It seemed that, after all, he had lost his duel with the Bobrovs. But even so, he would not give up – not in a thousand years.
One thing at least was certain: he would never see that cursed place Russka again.
It was on the very day his father sent poor Suvorin away from Russka that, far away in the north-eastern province of Novgorod, Alexis Bobrov made a remarkable discovery.
The day was bright, with a sharp, damp wind blowing when he arrived at the place. The three young officers who rode with him were in cheerful spirits. ‘Though I’m sure I shall hate anything devised by that oaf,’ one remarked scornfully. But Alexis, as he passed through the gates and along the well-kept road, was filled with curiosity.
The oaf was the famous general Arakcheyev.
It was one of the strange features of the reign of the enlightened, even poetic, Tsar Alexander that he should have come to choose General Arakcheyev as his closest adviser. Perhaps it was an attraction of opposites. The general was half-educated and bad-tempered; his face was coarse, his hair close-cropped, his body perpetually stooped forward as though under the weight of the stern tasks he set himself. Alexis had come to admire him for the brilliant way he had directed artillery in the great campaign of 1812. ‘He may be crude,’ he told his companions, ‘but he is loyal to the Tsar and he gets things done.’ Like many straightforward soldiers – that was how Alexis liked to see himself – he had been delighted when the Tsar made Arakcheyev his closest councillor.
And it was here in Novgorod province that the general, upon the Tsar’s command, had now undertaken one of the greatest social experiments in Russian history.
The moment they entered the huge estate, Alexis sensed something strange about the place. The peasants looked odd; the road had no ruts in it; but only when they came to the village itself did the party gasp with astonishment.
It was not a Russian village at all. The haphazard collection of peasant izbas that had once stood there had been completely razed; in their place, row upon row of neat cottages. They were identical – each painted blue with a red porch and white fence. ‘Good God,’ Alexis muttered, ‘it’s like a barracks.’ Then he noticed the children.
They were little boys, some no more than six years old. They came swinging by, in perfect step and singing, under orders from a sergeant. They were in uniform. And then Alexis realized what had seemed so strange since he arrived: everyone was identically dressed, and none of the peasants had a beard.
‘Yes, you’ll find perfect order,’ explained the young officer who showed them round. ‘We have three sizes of uniform for the children – quite enough. They wear uniforms at all times. The men are cleanshaven: it’s neater. Iron discipline – we beat a drum when it’s time to work in the fields.’ He grinned. ‘We can almost make them mow a meadow in step!’
And a few minutes later, when they were shown inside the cottages, Alexis was even more astonished. They were all spotless. ‘How do you do it?’ he asked.
‘Inspections. See,’ the young man pointed to a list hanging on a wall. ‘That’s an inventory of everything in the house. Everything has to be checked and clean as a whistle.’
‘How do you keep discipline?’ one of the officers asked.
‘The cane is enough. Any slip and they get it. We salt the cane, actually,’ he added.
Alexis soon noticed something else. Unlike a normal village, there seemed to be as many men of all ages as women.
‘Everyone has to marry,’ their guide explained, then laughed. ‘Whether they want to or not. The women should be grateful, actually. No widows or old maids here – we give them a man.’
‘You must have plenty of children then,’ Alexis remarked.
‘We certainly do. If the women don’t produce regularly, we fine them. The empire needs people to serve it.’
‘Are they happy?’ one of the others enquired.
‘Of course. Some of the old women wept,’ the young man conceded. ‘But the system is perfect, don’t you see? Everyone works, everyone obeys, and everyone’s looked after.’
For this was General Arakcheyev’s Military Colony. It covered a huge area in the province, where the army settled and the local peasants were forcibly converted into reservists and militarized state workers. Further colonies were already being set up down south in the Ukraine. ‘Within three years,’ their guide said, ‘a third of the entire Russian army will be settled like this.’ There was no doubt, it was impressive.
But why should the enlightened Tsar Alexander have encouraged his henchman to set up these totalitarian districts? Was it just for convenience? For they were certainly a cheap way of keeping a standing army occupied and fed in time of peace. Was it, as some suspected, that the Tsar – hoping one day to weaken the grip of a conservative gentry upon the army and the land – was experimenting with these colonies as a way of doing so? Or was it perhaps that Tsar Alexander, imbued with a military streak like his father, and frustrated almost beyond endurance by the chaotic, refractory nature of the endless Russian land, had resolved – like Russian reformers before and after – to impose order somewhere at least, whatever the cost? Whichever explanation comes nearest, it was certainly true that the military colonies with their iron discipline, terrible symmetry and their complete dedication to the state, would have delighted old Peter the Great himself if only he had thought of them.
To Alexis Bobrov, the colony was a revelation. Hadn’t he dedicated his life to military service? Arakcheyev’s creation was the most perfect thing he had ever seen. How far it was from the shabby chaos of Russka and a thousand estates like it. Just as the army was, for him, a relief from the ineptitude of his own family, this place seemed an escape from everything that irritated him in Russia. He saw only that the people here were industrious and well fed: he saw what he wanted to see. For just as one man will be attracted to power, another will be fascinated by order. He was quite seduced.
And from that day there was rooted in his mind a single, unalterable precept which, whatever difficulties he encountered, seemed to make sense of everything. It was simply this: the Tsar would be served by imposing order. And from this principle derived a second: that which is most conducive to order must be right. ‘Good enough,’ he told himself, ‘for a straightforward soldier like me.’
It was in the summer of the following year, when Ilya had already departed with a family friend on his tour abroad, that Alexis, visiting Russka, chanced one day to take down the battered volume of Derzhavin’s verse. When he discovered the bank-notes, he guessed at once what had happened. But there was nothing to be done. Suvorin was in Siberia. His son had run away, God knew where. Alexander Bobrov was unwell.
Besides, to suggest Suvorin’s sentence was a mistake would look bad for everyone: bad for the family, bad for their class, not congenial to order.
He put the money in a safe place, and said nothing.
1825
If a Russian is asked for the date of the most memorable event before the present century, he or she will almost invariably reply: December 1825.
For this was the date of the first attempted Revolution.
The Decembrist conspiracy – so named after the month in which it took place – is almost unique in human history on account of its curious character. For it was an attempt – a very amateurish one – on the part of a handful of nobles, acting from the highest motives, to secure freedom for the people.
To understand how this came about it is necessary only to go back to the reign of Catherine, when in Russian noble circles, the ideas of the Enlightenment and of liberty had first taken root. Despite the shock of the French Revolution and the fear of Napoleon, the idea of reform in Russia had continued to grow under the enlightened Tsar Alexander. And God knew there was much to reform: a legal system that might have come from the Dark Ages, the institution of serfdom, a government that, despite the nominal existence of a judicial Senate, was in reality a primitive autocracy. Yet what was to be done? No one could ever agree. The re
presentatives of the gentry, merchants and serfs called together by Catherine had simply quarrelled with each other. There were no ancient institutions, as in the west, to build upon. Tsar Alexander had found the same thing: great schemes were drawn up, but any attempt to introduce them promptly foundered upon the great Russian sea of obstruction and inefficiency. The gentry were loyal, but would not hear of freeing their peasants: by 1822 the Tsar had even restored their official right to send serfs to Siberia. Everyone feared another Pugachev uprising. The government found in practice that it could only tinker with the system, try to maintain order, and conduct experiments like the military colonies, to seek new forms that might lift the country out of its ancient social stagnation.
It was not surprising then, as the years went by, if some liberal young nobles began to feel that their angelic Tsar had cheated them. Their minds were opened by the Enlightenment; the great patriotic victory over Napoleon and, in some cases, contact with mystical Freemasonry, had filled them with a romantic fervour towards the fatherland. Yet while Tsar Alexander’s Holy Alliance might inspire them as they looked outward, at home Russia seemed increasingly dominated by the stern authoritarianism of General Arakcheyev. So it was, in the years after the Congress of Vienna, that a loosely knit group began to form, dedicated to change and even revolution.
They were quite alone. Within their own class, an idealistic few. The middle, merchant class, still small, was conservative and uninterested; the peasants completely ignorant.
Nor had they an agreed plan. Some wanted a constitutional monarchy on the English pattern; some, led by a fiery army officer, Pestel, down in the south, wanted to kill the Tsar and set up a republic. In secret they planned, plotted, hoped, and did nothing.
And then, quite unexpectedly, in November 1825, Tsar Alexander was no more. A sudden fever had apparently carried him off, and he had left behind no son. The succession fell to the Tsar’s two brothers: Constantine, the grandson Catherine had hoped would rule in Constantinople, and a younger brother, a well-intentioned but unimaginative fellow named Nicholas.
While the conspirators wondered what they should do, a series of bizarre events took place. Grand Duke Constantine, commanding the army in Poland, had already married a Polish lady and renounced his rights to the throne. Tsar Alexander had accepted this and issued a manifesto designating Nicholas the heir – which was so secret that not even poor Nicholas had been told. Now, therefore, Constantine immediately swore allegiance to young Nicholas; while Nicholas and the Russian army naturally swore allegiance to him! When at last the confusion was sorted out, it was agreed that everyone should, in December 1825, swear allegiance all over again, this time to the bemused Nicholas.
It was now that the conspirators, rather confused themselves, decided to stage a coup. There were only a handful of them: most of their colleagues had panicked at the thought of real action. They decided to incite a mutiny by persuading the troops to support Constantine against the new Tsar. After that – no one was quite sure. There were two groups of conspirators – one in St Petersburg and one, under Pestel, down in the Ukraine. They were badly coordinated and had different aims.
On the morning of December 14, when the army and the Senate were to take the new oath, a group of officers led some three thousand confused troops into the Senate Square. They arrived late, after the senators had already taken their oath. On the conspirators’ instruction the troops began to shout: ‘Constantine and Constitution.’ It was believed that the soldiers supposed that this strange word, constitution, must be the name of the Grand Duke’s wife.
Nicholas, wanting to avoid bloodshed, had them surrounded; but at dusk, when they did not budge, some rounds of canister were fired and several dozen men killed. Then it was over. Soon afterwards, in the south, Pestel’s rebellion was strangled at birth. Five ringleaders only were executed.
This was the Decembrist revolt. Aristocratic, amateurish, slightly absurd. Yet despite – perhaps even because of – the heroic folly of these nobles, they came to be seen as an inspiration, like the Christian martyrs of ancient times, for those revolutionaries who came after them.
To the new Tsar, Nicholas, the revolt was a shock. He was a simple man who believed in service. He assumed his nobles did. What possible reason could there be for these fellows to betray their sacred trust? He had all their confessions copied and bound in a book which never left his desk and which he studied carefully. From it he learned of Russia’s need for laws, liberty and a constitution. He was not a clever man, but he thought about it.
First, however, there must be order.
1827
Summer was beginning and Tatiana was contented: for now, suddenly, in place of silence and sadness, the house was full of happy voices. And as she looked forward to the coming summer months’, it seemed to her that nothing more was likely to shatter their tranquillity. My children, she thought, smiling, have come home.
In the year and a half since Alexander Bobrov had died, she had often been lonely, with only Ilya – who seldom went down to his Riazan estate – for company. In that time, too, tragedy had struck the family twice more. A year ago, Olga had lost her handsome husband – killed while on service – leaving her with one baby and pregnant with another. Thank God, at least, she was well-provided for, the Smolensk estate being large. Then, late last autumn, poor Alexis had lost his wife in a cholera epidemic, just before he was due to go off with his regiment; and one winter’s morning, a sled had arrived at Bobrovo containing – small, cold and miserable – his five-year-old son Mikhail, to be taken care of by his grandmother. ‘Just until Alexis marries again,’ she told Ilya.
Tatiana had been philosophical. Old Arina had been brought back into service as nanny, with her niece to help her. And under their care little Mikhail – Misha, they called him – turned out to be a gentle, sweet-tempered version of his father. Arina found him a child of his own age from amongst the serfs in the village – Ivan Romanov’s youngest son, Timofei – and soon the two little boys were playing happily together each day and old Arina pronounced confidently: ‘He’ll mend.’
And then, in spring, had come good news. Olga and her two babies would come there for the summer. And a week later a letter arrived from Alexis. A new campaign against the Turks was expected that autumn. But for the summer, he had obtained three months leave: ‘Which I intend to spend with you and my son,’ his letter declared.
‘So we shall have our hands full,’ Tatiana told the old nanny cheerfully.
Indeed, of all her children, only Sergei would be missing. ‘And that,’ Tatiana had to confess, ‘is probably just as well.’
At first, Olga saw no danger. She certainly meant no harm.
How happy she was to be back in the simple green and white house, and to gaze down the slope to the river bank where the sweet-scented pine trees grew. It was a return to her childhood and her family. And how good it was to see her two baby girls safely in the hands of the two Arinas. Her old nanny had only three teeth left now, and a hint of beard on her dear, round face; but her niece – young Arina, they called her – was a pretty, cheerful girl of sixteen who was quickly learning all the older woman knew. Olga would spend happy hours sitting out on the verandah with them, accompanied by young Misha, listening to old Arina’s wonderful stories.
The pain of her husband’s death, terrible though it had been, was passing; and in the huge, silent, Russian summer, she felt a sense of healing.
Indeed, there was an atmosphere of particular gentleness in the house that summer. Alexis, too, had suffered a loss and it had softened him. ‘I’d always supposed,’ he confessed to her, ‘that if I were killed – as I may be this autumn if we go to war with Turkey – Misha would at least have his mother. Now, I’d leave him an orphan.’ And though he did not care to show it, Olga knew that he treasured each day that he spent there with the little boy.
There might, perhaps, have been more laughter. Often as she sat with old Arina, she thought of Sergei, and his infectiou
s gaiety. She had not received his usual letter for several weeks now, and she wondered idly what he was up to. But she was grateful, all the same, that he was not there.
It was eighteen months ago, at her father’s funeral, that the relationship between Sergei and Alexis, always strained, had reached breaking point. The attempted coup of the Decembrists was, at that time, only two months past. And when the family, all in black, had gathered in the salon, Alexis had gravely remarked that he thanked God, at least, that the conspirators had been so easily rounded up. Why Sergei could not keep his mouth shut, Olga did not know, but he had replied quite cheerfully: ‘I knew several of those fellows. If only they’d told me what they were up to I’d have joined them at once.’ And then, almost plaintively: ‘I can’t think why nobody told me.’
Despite the occasion, Olga had found it hard not to laugh. She could see exactly why the conspirators hadn’t told her indiscreet brother their secret.
But the effect upon Alexis had been terrible. His already pale face had gone completely white with anger, and after a second’s pause, he had said in a voice which, had it been more than a whisper, would have been shaking: ‘I scarcely know, Sergei, why you are here. And I am sorry that you are.’ The two had not spoken after that.
No, much as she loved him, she was glad Sergei was not there to disturb the tranquillity of this precious summer.
And perhaps because it was so peaceful, she did not see the danger.
His name was Fyodor Petrovich Pinegin. He was a friend of Alexis’s – an acquaintance perhaps, rather than a friend – whom her brother had brought down to stay with him. Pinegin was a quiet man, still in his twenties she supposed, with a thin, hard face, sandy hair, and pale blue eyes that seemed to have no particular expression. ‘He’s a good fellow, a bit lonely,’ Alexis told her. ‘He’s seen a lot of service but never talks about it.’ Indeed, he would sit quietly while others talked, just sucking on a short pipe, expressing few opinions. He had one peculiarity: he always wore a white military tunic and trousers – though whether this was from preference or because he had no other clothes, Olga did not know. When asked what he liked to do best he mildly replied: ‘To hunt.’