‘Perhaps,’ Alexis suggested brightly, ‘you can make a study of mining conditions, while you are there.’
Little Misha did not understand. His Uncle Sergei looked white and scarcely noticed him when he came by; Karpenko was walking about shaking his head and muttering. His Aunt Olga was weeping. Even Pinegin, sitting in his white tunic and puffing on his pipe, looked grim. It seemed Uncle Sergei had to go away, but Misha could not work out why.
Nobody saw the little boy slip into the salon and stand behind a chair. His father was there, standing. His grandmother was sitting on a sofa. Misha was about to step out into the room when his grandmother spoke.
‘Wolf! That is what you are.’
Misha stared. She was speaking to his father.
‘You are responsible for this. I know it very well. My own son – a viper!’ She spat the word out. ‘I have nothing more to say to you. Please go.’
He saw his father wince. Then coldly turn. Misha hid behind the chair as Alexis walked slowly out. Then, trembling, he sneaked out himself.
What did it mean? Was his father wicked?
1844
The duel between Savva Suvorin and the Bobrov family entered its final stage in the year 1844. It was between a master who respected but hated his serf, and a serf who hated and despised his master.
Savva Suvorin had never given up. The day when he had fled Moscow after receiving Tatiana’s letter about his poor father, he had taken with him only some money sewn into his clothes, and the little blackened icon. For two terrible years, to keep out of sight, he had pulled barges on the River Volga. It was backbreaking work. He saw many die at it. But God had made him strong. And each night he took out the little icon and prayed: ‘Lord have mercy on me and keep me safe from the evil doings of unworthy men.’
After two years he had gone to the great fair of Nizhni Novgorod but it was hard to get anything except menial work without proper papers, and so he was led, finally, back to Moscow and the Theodosian community who welcomed him gladly and gave him forged papers.
He had been happy in Moscow. Though the community existed to look after its poorest members, it contained many vigorous men of business; and it was not long before Savva was noticed by them. He married the daughter of one: a quiet girl with a round face, pointed nose and, he soon discovered, an astonishing practical sense. They had a child they called Ivan.
And then Sergei had seen him.
On the day after he arrived back at Russka, Alexis Bobrov had him flogged. As the lashes fell on his back, however, he concentrated his mind on one thought: I shall live; and I shall one day be free. And, God be praised, at only the twentieth lash a figure had appeared and a voice cried out in fury: ‘Enough! Stop this at once!’ And so great was Tatiana’s anger that even Alexis had dared proceed no further.
The relationship between Savva and Alexis was uniformly sour. Only Tatiana had been able to save the serf from being systematically destroyed. When Alexis wanted to use Savva as a menial house-serf – ‘to teach him a lesson and some manners’ as Alexis put it – it was Tatiana who stopped him, pointing out: ‘Common sense at least should tell you he’s worth far more to you doing what he does best.’ And it was she who lent Savva money to get started again.
In the years that followed, Savva Suvorin wasted no time. Having been baulked of his object twice before, he pressed ahead with a relentless sense of urgency. When, right at the start, his old cousin Ivan Romanov offered to help – ‘I’ve three grown sons and a young boy growing too’ – he politely refused. He would have no partners, no interference, no one to slow him down.
In 1830, while Alexis was away at the crushing of another Polish uprising, Savva set up a small business for printing cottons. The profits were extraordinary. But when Alexis returned and saw what he had done, he tried to charge an obrok so high that it would almost have closed the business, and Savva told his wife grimly: ‘That fool doesn’t want to profit by me – he wants to ruin me.’
Only Tatiana, who ran the estate in Alexis’s absence, was able to restrain her son – and make it possible for Savva to operate. Thanks to her, and paying a reasonable obrok, he was able in ten years to build up a cloth mill with hired workers at Russka and to become richer than he had ever been before.
Yet despite this working arrangement, Alexis continued, each year, to become a little poorer. The reason was very simple. For though Tatiana could talk some sense into him about the running of the estate, she could do nothing about his personal expenses. And severe though he was, Alexis liked to live well. As his son Misha, destined for the guards, grew up, Alexis insisted on providing lavishly for him too. ‘For the honour,’ he said, ‘of the family.’ The result was that the extra obrok from Savva’s activities, instead of being ploughed back into the estate, just encouraged him to spend more, and still his expenses often exceeded his income.
By contrast, Savva’s treatment of his own son was harsh. While he and Maria were sad that God had only granted them a single child, ‘one is enough,’ Savva would say. Young Ivan, though not of his father’s towering build, was a shrewd boy with a fine singing voice. Though Savva had no objection to this, he knew where his son’s interest in music must end. When Ivan, aged thirteen, foolishly appeared in the house with a violin he had just acquired, Savva took it from him, examined it, and then with a blow that almost stunned the boy, broke it over his son’s head. ‘You’ve no time for that,’ he said simply, by way of explanation.
There was another source of friction between Savva and his master. This was that the serf was an Old Believer. He had kept his contact with the Theodosians, and though he did not seek to convert others, it would be noticed that, when he ate in company, he did so in the Old Believers’ manner – apart, using his own wooden bowl, and a little wooden spoon with a cross upon it.
Strictly speaking the Old Believers sects were loyal at this time. But to Alexis, this quiet profession of Savva’s faith was deeply objectionable – partly because it seemed like a sort of personal defiance and also, ‘It’s against the good of Russia,’ he firmly declared.
For in 1832, the government of Tsar Nicholas had formulated a doctrine that, in a way, summarized the outlook of all Russian administrations that century and even beyond. This was the famous doctrine of Official Nationality. It was declared in government, in the army, and above all in school, and resoundingly dictated that the good of Russia lay in three things: Orthodoxy, the Tsar’s Autocracy, and Nationality, which last meant a sense of communal belonging to the Russian nation.
The idea was simple. It suggested a paternal relationship between the Tsar and his people, entirely appropriate to a state that liked to refer to itself as Holy Russia. And to Alexis, the moment this doctrine of Official Nationality was announced, it was sacred.
The dour Old Believer, therefore, seemed to the authoritarian landowner to be vaguely treacherous, disloyal and disobedient. I should have thrashed him more, he thought, and if ever I get an excuse, I’ll thrash him again.
And still Savva’s real goal, his freedom, seemed elusive.
In 1837 he asked Alexis Bobrov what it would take to purchase his family’s freedom.
‘Nothing, because I will not free you,’ was the reply.
The next year he asked again and received the same reply. ‘May I know why, sir?’ he asked.
‘Certainly,’ Alexis said pleasantly. ‘It’s because, Suvorin, I prefer to keep you where you are.’
And bitterly, looking at his own son, Savva remarked to his wife: ‘He’s still just as I was at his age: a serf, and the son of a serf.’ And when Maria tried to comfort him and told him something would turn up, he only shook his head and muttered: ‘I wonder what.’