In truth, every kopeck of the strained budget was going to pay the rent on the shop. It was not likely any time in the near future that the quantity of cheeses on hand would increase. Supplying the people of the neighborhood with food was not the reason the store had been opened, nor did its owners care if it ever made a profit. They would not be in business that long.
The People’s Will still had but one driving ambition. It had not changed in the year and a half since that summer in Voronezh. It had not been altered with Andrei Zhelyabov’s imprisonment. Tsar Alexander Nicolaivich Romanov must die!
Rather than curtail their efforts with Zhelyabov in jail, the remaining leadership of The People’s Will only resolved to intensify their labors, for Andrei’s sake as well as for the cause. Toward that end they had procured a lease on the Maly Sadovaya storefront. They had no intention of becoming well-known cheese merchants. The location had attracted them for altogether different reasons. It lay along a route frequently traveled by the emperor when coming or going from the Winter Palace, in a relatively deserted area alongside one of St. Petersburg’s broad and well-traveled avenues. In addition, it boasted a fine basement which, notwithstanding the sluggish trade above, had become a beehive of subterranean activity.
For some time the insurrectionists had been working in shifts, digging and burrowing like industrious moles. Zhelyabov himself had inspired the plan some time before. Now since his untimely arrest, his lover Sophia Perovskaya was carrying on his vision with fervor and determination. From the basement of the cheese shop, they had tunneled under the street, then dug a shaft straight up to within two feet or the surface itself, just wide enough to plant a powerful mine to be detonated at the precise moment the tsar’s carriage came atop the shaft.
But Perovskaya had devised a backup plan to go along with the dynamite. She did not lack faith in Zhelyabov’s idea, but there had been too many ironic twists of fate in the past to give her much faith in anything. This time, she determined to make sure. She was prepared to do it herself, if need be, although two or three others who knew of her resolve had already begged her to allow them to martyr themselves instead. The movement needed her, they insisted, to carry on until Andrei’s release.
Perovskaya peered into the dark tunnel, the glow of a single lantern at the other end her only light. She shivered, not because of the cold—for it was many degrees warmer here underground than on the icy street above—but because she felt so very close to her long-cherished goal.
“How is it going?” she asked as she approached a figure crouched over a wooden crate.
Paul looked up, the lamp casting eerie shadows over his fine-featured face. “Very well, Sophia,” he answered.
“Will there be enough explosives?”
“Not enough if we want to bring down the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, and Tsarskoe Selo. But it will do nicely for our purposes.” Paul allowed a dry half-smile to accompany his mild attempt at humor.
“He attends the Mounting of the Guard every Sunday. He is sure to use this route within a few hours.” She did not have to specify to whom she referred by he. They well knew the object of their labors.
“I am ready for him.”
Sophia bent over and inspected the bomb as Paul tinkered here and there with the final wires and connectors.
“Andrei has taught you well, Pavlikov.”
“It is a shame he won’t be here for our final triumph.”
“It may well be that before long we will be able to tell him all about it—in person.” She straightened up, rubbing the small of her back as she did so. “I only hope that if I am arrested the charge will be murder. I could not bear to hang merely for the attempt.”
“If this mine detonates anywhere near the tsar, it will kill him,” said Paul. He did not mention, nor did he even pause to consider the fact, that it would also kill anyone else within a stone’s throw of the blast.
Paul glanced over his work one final time.
“It is ready,” he said. “All that remains is for me to raise it up into the shaft. Believe me, Sophia, it will blow the entire street apart from side to side!”
29
In spite of his innately melancholic nature, Alexander Romanov, tsar of Russia, found himself beginning to catch some of Loris-Melikov’s optimism.
He was approaching his sixty-third birthday. He was in relatively sound health, except for his cursed asthma. He was at long last married to the woman he loved, and, if he had his way, she would be crowned empress before the year was out. His government was at last on a sure footing. Melikov had seen to that with his sweeping reforms. Some, of course, were more apt to refer to the governor-general’s program as radical insanity. But it had gotten the job done. He’d known what he was doing by making the appointment, even if Melikov had been a bit pushy about the constitution. The city was safer than it had been in two years.
It had been a year, almost to date, since that dreadful explosion at the palace. And it had been that long since any attempt had been made on his person. Perhaps he was justified in breathing easier, lifting his head, and . . . well, he wasn’t quite sure what he might do next. But surely it was time to begin enjoying life again.
A stray glance toward Melikov’s draft of the constitution nearly dulled some of the gleam in his eye. He still was not completely resolved to the idea of being the ruler known for stripping the House of Romanov of its power, nor of being the first Russian figurehead monarch.
He hated the thought! The very word left an acrid taste in his mouth, especially when applied to him. He could not tolerate the possibility. He preferred the epithet that had been given to him twenty years ago—the Tsar-Liberator.
No, he would be no mere figurehead. He had insisted upon that proviso before giving the governor-general carte blanche to initiate reforms last year. In that vein, Melikov had devised a system by which the throne retained its essential power. Alexander hated to admit it, but that Armenian was a genius.
What the tsar refused to admit was that the new system did not even come close to the sweeping reform Russia needed, and needed desperately, if it were to survive. The very thing, in fact, that the radicals were crying out for. That would be going much further than Alexander would have been willing. He might be optimistic, but Melikov questioned how much good it would ultimately accomplish.
The proposed constitution broadened the powers of the zemstvos, but they remained local in structure, without any power to unify or, as elected bodies, to form any sort of national parliament. Melikov’s scheme did include a provision for each local zemstvo to send a delegate to a national council, the Gosudarstvenny Soviet. But that body would be deliberative in nature, lacking any executive power.
Actually, from the tsar’s point of view, the system was ideal. It provided the form of self-government, certainly as much or more than the Russian people could manage at that time in their history, but it kept the autocracy intact. Russia could never return to the days of Peter the Great, or even the iron rule of Nicholas I. Alexander was forward enough in his thinking to realize that. These were modern times requiring contemporary solutions to the problems of governing a complex assortment of people. Melikov’s plan seemed to take all this into account, acting as a sort of bridge between the old ways and the new.
When Melikov entered his office later that morning, Tsar Alexander was thus in an unusually high-spirited mood.
“Good morning, General!” he said. “I trust you are well.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. Yes, I am. I am happy to see that you appear very well also.”
“I am indeed, General! This is a momentous day for our country’s future. You are here to deliver the Manifesto you have prepared, are you not, General?”
“Yes, Your Highness. I have it here.”
Alexander took the paper from the general, gave it a brief glance, and laid it on the desk.
“Tomorrow,” the tsar went on, “with all due ceremony, I shall sign it, making public our intention of present
ing a constitution to the people.” He smiled. “This is a grand day. It will put the rabble-rousers to rest once and for all.”
“It is a great day indeed, Your Highness!” Melikov spoke with enthusiastic tone, giving no hint of his pessimism toward a plan which he still viewed as almost completely ineffectual.
“Now, I am afraid I must cut this audience short,” Alexander said, “for I am expected at the parade grounds to review the Mounting of the Guard.”
“You plan to go out today, Your Majesty?”
“I attend the Guard’s ceremony every Sunday.”
“It has always been advisable for you to deviate from fixed routines as much as possible, Your Majesty.”
“I thought that was no longer necessary, as you had the most dangerous culprits in custody. Is the danger not past?”
“That is, ah . . . partially true. Yes, we have made significant arrests. Still, until the Manifesto is made public and the people are solidly behind us, I think caution would still be wise.”
“I never took you for the fainthearted sort, General. I can understand my wife urging me to stay indoors. But coming from you, it sounds ludicrous.”
“The princess has requested you to curb your activities?”
“Only this morning,” answered the tsar. “But she worries unduly. Now, if you will excuse me.”
“Your Majesty, I really feel I must urge you to—”
“Please, General—” The tsar cut him off sharply, though not angrily. He was in too good a mood to be easily upset. “I simply must go. Be here at nine tomorrow morning for the presentation of the Manifesto.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Melikov bowed and backed obediently out of the room. Alexander shook his head and shrugged. This was a new and promising day. No longer would he skulk about within the borders of his own realm.
He was the tsar, after all, ruler of the mightiest nation on earth! He called in Totiev and ordered up his carriage.
30
Michael Loris-Melikov, governor-general of Russia, second only to the tsar, walked away from Alexander’s study with a heavy step and a heavier feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He had not been completely honest with the emperor about the successes with the revolutionaries.
Yes, he had captured Zhelyabov. He and several other members of The People’s Will were behind bars. Zhelyabov had not talked. But Melikov, nevertheless, knew far more about the terrorists’ movements than he admitted to the tsar. For others had talked. What they revealed was enough to put Melikov in deeper disgrace, if events conspired against him, even than Fedorcenko.
He had learned that they were mining the streets—the very streets of St. Petersburg! He did not have to guess how that would make him look in the eyes of the Crown! Even if no danger came of it, the very fact that he had allowed it to go on under their noses would reduce his standing in imperial favor.
He also knew that another dangerous leader was still at large—a woman by the name of Sophia Perovskaya.
Melikov needed time. A few days would do. He had to locate those mines and, more importantly, track down the Perovskaya woman. He had played down the danger to the tsar because he was so close to wrecking the entire ring of radicals. Yet he knew close was often not good enough.
Well, he had tried to warn Alexander.
What more could he do, short of admitting to his own deficiencies and the inadequacies of his police network, of course? At this delicate time, the less the tsar knew of any man’s blunders or mishaps, the better off that man was. He did not want to end up like poor Viktor!
31
Sophia Perovskaya had placed a series of lookouts along the tsar’s route to the parade grounds. Each was accompanied by a runner who would relay information of the tsar’s movements as necessary. In some cases they signaled one another with flashes of light from mirrors.
She also had her backup plan in effect. At intervals she had posted men trained to deliver hand-thrown bombs if the underground explosion, for some reason, failed to kill the tsar.
Zhelyabov, assisted most capably by Paul, had adopted a new explosive compound using a purer form of nitroglycerine. It was far more dangerous than mere dynamite, and could be contained in a much smaller package. A parcel no bigger than a snowball could be concealed most effectively and do more damage than ten sticks of dynamite.
Each of Sophia’s volunteers today carried such a tiny lethal package, prepared to use it if necessary. They all knew that the likelihood of the bomber himself surviving the blast was almost nil. But each was prepared to make the supreme sacrifice for the cause.
Sophia returned to the cheese shop. Paul was sitting in the back room savoring the warmth of a glass of tea cupped between his hands. His calm demeanor should have reassured her, but it irritated her instead.
“How can you drink tea at a time like this?” she railed.
“Because I have been breathing the fetid air of that cold, damp, dirty tunnel for hours,” replied Paul, “and I could not put my teeth together without grinding them like sandpaper.”
If he had seemed calm to Sophia, it was only a momentary reaction to the one pleasant moment he had spent all day. Her remark had perturbed him, and the tone of his response did not hide the fact. His nerves were as taut as hers, and any calm produced by the tea quickly evaporated in the tense air between them.
“And everything is finished?”
“Yes.”
“The fuse is where I told you to place it?”
“Of course. I know what I am doing, Sophia.”
“I am only making sure.”
“Zhelyabov and I went over it many times.”
“You can see the lookout?”
“Everything is in order,” he said flatly, then pointedly took a long drink from his glass.
“This must be the day, Pavlikov. Our time is running out.”
“Andrei will never betray us.”
“I know that. But we cannot be so sure of the others. Stepniak was also arrested, and he knows nearly as many details as Andrei. I feel in my bones that the police are closing in.”
“We are still safe.”
“I did not want to tell you this, Pavlikov, but yesterday they raided one of our flats where we have secreted supplies. They confiscated several kilograms of explosives. Thank God no one was there.”
“Were there clues for them to find?”
“I hope not. But you and I have both been there many times, and it won’t be long before the neighbors give descriptions and either Melikov’s men or Vlasenko begin to piece together our movements.”
This was not shocking news, at least in the sense that it was unexpected. But it did serve to cast their current efforts in a more final light. They could not fail today. It might well be their last opportunity.
“Then we must make certain nothing goes wrong today,” said Paul, his previous calm returning to his tone.
32
At quarter to one in the afternoon, that second Sunday in March, Alexander Romanov prepared to leave the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg.
He kissed his new wife warmly, and asked her to be prepared upon his return for their customary Sunday stroll in the gardens. She tried once more to dissuade him from going out, but he merely shrugged off her words with light banter.
“Don’t try to dampen my mood, my dear wife.”
He took her hands in his and focused his eyes lovingly upon her for a brief instant, heedless of all the city’s gossip and revulsion at his open love for her. “I am so happy at present, Catherine, that it almost frightens me.”
Outside he was greeted by a pleasant winter’s day. Frost hung in the air, and snow packed the ground. There had been no fresh snowfall for days, and he would thus be able to travel in the wheeled carriage rather than the sleigh.
A guard detail of six mounted Cossacks accompanied the carriage, with a seventh, Lieutenant Grigorov, standing on the coachman’s box, rifle in hand, keeping vigilant watch. Two sledges followed the royal carri
age. And the tsar’s brother, the Grand Duke Michael, rode alongside on horseback.
The ride to the parade grounds proved uneventful. The ensuing hour of viewing the precision exercises of the Guard passed quickly.
Misha found himself wondering at the royal fascination with military drills. He supposed it gave an impression of security, however false, to know one’s army could perform so well in ranks. If it only bore out with the same efficiency upon the battlefield!
The Cossack resumed his position in the carriage.
True, this was no battlefield, but agonizing experience had too often proved that even a peaceful St. Petersburg street could erupt into violence at any unexpected moment. He had saved the tsar’s life once. He hoped he never had another such opportunity, but he could take no risks.
He gripped his rifle as if readying to meet a heathen Turk, and the carriage lurched into motion to begin the return journey through the streets to the Winter Palace.
As the carriage clattered steadily along, its wheels occasionally crunching across remaining patches of hardened snow, Misha kept his head roving slowly in all directions.
Peering into the distance, suddenly a flash of light caught his eye, then disappeared. He shouted at the driver to slow a moment. He squinted ahead, studying the area carefully. It must have only been the sun glinting momentarily off a window.
“Go on!” he called. Perhaps he was too vigilant, he thought. Yet these days, one never knew. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down for an instant.
Even though it had proved to be nothing, Misha found himself still nervous after the incident. He therefore felt an unaccountable sense of relief when the tsar signaled the driver that he had decided not to go straight back to the palace.
Instead, he wanted to make a brief stop at his cousin’s, the Grand Duchess Catherine’s.
The Russians Collection Page 93