Her understanding with Savva was very straightforward. ‘I shall persuade Alexander Prokofievich to sell you your freedom, Savva. I will also lend you the money you need, free of any interest. A year after you get your freedom, however, whenever that may be, you will repay me exactly twice what I lent you. Is that agreed?’ He had bowed low. ‘Very well then,’ she had told him. ‘Leave it to me. But tell no one.’
It might be highly unorthodox for a lady to concern herself with a serf like this – especially behind her husband’s back – but the plan was entirely sensible. Suvorin would get his freedom; Bobrov a substantial sum of money to pass on; and she would discreetly increase the little nest-egg she was building up for Sergei.
And though the sum Bobrov had demanded for the Suvorins’ freedom was huge, she had faith in the serf. It might take time, but he would find it.
Already she had lent him a thousand roubles. Now, this bright January morning, she had come into Russka with more – another thousand. ‘Take it to Moscow and use it well,’ she told him.
And as he mounted the sled and bowed again, she did not know that Savva had another secret, that he was concealing from her. He would have enough money now, to buy his freedom by the end of that very year.
The duel between master and serf was nearly over.
July
Olga gazed at her husband fondly. They had spent the last month together on the estate near Smolensk and, it seemed to her, she had never known such happiness. There was a glow upon her skin, a softness when she came near him, which made even the serfs on the estate smile and declare: ‘Truly they are man and wife.’
Then, with a laugh, she passed him Sergei’s letter.
He had always written to her regularly, ever since his schooldays, often enclosing a poem too, or some funny drawings. She kept the letters and loved to go over them again, when she had nothing to do. This one was characteristic.
My dear little Olga,
No doubt your husband is beating you regularly, in the old-fashioned way – so I send you news to cheer you up. I have found a charming group of friends. We meet in the Archives of the Foreign Ministry in Moscow and call ourselves the Lovers of Wisdom. (For that goddess, you know, like all women, needs many lovers.) We read the great German philosophers, especially Hegel and Schelling. And we discuss the meaning of life and the genius of Russia; and we are ardent and altogether pleased with ourselves.
Do you know that the universe is in a state of becoming? It is so. Each idea has an opposite. When they combine, they produce a new and better idea, which in turn finds its opposite and so on until in this wonderful way the whole universe approaches perfection. Our human society, here on earth, is just the same. We are all of us just evolving ideas in the great cosmic order. Is that not wonderful?
Do you feel the grand cosmic forces, my little Olga – or does your husband beat you too much? Sometimes I feel them. I see a tree and I say: ‘That’s the cosmos, evolving.’ But then sometimes I don’t. I hit my head against a tree the other day and didn’t feel cosmic at all. Perhaps if I’d hit it harder…
I must stop now. My friends and I have to follow our cosmic destiny and go out drinking. Then I shall seek the cosmos with a certain lady of my acquaintance.
I will now tell you an interesting fact. Our esteemed Minister of Education is so suspicious of philosophy that no chair in that subject is allowed in St Petersburg. I know of one man who discreetly lectures on philosophy in the botany department, another who teaches from his chair in agriculture. Only in our beloved Russia can the nature of the universe be considered a branch of agriculture!
I’m awfully sorry your husband is such a brute. Write to me at once if you want me to rescue you.
September
It was the end of summer, which had been long that year. The buggy bumped along the dirt road; it went at an unhurried pace because old Suvorin was careful to avoid the numerous ruts and potholes; and besides, what was the use of hurrying anywhere when one was driving Ilya Bobrov?
It was three days since they had left the city of Riazan. Tomorrow they would get to Russka. ‘And it would have been tonight, sir, if you could get up in the mornings,’ the grey-bearded serf had remarked. To which Ilya had replied with a smile and a sigh: ‘I dare say you’re right, Suvorin. I don’t know why I find it so hard, I’m sure.’
The sunlight was already tinged with red. The track passed between endless stands of silver birch and larch trees, their leaves now turning to a rustling gold, against the pale blue sky. Soon, as the sun sank lower, the pigeons would come dipping over the tree-tops.
And now the trees opened out, and large fields appeared. Like many in the area, this village grew flax, barley and rye. The harvest was done. Little yellow-brown haystacks dotted the nearest field. Along its boundary, a bank of wormwood and nettles lent a faint, bitter smell to the air. As they approached the first izba, they were greeted by a barking dog and a large woman with a basket of mushrooms in her arms. Soon afterwards, they came to an inn.
‘We’ll have to stop here for the night,’ Suvorin remarked gloomily.
The inn was typical of its kind: a large room with tables and benches, a big stove in one corner, and a grumpy tavernkeeper, who immediately became obsequious when he caught sight of Ilya. While Suvorin saw to the horses, Ilya sat down near the stove and called for tea.
It had been a satisfactory journey. He was glad now that Tatiana had at last persuaded him to go with old Suvorin. They had thoroughly inspected the Riazan estate – at least, Suvorin had – taken their rents, sold the crops and some timber, and were returning to Russka with a considerable sum of money. Since the Riazan estate was one day to be his – Alexis would get Russka – he supposed it was as well he should get to know the place. Suvorin had even induced him to walk about outside so that his colour had improved from its usual pastiness.
Ilya Bobrov was not an invalid; yet thanks to Tatiana’s folly he had grown up genuinely uncertain whether he was well or not. He was no fool. Kept often in bed as a child, he began to read voraciously, and had learned from his father both a love of French literature and enlightened philosophy. Unfortunately, however, and because his father had, ultimately, been defeated by life, he had taken in, without even knowing it, a subconscious sense that everything was useless. Failure and impotence seemed, to Ilya, inevitable. A kind of torpor descended upon him. And though he often had an acute sense that he was wasting his life, that he must shake this torpor off, somehow, because he never had to, he did not. Now, at the age of twenty-eight, he was amiable, lazy, unmarried and decidedly fat. ‘I am too stout,’ he would say apologetically, ‘but I don’t know what’s to be done about it.’
This journey, however, had rather stirred him up. Indeed, it had even given him a new idea, which he had been thinking about all day. So that when Suvorin appeared with his portmanteau, and the landlord with a glass of steaming tea, he just nodded to them both, put his feet up on the travelling chest and, half-closing his eyes while he sipped his tea, he considered: Yes, it’s certainly time I stopped vegetating. I think I shall take a trip abroad. I shall go to France.
It was time for his life to change. And old Suvorin, watching him and thinking of his own son, Savva, in Moscow, concluded: If that fellow had half my son’s energy, he could still make something of himself.
So the time went slowly by, as the sun sank, and the landowner and the elderly serf contemplated their destinies. And the journey might have ended the next day, quite without incident, had it not been for the landlord.