But now, she had never seen Ilya roused to such enthusiasm. He and Sergei would work together for hours. His placid face would take on a look of furious concentration. He would even waddle about, waving his hands excitedly, as Sergei wrote down what he dictated. ‘He translates: I polish,’ Sergei explained. ‘He’s awfully good at it, you know,’ he added. And for the first time Olga had an inkling of what poor Ilya might have been.
The theatricals began light-heartedly. In the long, warm evenings, with the shadows slowly lengthening, and a faint, delicious smell of lilac wafting from some bushes nearby, they would gather by a linden tree before the house and practise their parts. Their first attempt was some scenes from Hamlet, with Sergei as Hamlet and Olga as Ophelia. Tatiana joined in; Alexis too, as Hamlet’s wicked uncle; Karpenko and Pinegin split the other parts between them, the soldier turning in a quiet, accurate performance, the Ukrainian hilarious as the ghost. ‘And what shall I be?’ little Misha had demanded.
‘You are the bear!’ Sergei told him. And to Olga’s murmur that there wasn’t a bear in Hamlet he whispered: ‘But Misha doesn’t know that.’ He paused. ‘Nor does Alexis, come to think of it,’ he added mischievously, which sent her into a fit of giggles.
Olga’s second discovery surprised her even more. It was about Sergei. They were playing a scene as the two awkward lovers when it first struck her. Then, as she listened carefully to other scenes, she suddenly realized. For while Ilya had made the translations, it was Sergei who had turned them into Russian verse.
And it was brilliant – so lovely, so full of feeling, that she was taken aback. Sergei’s voice too, she noticed, when he spoke this wonderful verse, became musical, beautiful to hear.
She remembered the wayward boy who had befriended her; she knew the scamp and womanizer who made her laugh. Yet here, suddenly, was another Sergei, hiding beneath the frivolous surface – of a poetic nature, perhaps even profound. She found that she was moved, and with a new respect she told him: ‘You must go on writing, Seriozha. You have real talent.’
The trouble was Alexis.
It was not his fault. His acting, though stiff, was not so bad. It was his language. For while Ilya and Sergei, as educated men, spoke both French and Russian elegantly, poor Alexis – never a scholar, and joining his regiment when almost a boy – had learnt French from fifth-rate tutors and Russian from the serfs at Russka. The result was rather unkindly, but accurately, summarized by Sergei: ‘He speaks French like a provincial and Russian like a servant.’ It was a curious condition, not unusual amongst men of his class at that date. Nor did one notice it so much in everyday conversation; but now, reciting Sergei’s beautiful verse, he frequently stumbled awkwardly and Sergei, with a laugh, would have to correct his grammar to prevent him making nonsense of a line. ‘I speak well enough for a plain soldier,’ Alexis growled; but Olga could see he felt awkward.
All the same, they managed to do quite well with Hamlet, and it was agreed that they would next attempt some scenes from Romeo and Juliet. ‘In which,’ Sergei added, ‘there is of course a bear.’
It was while Sergei and Ilya were busy with their translation that Olga decided one afternoon to go with young Karpenko and Pinegin on one of her favourite walks, along the low ridge behind the house.
The weather was perfect. The silver birches were gleaming in the sun and shedding a dappled shade. Karpenko, though he gazed at her with adoring eyes, was still too shy to say much. As usual, Pinegin was wearing his white tunic and puffing on his pipe. After two weeks of Sergei’s lively conversation, Olga found the soldier’s silence rather agreeable.
She had long ago decided that, if Karpenko was in love with her, he was certainly harmless. Indeed, he was so shy that she liked to bring him out of himself. She had learned, for instance, that he came from Poltava province, south-east of Kiev, from an old Cossack family. ‘My brothers are strapping fellows – it’s only me that’s so small,’ he apologized. After some coaxing, he had one day admitted that he, too, hoped to make a literary reputation in the future.
As usual, therefore, after they had walked awhile, they began to talk, and encouraged by Olga, the young Cossack started to speak of his beloved Ukraine. It was a delight to hear him, a pleasure to see his soft eyes glow as he described to them the whitewashed houses and their thatched roofs, the huge fields of wheat on the rich black earth, the vineyards and lemon groves down by the Black Sea, the huge melons that were grown in his own village. ‘It’s another world in the south,’ he confessed. ‘Life is easier. Why, even now, if we need more land, we just take our ploughs out into the empty steppe, which has no end.’
So wonderful was his description that Pinegin nodded his head thoughtfully and remarked: ‘It is so. I have been there, and it is just so.’
And it was this statement that suddenly prompted Olga to turn to the quiet soldier and try to draw him out for once.
How little, still, she knew of him. What sort of life had he had? Where had he come from? Where had he served? Was he always so much alone, or had there been others close to him in his past – lovers perhaps? And above all what did he really think about his life, this man who seemed to know so much, yet say so little?
‘It is your turn, Fyodor Petrovich,’ she said softly. ‘You say you have been in the south. What can you tell us about it?’
‘I passed through the Ukraine,’ he replied. ‘But I have served further south, in the Caucasus Mountains. Do you wish to know about that?’
‘Most certainly,’ she smiled. ‘I do.’
He took a little time to reply, but when at last he did, his thin, hard face took on a faraway look. His voice was very quiet. And the words he used were simple, soldier’s words, yet very carefully chosen. Olga was riveted.
He told her about the high Georgian passes that now belonged to Russia, and those beyond, where wild tribesmen still dwelt. He described the mountain goats; the huge ravines one could look down and see the shepherds in the gullies a thousand feet below; the swirling mists over which, as far as the eye could see, the snowy peaks hung pink and white in the crystal sky. He told her about the tribesmen in their bright tunics and shaggy sheepskins – Georgians, Circassians, and those distant descendants of the radiant Alans, the proud Ossetians – who might suddenly appear from nowhere: ‘Friendly one day, with a bullet for you the next.’ She could see it all, as though she had been there.
‘I was down in the eastern steppe once,’ he continued. ‘On the edge of the desert. That’s a strange region.’ And he told her about the little fortresses between the Black and the Caspian Seas, and about the Tatar and other Turkish tribesmen who made the frontiers such dangerous places. And now Olga had a vision of something huge, harsh, unknowable, yet pitilessly clear.
And as she listened, she wondered. There was something about him: something distant, something one could not touch. Had he, perhaps, drunk in something of the character of these harsh, lonely regions where he had lived? Was he, as Alexis said, dangerous? If so, she was not sure it wasn’t strangely attractive.
It was just as she was considering this, and hoping to draw him out further that, out of nowhere, Sergei suddenly appeared along the path.
‘Our work is done!’ he cried. ‘I am Romeo, and you are Juliet.’ And then in a whisper, which she hoped Pinegin could not hear: ‘Has he been boring you?’
But if Pinegin heard, he said nothing. And they all four walked back together.
Misha Bobrov watched the grown-ups. Young Arina was beside him. It had been very hot that day and everyone was lethargic. They were rehearsing a scene from Romeo and Juliet.
He had seen his father make two mistakes with his lines and Uncle Sergei had had to correct him. But it didn’t seem to matter because Uncle Sergei was laughing. His father looked rather red.
‘It’s beautiful, Seriozha,’ his Aunt Olga said. ‘But enough for today. I must sit down.’
Tea,’ called Sergei to young Arina. ‘We need tea.’
As the girl went
off to the house, little Misha went over to his Uncle Sergei. He felt very hot too. Perhaps, he thought, if they all sat down, his Uncle Sergei would tell him a story. ‘Well, my little bear?’ his Uncle said. ‘What can we do for you?’ And Misha let him ruffle his hair.
But now his father was turning towards him.
It was such a small incident; yet, like one of those little flashes of lightning on the horizon that warns of the approach of a summer storm, Olga should have seen its true significance.
She was hardly surprised, when Alexis abruptly announced he was going for a walk, that no one was anxious to join him. But this caused him to turn to his little son, who at that moment happened to be standing beside Sergei, and ask: ‘Well, Misha, are you coming?’
It was such a small gesture: it was nothing really. The child just glanced up at Sergei and hesitated. That was all. But it was enough. Olga saw Alexis flinch for a second, then instantly stiffen.
‘You prefer to be with your Uncle Sergei than me,’ he said, with quiet bitterness.
The little boy, sensing his mistake, looked confused. Then he blushed.
‘Oh, no,’ he said seriously. And then: ‘You are my Papa.’ And he went to Alexis’s side.
Alexis turned and the two of them walked away, but Olga saw that he did not give the little boy his hand and, remembering that he would soon be leaving them to fight the Turks, she felt sorry for them both.
It was probably just as well, Olga thought, that on the following evening Sergei had arranged for some musicians to come over from Russka so that they could have a little dance – a ‘bal’ as he called it. Perhaps, Olga hoped, this would break the tension.
How delightful it was. Just as if she were in the city, Olga would pile up her rich hair, put on a gossamer ball gown with billowing sleeves and her dainty, flat-heeled dancing slippers with their pink ribbons; the men would put on uniforms, and take turns dancing with her and Tatiana by the bright light of a hundred candles, while the servants and the two Arinas watched with broad smiles.
But the star of the evening was little Karpenko. He borrowed a balalaika and led the musicians in haunting Ukrainian melodies. Then he danced for them – wild, Cossack dances, crouching almost on the ground while he kicked out his legs, and next, leaping high into the air while the musicians kept up a frenzied beat. Once, drawing himself up and arching his back, and jamming a tall, sheepskin hat upon his head, he gave a brilliant version of a stately Georgian dance – moving across the floor with precise little steps, turning his body from side to side as he went, so that he seemed almost to be floating. ‘He’s good,’ Pinegin remarked. ‘I’ve served down there so I should know.’ He smiled wryly. ‘He even manages to look two feet taller.’ And it amused Olga very much that a few minutes later, the Cossack disappeared on to the verandah outside with young Arina, and was gone for some time.
It was towards the end of the evening, when the others were outside, that Olga found herself dancing alone with Pinegin. As usual he was wearing his white uniform, but now it seemed to her rather becoming. She also noticed that he really danced very well – nothing flashy, his movements firm but controlled, and easy to follow. It was a pleasant sensation.
Then, suddenly, everyone was back. Sergei cried: ‘A mazurka!’ to the musicians. And scarcely waiting to ask Pinegin, he swept her away in a wild dance, whirling her round the room, stamping his feet, while Pinegin stood by the side of the room, silently. ‘I was lucky,’ Sergei explained to her. ‘I got lessons from the great dancing master Didelot himself.’
But Olga found, rather to her surprise, that she would have preferred it if he had not interrupted her dance with Pinegin.
The opening thunderclap of the great storm that was about to engulf them took everyone, including Olga, completely by surprise. It came the very next morning, when Sergei was in the bath house.
No one in Russia, from the imperial family to the most miserable serf, could imagine life without the traditional Russian bath. Similar in kind to a Scandinavian sauna, the bath house contained a stove which heated a deep shelf of large stones, upon which the bather tipped water to fill the room with steam. To stimulate the blood he might also swat himself with birch twigs. In a city, the communal bath house would take scores of people at a time; the little bath house on the Bobrov estate took only three or four.
Sergei loved to take a bath: in summer he would run down afterwards and throw himself into the river; in winter he would roll in the snow. And it was just as, tousle-haired and gasping, he emerged from the water that morning that little Misha came running down the slope towards him, crying out: ‘Uncle Sergei! You’ll never guess what’s happened. They’ve come to arrest the priest at Russka.’
It was true. Two hours earlier the big, red-headed priest had been astonished by the arrival of three blue-coated gendarmes of the Third Department who methodically proceeded to ransack his house. Within an hour the town, the monastery, and even the village of Bobrovo were buzzing with the news. What could it mean?
Olga guessed at once. She guessed – and her heart sank.
‘Oh, Seriozha,’ she whispered. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing much,’ he confessed with a sly grin. He had sent an anonymous letter to the Department saying the priest was operating an illegal Masonic press and distributing pamphlets. And to her protest that this accusation was unlikely, he replied: ‘It’s unbelievable. But the gendarmes don’t seem to think so, do they?’
‘Oh, Seriozha.’ She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was well known that Benckendorff’s department was being snowed under with false accusations from all quarters, and that some of their investigations had been strange, to say the least. ‘God help you when Alexis finds out,’ she said.
It was noon, just as the gendarmes, having found nothing, were leaving when Alexis, returning from a morning ride, passed through Russka and the shaken priest told him his story. Like Olga, Alexis guessed the cause at once.
And so it was that, seeing Sergei that afternoon, sitting with the family, he gave him a look of chilling scorn, and without the need of any further explanation said quietly: ‘You will regret this very much, I promise you.’
Alexis was surprised, early that evening, when Sergei’s manservant requested a discreet interview with him.
To the Bobrov serfs, Sergei’s position had always been a little puzzling. When his father died, they saw that the estates went to his brothers; but though Sergei’s different looks had caused some ribald speculation, it was more generally assumed that his youth and wild ways were the reason for this exclusion. One thing was certain however: if there was any choice to be made between their master Alexis and young Sergei, there was no doubt about whose side to be on.
Nothing is ever hidden from household servants. The growing rift between Alexis and Sergei had been noticed at once. Within minutes of their angry encounter that day, everyone knew. And it had caused the young serf to consider his position very carefully before, that evening, giving the older brother a careful account of a certain matter. When he had told his story, the landlord seemed pleased.
‘You were quite right to tell me this,’ Alexis said. ‘You will speak of it to no one,’ he added, ‘but if it ends well, then I’ll let your family off a year’s obrok.’ The manservant was delighted.
And that very day, Alexis put certain enquiries in motion.
Afterwards, Olga blamed herself. Yet she had meant so well.
The tension in the house, all the next day, was terrible. Alexis looked like thunder. They dined in near-silence. In the evening, she tried to persuade Sergei to come out for a stroll with her, but he obstinately refused and sat at one end of the salon while Alexis, at the other end, ignored him entirely. Everyone spoke in low tones, but Olga, looking at the two brothers, was terrified that at any moment, some careless word might start a quarrel. Sergei, in particular, looked as if he was ready to provoke his older brother. What could she do to keep the peace?
It was then tha
t, looking at Karpenko, she suddenly thought she had had an inspiration.
‘Why don’t you tell us,’ she suggested, ‘a Cossack story?’
He blushed with pleasure. He understood very well what she wanted. How glad he was to be useful to Olga and Sergei, these two people he loved. And so, in a quiet voice, he began.
He was intensely proud of his Cossack ancestry. In no time they were all spellbound as he told them tales of the ancient days, of the wild Cossacks riding over the open steppe, and of the great river raids from the Zaporozhian camp down the mighty Dniepr. Tatiana sat with mouth open in wonder; Ilya put down his book; Pinegin nodded with approval and murmured: ‘Ah, yes. That is good.’ And even Alexis did not notice when Sergei moved his chair closer, in order to hear better.
What a gay, thrilling world the little Cossack opened before them. What mad feats of bravery, what good fellowship, what wild freedom! Olga congratulated herself on her choice: and if the young fellow was a little carried away, surely there could be no harm in that.
For there was something else about the tales, too: a haunting beauty, an air of nostalgia and even melancholy that she discerned in his tone – as there always is when one speaks of a world that has entered its twilight. ‘The old Zaporozhian sich is gone,’ he said quietly at one point. ‘Catherine the Great destroyed that.’ And later, rather sadly: ‘The Cossacks are all good Russians now.’ If he felt a tinge of regret for the past, Olga didn’t blame him. The disciplined Tsarist regiments of today’s Cossacks were fine in their way, but a far cry from the freedom of older times.
Ilya in particular was captivated. ‘My God,’ he exclaimed, ‘you tell your stories so well that if you want to make a literary reputation, you should write them down. Have you considered it?’