Russka

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Tatiana supposed she must expect such treatment. But the pain was very great. Wisely, however, she said nothing. What was there to be gained? He would deny it and then, more hurtful still, there would be a lie between them which would be even more humiliating.

  So the weeks passed. She tried to shut the Frenchwoman out of her mind, yet thought of little else. And Alexander, for his part, tried to be kind to her. For it was not her fault if she did not make him happy: she was a good wife and, despite the pain he guessed he caused her, never complained. No, he had nothing to reproach her with. And because he knew all this in his head, it did not even occur to him that secretly, in his heart, he blamed her for everything.

  It was in the autumn of 1787 that two new circumstances arose in Tatiana’s life. The first was her discovery that she was pregnant. This brought her only joy. Surely it will bring Alexander closer to me, she thought.

  The second, however, was a puzzle. For she began to sense there was something else going on in Alexander’s life – something secret – about which she knew nothing. The most obvious sign was his unexplained absences.

  Several times during the previous months he had gone off in the evenings on unexplained business. Once he had done so late at night – but at a time when she knew for certain that Adelaide de Ronville was out of the city. Could it possibly be that Alexander had another – a second – mistress?

  Then in September, just after she told him she was pregnant, he abruptly went to Moscow for two weeks, giving her an explanation which was strangely vague. And Adelaide was in St Petersburg.

  So it must be another woman then – but who?

  It would have surprised Tatiana very much if she had known the real truth: and still more had she understood that the person Alexander was going to see was both her greatest friend – and also her enemy.

  The history of the Freemasons in Russia is, by its nature, shrouded in darkness. Its records were nearly all hidden or destroyed. Yet, about its general shape, a good deal is known.

  There were many Masons in St Petersburg. The English lodges were especially popular. After all, the English were fashionable: every rich man wanted an English thoroughbred; every lady an English dog; and the smart place for a fellow like Bobrov to be seen was the English Club. Besides, English Freemasonry reflected the character of that easy-going country. It gave no trouble. Non-political, not too mystical, concerned with philanthrophy, the English lodges were patronized by foreigners and Russians alike.

  When, therefore, back in 1782 some of Bobrov’s English friends had invited him to join, he had accepted gladly.

  And he would probably never have given it another thought, but for a chance encounter in Moscow, a year later. An old acquaintance from his student days, discovering that he was in Moscow, had assured him: ‘But, my dear fellow, you must meet some of the Masonic circle here – they’re the best people in society.’ And so it was, upon his next visit to the old capital, that Alexander Bobrov encountered two highly significant people: the prince and the professor.

  The first was a rich aristocrat and patron of the arts; the other a middle-aged, balding, rather abstracted figure who was head of the Moscow University Press. Indeed, one would almost have called Novikov nondescript had it not been for a certain strange, though kindly light in his pale blue eyes. This was the man Alexander liked to call the professor.

  It was the professor with whom he had had his secret rendezvous, that snowy December night, in the pink house beyond the Fontanka Canal; it was the professor who had become his mentor and led him into the very different and secret world of higher Masonry; and it was the professor whom, ever since they met, Alexander always thought of in the same way: as the voice of his conscience.

  There were several reasons why Alexander should have become fascinated by his new friends in Moscow. They were enlightened and educated – the centre of the University circle. The prince and his friends were the cream of the capital’s aristocratic society: that appealed to Alexander’s vanity. And also, though he scarcely realized it himself, the secret hierarchy of higher Masonry reminded him of the bureaucratic ladder – and Bobrov was one of those men who have only to see a ladder to want to climb it.

  For three years, making numerous visits to the professor in Moscow, and corresponding by letter, Alexander had studied as his mentor led him through the first of the higher degrees of Masonry – first to the rank of Scottish Knight, then to Theoretical Brother. ‘Our mystical secrets go back to the very dawn of Christianity,’ the professor explained. ‘To ordinary Masons, the secret signs we use – the hieroglyphs – are mere playthings. These men do good works, which are admirable, but they understand little. The true meaning is revealed only to those who are worthy.’

  There was something very pure about the quiet scholar that Alexander found impressive. Indeed, at first he had hesitated to engage in higher Masonry because he had heard rumours that these inner orders practised alchemy and magical arts. But there was nothing like that with the professor. ‘The way I shall lead you,’ he promised, ‘lies along a pure and Christian path. Our only motive is a burning desire to serve God and our blessed Russia.’

  The professor worked tirelessly. Besides his official duties at the University Press, it was he who ran the private Freemason’s Press which turned out books and pamphlets for the membership. Dozens of bookshops distributed these in the main cities. ‘We spread our gospel,’ the professor would say happily.

  And in many ways, Alexander realized, the Masonic Brotherhood was like a secret Church. For ever since Peter the Great had made Russia a secular state, the ancient prestige of the Orthodox Church had declined. Peter had abolished the Patriarch; Catherine had taken all the Church lands and put them under state control. Though the peasants still followed the Church, and were often Raskolniki – for the enlightened Catherine tolerated these old Schismatics with polite amusement – for men of Bobrov’s class it was different. Few of his friends took the Church seriously, yet they often felt something was missing from their lives, so it was not surprising that they were sometimes attracted to the religious and mystical atmosphere of the Masonic Brotherhood. It salved their consciences, and convinced them that they were truly doing good.

  And he himself, he had to admit, was drawn to the professor’s Christian piety. Though they only met from time to time, he often felt the older man’s influence upon him. It was not strong enough to divert him from his worldly plans; yet, there was no denying it, he felt it like a reproach. Perhaps, he acknowledged, in this matter too I am gambling: that if I fail to win the world, I shall still, through the professor, save my soul.

  Yet during his studies, Alexander was also conscious of something else – an inner, organizing force at work in the Brotherhood which for some reason was hidden from him. Two years passed, however, before one day in the autumn of 1786 the professor said to him: ‘I think it is time for you to take another step.’ And he gave him a certain little book and said: ‘Take it and read it through. Then, if you wish to become one of our number, make your application to me.’ And thus Alexander finally discovered the inner circle. ‘We call ourselves the followers of the Rosy Cross,’ the professor said.

  The Rosicrucians: the secret elect. There were only about sixty of them in all Russia, and it was a tribute to his talents that they had chosen Alexander to be of their number. Though this secret circle controlled most of their activities, ordinary Masons did not know they even existed. ‘They know us, but not our true identity,’ the professor explained, ‘in order that we may protect our mission from ignorant eyes.’ Indeed, their secrecy was such that, while every Freemason had a secret name, the Rosicrucians amongst themselves had yet another set of coded identities. And so when the professor, that cold December night in 1786, had summoned Alexander to his first Rosicrucian meeting at the pink house beyond the Fontanka Canal, he had signed his message not with his Knights Templar name – eq. ab ancora – that was used in the ordinary Masonic lodges, but by his secret Rosic
rucian name: Colovion.

  For Alexander, that first meeting of the inner circle had been a powerful revelation. It was a small group – the prince and the professor from Moscow, himself and one other from St Petersburg. And for the first time, the professor began to show him the real purpose of the Brotherhood. ‘We seek no less than to create a new and moral order in society,’ he declared. ‘We shall lead it forward.’

  ‘You mean all Russia?’ He knew that there were Masons in high places in the government.

  ‘Not only Russia, my young friend. In time, the whole world,’ the older man said seriously. And though he did not elaborate, Alexander had a sense that the Rosicrucian network extended far indeed. Even so, he was awestruck by what the prince then added. ‘I can also tell you that an approach is being made to the Grand Duke Paul, to ask him to be our secret patron.’ He smiled. ‘And I am hopeful that he will accept.’

  The heir to the throne! He might not particularly like that strange man, but Alexander could see at once the huge possibilities if Paul were their patron.

  We Rosicrucians could finish up ruling Russia, Alexander thought excitedly. How strange that, on the very day when he had reluctantly committed himself to Tatiana, and given up hope of entering Catherine’s inner circle, this new possibility should have opened up before him. He smiled to himself. Perhaps Bobrov the gambler was being saved by fate for even greater purposes.

  There was just one problem. The professor was not satisfied with him.

  ‘I find in you a coldness, a lack of fervour,’ he had sometimes complained when Bobrov studied with him. He had been delighted when Alexander told him he was to marry. ‘Ah, that is good, my friend. It will open your heart.’ But less than a year later he wrote:

  I cannot forbear to mention, dear brother,

  certain news that has reached me. It is widely

  known in St Petersburg, I am told, that despite

  your recent marriage, you neglect your wife and

  continue your affair with a certain lady.

  I must inform you that your membership of our

  order places burdens upon you; and this conduct

  is not acceptable. Look into your heart, I beg

  you, and decide what you must do.

  Though Alexander dutifully burned this letter, as was the rule with all Rosicrucian correspondence, he still seemed to see it before him every day. He knew the professor was right. His conscience troubled him. Yet he could not give her up.

  A message came from a visiting Mason from Moscow. ‘The professor told me to tell you he is praying for you.’ It did no good. His next letter was noticeably cool. And when Alexander met him in Moscow later that year, his mentor was very angry.

  ‘The members of our inner order must be men of good conscience, Brother Alexander. We expect you to follow the example of Grand Duke Paul, who is devoted to his wife, not that,’ and now his pale eyes suddenly blazed, ‘of the profligate and wicked court of his mother the empress!’ Then more gently he added: ‘Marriage is not always easy, Alexander, but all of us count on you to mend your ways.’

  And Alexander, rather shaken by the professor’s vehemence, told him he would try to reform. At the time, he even meant it. Little as Tatiana knows it, the professor is her greatest friend, he thought.

  There was, however, another cause of friction between Alexander and Tatiana, which the professor could certainly do nothing about. This was the issue of money.

  It had come up so gradually that he could hardly say when it began. At first it had been an occasional enquiry about the estates, or the household expenses, which he took to be childish curiosity. Yet after a little while, he began to notice that there was a certain quiet persistency in her questions.

  ‘Do you know how many servants we have, Alexander?’ she had asked after they had been married three months. He had no idea, and no interest in finding out. Sixty? Eighty? ‘And how much do they cost?’ she had gone on.

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied shortly.

  In a way, this was true. For though merchants and foreigners hired their servants at great expense, Russian noblemen just brought in serfs from their estates. A hundred was nothing. The women worked in the kitchens or elsewhere out of sight; the men dressed in livery like lackeys. One might see a footman who had just pulled his livery coat on over his peasant’s smock and failed to do up the buttons; none of them was really presentable; but things were the same in most of the houses he knew. Alexander did not even know where they all lived. In the basements he supposed.

  ‘But they eat food,’ Tatiana reminded him. ‘What does that cost?’

  How the devil did he know? Food came. It was eaten. The Russka estate brought some cash payments and the rest in kind. Cartloads of provisions would arrive at the St Petersburg house – and immediately disappear. The peasants on the Riazan estate paid him in barschchina labour: his steward sold the grain and sent him the proceeds. He knew he spent it all, but had no idea how.

  Sometimes these questions amused him. But after a time they began to annoy him. How much did the mountains of wood for the stoves cost? Why did they have so many carriages they never used? Shouldn’t they go and inspect their estates?

  ‘Your father gave us plenty of money. We’ve no need to worry,’ he would assure her.

  Indeed, Tatiana’s father had discovered Alexander’s financial position soon after the marriage, and although Tatiana’s dowry had been ample to pay all his debts and leave them an estate to spare, the Baltic nobleman had not been best pleased, and the relationship between him and Alexander was cool thereafter.

  So Alexander could not help suspecting that her father’s influence was at work when, one day just before she discovered she was pregnant, she had astounded him by remarking: ‘Don’t you think, Alexander, that you should give me some accounting of how you have spent my dowry?’

  It was a calculated insult! She was his wife, and barely seventeen years old to boot. What impertinence! Furiously he had burst out: ‘You damned foreigners! You Germans – the Dutch and English are just the same – you count every kopek. Why,’ he searched for an insult, ‘you’re like so many Jews!’ But he could see that, despite the fact that she submissively bowed her head, she was not satisfied.

  Besides, there was something he could not tell her.

  The costs of the Masonic Press were considerable. The publishing programme was ambitious. And, it had to be admitted, the professor was sometimes a little vague about keeping accurate accounts. Already, at the time of his marriage and in addition to the contributions to the Brotherhood, Alexander had been asked to help support the Press. How could he refuse, when men like the prince were contributing handsomely? Indeed, he had been amazed to discover that some students of higher Masonry were prepared to consecrate almost their entire fortunes to the cause. He certainly did not want to lose face before his new friends. So it had been with some satisfaction that, soon after his marriage, he had announced: ‘I shall be able to make a contribution.’

  Tatiana would have been surprised indeed to know, when Alexander left for Moscow just after she became pregnant, that he was going to see the professor at his estate; that he was hoping for a reconciliation with his mentor; and that with him he was taking a further contribution, which amounted to nearly a fifth of her dowry. Had she known it, she might indeed have concluded that, if the professor was her friend, he was also her enemy.

  1789

  It was on a raw, dull day in March in that year so fateful in the history of the world, when the ice on the Neva was still solid, that Alexander Bobrov the gambler struck a last bargain with God. It was not the deal he had wanted; but it seemed to be the best he could get at the time.

  The morning was grey: a faint wind, on its way westwards from the icy waters of Siberia, hissed through the huge open squares of St Petersburg. In the big salon of their house, Alexander was facing his wife. He had not returned home until dawn that morning, but they were not speaking of that. He was sitting, and Tatiana
was standing, to ease her back: for she was eight months pregnant with their second child. And he was glowering at her.

  Damn her! Didn’t she trust him? How dare she defy him?

  She trembled for a moment, but did not reply. Damn her! Damn her a thousand times. Or was she taunting him deliberately, because of Adelaide?

  Tatiana stood quite still, holding on to the back of a chair for support. If she did not speak for a moment, it was because she was having to prepare herself, and she was nervous. Why did all these things have to come to a head when she was so pregnant?

  Did he love her? It was not only the Frenchwoman: there were those unexplained disappearances to Moscow and these mysterious evenings out in St Petersburg. What was she to make of it?

  Strangely, she did not hate Adelaide de Ronville. Sometimes she would meet her rival at Countess Turova’s. The Frenchwoman was always polite and never made the faintest reference to her relationship with Alexander. Tatiana supposed she should be grateful for that and even admired the other woman’s poise. Madame de Ronville did not even try to patronize her. She will be old soon, Tatiana had told herself at first. It will pass. Indeed, she even thought she could guess how the other woman felt. We’re both his mistresses, after all, she realized, but I am young and have his children. It must be hard for her.

  She could not help loving Alexander: perhaps it was his combination of strength and weakness that made her do so. Even his vanity, strangely, pleased her. For she understood him better than he realized. Large though his talents were, she saw that his ambition was always a step ahead of them, leaving him never satisfied, never secure. He loves her, but he will need me, even if he only exploits me now, she told herself.

  But on one subject she could not give way.

  Alexander was short of money again. It was not a crisis, he was not ruined; but he had started to incur debts and was short of cash. Naturally, therefore, he had asked Tatiana to apply to her father. She was the heiress, after all. Where had the money gone? On their usual, lavish lifestyle, he supposed. And also, of course, to the Rosicrucians.