Dinner that afternoon passed quietly. Sergei, Pinegin and Karpenko made polite conversation, in which Misha attempted to follow them. By agreement, neither Tatiana nor Nadia was given any inkling of what was passing.
Indeed, the only mystery that day lay in the whereabouts of Ilya who still, by afternoon, had not returned. Since he had been seen going along the lane towards Russka, however, it was hard to believe that much harm could have come to him. After dinner, Karpenko undertook to amuse the ladies while Sergei retired to his room to make his preparations.
There were a number of letters to write. One was to Olga; another to his mother; another to his wife. He wrote them very calmly and carefully. The one to his wife contained no reproaches. The letter on which he spent the most trouble, strangely, was the one to Alexis.
It was in the late afternoon, as the sun was starting to sink towards the tall watchtower at Russka, that another, even more curious sight was seen by the villagers at Bobrovo.
It was the return of Ilya.
He came, as before, on foot. He was very tired now and his feet were dragging, but he did not seem to mind. And upon his face was a look which, insofar as was possible in a man so overweight, could only be described as religious ecstasy.
For Ilya had found that which he sought.
And it was this wonderful discovery that he shared with Sergei, in the latter’s room that night, long after the sun had gone down.
It was a strange little scene: the one brother tired, shaken, longing only to be left alone with his thoughts until the dawn; the other, entirely unaware of what was going on, his face flushed with excitement, intent upon telling his companion the things that were passing through his mind and which seemed to him so important. ‘Indeed, Seriozha,’ he said, ‘you couldn’t have come at a better time.’
The great crisis Ilya had suffered was easy enough to understand. All summer he had laboured at the plan of his great book. Every waking moment, all his mind, had gone into it. And by August he had produced a blue-print for a new Russia, a modern Russia, with western laws and institutions, and a vigorous economy – ‘maybe like that of the merchants and free farmers of America,’ There was really nothing wrong with Ilya’s plan. It was intelligent, practical, logical: he could see just how Russia could become a free and prosperous like any other nation.
And then the crisis, for Ilya, had begun.
In a way, as Sergei listened to his brother’s urgent explanation, the business was almost comic. He could just see poor Ilya waddling about in his room with furrowed brow, shaking his head at the problems of Russia and the universe. And yet at the same time, he understood and respected Ilya’s problem, which was not really comic at all, but represented the tragedy of his country. And this tragedy was expressed in a single statement.
‘For this was the trouble, Seriozha. The more my plan made sense, the more every instinct inside me said: “This is nonsense. This will never work.” ’ He shook his large head sadly. ‘To lose faith in your own country, the country you love, Seriozha: to feel that because your plan makes sense, that is exactly why it is doomed – that is a terrible thing, my friend.’
It was not uncommon; Sergei had known many thoughtful men, some in the administration, who suffered from exactly this agony of mind. Like many before, no doubt like many after, Ilya the civilized westernizer was being undermined, and mocked, by his own instinctive understanding of his native Russia.
Yet still, all summer, he had pressed on. ‘This was to be my life’s work, Seriozha. I couldn’t just toss it aside. I couldn’t just accept it was an exercise in futility, don’t you see? It was all I had.’ Week after week he had ploughed on, refining, improving and yet no less troubled. Until finally, after a sleepless night, the crisis had come that morning. He could go on no longer.
It was then, in a state of extreme nervous excitement, that Ilya had walked out of the house and gone – as he had not done in years – to the monastery. He himself hardly knew what had led him there. Perhaps a childhood memory. Perhaps an instinctive turning to religion when – as it had for him personally – all else had failed.
He had wandered about at the monastery for several hours without receiving any enlightenment. Then it had occurred to him to go and look at the little icon, the Rublev, which his family had given to the place all those centuries ago. ‘At first,’ he said, ‘I felt nothing. It was just a darkened object.’ But then, slowly, it seemed to Ilya that the little icon had begun to work upon him. He had stayed before it for an hour. Then a second.
‘And then, at last, Seriozha, I knew.’ He took Sergei’s arm excitedly. ‘I knew what was wrong with all my plans. It was exactly what you – you, my dear Seriozha – had told me. I was trying to solve Russia’s problems by using my head, by logic. I should have used my heart.’ He smiled. ‘You have converted me. I am a Slavophile!’
‘And your book?’ Sergei asked.
Ilya smiled. ‘I have no need to travel abroad now,’ he said. ‘The answer to Russia’s problems lies here, in Russia.’ And in a few brief words, he sketched out his new vision. ‘The Church is the key,’ he explained. ‘If Russia’s guiding force is not religion, then her people will be listless. We can have western laws, independent judges, perhaps even parliaments. But only if they grow gradually out of a spiritual renewal. That has to come first.’
‘And Adam Smith?’
‘The laws of economics still operate, but we must organize our farms and our workshops on a communal basis – for the good of the community, not the individual.’
‘It won’t be like the west then, after all.’
‘No. Russia will never be like the west.’
Sergei smiled. He did not know whether his brother was right or wrong, but he was glad to see that, for him at least, the agony seemed to be over. The debate between those who looked to the west and those who saw Russia as different would no doubt go on. Perhaps it would never be resolved.
‘It’s very late,’ he pleaded. ‘Please may I get some rest?’ And he finally persuaded a reluctant Ilya to depart.
There were still a few hours to go before the dawn. For some reason he found himself thinking almost continuously of Olga.
The little glade was very quiet. There was a faint sheen of dew upon the little mounds nearby that caught the early rays of the sun. In the middle distance they could see the little monastery, whose bell had just stopped ringing.
The two men had stripped to their shirts. There was a faint chill in the air which caused Sergei involuntarily to shiver.
Karpenko and Misha, both very pale, had loaded the pistols. Now they handed them to the two men.
And all the time, Misha kept thinking: I know this must be done. It is the only honourable way. And yet it’s insane. It is not real.
There was no sound, for some reason, not even a bird, as the two men paced slowly away from each other. All that could be heard was the faint sound of their feet brushing the short, damp grass.
They turned. Two shots rang out.
And both seconds ran, with a cry, to Sergei.
It was not surprising that the bullet had struck him precisely in the heart. Ever since he was a young man, Pinegin had never been known to miss. Down in the frontier forts, he had an enviable reputation for it: which was why, years ago, Alexis had remarked that Pinegin was a dangerous man.
When Alexis returned to Russka that afternoon and heard the news, he broke down and wept. At his request, Pinegin left at once.
But the most unexpected event took place that evening.
Sergei’s letter to Alexis was a very simple, but moving document. It asked his forgiveness, first, for any hurt he had brought the family. He told Alexis, frankly, how hard it had been for him to forgive the exile in the Urals that his brother had engineered; but thanked him for his restraint in the years since. And it ended with a single request.
For there is one great wrong I have
done in my life – you may not agree
because you f
ollow the legal rules
applying to serfdom – but to me, when
I foolishly gave the game away and
caused Savva Suvorin to be caught
again, I did him a terrible wrong.
You have a clear conscience about it,
I know. But I have not, and there’s
nothing I can do about it.
I know from our mother that he has
offered you a huge sum for his
freedom. If you have any love for
me, Alexis, I beg you to take it and
let the poor fellow go free.
Twice Alexis read this. Twice he noticed that little phrase – ‘You have a clear conscience about it’ – and twice he shook his head sadly as he remembered the bank-notes he had hidden all those years ago.
And so it was that evening that, after struggling uselessly for decades, Savva Suvorin was astonished to be summoned to the manor house and told by Alexis, with a weary smile: ‘I have decided, Suvorin, to accept your offer. You are a free man.’
1855
Sevastopol. At times it seemed to Misha Bobrov that no one would ever get out of it.
We’re marooned, he used to think each day, like men on a desert island.
Yet of all those defending the place, of any man fighting in this whole, insane Crimean War, was there anyone, he wondered, in a stranger position than he? For while I struggle to survive in Sevastopol, he considered, I’m under almost certain sentence of death if I ever get out of it. The absurd irony of the situation almost amused him. At least, he thought, I can thank God I shall leave a son. His boy Nicolai had been born the previous year. That was one happy consolation at any rate.
His sense that he was on a desert island in Sevastopol was not so fanciful. The great fortified port lay in a circle of yellowish hills near the southern tip of the Crimean peninsula – not far from the ancient Tatar capital of Bakhchisarai – and was therefore some hundred and fifty miles out from the Russian mainland into the waters of the warm Black Sea. To the south, before the port’s massive, jutting fortifications, the forces of three major European powers – French, British and Turkish – were encamped. The bombardment from their artillery – superior in every way to anything the Russians possessed – had been pounding at poor Sevastopol for eleven months. Its once graceful squares and broad boulevards were mostly rubble. Only the endless obstinacy and heroism of the simple Russian soldiers had prevented the place from being taken a dozen times.
Those approaching the city from the north crossed the harbour on a pontoon bridge. To the west, across the harbour mouth, the outdated Russian fleet had been sunk to prevent the allied ships getting in. The best use for our ships really, Misha considered, since they’re quite incapable of actually fighting the modern fleets of the French or the English. Beyond the line of sunken hulks, out in the open waters of the Black Sea, the allied ships lay comfortably across the horizon, blockading Sevastopol very effectively.
What a mad business it was, this Crimean War. On the one hand, Misha supposed, it was inevitable. For generations the empire of the Ottoman Turks had been getting weaker, and whenever she could, Russia had taken advantage and expanded her influence in the Black Sea area. Catherine the Great had dreamed of taking ancient Constantinople itself. And if ever Russia could control the Balkan provinces, then she could sail a Russian fleet freely through the narrow strait from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. No wonder then if the other powers of Europe watched with growing suspicion every time Russia looked at the Turks.
Yet the actual cause of the war was not a power play at all. In his chosen role as defender of Orthodoxy, the Tsar had found himself in dispute with the Sultan when the latter had removed some of the privileges of the Orthodox Church within his empire. Troops were sent by Tsar Nicholas into the Turkish province of Moldavia, by the Danube, as a warning. Turkey declared war; and at once the powers of Europe, refusing to believe that the Tsar was not playing a bigger game, entered the war against Russia.
There were in fact three theatres of war. One by the Danube, where the Austrians contained the Russians; one in the Caucasus Mountains, where the Russians took a major stronghold from the Turks; and lastly, the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea, which the allies attacked because it was the home base of the Russian fleet.
It was a messy business. True, there were moments of heroism, such as the insane British Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. But mainly it had been a stalemate, with both sides entrenched upon the peninsula, and typhus carrying off far more, despite the ministrations of Florence Nightingale and others like her on all sides, than did the actual fighting.
Above all, win or lose, the war was a humiliation for Russia. The weapons and techniques of the Russian army were shown to be hopelessly out of date. Her wooden fleet could beat the Turks, but confronted with the French or British, it was a joke. The prestige of the Russian Tsar abroad plummeted. Belief in the Tsar’s autocracy at home, too, was severely shaken.
‘Our country simply doesn’t work,’ people complained. ‘Do you know,’ a senior officer remarked irritably to Misha, ‘the allies out there can get relief supplies from their own countries far faster than we can get them from Moscow. These are modern countries fighting an empire that is still in the Middle Ages!’
The war had started in 1854. By the end of that year, everyone knew, even down to the simplest enlisted peasant, this simple but devastating fact: ‘The Tsar’s empire, our Holy Russia, doesn’t work.’
If I get out of this, Misha had decided, I’m going to resign my commission and go to live in Russka. His father and Ilya were both dead. The estate needed looking after. And anyway, he concluded, I’ve had enough.
It was only after he had been in Sevastopol a week that he encountered Pinegin.
He had almost forgotten about the man, yet suddenly there he was, hardly changed: still a captain, his iron-grey hair hardly any thinner, his weatherbeaten face as calm as ever, and a pipe as usual stuck in his mouth.
‘Ah, Mikhail Alexeevich,’ he said, as if their meeting were the most expected thing in the world. ‘We have a matter to settle, I believe.’
Was it really possible, Misha sometimes wondered, that after all these years Pinegin could really be serious? Indeed, at first he had been inclined to treat the matter as a sort of macabre joke.
But as the months passed he came to realize that for Pinegin, with his rigid code, there was no other course. Misha had called him a coward; therefore they had to fight. The fact that ten years had passed before they happened to meet again was a mere detail, of no importance.
It was out of the question, against all rules of military conduct, to settle such matters during an active engagement. ‘But when this is over, if we both live, then we can settle our difference,’ Pinegin remarked pleasantly. And there was nothing to be done about it. Which means that, excluding a miracle, he’s certainly going to kill me, Misha thought.
They met, quite often, as it happened, during that terrible siege. There, with men dying in their thousands in the beleaguered and disease-ridden port, these two – separated by their strange understanding, Misha thought, like two visiting spirits from another world – continued to meet quietly, politely. The encounters were almost friendly. Once, after a heavy bombardment, with hundreds of casualties, they found themselves helping each other to remove bodies from a burning building. On other occasions, Misha saw Pinegin calmly moving amongst the sick, apparently oblivious to the risk of infection himself. He would quietly write letters for the men, or sit there, smoking his pipe, and keeping them company by the hour. He was a perfect officer, Misha considered, a man without fear.
And yet this was the man who had killed Sergei and would surely kill him too.
So the months had passed. In March that year, Tsar Nicholas had died, and his son Alexander II had come to the throne. There were rumours that the war would end: but although there were negotiations, they failed, and the dismal siege went on. In August, a Russi
an relieving force had been checked by the allies. Three weeks later, the French had taken one of the main redoubts and refused to yield it.
It was on the morning of September 11 that the word finally came. It spread through the port like a whimper; it turned into a mutter, then a huge, excited, restless moan: ‘Retreat.’ They were going to retreat. Suddenly pack horses were being prepared; wounded men loaded into wagons. Confusion was everywhere, in the streets, along the boulevards, as the vast, untidy business got under way by which a weary army makes a last, huge effort to pull itself together sufficiently to remove itself, with some semblance of order, from the scene of conflict.
It was mid-morning when the special units were sent into action. There were several dozen of these and their task was simple but important. They were to blow up all the remaining defences of Sevastopol. ‘If the enemy wants this place, we shall leave him only ruins,’ Misha’s commanding officer remarked. ‘I’ve been asked to supply some officers and men right away. You’re to report to the ninth company at once.’
And so it was that Misha found himself under the command of Captain Pinegin.
It was unpleasant, dangerous work as they moved forward towards their first objective. As they crossed a small square, a shell whistled overhead and exploded on a house a hundred yards behind them, sending a shudder through the ground. In the narrow street they had to negotiate next, there were two unexploded shells lying in the rubble. At last, however, they came to the place. It was a section of wall that had been built up to provide a gun emplacement. To reach it, however, one had to walk along another section which, whether through laziness or stupidity, had not been properly protected. And since a party of French snipers had established themselves in the section of ruined city beyond, it made a hazardous journey. Twice, as they had made their way along, Pinegin had pulled him down as a sniper’s bullet whistled overhead.
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