“I doubt I’ll ever get out of here long enough to do that,” Andrei said, ignoring his brother’s condescension. “Mama makes it awfully hard.”
“Well, there’ll be other demonstrations.” Yuri made an obvious effort to be more understanding. “I can’t see the Romanov dynasty falling anytime soon.”
“I guess it’s pretty terrible to hope it waits for me.”
“Like Yuri says,” added Talia, “there will be time for you. And even if there is a revolution tomorrow, the new leaders will have to look toward young people like yourself to work for the new government.”
“Yeah, but I’ll still miss all the excitement.”
“Maybe not . . .” Talia tapped her lip thoughtfully.
“Who’s this?” asked Yuri, pointing to the signature on the drawing. “Little Soldier?”
“My new pseudonym,” said Andrei. “What do you think, Talia?”
“I like it. I can hear the people saying, ‘Who is this Little Soldier, with such a powerful revolutionary message?’”
“You won’t be much of a soldier,” Yuri interjected, “if Mama won’t let you go to the battle.”
“I was thinking,” said Talia. “Maybe you couldn’t get all the way to the Winter Palace without being found out. But I’ll bet we could slip out to St. Andrew’s market.”
“There’s no demonstration there,” said Andrei.
“But that would be a very public place to post your drawing—”
Andrei laughed. “Maybe that ballet school is doing you some good after all!”
“And what if we’re caught?” asked Yuri. Obviously he had no intention of letting them go alone.
“We are just children,” Andrei answered cunningly. “We would just be sent home to get spanked by our mothers. Let’s go!”
Talia jumped up eagerly. Yuri followed with more hesitancy. But they all trooped out together on their holy mission.
As it should be, Andrei thought. Together.
3
Andrei’s poster, tacked to the wall of the busy market on Vassily Island, was seen by many. It had been both admired and reviled. And, indeed, there was some curiosity about the identity of the mysterious creator. But the first rain that came washed out most of the charcoal and obscured the fine art work. It was never expected to have a major impact on events in Russia, anyway.
Tsar Nicholas was already well on the way toward taking action against the upheavals wracking the nation. Sergius Witte, the political genius who had been battling the emperor for years in his attempt to convince him to adopt a constitutional government, had finally prevailed. Or, perhaps more accurately, the people had finally prevailed. Without the crippling strikes, the tsar might have continued to nurse his illusions that the Romanov autocracy was still as viable as it had been two hundred years ago or even fifty years ago.
For good or ill, all Nicholas the Second’s illusions were starting to die. One of the most sacred vows he had taken upon ascending to the throne was to maintain the absolute autocracy he had inherited from his father. And one of the dreams of his life was to pass the Crown, inviolate, on to his son and heir.
Yet events were conspiring against him, forcing him into a position in which there seemed no possible compromise. He was primarily responsible for his own plight, of course, because he had embroiled Russia in an impossible war. But Nicholas now found himself in a position in which his only choice was between two appalling evils. On one hand, he could step in with military force, crush the rebellion, and strong-arm the nation back to work. The cost in blood would be high, far worse than the tragedy on Bloody Sunday.
The only other choice was to give the people their civil rights, along with a constitution.
The manifesto now lay before him. It was surprisingly brief considering the vast implications it contained. In it the tsar declared he would:
Grant the people the unshakable foundations of civil liberty on the basis of true inviolability of person, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly, and association.
Immediately institute a State Duma, without suspending the scheduled elections. And insofar as it is feasible in the brief time remaining before the convening of the Duma, admit to participation those classes of the population that are now wholly deprived of the rights of suffrage, leaving the further development of the principle of universal suffrage to the new legislative order.
And finally, establish as an inviolable rule that no law can come into force without the consent of the State Duma, and that the representatives of the people must be guaranteed the opportunity of effective participation in the supervision of the legality of the actions performed by our appointed officials.
Nicholas read the paper once more. Could he really initiate such a thing? It was the same as a man cutting off his own legs. He had pointedly omitted the use of the word constitution, a term he wondered if he would ever come to grips with.
While his wife urged him to stand firm, a majority of his advisors were pressing for him to adopt the manifesto. The more moderate ones suggested that government be made into a military dictatorship with the tsar’s cousin Nicholas Nicholavich as the dictator. Witte, though he said he might support this idea, declared that he could never have an active part in it. Of course, Witte wanted the constitutional monarchy in which he hoped to be Prime Minister.
The sudden sounds of a disturbance in the anteroom diverted Nicholas’s thoughts. He looked up just as his door burst open. He was shocked to see his cousin, completely ignoring court protocol, rush into his office.
“Nicholas Nicholavich!” the tsar exclaimed.
“Nicky, I’ve heard what you are considering. You can’t do it!” The strapping, six-foot-tall military man shut the door behind him and strode toward the tsar. He might have looked rather menacing if the tsar hadn’t grown up with the man and played with him as a child.
“I myself am not sure what I am going to do,” said the tsar calmly. “What specifically are you talking about, Nicholasha?”
“That ridiculous idea of forming a dictatorship with me as the head.”
Suddenly, the Grand Duke Nicholas drew his revolver. The tsar gasped, then the grand duke jerked up the gun and pointed it at his own head.
“I swear, Nicky, if you do such a thing, I will shoot myself,” declared the grand duke.
“Calm down, Nicholasha, please.”
“Tell me you will adopt Witte’s proposals—then I’ll calm down.”
“I’m debating my decision at this very moment.”
“Then you are considering this military dictatorship?”
“No, especially if it means I shall have to scrape your innards off my carpet.”
“What about Witte’s plan?” Appeased, the grand duke slipped his gun back into its holster.
“I . . . don’t know.”
“Nicky, it’s the only way. Surely you must realize that. You must adopt it—for the good of Russia.”
How much his cousin’s outburst influenced his final decision, the tsar couldn’t say. But he did have to make a choice, and it did help that people he respected were encouraging the path he at last conceded to.
So, late in the month of October of that fateful year 1905, Nicholas the Second, Emperor of Russia, ended the absolute rule of a dynasty that had survived nearly three hundred years.
After signing the decree, Nicholas returned to his study. Half an hour later, his secretary, Prince Orlov, found him sitting at his desk, weeping.
Orlov, obviously flustered at finding his sovereign in this state, turned to leave.
“Don’t go, Orlov,” Nicholas pleaded. “I can’t bear to be alone right now. I feel like a murderer because I have destroyed the Crown. What will I give my son now? I fear it is all finished . . .”
4
Cyril Vlasenko tried to sit up in bed.
“I want to see the stable!” he demanded petulantly.
“The stable is gone, Father.”
“Humph!” Cyril snorted. “So much for the
tsar’s manifesto.”
The manifesto, in fact, had not brought about the immediate results Nicholas might have hoped for. Disturbances continued throughout the country until Witte had to call out troops to quell them. Some lives were lost, but at least it wasn’t the bloodbath the tsar had feared.
But the demonstration in Vlasenko’s own territory of Katyk had turned especially ugly. Five peasants and two Cossacks had been killed; thousands of rubles in property were destroyed, including Cyril’s own stable. And all because Cyril had one of his servants flogged for refusing to work.
“It’s too far, Father,” Cyril’s son Karl continued to protest. “Besides, there’s nothing left to see.”
“I don’t care! I’ll walk there today or, by the Saints, I won’t walk at all.”
“You need to walk, Father. It’s the only way you will rebuild your strength. But the stable is too far.”
“What do you know?”
“I am a doctor, you know.”
“You’re a quack.”
“Please, Father.”
“Anyway, you said I’d never walk again.”
“Well, perhaps I was hasty in my prognosis—”
“Hasty, ha! You couldn’t make a proper diagnosis to save your life.”
“I resent that, Father,” returned Karl, but in too weak a tone to impress his father.
Cyril knew that his son would never get over the fact that it was no doctor at all who had been instrumental in Cyril’s miraculous escape from certain death.
Cyril fell back against his pillows, ignoring his son’s protest. Nine months ago he had been critically injured by a terrorist’s bomb. He had spent weeks in a semicoma, then months bedridden. His three-hundred-pound frame had shrunk to two hundred. Before the bombing, the tsar had assured him that he would be promoted to the coveted position of the Minister of the Interior, vacated when Minister Svyatopolk-Mirsky had been fired after the debacle of Bloody Sunday. At last all Cyril had ever hoped for was within his grasp.
Then that cursed bomb. He was all but certain it had been planted by that crazy malcontent Basil Anickin. In all likelihood Anickin had also been responsible for the death of Cyril’s assistant, Cerkover. But Anickin had been killed shortly afterward, and Cyril had been robbed of seeing him punished for his crime. Told that he would never walk again, Cyril then fell to brooding about his failures. He became totally apathetic, hardly caring if he lived or died. Everything he had worked for had also been demolished by that bomb. His family had feared he might do himself harm, and, in fact, Cyril had thought often about taking his miserable life.
After two months of this, Cyril’s wife, in desperation, had called upon the starets. Cyril had always disdained these holy types, so-called men of God. Cyril was not a spiritual man. When Father Grigori had come to the Vlasenko country estate, where Cyril had retired as a virtual recluse after the bombing, Cyril had at first refused to see him.
Grigori Efimovich Rasputin was a dirty peasant who smelled as bad as Cyril’s stables, with greasy hair and matted beard. What Poznia and the aristocratic ladies saw in him was a mystery. They acted as if the man’s wretchedness was a sure sign of his spirituality—having scorned outward adornments and such so as not to distract him from God. But to scorn even a bath! Cyril couldn’t understand that.
But even Cyril had to admit there was something compelling about the starets. When Cyril had shouted at the man to go away, Rasputin had come into his bedroom anyway. Since the accident, Cyril had seen no one but his family, his doctor, and the servants. So, he rose out of his lethargy enough to protest this intrusion. Cyril yelled, but Rasputin had stood over the bed in silence, staring down at Cyril with those intense, penetrating eyes of his.
Cyril tried to escape that gaze, tried to turn his head away, but he couldn’t. Despite the fact that Father Grigori hadn’t laid a hand on him, Cyril was held as firmly as if in a vise.
“Go away,” Cyril finally said, but weakly, without force.
“Is that what you truly want?”
“Yes.”
“And then will you take the revolver you keep in that drawer by your bed and put a hole in your head?”
How did he know about the revolver? Even Poznia was unaware of it.
“It’s none of your business,” said Cyril.
“Look at me Cyril Karlovich.”
What could the man mean? Cyril couldn’t stop looking at him.
“What do you want, Father?” asked Cyril, swallowing hard, still trying to extract himself from the starets’ hold. How he hated to be under any man’s control!
“Why don’t you fight them the way you are fighting me?”
“Who?”
“The demons of defeat and despair that own you.”
“I . . . I . . .”
“You don’t like to be owned, do you?”
Cyril’s mouth was dry; all he could manage was a negative shake of his head.
“Then throw them off. Fight them! Get up and walk!”
For a brief, fleeting moment Cyril felt as if he could do just that. He squirmed in bed, strained against his afflictions. But before anything happened, he fell back exhausted.
“I can’t,” he moaned. “I’m an invalid.”
“Bah! You are a coward!”
“No.”
“A coward and a weakling, I tell you! Half a man. Worthless!”
The words incensed Cyril. No one would have ever had the nerve to call him such things before. But what truly galled Cyril was the fact that he had often hurled those same words at his son.
Were they now also true about him? No!
“Shut up, you stinking peasant,” Cyril screamed at the starets. “Get out of my house!”
Rasputin said not another word but turned on his heel and left the room.
If it had been Rasputin’s intention to make Vlasenko draw upon the baser elements of his character to find the strength he required to triumph over his disabilities, it had been successful. Cyril drew upon his hate, his anger, his vindictiveness, his ambition. He would not be reduced to the pathetic level of his son. He refused to be helpless. He had once before risen from the dust of obscurity—he would do so again!
He’d prove the whole lot of them wrong! All those who thought he was washed up, all those who hoped he was finished. He’d show them all!
He immediately set out upon a regime of exercises while still bedridden. When Karl brought him a wheelchair, Cyril flew into a rage. He would never use one of those wretched contraptions—never! Within a few months of Rasputin’s first visit, he had actually gotten out of bed and taken a few short steps. With the aid of another of Karl’s contraptions—a wooden cagelike thing, a sort of two-handed cane that stood waist-high and which Cyril could grip in front of him with both hands as he walked—he steadily began to build up his endurance.
One day, shortly after Cyril’s first attempt at walking, Rasputin had returned to visit. This time Cyril welcomed him. He didn’t know what part the starets had actually played in his recovery. Since Cyril believed he was master of his own destiny, he was convinced his recovery was due to his own tenaciousness. Yet, he couldn’t deny that Rasputin had somehow caused the will to live to be rekindled in him. He saw no reason not to give the starets his due. Besides, a man like Rasputin might one day be a useful ally. Cyril had heard that the empress was quite taken with the holy man.
And Cyril was going to need all the help he could get to regain his lost influence. Perhaps even the help of God.
But before Cyril could hope to take on the government, he first had to get his own house back in order. The peasants would not have gotten out of hand so quickly if he had been his old self. Even now, if they could glimpse him on his feet, a force still to be reckoned with, they might come to their senses. For, even if the troops had dispersed the riots of the last week, there was still no guarantee that there would not be a repeat of the violence that had, among other things, been the cause of the razing of Cyril’s stable and the subse
quent loss of several fine horses.
“Well? What’s it going to be?” Cyril’s thoughts returned to the problem at hand.
“Such a long distance for your first time out . . .” Karl hesitated.
“I’d rather die doing something than rot in this bed.”
Karl hurriedly crossed himself. He had definitely inherited all his mother’s superstitious tendencies.
“Don’t speak like that, Father.”
“Stop it—please!” said Cyril, his tone filled with sarcasm. “You’d simply love to have your inheritance speeded up.”
“Not that you’ve left me anything to inherit,” Karl snapped.
Cyril grinned. He loved it when his son showed even a hint of backbone. And Karl’s statement was unfortunately too near the truth. Since Cyril’s injury, the always-precarious Vlasenko holdings had begun a serious decline.
“All right, let’s quit this senseless discussion,” ordered Cyril. “Get me that walking contraption. I’m going to the stables. I want to see what those worthless peasants have done. Then I want to see the magistrate because I’m going to have every one of those scoundrels arrested.”
“That’ll mean half the countryside. At least a hundred stormed the estate last night.”
“Then, so be it.”
Cyril inched himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed as Karl brought the walker to him, then put slippers on his feet. As Cyril’s feet touched the floor and he put his weight on them, pain shot up through his legs. He winced slightly but for the most part concentrated on ignoring it. There was going to be pain. The doctor had hinted that Cyril might have to live with pain for the rest of his life, even if he did learn to walk on his own. But Cyril knew better. People thought he was irascible, selfish, and callous, but he was also strong willed. He had given in to depression for a short while after his incapacitation—he was only human—but that had merely been a brief lapse in the tenacity that was his true self.
It took twice as long as it normally would have to reach the stables, and at the end of the trek Cyril was panting and perspiring. He might have dropped a hundred pounds, but he was still a middle-aged, sedentary man who had just suffered a near-fatal injury.
The Russians Collection Page 193