war that had hardly begun. By summer his troops would have engaged the Turks, and how many Russian young men would already be dead? Alexander could not help but wonder if his own fate would be any better.

  After a formal dinner with his wife and a chilly interview with his son, the tsar, to no one’s surprise, spent the rest of the night with Catherine Dolgoruky. Even she had been unable to coax him out of his gloom. Thus he was in no better mood when the thirty-two-year-old tsarevitch was shown into his presence early the following morning.

  “I trust the Princess Yurievskaya was able to see that you enjoyed a restful night after your long journey,” the tsarevitch began with a smile of cynicism.

  “I feel no better for it,” replied Alexander sardonically.

  “I do not doubt it, Father. Your bedroom liaison with her makes you the laughing stock of the whole city.”

  “The city cares nothing for such things,” spat the tsar.

  “There are gossip-mongers who walk the streets outside your little love n
est at night, following your movements by watching the candles from room to room. They write filthy poems mocking your exploits, Father!”

  “How dare you preach your self-righteousness to me!”

  “I speak the truth,” said the tsarevitch coolly.

  “You speak treason. If you were anyone but my son, I would—”

  “You would what? I will be tsar after you, and the people already anticipate the day.”

  “They are in for a rude awakening once they feel the lash from your foolhardy policies!” Even as he said the words, the tsar could feel the force of his argument wither. However irritating the barbed accusations of his son, in his heart of hearts he knew that the Russian population understood the difficulty of his position no better than did his wife or son. All the nation saw him as vacillating, even though he had accomplished more good for his people than any tsar in history.

  “Well, your fitful night is just punishment for the mortification you put my mother through,” said young Alexander, “but I did not come to argue that point with you again. Your spirits will pick up soon, once the war is begun in earnest, which is why I came to see you this—”

  “The war! You and your reactionary friends should be pleased at last,” said the tsar bitterly. “You have won the day in the end, haven’t you, even over your tsar?”

  “It had to be, Father. War with Turkey was inevitable.”

  “When you are tsar one day, things will look different. You will not find it so easy to force your conservative politics on an unwilling public! Look at all I give them, yet the people hate me for it.”

  “Not the peasants. They love you,” said his son with a peculiar smile.

  “They know no better. In any case, they will certainly hate you if you attempt to crack down as forcefully as you talk.”

  “I have always said it, Father—your patience and leniency are your undoing. My grandfather knew how to handle those who would make trouble, and I will do the same.”