Russka (98 page)

The illicit journey would not be easy. It was April. The snow was melting and everywhere the ground was sodden. The roads were like a quagmire. And if he got caught …

From under his bed he pulled out the box in which he kept his personal papers. There was the letter to his parents he had begun the previous evening. And there was the letter from his little sister, smuggled in three days before. Written in her large, childish handwriting, it was quite brief and to the point.

Dear Seriozha,
I am very unhappy. I wish I could see you.
Olga

He read it again and smiled. Life at the prestigious Smolny School for Girls in the city of St Petersburg could be grim. He was not surprised that his lively, bright-eyed little sister was hating her first year. And though the risks might be great, he had only asked himself one question when he received the letter: what would Pushkin do? For Pushkin would have gone to her. Pushkin was his hero.

Sergei Bobrov was happy at Tsarskoe Selo. He was quick, intelligent, and even had talent. He could draw well and make up a
verse in French or Russian better than any other boy in his class. ‘But if only I could do these things like Pushkin,’ he would sigh. Pushkin: the boy writer of daring verses; the cartoonist. Pushkin with his mop of curly hair, his soft but brilliant eyes, his wayward humour. He was always getting himself into scrapes – and always after women too. That year was his last at the school, and though some of the masters thought he was a mischief-maker, to the boys he was already a celebrity.

It was thanks to a common interest that Pushkin had taken notice of Sergei – a love of Russian folk tales. His nanny Arina, the serf woman, had taught Sergei most of what he knew: the tale of the fabulous firebird, the hero Ilya of Murom – ‘You should see my fat brother Ilya for a real comparison with the legendary hero!’ he would laugh – and countless others. Even Pushkin was impressed with his knowledge. ‘Always keep those folk tales in your mind, my young versifier,’ he would say. ‘They contain the true spirit, the special genius of Russia.’

It was Pushkin, however, who had led Sergei into serious trouble. It had begun with a cartoon – scandalous but light-hearted – which Pushkin had drawn after the final defeat of Napoleon. It showed the angelic Tsar Alexander returning in triumph – but having grown so fat in the west that the triumphal arches were hastily being widened for him! It was some months later that Sergei followed his hero. His target, however, was the new and intensely pious Minister of Education – one of the noble Golitsyn family. And his cartoon showed the Minister making a detailed personal inspection of the girls at the Smolny School, to ascertain their morals! It was outrageous, and though few of the teaching staff at the school had any love for the authoritarian minister, he was solemnly warned: ‘Any more trouble from you, Bobrov, and you’ll be expelled.’

Whatever the risk of trouble, however, Sergei knew what he must do. It’ll be all right, he told himself. And anyway, I won’t let Olga down.

The early morning was still dark when Sergei slipped out. A groom was waiting for him with a horse half a mile from the school and soon he was clattering down the road to St Petersburg. The road was empty. Sometimes he passed between long, dark lines of trees that seemed about to come together and smother him. Then
the land would open out into a wasteland of desolate brown traversed by grey gashes of unmelted snow. More than once, he half-expected to hear the cry of a wolf. The icy wet air stung his face.

And yet he was happy. A day before, he had sent a message to Olga, telling her where to meet him, and in his mind’s eye he could see her pale face and hear her voice saying: ‘I knew you would come.’ It made him feel warm inside. How lucky he was to have such a beautiful sister. How happy he was to be a Bobrov.

And how fortunate to be alive – and a Russian – at such a time! Never had the world looked so exciting. The great threat of Napoleon had finally been laid to rest in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. Now the British had put the aggressor of Europe on the distant Atlantic island of St Helena, from which there would be no escape. Russia, meanwhile, was now stronger than ever before in her history. Down in the south-east, in the Caucasus Mountains, the ancient Kingdom of Georgia had at last been joined to Russia’s empire. In the north, Finland, long under Swedish control, had also been taken over by the Tsar. In the distant east, across the sea, Russia not only possessed Alaska but had now established a fort in California too. And, most splendid prize of all, at the great Congress of Vienna where, after Napoleon, the assembled powers had redrawn the map of Europe, Russia had been given almost the whole of her ancient rival Poland, with her lovely capital of Warsaw.

But what really excited young Sergei was Russia’s new place in the world. No longer the barbarous Asiatic kingdom cut off from the western world; no longer the backward pupil of Dutch and German adventurers, English and French. At the congress, it was the Russian Tsar who took the lead. More even than this, Russia had proclaimed her own, special mission.

‘Let us put a final end to these terrible wars and bloody revolutions,’ the Tsar had proclaimed to the governments of Europe. ‘Let the European powers come together in a new and universal brotherhood, founded solely on Christian charity.’

This was the famous Holy Alliance. It was, by any standards, an astonishing document. Russia even proposed a shared, European army – the first international peace-keeping force – to police this universal order.

Admittedly such grand ideas had existed before, in the days of
the Roman Empire or the medieval Church; but the Holy Alliance with its mystical language was profoundly Russian. And if the devious diplomats of the west signed it with a cynical smile, and the pragmatic British refused even to do that, every Russian knew that the west was corrupt. Simple, straightforward, warm-hearted, fervent: the Holy Alliance was the Russians at their best. No wonder that young Sergei Bobrov the schoolboy felt exalted.

The city of St Petersburg was already in sight, under a platinum sky, when Sergei reached the post-house where he changed horses; and the harsh, bright morning was well advanced by the time he entered the capital.

The Smolny Convent School lay some three miles east of the Winter Palace, at the far end of the Neva basin where the river curved round to the south. Since he had time, Sergei took a leisurely route along the embankment beside the pink granite of the quays, past the great statue of the Bronze Horseman, the old Admiralty and the Palace. The Admiralty – though it still contained shipyards – was being refashioned to a severe neo-classical design, surmounted by a high, golden flèche to echo the slim golden spire of the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral across the water. Sergei breathed a sigh of contentment. How wonderful it was to be in St Petersburg.

There was another reason, too, for his excitement.

For in the northern capital of St Petersburg, in the month of April, it was the season of the break-up of the ice. Though much of the snow and slush had been cleared from the grey streets, there remained, through the centre of the city, the great white lagoon of the frozen Neva, and at this time it began to melt. The roads across it had been dismantled. Soon, before the ice floes began to move, they would take up the pontoon bridges too. And today, as he rode along the embankment, he could see great fissures across the Neva’s surface and, from time to time, hear a great crack, loud as a pistol shot, as another section broke up. How thrilling it was, on this chilly, damp morning, to feel the wet air on one’s face and know that here, too, the huge northern world, in its own indomitable fashion, was making life anew. As Sergei rode along, his young heart was dancing.

And it was dancing with excitement still as he came to the long, closed wall of the Smolny Convent.

He had told Olga in his message exactly where to go and when.
Pushkin himself had told him about the little window in the wall where one could enter unobserved. Sure enough, it was there, about twelve feet up. Having left his horse at an inn, therefore, Sergei discreetly made his way to this spot and waited. He waited an hour. Then at last the window opened.

There were two hours before she would be missed. They sat side by side in the little whitewashed room, his arm around her shoulder and her head, from time to time, resting upon his chest as they talked softly together.

He loved her. Of the other Bobrovs, she resembled Alexis the most. Her build was slender though there was nothing weak about her long limbs and elegant, tapering hands. She had her brother’s slightly Turkish features with a long, chiselled nose, and a mouth that turned down with faint irony at the corners; but whereas there was a trace of cruelty in Alexis’s face, in hers there was only refinement. Her eyes were deep blue and sometimes seemed a little startled at the world, although they could suddenly become transformed into a glowing gaiety. And how gratefully, now, they looked up at him.

She was not happy, and no wonder. The education at the Smolny School was outstanding. As well as the embroidery, dancing and cooking one might expect young ladies to learn, the girls were taught languages, geography, mathematics and physics as well – a progressive education which astonished visitors even from America. But the discipline was harsh. ‘We sing psalms before every meal,’ Olga said sadly. And then, shaking her head: ‘It’s a prison.’ For from autumn until the end of spring, when the school year ended, the Smolny girls were virtually locked in the convent precincts. ‘I hate them all, even the other girls,’ she whispered.

He understood that she was only lonely. He held her gently, her long brown hair falling across his arm, and let her talk for nearly an hour until, gradually, she became more cheerful and even began to laugh. Then, nestling close to him she murmured: ‘Enough of my boring life, Seriozha. Talk to me. Tell me about the world.’

It made him so proud, to know that she looked up to him. And since his own mind was so full of ideas, it was no time before Sergei was excitedly outlining to her his hopes for the future.

‘The Tsar will create a new Russia,’ he told her. ‘Serfdom is
going. There’ll be a new constitution. Look at what he’s already done in the Baltic states and in Poland. That’s the future.’

For as well as now abolishing serfdom in the Lithuanian and Baltic territories, Tsar Alexander had just amazed everyone by granting the newly acquired kingdom of Poland a very liberal constitution, with almost no censorship, an elected assembly, and votes for a wide section of the population.

‘And that’s only the start,’ Sergei assured her. ‘When Russia itself gets a new constitution, we shall be like Britain, or even America!’

The enthusiastic claim was not as wild as it sounded. The enlightened Tsar Alexander had in fact sought the advice of English diplomats, and of President Jefferson of the United States, on how to devise a new government. Years ago, his talented minister Speransky had drawn up a proposal which included separated powers, an elected parliament – a
duma
– and even elected judges. Even now, an official group had started to prepare a plan for dividing Russia into twelve provinces which would each have considerable autonomy. True, the Tsar was enigmatic – one could not be sure quite where he stood. But then this was Russia, where all change was slow and difficult.

‘And what will your part be, Seriozha, in this wonderful new Russia?’ Olga asked.

Oh, he knew that. He was certain about his own life. ‘I’m going to be a great writer,’ he said boldly.

‘Like your friend Pushkin?’

‘I hope so. Do you realize,’ he went on, enthusiastically, ‘that until the time of Catherine, Russian literature hardly existed! There was nothing but a lot of mouldy old psalms and sermons in Church Slavonic – the devil to understand. People like us wrote verse or plays in French. No one wrote a thing worth reading in actual Russian until Lomonosov, when Father was young, and dear old Derzhavin the poet, God bless him, who’s still with us. So you see,’ he exclaimed happily, ‘it’s for us to begin. No one can tell us what to do. You should hear Pushkin’s verse. It’s extraordinary.’

Olga smiled. She loved to watch her brother and his enthusiasms. ‘You’ll have to work hard at it, Seriozha,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘Of course.’ He grinned. ‘And what are you going to do, when you get out of this convent-prison?’ he asked playfully.

‘Get married, of course.’

‘To whom?’

‘A handsome officer in the guards.’ She smiled. ‘Who writes poetry in Russian.’

He nodded thoughtfully and then, to his surprise, felt sad. I wish I could be that man, he thought.

Soon afterwards, it was time to go.

The afternoon was drawing in when, tired but happy, Sergei returned the horse and walked the last half mile through the cold slush towards the school. No one was about; he slipped inside and made his way towards his quarters where his friends would be waiting. With luck he would not even have been missed. There was the door. He opened it. And started with surprise.

The high room was empty, except for a single, tall, slim figure in riding boots and uniform who stood by the grey light of the window and who now slowly turned towards him.

‘Alexis!’ His heart gave a jump; a little wave of joy swept over him. ‘How long have you been here?’

And then, suddenly, his smile faded.

‘Where have you been?’ Alexis’s voice was cold, cutting as a razor.

‘Nowhere.’

‘Liar! They’ve been searching the school for you for two hours.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Sergei hung his head. There was nothing he could say.

‘Being sorry is useless,’ Alexis said with a cold rage. ‘I came to see you as I happened to be here on business. While I’ve been waiting I have heard a good deal about you. You drew cartoons of the minister and you’re under threat of expulsion. I suppose you know that?’

‘Yes.’

‘I persuaded them not to expel you. You ought to be whipped. I offered to do it myself – for the family honour.’ He paused, waiting it seemed, for this last statement to have its full effect.

What was it, at that moment, that prompted Sergei to say something that he didn’t even mean? Was it irritation with Alexis’s lecturing tone, the shock of being caught, the fear of his punishment or, perhaps, a sudden impulse to strike out because the brother he loved and worshipped was seemingly turning against him? Whatever the cause, he suddenly blurted out: ‘To hell with the family honour!’