And though Nicolai several times accompanied the young doctor to places where the disease was raging, he carefully followed this advice and came to no harm.
A week passed. A second. A third. And still the cholera did not spread to the village of Bobrovo. Strangely enough also, while the rest of the world was trembling before the sickness, Misha Bobrov was getting his strength again. He would often walk out now with his wife or young Arina and stroll in the woods above the house. It was pleasant, too, for the old man and his son to come to know each other better again. Indeed, it nowadays caused Nicolai some amusement to remark to his friend the doctor: ‘Do you know, since he turned against the government, my old father’s far more radical than I am. I thought it was supposed to be the other way round!’
Gradually the deaths from the disease grew less, the new cases fewer. After a month it seemed to have subsided. ‘You’ve been lucky,’ the doctor told them. ‘And I’ve just been asked to go to another bad spot over by Murom. Goodbye.’
Soon afterwards, in mid-May, Nicolai decided it was time for him to return to St Petersburg. ‘I’ll be back in July,’ he promised his parents. ‘And if there’s no more sign of cholera in the region, I’ll bring all the family to see you.’ It was with a considerable sense of relief, therefore, that he set out once more for the capital.
He did not go alone. To their surprise, the Bobrovs had discovered that young Arina had always wanted to see the capital. And since Misha was now recovered, and Nicolai’s wife had written to say she had need of a temporary nanny for their children, it was agreed that young Arina should accompany Nicolai and remain with his family for the summer. The girl seemed delighted.
And if, just before leaving, she had had an unpleasant interview with her brother Boris, she kept it to herself.
It was three days after they had left that old Timofei Romanov showed signs one afternoon of being ill. Within an hour he was vomiting a whitish substance with little rice-like grains in it.
He had cholera. It had gone straight to the second, deadly stage.
By the time darkness fell, he was in agony. By morning he was transformed. The terrible discharges had left his body wracked and almost purple. His eyes were hollow caverns; the pallor of death was upon him. His wife and old Arina, who had changed his sodden clothes a dozen times already, stood in the pale light of dawn and gazed at him mournfully. The old fellow’s eyes were staring, sometimes at them, sometimes at the little icon in the corner; but he could no longer utter. Once, with a huge effort, he managed to smile, as if to tell them that he was resigned.
Misha Bobrov was surprised early that morning to find Boris Romanov at his door. He could not remember when the surly and suspicious fellow had last been up to the house. But today he seemed polite, almost friendly.
‘I’m afraid, sir,’ he explained, ‘it’s bad news. My father.’ And he told Misha the details.
‘My God.’ So, just when he thought they had been spared, the plague had come to Bobrovo after all. Thank God I’m fit enough to deal with the crisis, Misha thought, and immediately gave orders to send for a doctor and warn the people in Russka about the outbreak.
He was rather surprised, a few minutes later, to find young Boris still hanging around.
‘The fact is, sir,’ the younger man explained, ‘he’s asking for you. He wants to say goodbye.’ And just for a moment, Misha saw tears form in Boris’s pleading eyes. ‘He won’t last the day,’ he said simply.
Misha hesitated. He could not help himself. The fact was, he had no desire to go into a house where there was cholera. I can’t afford to get it myself, he thought. There’s too much to do. But immediately he felt ashamed. God knows, I ask the doctor to do it. Besides, I’ve known old Timofei all my life.
‘Of course,’ he said. And put on his coat.
How confoundedly hot it was in the Romanov izba. There was a suffocating smell, despite the fact that a window had been opened.
There before him lay his childhood playmate Timofei – or what was left of him. Poor devil. It seemed his mind might have wandered a bit, for he now gazed at Misha with a kind of astonishment; but it was hard to know what was in his mind since the old man could not speak. My God, but he’s the same age as me, Misha remembered. He looked a hundred. Well, now I’m here, I must go through with it.
He glanced round the room. Despite everything, old Arina and her daughter had kept it spotlessly clean. The floor had been scrubbed recently, and the table. Timofei lay in clean bedclothes by the stove. The morning light was streaming in through the window. He glanced at the little icon in the corner, taking what comfort he could from it. Boris offered to take his coat: the heat felt a little less oppressive once it was off. But though they offered him a chair, he preferred to stand, some distance away from the patient, and was careful not to touch anything. And now dear old Timofei was trying to smile.
Misha spoke what words of comfort he could. To his surprise, he did not find it so difficult. He recalled times past, people they had known, and the gentle old peasant seemed to receive pleasure from it. Boris, with a grateful smile, slipped out of the room for a minute. It was strange how, in the presence of death, foolish antagonisms could disappear.
Boris moved swiftly and quietly. He could hardly believe how easy the whole thing had been. His father had looked so surprised to see the landowner that for a second Boris had feared Misha might guess that the old man had not sent for him at all, but he had not; all was well. Now he slipped across the passageway into the open storeroom opposite.
The bedclothes and three of his father’s shirts were lying in a corner where they had been thrown a short time ago. Old Arina said they should burn them but no one had had time yet. Carefully he opened out Misha Bobrov’s coat, and laid it on the pile. Then he turned it over and did it again, gently pressing the coat down. He repeated this, making sure that the coat was thoroughly impregnated. Then, with a look of polite respect on his face, he went back into the room, carrying the coat carefully.
‘This,’ he whispered to himself, ‘is for Natalia.’
What a business that had been, Misha considered a short time later as he walked hurriedly back to the house. How horribly hot the room was. Thank God he had taken care not to touch anything. You couldn’t be too careful.
But he was proud of himself. He had done the right thing, and the old peasant was happy: he could see that.
He must have been sweating himself in there, more than he had realized. As he strode back up the slope even his coat felt damp. He wiped his brow and his moustache with his coat sleeve. Yes, it had certainly been an unpleasant business and he was glad it was over.
A week later the news reached Nicolai in St Petersburg: his father had cholera.
1892, Summer
There was a subdued buzz of conversation in the room. Soon the distinguished speaker would arrive and Rosa Abramovich felt a tingle of anticipation. She had never been to a meeting like this before. There were about thirty people there, almost all in their early twenties.
Outside the evening sun was bathing the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius and its old castle hill in a soft orange light.
Rosa Abramovich was twenty now and she had lived in Vilnius for a decade. She might, she knew, have been in America. Many Jews had started to go there after the pogroms in 1881; but at the family conference her father had called in the autumn of that terrible year, they had decided instead to cross the Jewish Pale, some five hundred miles to the north-west, into Lithuania. ‘There’s not much trouble in Vilnius,’ her father had remarked. ‘If pogroms come there, then we’ll leave Russia.’ He still had faith.
Rosa loved her new home. From the Lithuanian capital it was only a day’s train journey to the Baltic Sea, or south-west to the ancient Polish capital of Warsaw. To the north lay the Baltic provinces where the Latvians and Estonians lived and where once, centuries ago, the Crusading Teutonic Knights had raided Russia. ‘It’s very much a border province, a crossroads,’ her father had rema
rked.
And indeed, though all these lands nowadays formed part of the Tsar’s sprawling empire, it could not be said that their character was in the least Russian. In the rolling, prosperous farmlands and woodlands of Lithuania, the people had not forgotten that once they and the Poles, in their joint kingdom, had been masters of all these western lands, and more besides. The Lithuanian farmers, with their large, handsome wooden houses, reminded Rosa of the independent Cossack farmers she had known in the Ukraine. As for the capital of Vilnius, it was a pleasant old European city, containing buildings in many styles – Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical. It contained a fine Catholic cathedral and numerous churches. Of Russian architecture there were hardly any examples at all. And this cosmopolitan city had also a thriving Jewish community.
In fact, Rosa’s father had found only one thing wrong with the place: there were far too many of those secular-minded young Jews who were turning their back on their religion. Try as he might, it had been almost impossible to stop his two sons consorting with them; but little Rosa he had kept a strict watch over, until his sudden and unexpected death the previous year. And now, it was into precisely such dangerous company that she had fallen that evening. It was all rather exciting.
Friends of her brothers had brought her there. Half the people in the room were young men and women from the assimilated Jewish middle class – students, a young doctor, a lawyer. The rest were Jewish workers, including three girls who were seamstresses. It was a pleasant, lively group, but to Rosa they were all strangers. And why had she come? She hardly knew: but mainly, she supposed, because she had nothing better to do.
For though she was only twenty, life had already dealt Rosa some bitter blows. At first, after arriving in Vilnius, it had seemed that everything was going so well. Her musical career had made huge strides: at the age of sixteen she had given several piano recitals and made a small tour; a year later she was promised a major tour with an important conductor. Her parents were delighted; her brothers proud, even a little envious. She had everything she could desire. And now she had nothing.
Why, she used to wonder – why would God give her this gift, only to blight it? This must be another of life’s inexplicable mysteries. The last three years had been a nightmare. Sometimes the sickness had been like a terrible weight on her chest and she would cough until it hurt; for days she would be prostrate, unable to summon up the energy to do anything. The tour had had to be cancelled. Even her musical studies were almost abandoned. ‘If I can’t play properly, I don’t want to play at all,’ she told her unhappy father. She had slowly sunk into a depression, while her family watched hopelessly.
‘If only she had friends to help her,’ her mother would lament. The trouble was that almost all her friends in Vilnius were musicians, and now she no longer wished to see them. Only one close friend remained: young Ivan Karpenko, down in the Ukraine. Even since that terrible day when he had saved the family from the pogrom, there had been a special bond between Rosa and the Cossack youth. It was to Ivan, therefore, that she wrote long letters during this period of pain, and from whom she received back letters of warm encouragement.
The sudden death of her father the previous year had forced Rosa to come out of her lethargy. The family’s main income had gone; her two brothers were having to support her mother. Rosa was forced to consider what to do with her life. A musical career was out of the question now so what were the alternatives. Teach the piano – for a pittance? Her mother suggested it, but Rosa dreaded the thought. There was the Teachers’ Institute in the city, where Jewish students could train to teach in the state schools. Her brothers thought this was better. What does it matter, if I can’t do what I want? she thought. But I must do something. I can’t just be a useless person. She had enrolled at the Institute. And now here she was, on a summer evening, at a Jewish workers’ meeting simply because she had nothing better to do.
There were so many meetings. Some were just study groups, teaching eager workers to read and write; others were more communal and met to discuss how they could improve working and living conditions. And a few were, more or less, political.
Today’s meeting, however, was rather special. A professor all the way from Moscow had come to address them on worker movements in and outside Russia. ‘But I dare say it’ll go further than that,’ one of her companions whispered. ‘The professor’s a Marxist.’ And when Rosa looked blank. ‘A revolutionary.’
A revolutionary. What did such a person look like? Would they all be arrested? It was with some interest that Rosa now looked up as the speaker entered the room.
Peter Suvorin spoke well. At first, his thin, abstracted face, small gold-rimmed spectacles and quiet, kindly eyes might have given him the appearance of a mild-mannered schoolmaster. But soon it was this very gentleness and simple sincerity – combined with a wonderful clarity in all his explanations – that made him impressive.
At thirty-seven, Peter Suvorin had not changed. He was one of those pure and fortunate souls who, having encountered a single and powerful idea, find their destiny. Peter’s idea, the theme of his life, was very simple: that mankind could – and must – reach a state where all men are free and none oppressed. He had believed it in 1874 and he believed it now.
He had had a strange life. Back in 1874, after his sudden departure from Russka, he had wandered in the Ukraine for months and the Suvorins had wondered if he had died. Then, however, needing money, he had contacted his brother Vladimir in Moscow; and Vladimir, feeling he must, had let old Savva know that his grandson was alive.
Was it, perhaps, Savva Suvorin who had sealed Peter’s fate? According to his lights, the old man had been forgiving. For the letter he had seen, supposedly written by Peter and confessing to laying the fire, had been a terrible blow. For months afterwards, in secret, he would mutter to himself: ‘To attack his own family!’ It would have been hard to say whether this treachery, or the accidental killing of the two young people, shocked him more; and he was so shaken that he never told anyone, including Vladimir, about it. Now, therefore, when news of Peter came, Savva sent him a strongly worded message: return at once to make amends for his terrible crimes or be cut off from the family for ever. It seemed to Savva that he was acting with forbearance. And he was shocked still further when, having received the message with a groan, Peter refused to return. ‘His heart is hardened into sin,’ old Suvorin declared, and never spoke of the young man again. Six months later he died.
The Will of Savva Suvorin was clear. The dangerous revolutionary Peter was cut out of all control of the Suvorin enterprises and left with only a modest allowance. ‘You could contest it,’ Vladimir told him frankly. ‘Or I’ll give you part of my fortune myself.’ But Peter was young and proud. ‘Besides, I want no part of it anyway,’ he said. He returned to Moscow and his studies. He fell in love but was rejected. He discovered a talent for physics, studied the subject deeply, and even wrote a small textbook on the subject which was published successfully. He told himself that he was happy enough. And he continued, steadfastly, to look for a better world.
He came to Marxism in the 1880s. Ever since his first meeting with Popov, he had become a student of revolutionary thought. He had several times encountered Popov again, and that secretive fellow had put him in touch with certain radical groups; but by all these people he was seen as a kindly dreamer. In Marxism, however, he had found a system that gave him more stature. Here was his longed-for utopia, but scientifically arrived at – not by some violent, conspiratorial overthrow, but by a gradual and natural historical process. ‘You call my views utopian,’ he would say to Vladimir, ‘but I just call them human progress.’ And in his heart he secretly believed that one day the Suvorin factories would pass into the hands of the workers with scarcely a shot fired.
Strangely, it was his early interest in Marxism that had convinced the tsarist authorities that the mild-mannered professor was harmless to the state. That very year a senior official had privately conv
eyed the government’s attitude to Vladimir Suvorin himself.
‘My dear fellow, as long as your brother sticks to studying Marx we’re not very worried. We’ve looked at all these things, you know,’ he added wisely. ‘This Marx was an economist. We’ve even allowed some of his works to be translated and published – because right or wrong, no one can understand a word of him anyway. It’s revolutionaries we’re worried about, not economists – and I can’t see your brother throwing any bombs, can you?’
It was a strange relationship between the brothers – the rich industrialist and the poor professor, the family man and the lonely bachelor. They were fond of each other, but some strain was inevitable. Nor was it helped by the fact that Vladimir’s handsome young second wife, who loved to entertain in the great Moscow house, could not help feeling rather sorry for this kindly man whom she regarded as a poor unfortunate. ‘Peter should marry,’ she would tell Vladimir. ‘But I’m afraid he’s too timid.’ Peter sensed her feelings and it hurt his pride. He did not go to the Suvorin house often.
This evening’s meeting was small, but Peter Suvorin believed it was important, and he was especially anxious it should go well. As he spoke, therefore, he tried to gauge the reaction of the audience carefully. With admirable precision, he outlined for these young people the developments in Europe. Only three years before, an important Socialist conference, the Second International, had been held for delegates from many countries. The last year had seen, for the first time, groups of workers in Russia celebrating May Day as a token of solidarity with the international workers’ movement. ‘And these things, in their infancy now, will shape the future of civilization in generations to come,’ he assured them.
Only when he was sure he had them with him did Peter Suvorin broach the real subject that was on his mind, and the reason why he had been so anxious to address them that night. Which was that they were Jewish.