“Is it on time? … Thank you.”
She opened her umbrella, although it was not raining. There was rain in the air, but nothing falling. Typical Petersburg weather.
It was not for an unmarried girl to pass judgment on a marriage. But if you always had your eyes open, how could you help passing judgment? When people were genuinely happy it was obvious to everybody. Take the Shingarevs, for instance, they were happiness personified, with no jarring notes, just perfect harmony. Their five children seemed not to be a burden but to have quintupled their happiness, given them greater strength. And because of his own five children Andrei Ivanovich’s heart went out to all children, wherever he saw them or heard of them, with the generosity that characterized all his feelings.
And wasn’t Mikhail Dmitrich just as easy to read? A man burning with a steady but melancholy light. His powers could never show themselves fully, and the reason was clear to see: his marriage (or liaison) was like an iron net cast over him.
Cast by whom? By himself. A strong, healthy, natural man—and a half-crazed ether sniffer, with a child, a little girl, by another man. And yet he loved her? He loved her.
How could you judge, when you had never crossed the threshold yourself?
And once you crossed it, it would be too late.
But when you saw people like your brother or Mikhail Dmitrich you had to believe that the world was teeming with others like them. How could anyone commit his whole life simply hoping for the best? Once and for all? To an illusion?
The rain had held off. With folded umbrella, handbag over wrist, she walked along the platform.
“Hoping for the best” is the ultimate in pusillanimity. At least, to somebody whose feelings are as firmly under control as the letters in her handwriting.
She had been lucky, found the right niche in life: working in the best Russian library, for the best Russian readers—Duma deputies, journalists, writers, scholars, engineers. The best possible position for a woman—working quietly for those who lead.
But it is easier to keep your end up in a forest, in the desert, in a cave, anywhere at all, than in the midst of completely congenial people. They ask your advice, thank you profusely, take catalogue cards from your hands, and a flicker of compassion in their eyes says that they are passing sentence on you. Perhaps, though, there is nothing in it, perhaps you only imagine that they are secretly calculating—twenty-four! twenty-five! twenty-six!—like so many muffled hammerblows in your breast! And there is no one you can tell with a stamp of the foot: It’s my choice not to get married! Mind your own business!
Even with her brother this was a line not to be crossed: the subject was never mentioned out loud. Even with her brother. She could not grasp his hand and say help me, brother, tell me I’m right, strengthen my resolve! Don’t others hold out under siege?
The train was coming. White steam stood out boldly against the grayness of the day. A whistle signaled its approach. The strong, pliant rails groaned happily in anticipation of the fearsome load they were to bear. However long you waited, however many guesses you made, you always ended half running to the carriage you wanted. A quick look at every window as it passes: Ah, there he is, there he is! In the corridor, hands raised and pressed against the plate glass. He’s seen me! He’s laughing! His beard looks longer and thicker. He’s tanned and weather-beaten, that’s no Petersburg complexion.
Is he alone? Looks like it. Good, good!
People were slow leaving the carriage. Baskets of some sort, and a big bottle in a wicker case, came out first.
None of that for my brother! Just a little case in his left hand, his right free to salute, he was as erect as always, his movements quick and light. They kissed. She slid down from his prickly beard, but was not released. An arm and a suitcase enwrapped her.
Let me look at you, brother! It’s been three whole years, you know! Time and again you could have been killed or wounded. You weren’t wounded, though, were you? You weren’t telling a lie?
“Never seriously, honestly. A scratch or two, nothing important.”
As quick as ever. But he seemed to have grown a sort of protective covering. Browned and case-hardened by the war.
“Will you always be like that?”
“Till I’m a general,” he said, laughing. “Which means for quite a while.” He stroked her hat, her temple, her cheek, her shoulder.
It was just as she had expected—from the moment he stepped off the train no awkwardness, no strangeness. It was as though they saw each other frequently. They walked arm in arm, close together.
“So how’s Nanny? Still hasn’t mastered the forty-two generations in Matthew, Chapter 1? Still looks at the book and recites from memory?”
“Yes, only she has to wear glasses now. She can answer the telephone herself as well. Or solemnly ask for the number her young mistress wants. She’s baked you some flat cakes this morning. But what about you? And how are things in Moscow?” With an effort: “How’s Alina?”
“I’m here for a few days.”
“What’s the golden hilt mean, Georgi? What’s this inscription? ‘For bravery’?”
“I got a George Cross.”
Her brother was the same as ever. Good, we’ve dealt with Nanny, we’ve dealt with the flat cakes, we can’t hang around all day, it’s Monday, remember. Guchkov’s letter to Alekseev—have you heard about it?
“Long ago! All Petersburg’s reading it. Copies of things like that are circulated through our library. There’s Chelnokov’s letter to Rodzyanko and …”
“Through the library? Well, I never! Do they have any effect?”
“Indeed they do! People read them till they fall apart. There are whole manuscripts—about the food crisis, about the war … aperçus of all sorts … whichever institution they find their way into makes extra copies—typewritten, cyclostyled, hectographed. Some enthusiasts copy them by hand. Nobody gives a hoot for the censor nowadays.”
He was astonished. He shook his head.
In the stir and bustle of the station, looking at his chastely pretty, radiant sister, whose gathered brown hat worn to one side reached his nose, he suddenly felt the joy of arrival! Freedom to move! To do what he wished with himself! There would be so much to see in those few days! But there was one thing he must make sure of now.
“Where is the telephone booth?”
He must make his decisions there, at the station, so that he could start off in the right direction.
He went into the booth and made his call.
“Can I speak to Aleksandr Ivanovich? … What about later today? Won’t be here tomorrow either? … But he usually is here? Thank you.”
He looked thoughtful.
“No, Vera dear, I won’t be going home right now.” He narrowed his gray eyes thoughtfully. “I’ve been saddled with a few jobs to do. At the General Staff. Anyway, you probably have to go back to work.”
When didn’t she? She’d had difficulty slipping away even for this.
“I’ll be there for dinner. What time is that?”
“And what about this evening? Still following your own program? Or can you follow mine for once?”
“What do you have in mind?”
Eyeing her brother, she answered in her usual quiet, unassuming way. “You said you wanted to meet people. Well, I told Andrei Ivanovich Shingarev you were coming. And he said he’d like to see you. He’s asked us over.”
Georgi was surprised. “Shingarev?” he said doubtfully. “You mean the famous Kadet? The Duma deputy?”
The words tumbled out, driven by his impatient mind. His sister, in contrast, was calmly insistent. “Calling Shingarev a Kadet tells you nothing about him. He’s the only one of his kind in Russia. Our miracle man. And the darling of Petersburg.”
She laid a dark kid-gloved hand on the lapel of his greatcoat, so lightly that she seemed scarcely to touch it. “You’ll find he isn’t really a politician at all. He’s a man modeled on all the finest people in Russian litera
ture.”
“Shingarev?” Her brother searched his memory. “Is he the one who opposed the military budget before the war?”
“Well, things are quite different now. In fact, he’s now chairman of the Duma’s Military Commission. And a member of the Special Defense Conference. He very much wants to keep up with what’s happening at the front.”
“Good … Shall we have a cup of coffee?”
They went into the buffet and sat down.
“You know that sort of passionate idealist? When he was still little more than a boy he began to have guilt feelings toward the common people. He took a brilliant degree in science and they wanted to keep him on in the Botany Department, but he left to look for the ‘true meaning of life.’ Then he took a degree in medicine, thinking that doctors would best be able to draw the people and the intelligentsia together. You know how uncompromising some intellectuals are: neither science nor art nor politics is worthwhile unless it serves the people.”
A long downward stare questioned her. Uncompromising? Why should they compromise? And was an army officer’s life any different?
“He practiced medicine without even a local government salary. He caught diphtheria from a child and nearly died. He collected statistics and wrote The Dying Village—a terrifying book. There were two printings in 1901, and people still ask for it. Shall I tell you what he is? He’s the common people’s champion. He isn’t typical of any party in Russia, but there are a few people like him in all parties.”
“Is that right?” Georgi gave a little laugh. “And there I was, thinking you wanted to convert me to the Kadet Party.”
She laughed and looked down guiltily. Every hair was taut and in place on her sleek head.
“D’you know, even the nationalists thought so well of Shingarev that they withdrew their own candidate for the chairmanship of the Military Commission and made way for him. The simple fact is, you see, that he loves Russia and he loves people, and everybody, even in the Duma, feels that. Enemies of the Kadets call Milyukov ‘Papa’ and Shingarev ‘Mama’: the one has logic, the other feeling and sincerity, and he easily carries conviction when even Milyukov can’t. He has this way with him … such a smile … He’s so easily moved, even by a book, Dickens say … He says, ‘I know it’s silly to grieve over the sad parts in a book, but somehow …’ ”
Her brother nodded. “Ah, Dickens. You spent half your childhood crying into Dickens yourself.” He looked at her, beaming.
He thought over what she had said, and seemed inclined to agree. “What does he want with me, though? How old is he, by the way?”
“I can tell you exactly. Forty-seven.”
“Well, since he’s older than me I’ll go.”
“To tell the truth, he knows about you. He knows you’re out of favor, that you’ve suffered for the truth.”
“Well, well. Did you tell him?”
“He knew about it anyway.”
So all right, in Guchkov’s absence seeing Shingarev will do very well. I’ll be making a start on Petersburg anyhow. Must sniff more than one breeze. It will be all to the good.
“A tête-à-tête? Or is it a party?”
“A party on Monday? His motto is: Don’t live better than the people. There are never any servants. There may be open sandwiches—black bread, not wheaten bread. And maybe potatoes.”
“Will you come with me?”
“I’m invited.”
“Vera, my dear, why are we sitting here? Let’s go. I’ll walk you to work. It’s on my way, and you can tell me more. I want to know more about the Kadets.”
On Znamenskaya Square his heart missed a beat. This too was part of him, not to be rejected. They turned onto the Nevsky. The straightness of it! The length of it! Even on a gloomy day under a slate-gray sky. Dim in the distance, the Admiralty spire was like a reward at the end of a long journey.
Looking far and straight into the distance, Vorotyntsev saw opening up before him a new field of action.
[19]
(SOCIETY, THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE TSAR IN 1915)
From the very first days of the war the Kadets found themselves in an unforeseen and complex situation. Within hours, not days, of general mobilization the mood of the people as a whole and even that of the educated classes showed the power of that very same “patriotism” which until then had served as a word of abuse, and which they had ceased to think of as a real phenomenon. It proved impossible from the start to oppose this war, as they had opposed the war with Japan. And it was suddenly impossible to go on reviling the government as they always had. It had suddenly become popular! All the Kadet leaders could produce was this exhortation:
Let internal dissensions be forgotten. Let the union of Tsar and people grow ever stronger!
No one should suppose that the Kadets had suddenly taken a liking to the Tsar. A shrewd long-term calculation was taking shape in their minds: By entering the war in alliance with Britain and France, the Russian Emperor had put himself in the hands of the great Western democracies, and victory when it came would be not that of the Tsar but of free Russian society. The Kadets quite quickly saw the uses of patriotism and even acquired a taste for it: not in the primitive, savage sense of love for Russia as the dwelling place of the Russian spirit, but in the sense of love for a state solidly welded together, standing firmly on its feet, a country worth living in and worth ruling over when they came into their inheritance.
Let us put aside our disagreements. Let us maintain Russia’s position in the ranks of the world powers.
Milyukov, no genius, but a stubborn purveyor of his half-solutions, would be trotting out the same old stuff all through the war:
Constantinople, and a sufficient part of the adjacent littoral, the hinterland … The keys to the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles … Oleg’s shield on the gates of the Imperial City. These are dreams cherished by the Russian people throughout its existence.
To which must be added:
The defense of culture and spiritual values against the barbaric onslaught of German militarism. This is a war to abolish all war.
Milyukov and Puryshkevich had shaken hands demonstratively in the Duma!
What sort of situation had the Kadets landed themselves in with this unqualified support of their fatherland’s hated regime? Should they just hang on to the government’s coattails? Unthinkable! They had never been used to any such role! So they had only one recourse—to outdo the government in patriotism and even in the actual struggle against German militarism. And even to squeeze the government out of many activities relevant to the war (though not, of course, the conduct of military operations) and in doing so seize as many key positions as possible.
They were helped in the scramble for control of organizations contributing to the war effort by the Union of Zemstvos and the newly formed Union of Towns (the two shortly merged under the name of Zemgor). In the atmosphere of crisis during the early days of the war they were permitted by the Tsar to help sick and wounded soldiers at the state’s expense, and were bound by no formal restrictions in the expenditure of government money—no requirement to submit estimates or accounts, no limitations on numbers of staff or on salary scales—because their civic pride would not allow them to accept state supervision. There was nothing to stop them from paying their own staff three or four times the salary of state officials in the same grade. And since employment in the Unions also conferred exemption from military service, the number of those so employed grew rapidly and unchecked. The Unions further chose those areas of activity in which they could make the best showing and win most public approval, whereas the Treasury had the unprofitable task of covering all areas. The government, satisfied with this measure of support from educated society, did not venture to interfere.
Nor did this exhaust opportunities for the Kadets to undermine the government’s prestige. They tried, for instance, with considerable success, to make a mockery of prohibition. At the beginning of the war, in an effort to create a healthier atmosph
ere, the Emperor had acted to prohibit the sale of vodka (controlled by a state monopoly) in Russia. This had earned the government the approval of the people as a whole. The Kadets then publicly suggested that the government should ban the sale of all alcoholic drinks, even wine with a low alcoholic content, by private traders. Their calculation was that if the government refused it would make the ban on vodka look hypocritical and show that it was out to increase its revenues by encouraging excessive consumption of other drinks. The government took the bait, and general prohibition was proclaimed. The result was an absurd situation, which became more and more obvious as the months went by: the sale of strong drink was simply driven underground, causing widespread resentment.
Whenever the Kadets were presented with opportunities to maneuver in this way, at the center or at the local level, they never failed to grasp them.
In spite of this, the enforced loyalty of the Kadets was for several months quite astonishing. True, it was made easier by the absence of a militant student or socialist movement in the country. Everyone was keeping quiet, with the sole exception of the Bolshevik group in the Duma. When they were tried in February 1915 (on quite trivial charges: drafting proclamations—"Sweep Tsarist autocracy from the face of the earth! Seize it by the throat and plant a knee on its chest!” and “We have no enemies beyond our own frontiers”—insisting that a German victory would be a blessing for Russia, using codes, forging passports, and planning armed uprisings), the Kadets refrained from paying their standing debt to the left and did not speak up for the accused deputies.
The normal rules of human intercourse gave them the right to expect some concessions from the regime in return for such a long spell of loyalty: extension of the Duma’s powers, legislation for the benefit of the Jews, an amnesty for revolutionaries. But neither amnesty nor benevolent legislation was forthcoming. The regime did not reward the Kadets for their heroism.
Dissension, distrust, suspicion, and trickery had driven such a deep wedge between educated Russian society and the Russian government, and they were on such bad terms when they entered the war, that although both sides now desired victory each suspected the other of defeatism.
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