Tsar Alexander II was not left unscathed by the upheaval. These years were the darkest of his reign. Having done his best to be a benevolent “Little Father” to his people, he felt personally hurt and betrayed by the rebellion against him. He had shown more compassion than any tsar in history. He had freed the serfs, reformed the army, revamped the legal system, and won a war. What were his crimes that he should be so maligned?
“Am I an animal,” he agonized, “that these rebels and assassins must hunt me down?”
Yet his inner distress only resulted in reactionism, further widening the rift between government and revolutionaries. At the prodding of his conservative advisors, Alexander clamped down harder on the already heavily burdened people.
Perhaps the results would have been different had the tsar followed the sensitive and humanitarian instincts that had guided him at the beginning of his reign. But the Romanov tradition of absolute autocracy was too deeply ingrained in Alexander to permit the far-reaching reforms that would please the rabid revolutionaries.
Two hundred and fifty years of Romanov tyranny would never be overthrown without the shedding of Russian blood.
1
St. Petersburg was as magnificent as Paul had imagined it. He wished he were free to enjoy the pleasure of standing at its center and feeling the pulse of its life.
But he could enjoy no such liberty—neither freedom of body, for his was pursued; nor freedom of soul, for his was tormented. The days of youthful joy had been left far behind. Even his own sister, if he knew where to find her in this sprawl of buildings and people and activity, would look upon him as a stranger—and a despised one at that!
The years following the Turkish War were filled with great agitation and discontent in the huge land at the outposts of Europe’s eastern frontier. Its cities had become cauldrons of terror. This was no season for the idealistic dreams of youth; and it was certainly no time for a young man whose dreams were steadily being shattered on the shoals of realism to venture into a nation’s fomenting turmoil.
But young Paul Yevnovich Burenin had been drawn toward the great Russian capital as one whose destiny could find itself fulfilled in no other place. A short time ago, his hopes had been high. He had been enthusiastic about his studies, and had applied himself diligently and with single-mindedness. He had tried hard to honor his word to his father and put aside ideas of politics and rebellion in exchange for the opportunity he had been given at the Gymnasium in Pskov.
His dedication had even earned him the praise and admiration of his teachers. Yevno had been proud of his son, who had quickly risen to the top of his class. Paul worked with such fervor that he had no time for secret meetings, or any reading matter beyond what his studies required. He appeared in every way the shining example of a reformed young man who had at last put the ideas of his radical friends behind him. Even the constable in Akulin had commented on the fact to Yevno.
“Well, Yevno Pavlovich, it would seem that a night in my jail straightened the boy right out, eh?”
Whatever the cause, Paul had seemed well on the pathway of becoming a useful, perhaps even influential, Russian citizen.
Then his friend’s death . . . the attack on the headmaster . . . again the jail . . . and then his flight. Suddenly his hopes faded into obscurity, and his eyes were opened to the true nature of things.
He had been a fool to imagine that attending school could make any difference. Kazan and the others had been right all the time! A glance around him in any direction as he walked along Nevsky Prospect confirmed it. With mingled wonder and chagrin he gazed about at the gaudy display surrounding him—the profusion of carriages filled with dandily outfitted bourgeois, the opulent grandeur of the railway buildings, shop windows crammed with a dazzling assortment of Western wares.
Had he dreamed of coming to St. Petersburg for this? Could a true and loyal Russian possibly survive this great defilement? Could a man of conviction maintain his resolve and passion for change in the midst of such corrupt influences from the West?
In his loneliness in such a strange place, Paul vacillated between hatred of everything he saw, and a longing to return to the warmth and safety of his father’s cottage. He wondered if he had done the right thing by leaving Pskov and making this pilgrimage to the capital. He did not know he would end up here—alone, cold, with no place to go. Part of him longed to try to find Anna. But would she turn against him too?
In reality, his decision to flee, to leave forever behind him the scenes of his boyhood, had been no real decision at all. His choice had been thrust upon him unsought by evil circumstances, by the nagging hand of fate that seemed to be dogging him his whole life.
His whole life . . .
Even at seventeen, Paul could not help but feel as if long, gray years had already passed him by. The gulf between his past and future already seemed to yawn widely as he looked forward, then back.
He was no longer a boy. He had relinquished all the securities and comforts of youth the day when shame, and the business with Aleksi Alexandrovich, forced him to turn away from the loving circle of his family. He had fled to the harsh uncertainties of St. Petersburg, rather than to seek solace and hope and shelter in the arms of an understanding and compassionate father.
Whether he had done right or wrong, he could not judge. He was hungry and uncertain; how could he trust what he might think?
He was here. Only that he could say for sure. And he could not go back. For the present, St. Petersburg—and fate—held his future in their hands.
2
Alexandrovich was the son of a poor shopkeeper.
A sensitive, somewhat frail lad, Aleksi was a year younger than Paul, who befriended him almost immediately after his entry into the Gymnasium. The poor boy had desperately needed an ally, for the older bourgeois and gentry boys had cruelly capitalized on his weaknesses and insecurities. As a peasant himself from an even lower social strata than Aleksi, Paul had sympathized, especially in that he too had been bullied and tormented from his first day at school.
Paul had enough inner fortitude to ignore their mistreatment, for most things in his life at the time were subjugated to his studies. Offering poor sport for their malicious designs, he was eventually left to himself. Aleksi, on the other hand, yearned for nothing more than to be accepted by these upper-class rogues. His pleadings, tears, and visible show of distress, however, only fed their merciless prodding.
Try as he might, Paul could not remain aloof indefinitely. The driving force behind his former discontent had always been an abhorrence of the mistreatment of others, and ultimately he found himself in the middle of the fray. Not able to tolerate seeing the sensitive boy made fun of and beaten, Paul finally took a stand, and quickly became the victim of both verbal and physical abuse.
Tensions mounted until the shocking day when poor Aleksi was driven to extremes. Unable to find him one afternoon, Paul had searched the school building high and low. Hearing a dull groan in the basement, he investigated further. There, deep in the darkness behind several tall crates, he found his friend hanging from one of the open beams. In panic he ran for help, found one of the headmaster’s assistants, got a knife, then sprinted back, climbed upon one of the nearby boxes, and hastily cut the rope. The limp body of his pathetic friend fell to the ground in a heap.
Fortunately, Paul had come just barely in time to save the boy’s life, but he was unable to prevent the sinful act from becoming publicly known. Aleksi was looked upon with more contempt than ever. There was no sympathy for him; suicide was one of the dreadful mortal sins. Far from being shown compassion, Aleksi came under heavy censure from the school authorities and was threatened with expulsion.
Had the entire affair remained in the realm of the students only, even with increased persecution, Paul might have been able to maintain his staunch efforts at keeping his mind away from political channels. But the unsympathetic and heartless response of the school’s officials shattered his determination once and for
all. These representatives of authority proved once more that there existed no justice in the world for the common man, much less the common boy. One’s birth in society—that most illogical and absurd measuring stick of worth—was all that mattered!
Just as the school condemned a poor youth for that over which he had no control—his birth, his societal rank, the status of his parents—so too did the government condemn and degrade all who fell outside Peter the Great’s Table of Ranks. This hundred-and-fifty-year-old outmoded institution was a relic of the past. Ninety percent of Russia’s entire population had no hope of advancement, according to Peter’s rigid system!
When the dam of his patience finally broke, some two weeks after the would-be hanging, Paul expressed his outrage to the headmaster with all the passion and eloquence he had learned from his former revolutionary friends.
His words were dismissed with a curious smile and a wave of the headmaster’s hand. The self-important man said nothing to the excitable peasant-son from Katyk, but he took serious note, and resolved to keep a watchful eye upon him. It would never do to allow such young rabble-rousers a free rein with their seditious tongues.
One raw, blustery winter afternoon about two months later, a despondent Aleksi left the school alone; whether he had merely a walk in mind or some darker motive, no one ever knew. Paul might have stopped him, if he had known, for the boy was of no constitution to be abroad on such a day. As soon as he realized Aleksi was missing, Paul went out to look for him, and kept frantically searching half the night until his own life was imperiled by the harsh elements.
As soon as the light allowed, Paul went out to resume the search. He stumbled upon his friend’s stiff and lifeless body in a snowdrift. He had never seen death before that moment, but the pain was quickly buried by the gathering rage within his bosom. It was a meaningless way to die.
In stupefied grief and anger, he carried the corpse back to the school doorstep, gathering around him a crowd not only of curious onlookers, but many of the boy’s former tormentors as well. In a few moments the headmaster appeared, took one look at the sight, and shook his head with an unsympathetic show of distress.
“So, the ungrateful lad has finally succeeded in his sinful designs.” The man crossed himself sanctimoniously. “May God have mercy on his poor lost soul,” he added, then turned to go back inside.
Suddenly a great fury seized Paul, and he lost all his remaining self-control.
Dropping Aleksi’s body, he flew at the headmaster as one possessed, screaming words he could not now remember. When he came to himself he was crouched over the man like a vicious animal, his fingers squeezing tightly into the headmaster’s fleshy throat. Several others were attempting to pull him off the man’s body. When he came to his senses and realized what he had done, Paul was more horrified by his own behavior than by the coldhearted attitude of the headmaster himself.
3
Pskov’s jail proved a wretched, stinking hole that made Akulin seem like a palace. Paul would have willingly put up with the insults of that viper Vlasenko—although he had heard the man had been promoted and was no longer there—to be spared Pskov’s dungeon.
He was there three days before hearing a thing. Then a representative from the school came, saw him briefly, and left to talk with the police chief. Paul could hear only parts of the conversation through the corridor. What he heard sounded anything but pleasant, and seemed to have to do with his probable sentencing. In dismay Paul spent the following nights tormented with nightmares of hanging or being shot in front of a firing squad.
On the eighth day Yevno had tried to visit him in his prison cell. Paul heard his father’s voice, and the sound sent a stab of remorse and guilt shooting through him. A moment or two later the jailer appeared, saying that he had a visitor. But how could he look into the eyes of his father, who had placed such faith and hope in him, who had sacrificed so much that he might be able to attend school? In the end, Paul had refused to see his father, and then had spent the next hour weeping bitter tears of grief, until at last sleep overcame him.
Paul was in the jail ten days before the headmaster decided not to press the matter further. His seemingly generous act was motivated not by remorse, or by compassion for Paul. The violent young miscreant had already been expelled from the Gymnasium. But the scandal caused by the death of Aleksi Alexandrovich was known all over Pskov, and the school, not to mention the contemptible headmaster, could ill-afford any further stir. A trial could prove devastating to the school’s reputation, especially in light of recent public mood by which several radicals throughout the country had been acquitted for crimes far more serious than Paul’s.
The day of Paul’s release was cold and bitter, like the day of Aleksi’s death. And Paul felt alone within his own soul, just as his friend must have felt.
The doors of education, open and inviting with promise just a short time earlier, were now forever barred to him. He could not face his family—not now, after what he had done. How disappointed they would be in him! He could not return to Katyk and drag his father into the disgrace he had brought upon his family. He must bear his shame alone.
What could he do but set out upon the path that destiny appeared to have already mapped out for him? Cut off from family and from ties to his former community and boyhood acquaintances, the one door left open to him was to turn to the only friends he had left—the circle of young radicals with whom he had been involved before his trouble with the constable in Akulin. A number of them had gone to St. Petersburg, Paul had heard. He could follow them and see whom he might locate. Without even a brief farewell to his family, the decision was made, and he turned his footsteps northward.
Paul Yevnovich had been in St. Petersburg for two days, sleeping in back alleys of the seamier parts of the city, pillaging food from the discarded refuse of inns or stealing it from poorly watched kiosks. As bitter cold as it was, this was a mild March; had a blizzard descended upon him during his trek northward, he would have perished like poor Aleksi.
More than once his thoughts turned to Anna in her fine mansion. He knew she lived someplace in the elegant South Side district; he had even ventured in that direction once or twice. But he could not bring himself to continue the search. Even if he were able to locate the house by questioning passers-by, he could never approach it. Anyone who saw him would think he was a common beggar.
The more he thought about Anna, the more he realized she would probably not turn him away after all. She might even welcome him warmly, bedraggled though he was—she was too kind to do otherwise, no matter what he had done. Yet for this very reason he continued to avoid her. He deserved no such kindness. And he could not jeopardize her position with her employers, no matter how kind she said they were. They were aristocrats, after all, and he could never let go of his suspicion.
As he walked aimlessly down the broad avenue wondering only where he would be able to beg or steal his next meal, he suddenly heard his name called out from some distance.
“Paul . . . Paul Yevnovich!” cried the voice.
He turned quickly, scanning the street in all directions until he caught sight of a figure hastening toward him. As the figure came nearer, Paul recognized a fellow he had met only some days ago on the road as he walked north—a homeless vagabond himself, just like Paul.
“Some luck!” he exclaimed, slapping Paul jovially on the back. “In a city of a million people, imagine running into you again!”
A certain warm feeling surged through Paul to be greeted in such a friendly fashion, even if by a near total stranger. It lasted but an instant, however, for Paul hadn’t cared much for the man at their first meeting. His friendly exuberance had struck Paul as overdone; he seemed to be trying to hide something. He had invited the young son of Yevno to travel along with him, but Paul had led the man to believe he planned to remain where he was a few days, and thus he went on alone. Paul couldn’t even remember his name, if he had heard it at all.
“Yes, quite
a coincidence.”
“Well, perhaps not,” said the other, falling in stride with Paul. “You see, I was keeping a lookout for you.”
“Oh?” said Paul, raising his eyebrows in question. If nothing else, a week in a Russian prison had taught Paul wariness and suspicion. He had taken on a sharp edge; the once idealistic seventeen-year-old was well on the road to becoming an experienced cynic.
“You mentioned a friend you hoped to see in St. Petersburg,” the vagabond said.
Paul nodded. He had regretted speaking so freely about his friend Kazan almost immediately after the words were out of his mouth; even he should have known better. The life of a revolutionary must always be guarded with secrecy. Names could never be bandied recklessly about until one was absolutely certain of his listener. Maybe that was why this fellow hadn’t given his name.
“Well, you’ll be glad to know I have seen your friend.”
“You have?” In spite of his cynicism, Paul brightened considerably. “Did you tell him you had seen me?”
The man nodded. “He said he hoped to see you. I expect he’s on the watch for you as well.”
“Where is he?”
“I’ll take you there myself.”
As much as Paul would have preferred going alone, he could not pass up the opportunity of again seeing Kazan. As they walked down the street together, Paul thought to himself that perhaps he had misjudged his companion.
Anyway, he was beyond worrying about it. All he wanted was to lay eyes on the familiar face of someone he trusted, someone who could help him get settled and perhaps even find work and a decent place to live.
The Russians Collection Page 46