But what was he doing there? No one had any idea. He possessed a little money. He did not seem to be a runaway peasant. He carried with him a tiny icon, black with age, and a little book of psalms, from which it appeared he could read. Yet he said he was not a priest.
On the third day of his stay in the monastery he became ill. A fever seized him and for a short time the monks thought he would die. But he recovered and soon he was to be seen wandering about the countryside nearby.
A week after his first walk, he had a private conversation with the abbot. After this, the monks learned two things. The first was that, during his fever, a voice had commanded him to stay at Russka. The second was that he could paint icons, and had asked the abbot if he might take lodgings in the town and join the other painters there. To this the abbot had agreed.
So it was that Daniel came to live at Russka.
He was a good craftsman, but though he would paint parts of icons, under the directions of others, he would never paint the figures themselves, claiming that his skill was not sufficient. The icons in question, being run-of-the-mill copies for sale by the monastery, were by no means great works of art; but his modesty pleased the other painters.
He kept himself to himself. Not only could he paint, but he was an excellent carpenter. He observed every fast strictly, and spent several hours each day praying and genuflecting. Following the Old Testament to the letter, he would not eat any of the forbidden meats, including veal, rabbit and hare.
It was noticed also that on Sundays Daniel went to the little church at Dirty Place where Silas conducted the service. But since he went to the monastery too, no one thought much about it.
In Dirty Place, the villagers soon got used to the strange, quiet fellow who used to appear amongst them. The men had nothing against him; the women decided they liked him because he was reputed to be hardworking, and they sensed something gentle, almost reverential, in his bearing towards them. He was a holy man of some kind, they decided. And one old woman remarked: ‘He’s a wanderer. One of these days you’ll turn round, and he’ll be gone.’ For it was surely true that there was something about him that was apart.
Above all, they took their tone from Silas, who on several occasions had been seen talking quietly to the big fellow and who pronounced firmly: ‘He is a godly man. He has the true blagochestie.’
For two years the strange fellow came each week to Dirty Place, keeping himself to himself and scarcely speaking to a soul. And still no one was any the wiser about him. All they knew, with satisfaction, was that when he made the sign of the cross, he did so with two fingers.
1684
For Nikita, the whole business had been a disaster.
It might have been all right, despite everything, if he hadn’t quarrelled with that damned Tolstoy. That was the trouble. ‘And now we’re completely out of favour,’ he lamented to his wife.
The question was – what could they do about it? Which was when she had made her curious suggestion.
It was doubly galling because the family had been doing well ever since the Romanovs came to the throne. The first Romanov had rewarded Nikita’s grandfather in two ways. He had allowed him to convert the old estate – held on pomestie service tenure under Ivan the Terrible – back into the hereditary votchina that could not be taken away. And he had given him some more votchina, from the good land beside the monastery, as well. Nikita’s marriage had brought him fresh estates. He kept them all in good order. His peasants worked three days barshchina and paid him modest rents in cash and kind. They were, he supposed, no better and no worse off than most peasants. In addition, he had bought several small parcels of land south of the River Oka in Riazan province, on the edge of the steppe where the soil was rich and where his stewards used slave labour – a combination of men who could not pay their debts and of captured Tatar raiders. The returns there were excellent.
Nikita had done well. Indeed the family’s status had never been higher. For though the Tsar had finally abolished the old mestnichestvo records of precedence – which, though terribly inconvenient, had guaranteed the Bobrovs a certain status – Nikita had managed to get himself raised into the coveted ranks of the Muscovite nobility. This meant that he lived in Moscow, close to the Tsar, and even dreamed of being a candidate for the provincial governorship. If only he had been able to take that one, further step into the Tsar’s favour, he might have become a rich man.
And though his wife and he had known the sadness – all too common in Russia – of losing children, in 1668, Praise the Lord, a robust little boy had been born who showed every sign of surviving. They had named him Procopy.
As he approached his fifties, therefore, Nikita had been sanguine. He enjoyed good health and high rank. Though growing stout, he was elegant. All he had to do was attract the favourable notice of the Tsar.
Things had certainly been changing in the capital. The court of Alexis had been growing more cosmopolitan, more western. Great men like the Tsar’s friend Matveev encouraged western manners; a few of the inner court circle even shaved their beards.
As an ambitious man with some education himself, Nikita was drawn towards these court circles. The great Matveev liked him and became his mentor. Though he still had a healthy suspicion of all foreigners, Nikita occasionally changed his kaftan for a Polish coat. He had heard German musicians play at Matveev’s house. He occasionally attended a church with a choir that performed part-singing in harmony, in the western manner. And in 1673 he had even obliged his wife to attend one of the new entertainments arranged by the Tsar – a play.
She had not approved.
Her name was Eudokia, or in fulclass="underline" Eudokia Petrovna Bobrova. She was Bobrova because, like all Russian married women, she took the feminine form of her husband’s name, Bobrov. Her patronymic came from her father Peter, whose memory she still revered. And people usually addressed her, respectfully, as Eudokia Petrovna.
She was a powerful woman: black-haired, thickset, with a round face whose placid gentleness completely belied her character. A strict conservative, she was fully conscious of her wealth and her late father’s high position as a military commander. When guests came to their house, she remained out of sight until she was summoned to serve the men brandy after their meal; then, having saluted the guests, she would discreetly depart again. But in private, with other women, or alone with her husband, she had no hesitation in expressing her views. On no subject were they stronger than the changes favoured by the court. A foreigner without a beard, she told him, looked like a chicken that had just been plucked. The western music and plays were sacrilegious: ‘I go to church to hear the Word of God, not some Polish whining,’ she would say.
Above all, honouring her father’s memory, she was contemptuous of the Tsar’s army with its foreign officers. ‘These Germans: what do they know? They know how to give orders. Good.’ She would stand up and mimic an unfortunate peasant standing in utter confusion with his musket. ‘I’ve seen them,’ she would cry. ‘The officer calls out. Nobody understands. He tries again – ah, now they understand. So this one turns left. This one goes right. This one fires his musket. One advances, one retreats. They don’t know what they’re doing. And why? Because the officer who drilled them the week before had a different method altogether. Imbeciles!’