The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “My mistress Princess Katrina Fedorcenko comes to visit occasionally. My name is Anna Yevnovna Burenin.”

  “And I am Lieutenant Mikhail Igorovich Grigorov. Misha to my friends.” He bowed proudly to her. “I am a Don Cossack and a member of the Imperial Guard.”

  52

  Meanwhile, in a small private meeting room adjoining the very gallery which Anna and her Cossack escort had just exited, a much different discussion was in progress.

  When he had left his wife and the other women, the tsar had wandered down the corridor with his mind still full of mixed and confusing emotions. His son’s critical barbs, the inevitable strife which war was bound to bring to his reign, the infighting within his own advisory staff, in addition to memories of the tiff he had had last night with Catherine, all combined to encourage Alexander’s moodiness. If he only had a friend, someone to confide in, the strain would be easier to bear.

  Within a minute or two Alexander had altered his course and had gone off in search of his old friend Fedorcenko. Whatever business Viktor had with Ignatiev could wait!

  Thus, shortly after Anna had entered the grand library, the tsar and Katrina’s father were seating themselves in one of Alexander’s private rooms two corridors away.

  “So, Viktor, my good friend,” began Alexander, “it has been too long since we have visited together.”

  “I am always at your service, Your Highness,” Viktor answered cautiously. He had not forgotten the tsar’s cool distance ever since their previous meeting toward the end of last fall.

  “Yes, yes, well I should have realized that sooner. I do regret that our last conversations together ended unpleasantly. You must forgive me, Viktor. Ruling this unwieldy nation tries the nerves sorely.”

  “Think nothing of it, Your Majesty.”

  “Terrible thing, you know, this war.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have been against it, have you not?”

  Viktor squirmed slightly in his seat. “My . . . my support for Your Majesty is unreserved.”

  “Come, Viktor, this is no policy meeting. We are friends—you can speak your mind. And you have been against this war, I believe.”

  “Yes, that is true,” agreed Fedorcenko, “but as I said—”

  “Of course, of course, your support is unreserved,” interrupted the tsar. “But you don’t like the idea of the war any more than I do. I need friends like you, Viktor, friends who are not afraid to speak their mind no matter what anyone thinks.”

  Viktor squirmed slightly again. Inside he knew that was precisely what he was—afraid to speak his mind in front of Alexander, especially after the tsar had practically thrown him out after their last interview. Perhaps four months had moderated Alexander’s edginess.

  “Then if you want me to say it, Your Highness,” said Viktor, tentatively exploring how honest to be, “it is true, I have not been an advocate of hostilities against the Turks. However, my opposition has never been so strong that I have not seen the necessity for occasional displays of strength, and it would seem we now have little choice in the matter.”

  “No choice whatsoever!” echoed the tsar heatedly, “thanks to the infernal English, not to mention traitors within my own regime! And now, like it or not, war is upon us!”

  “I have no doubt you will prevail.”

  Alexander sighed. He had hardly noticed it before now, but all at once he had a splitting headache. “I hope you’re right,” he said more quietly. “I only hope it does not become the disaster my father got into.”

  “We are stronger now.”

  “So the war proponents would have us believe. In this, at least, I hope they are correct. You will take command of a regiment, will you not, Viktor?”

  “I am yours to command.”

  “I need good men, men I can trust, in positions of authority.”

  “I anticipated playing whatever role you saw fit to give me.”

  “Good, it is settled then. I feel better already! Shall we seal it with a drink?” The tsar rose and walked toward a sideboard laid out with glasses and several bottles, most of them clear. He picked up one of them in his hand. “Vodka, Viktor?”

  Fedorcenko nodded. Alexander poured out a generous supply of the liquid, then picked up the glasses, gave one to his friend, tipped his glass toward him, then lifted it to his lips and took a large swallow.

  “Too early in the morning for this wretched stuff,” he said, then drained off the rest of the glass’s contents. He offered Viktor another, which he took and gulped down.

  “And your son, Viktor?” asked the tsar.

  “What about him, Your Highness?”

  “How go things with him?”

  The tsar’s friendly spirit undermined Viktor’s reserve. The strong vodka reached his head quickly, further loosening his cautious tongue.

  “You know how things can be,” he said. “My son and I, shall we say, have our differences.” He took a sip of his third glass of Vodka.

  “He will fight too, no doubt?”

  “Sergei’s a good soldier, I will give him that much. But as for he and I—we are not exactly on the best of terms right now.”

  “Family disputes?”

  “He doesn’t think I understand him, I suppose. But then what son ever thinks his father understands him?”

  “You are right there,” said Alexander. “What son, indeed!”

  “The trouble with Sergei is that he thinks too much. A good soldier is proven on the battlefield—with deeds, not with ideas. But Sergei listens too much to what is being said, rather than paying enough attention to what needs to be done. I have no use for such an attitude. Show me a son who respects his father, and I’ll show you a son worthy of the name.”

  “Well spoken, Viktor! I couldn’t agree with you more!”

  “Take that son of yours—”

  “A rascal if ever there was one!”

  “Cut out of the same cloth as my Sergei. Doesn’t understand the value of his elders’ years and experience.”

  “Would undermine my every move if I let him!”

  “Where do these sons of ours learn such insubordination?”

  “You said it, Viktor—from all the new ideas and treasonous talk so rife in Russia. It’s the curse of the modern age we live in!”

  “We must take a firm hand and show these sons of ours the might that is left in these strong arms. We must resist their seditious ways, my Sergei with his absurd notions of equality, your son Alexander with his criticism of your policies . . .”

  The vodka had entered the tsar’s brain as well as Viktor’s, and his reactions grew jaundiced as his friend’s tongue waged more freely.

  “He has no right to speak out against Your Highness,” Viktor went on, “to turn those closest to you against you, to make public spectacle of your affair with the Princess Yuriev—”

  “You leave Catherine out of it,” the tsar interrupted in an unfriendly voice.

  “Of course, Your Highness. I was only saying that the tsarevich might do well to show you the deference your position deserves.”

  “What right do you have to speak against my son?” asked the tsar, suddenly twisting the conversation around.

  Still not apprehending his danger, Viktor continued to blunder forward into the snare he had laid for himself.

  “Only the right of a father who understands your position with a renegade for a son, who would—”

  “My son will be your future tsar one day, Viktor! I would counsel you to guard your words. Whatever my differences with him, at least I keep my son in line, which, if I understand you correctly, is not something you are able to do! Do my ears deceive me, or have you said that Sergei is in league with these revolutionaries who would topple my throne?”

  “No, of course not!” replied Viktor anxiously, sobering quickly and sitting bolt upright in his chair. But it was too late. He had overstepped the bounds of his friendship with Alexander for the last time, a boundary which to Viktor’s di
smay proved utterly unpredictable from one moment to the next.

  “Because if he is,” Alexander went on, heedless of Viktor’s reply, “I warn you that I will have the heart torn out of him and his kind if they persist in their folly.”

  “He is no revolutionary, I assure you, Your Majesty.”

  “Then make sure he never becomes one, Viktor! And as for your insinuations about my son, what were you doing a few minutes ago in close counsel with Ignatiev? I might conclude that you too were in league with those who would undermine me.”

  “About a matter having no connection with you or any of your policy disputes with the Count, I assure you, Your Highness,” replied Victor nervously. He could feel the sweat forming on his brow. Curse the tsar for making him drink those glasses of vodka! Now he had stumbled into the hornet’s nest of Alexander’s insecurities again!

  “Ha! And you think I believe you for a second, Viktor? I know your kind! You have always been a groveling back-scratcher—talking out of the two sides of your mouth, saying what you think others want to hear. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that during my recent absence you have been ingratiating yourself with my son, while you now subvert his reputation in my presence to secure your position with me. Well, it won’t work! I’ve had enough of your kind!”

  “I assure you, Your Highness—”

  “For all I know, you have been on Ignatiev’s side of the fence all along, playing the game of palace intrigue, hoping desperately to land on your feet whichever side emerges on top. I thought you were my friend, Viktor! It wounds me to the core to discover that your loyalty goes no deeper than anyone else’s.”

  “I am your friend, Your Highness,” insisted Viktor, but the desperate quality of his tone seemed all the more to confirm the tsar’s accusations.

  “Bah! Enough of your lies. Away with you, away with the likes of all of your treacherous kind!” He turned his back, and the room fell silent.

  Viktor stood but, afraid to move, he remained stiffly where he was.

  After a minute Alexander turned slowly back around. His eyes fell upon Viktor and registered surprise at seeing him still there.

  “Blast you, Fedorcenko! Are you still here? I thought I commanded you to leave! Away with you, I tell you!”

  Viktor spun around on his heel and hastily exited the room.

  The door clicked shut. A moment longer Alexander remained where he was, then in a fury of mingled anger and guilt, he flung his vodka glass against the far wall. Even before the tinkling of the broken glass had subsided, his knees began to give way.

  In a flood of conflicting emotions, Tsar Alexander II sank down into his chair and quietly wept tears of remorse and regret.

  53

  Anna and her escort had passed well beyond the portrait gallery before Katrina’s father emerged with red face and trembling heart. He turned in the opposite direction and made his way out of the palace as quickly as he could. Anna and Misha continued toward the empress’s drawing room.

  As they walked, Anna stole sidelong glimpses at the uniformed man beside her. Despite the warmth in his voice and the relaxed curve of his smile, all the pride of his fierce Cossack heritage glinted in his eyes. What his rugged features lacked in patrician good looks was compensated by the striking masculinity of his broad forehead and granite jaw. His thick black eyebrows nearly met above his nose, giving the effect of the spreading boughs of a gnarled, weathered oak. The smile made up for it all, however, softening the hard features and reaching up into the eyes like a gleam of summer sun. He presented a rather conflicting picture—one moment an awesome soldier in the Cossack tradition of ruthless barbarism, the next a simple country boy with merriment in his eyes.

  Anna was neither intimidated nor unduly impressed by the pride or fierce reputation. Once she recovered her initial composure, she realized that this particular Cossack did not fit the image of his kind. She could well believe he was a mighty warrior, one worthy of the tsar’s trust in the Imperial Guard, but his smile and warmth outshone his fierceness in a single glance.

  Most other women of the Cossack’s acquaintance prized the accouterments of rank, prestige, and show over the less visible wealth of the heart. Lieutenant Grigorov was still young; he had spent more time than was good for his character in and around the Royal Court of St. Petersburg, and thus had met only superficial women. Had he been able to see more deeply into the heart and mind of the winsome naive servant maid walking along by his side, he would have found her perplexing and difficult to fathom in comparison with the shallowness to which he was accustomed. But for now, such complexities were far from his mind.

  As they rounded the final corner before reaching their destination, a young woman suddenly appeared in the corridor from behind one of its closed doors. Anna had never seen her before; the immediate pause in the guard’s gait indicated he knew her well enough.

  “Oh, Misha—excuse me, I mean . . . Lieutenant Grigorov,” she said, giggling softly and meaningfully at the supposed accidental familiarity of her greeting. “I had hoped to run into you. I am sure you are the only one who will do.”

  The young woman, probably between nineteen and twenty-two, was obviously a lady of the court, for she was dressed in a richly embroidered linen. Anna felt suddenly small and inconsequential, for the lady carried herself with the same self-assured confidence that Anna had first noted in Katrina.

  “I am at your service as always, Countess Dubjago,” replied Grigorov with a coolness in his tone Anna had not noticed before.

  “Why, Lieutenant, do I detect a hint of rancor in your voice?” The countess tossed her golden locks petulantly. “You are not still holding a grudge because of last night?”

  “This is hardly the place to discuss the matter, Countess.” His voice was tight, but sparks flew beneath the surface of his self-control.

  “Don’t act like a child, Misha. You know very well that I have other responsibilities in the palace that must take precedence over my own . . . shall we say, my own pleasures.”

  “So, you consider Count Azernikov a mere responsibility?” He spat out the final word with enough venom to turn Anna’s complexion pale. But it had little effect on the haughty Countess.

  “Oh, Misha, you are just too serious sometimes,” she replied with a light laugh, almost musical in tone. “But you are right, this is no place for such a discussion.”

  She paused and gave Anna a disdainful glance. “Come with me,” she added, looking back up at Grigorov. “I’m sure I can explain everything to you.”

  “I’m on an errand.”

  “Misha, please.” She pushed out her lower lip fetchingly and her beseeching tone was convincing.

  Grigorov seemed to debate within himself. When at length he answered, he sounded more resolute than happy with his response.

  “I’ll meet you when I finish here,” he said, the words spoken through taut lips.

  “The usual place then?”

  He bowed respectfully. “Yes, Countess,” he answered.

  With a look of satisfaction, she turned away. His eyes followed her departing figure. Anna thought that part of him regretted not accompanying the countess immediately.

  “Shall we go?” he said finally when she had disappeared from sight.

  “I do not mean to keep you, Lieutenant Grigorov,” said Anna. “I am sure that if you pointed me in the right direction I could find my way.”

  “What?” he said, at first distracted. Then he seemed to focus on Anna and what she had said. “Oh, it’ll do the countess good to be kept waiting for a change. Maybe I’ll let her sit and stew by herself for the rest of the day.”

  “She looks important, like the kind of person whose displeasure one might later regret.”

  “A very perceptive comment, Anna Yevnovna!”

  “It is none of my business,” said Anna with a slight blush.

  “I’m only sorry you should have had to witness such a display. You may be right—she could ruin me. But it might be worth
it, to have it done and over with.”

  He shook his head with a melancholy not befitting the image of a Cossack. “There goes a false woman, Anna,” he said, gesturing with his arm down the hallway after the countess. “Be glad you do not work for her. Yet, now that I think of it, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. You are not a man, whose heart she can toy with at will.”

  “I am sorry, Lieutenant Grigorov.”

  “Call me Misha.” All at once he laughed sharply, cynically. “You suddenly know a part of me I hide even from my friends!”

  They walked the remainder of the way in silence. In the meantime he had recovered his proud bearing, although the look of mingled pain and love still lingered in his eyes.

  In another minute Anna heard women’s voices and saw the door to the empress’s drawing room ahead.

  “Thank you so much,” she said, walking on ahead.

  “You will not get lost again?”

  “Not today.” After a few steps, Anna paused. Sensing that the hurt of his recent encounter still persisted, she wanted to offer some gesture of friendship. She turned back to where he still stood. “I hope I see you again sometime, Misha,” she said.

  “It won’t be in the near future, I’m afraid,” he replied. “I have requested a transfer to a fighting regiment.”

  “You want to fight? Where?”

  “In the Balkans, of course. There is a war now, you know.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, it is too bad you have to leave the city.”

  “Too bad? I am a soldier and a Cossack. To fight is the ultimate honor. Besides, war I can understand. I would rather face a Turkish gun or sword than a beautiful courtesan any day!”

  He laughed, this time with more merriment. “But when I return from the war, Anna,” he added, “I will hope to find you wandering these hallways once more.”

  54

  With Easter came the highest, most holy celebration of the Russian Christian year, a fitting manifestation of the advancing spring. The fervent display of religious splendor touched even the most ambivalent heart of rich and poor alike. St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg found itself that Easter night in 1877 packed full of faithful Russians. They stood together, men on one side, women on the other, with their lighted candles in hand. An observer unaccustomed to the practice might think they resembled a magnificent host of worshiping angels.