Russka (119 page)

So here he was. Quite a little crowd – five or six households – had gathered round as soon as he got up to address them; others were coming; and since, despite going over the thing a thousand times in his head, he could never decide how to begin, he found himself unconsciously falling back on the biblical formula he knew they would understand.

‘My friends,’ he began, ‘I bring you good news.’

They listened carefully as he outlined to them the many problems of their lives. When he spoke of their heavy repayments, there were murmurs of assent. When he spoke of the need to improve the yields on their ploughlands and stop the rape of the woodlands, there were nods of approval. When he apologized for the part his own family had played in their miserable lives, there were looks of surprise, several grins, and general laughter when a friendly voice cried: ‘We’d forgive you all, Nicolai Mikhailovich, if you’d just let us string the body of your old grandfather up!’ Which was followed by an even louder laugh when someone else called out: ‘If you want your serfs back, young sir, we’ll surely let you have Savva Suvorin!’ And when Nicolai calmly announced that they ought to have all the land, including everything his father still owned, there was a cheerful roar of approval. ‘So when’s he going to give it to us?’ a woman called out.

And then Nicolai came to his extraordinary message.

‘My father will not help you, my friends,’ he declared. ‘None of the landowners will. They are parasites – a useless burden from a former age.’ Now that he was getting into his stride, Nicolai became quite carried away.

‘My dear friends,’ he cried out, ‘we are entering a new age. An
age of freedom. And it is in your hands – this very day – to bring the new age to pass. The land belongs to the people. Take, then, what is rightfully yours! We are not alone. I can tell you that all over Russia, at this very moment, the people in the villages are rising up against the oppressors. Now is the time, therefore. Follow me – and we shall take the Bobrov estate. Take it all – it is yours!’

He had done it.

Few events in Russian history have been more curious than the occurrences of the summer of 1874.

Nicolai and his friend were not alone: their strange mission amongst the peasants was being repeated in other villages all over Russia, in the movement known to Russian history as The Going to the People.

The young people – both men and women – were nearly all students. Some had studied abroad. About half were the children of landowners or high officials; the rest came from families of merchants, priests or minor bureaucrats. Their politics followed the ideas of those who believed, like the French philosopher Fourier, that the peasant commune in the countryside was the best kind of natural socialism. ‘Indeed,’ many claimed, ‘Russia’s very backwardness is her salvation. For she is scarcely corrupted by the evil of bourgeois capitalism at all. She can move straight from feudalism to socialism, thanks to the natural communism of the village.’ And though few of them knew much of peasant life at close quarters, they believed that after working in the villages and gaining the peasants’ confidence, they had only to give the word for a natural revolution to take place. ‘The peasants will rise and establish a new and simple order where the whole empire of Russia will be freely shared amongst the peasant brotherhood,’ they told themselves.

It was not surprising that Nicolai was drawn to this movement. Many of his most idealistic friends were volunteering. What was amazing was that, at first, the authorities did not realize what was happening. Some two and a half thousand students quietly slipped out into hundreds of villages that summer: some to their own or nearby estates; many others across the Volga or to the old Cossack lands by the River Don. Even now, some of these last were telling the Cossack peasants: ‘The time of Pugachev, and of Stenka
Razin, has come again.’ And out of this, they all hoped, a new world would be born.

Nicolai looked at the faces before him. He had done it. At last, after all these months of preparation, the die was cast.

The way had been hard: how could it be otherwise? He had never minded the sacrifice of his own inheritance – he cared nothing for that – but his parents were going to be dispossessed. And it will destroy them, he thought. Whatever their faults, he still loved them. How close, when they took the walk along the ridge, he had come to explaining everything to his father. Until he had seen the ruined woodlands and decided that Misha was past saving. And he supposed it was better he had kept silent: his father would never have understood. Anyway, he told himself, soon nobody will have estates. His parents’ way of life was finished. At least, after the revolution, he thought, I’ll be there to show them the way.

For this was it. The word had been spoken and there was no going back. It was the revolution. And now that it had finally begun, he felt a sense of exaltation. Flushed and excited, he waited for the villagers to respond. ‘Well,’ he called, ‘are you with me?’

And nobody moved. There was absolute silence. They just gazed at him. Had he convinced them? It was impossible to say. What was in their minds? He suddenly realized he had no idea. Wasn’t anyone going to say anything?

It was only after a long pause that, at last, a small, black-bearded man stepped forward. He looked up at Nicolai with suspicion. Then he asked his question.

‘Are you saying, young sir, that the Tsar has given us the rest of the land?’

Nicolai stared at him. The Tsar?

‘No,’ he replied truthfully. ‘It’s yours to take.’

‘Ah.’ The man nodded, as though his suspicions had been confirmed. ‘Well then,’ he stepped back, ‘the Tsar has not given.’ And there was a sympathetic murmur which said, more plainly than any words: ‘This young fellow doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’

Nicolai felt himself go rather pale. Was this the revolution – the spontaneous uprising of the commune? What had gone wrong? Had his arguments been defective in some way? He scanned their
faces for a sign. But they continued to watch him placidly, as though curious to see what this young eccentric might do next. He glanced questioningly at Popov, who only shrugged. Almost a minute passed, awkwardly, until some of the villagers started to turn away. ‘I shall speak again tomorrow,’ he announced, with what he hoped was a calm smile, and got down off his stool.

In front of him now was a group of about ten people, including the Romanovs. Nicolai wondered what to do next. It seemed, however, that his words had had some effect upon Timofei Romanov, for the peasant was looking agitated and was clearly anxious to speak.

‘Have I got it right, Nicolai Mikhailovich,’ he asked with a worried frown, ‘that you want your father to lose his land?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what’s got into all the young people nowadays. My own son is doing the very same thing to me. Why is it?’

‘But you don’t understand,’ Nicolai protested. ‘The land would go to the commune so that there would be plenty for everyone. It’s what you’ve always wanted.’

‘And this is to happen all over Russia?’

‘Yes. Right now.’

Timofei shook his head again. ‘That is terrible,’ he said. ‘There will be bloodshed.’ And seeing Nicolai look confused, he took him by the arm. ‘I expect you mean well, Nicolai Mikhailovich,’ he explained kindly. ‘And one day, when God decides, we shall be given all the land, just as you say.’ He smiled. ‘Yes, it will all be so natural. The Tsar will see that we have need, and he will give. Perhaps even in my poor lifetime. And then he will say to me: “Timofei, the land is yours.” And I shall say, “I thank Your Highness.” And that will be all.’ He looked at Nicolai earnestly now. ‘But we must be patient, Nicolai Mikhailovich. That is God’s will, and it is our Russian way. We must suffer and be patient, until the Tsar decides the day has come.’ And satisfied that he had said all that could possibly be said, he let go of Nicolai’s arm with a friendly pat.

Nicolai sighed. If his speech had failed to enlighten the older man, perhaps he had done better with his own generation. He turned to young Boris. ‘Well, Boris, what do you think?’

Boris looked thoughtful. The motives of this young nobleman
were a mystery to him. But then, what sort of madman deliberately went to work in the fields when he could be sitting comfortably in the manor house? Boris knew the size of the Bobrov estate though, and he knew how to calculate.

‘If we shared out all your father’s land,’ he estimated carefully, ‘then I’d have enough to take on two, maybe three, hired labourers of my own.’ He grinned. ‘Why, a few years like that, a few good harvests, and I could even get rich.’ He nodded. ‘If that’s the revolution, Nicolai Mikhailovich, then I’m all for it – if you and your friends can really pull it off.’

Nicolai gazed at him in astonishment. Was this all the young fellow had in mind – personal gain and the exploitation of others? What had become of the spontaneous revolution? ‘I’m afraid,’ he said sadly, ‘that wasn’t quite what I meant.’

As Nicolai and Popov walked up the slope to the manor, both were lost in their own thoughts. Perhaps, Nicolai considered, he had just expected things to happen too soon. A few more speeches, a few more days, weeks, even months, and the message would begin to get through. He would try again tomorrow, and the next day. He’d be patient.

It was Popov who finally broke the silence.

‘We should have told them the Tsar was giving them the land,’ he said gloomily. ‘I could even have forged a proclamation.’

‘But that would be against everything we stand for,’ Nicolai objected.

Popov shrugged.

‘It might have worked, though.’

Yet if Nicolai thought he had failed to win any converts, he was wrong; and he would have been surprised indeed to see into the mind of one member of the Romanov family the following morning. Natalia’s mind was in a whirl. It had not occurred to anyone to ask her opinion about the speech the evening before, but it had deeply moved her. Now, as she made her way out of the village in the early morning, the phrases were still echoing in her head: a new age, the end of oppression. Until that day, she had believed her father and put her faith in the faraway Tsar. Didn’t everyone? But as she had listened to Nicolai, it seemed to her that a whole world had opened up.

He was so beautiful. He’s like an angel, she had thought as the
sun caught his face. Despite his peasant’s dress, he was so obviously a noble from another world. He was educated. Surely he must know many things that her poor father could not possibly understand.

She knew that what he said about the land was true. But recently she had experienced another kind of oppression, as bad as any in the days of serfdom: that of Suvorin and his factories. That was where the peasant was truly enslaved. Already she had come to hate it: and as for Grigory, she knew that his loathing of Suvorin was almost an obsession. Is there really a new age dawning, she wondered, where we shall all be free? And if so, won’t the peasants in the factory benefit from this revolution too? If she could just ask young Nicolai.

It was just as she started along the path into the woods that she saw Popov.

He had gone for an early stroll. He was ambling along, wearing a wide-brimmed hat like an artist’s, and as she approached, he gave her quite a pleasant smile. Normally, she would not have spoken to him; for though she had nothing against Nicolai’s friend, she had always felt rather shy in his presence. However, encouraged by the smile, and anxious to find out, she asked him: ‘This revolution and the new age that Nicolai Mikhailovich spoke of – will it change things in the factories too?’

He smiled again. ‘Why, certainly.’

‘What will happen?’

‘The factories will all be given to the peasants,’ Popov promptly replied.

‘We wouldn’t have to work such long hours? And Suvorin would be kicked out?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I have a friend,’ she said hesitantly, ‘who would be interested to hear of this, Nicolai Mikhailovich. But he is at the factory.’

And now Popov looked at her with interest. ‘I shall be in Russka this afternoon,’ he said, ‘if your friend would like me to speak to him.’ And seeing a trace of doubt on her face, ‘I know somewhere very private.’

Nicolai did not go to work in the fields that day; but in the late afternoon, when he went down to the village and mounted the stool in front of the Romanov
izba
, he noticed that the crowd
assembling was much bigger than it had been the day before. This pleased him. He had not really wanted to speak again so soon. Popov had deserted him to go into Russka for some reason, and he might have waited for another occasion to speak if his friend had not urged him on. ‘Courage, my friend. They’ve had time to think about what you said yesterday. You may have made more converts than you think. Go to it, Nicolai.’

Not only was the crowd bigger, it was excited. Several of the senior men were in the throng and the village elder himself was standing at the back. They had been waiting for him.

It had not occurred to Nicolai that the villagers were planning to arrest him. Indeed, some of the men had wanted to go and fetch the local police officer from Russka beforehand, but the elder, bearing in mind that this was the landowner’s son, had refused. ‘I’ll hear what he says myself before I take action,’ he had decided. And now, as Nicolai prepared to address them once again, the elder listened carefully.

‘Once again, my friends, I stand before you with good news. I stand before you at the dawn of a new age. For today, all over our beloved Russia, great events are occurring. I speak not of a few protests; not of a hundred riots; not even of a huge uprising such as we have seen in the past. I am speaking of something more joyful, and more profound. I am speaking of the revolution.’

As the crowd gave a little gasp of anticipation, Nicolai saw the village elder start. But he did not notice Arina, hurrying out of the village.

Yevgeny Popov gazed calmly into the agitated face of Peter Suvorin. What a kindly, sensitive face it was, despite the over-large nose. How strange that grim old Savva Suvorin’s grandson should be such a poetic fellow.