‘For two days – I speak in terms familiar to us here on earth – you will be free to roam the world. But on the third day you will face a great and terrible trial. For, as we know from the story of the dormition of the Virgin, the Mother of God herself trembled at the thought of that day when, as she put it, the soul passes through the toll houses. This day you must fear. You will encounter first one and then another evil spirit; and the extent of your struggle with those evils in life will give you strength, or not, to pass through. Those who do not, go straight to Gehenna. On this day, the prayers of those on earth are of great assistance.’
Tatiana looked at the hermit thoughtfully. If she had hoped for comfort, she had not found it. Who would pray for her upon that day? Her family perhaps? Stern Alexis?
The hermit gave her a quiet smile. ‘I will pray for you then, if you like,’ he said.
Tatiana bowed her head. ‘But perhaps you will not know of my death,’ she suggested. The hermitage was so cut off.
‘I shall know,’ he replied. Then he continued. ‘For thirty-seven more days, after the third, you will visit the regions of heaven and hell, but without knowing your own destiny. Then you will be allotted your place to await the Last Day of Judgement and the Second Coming.’
He turned to her kindly. ‘I remind you of this so that you may know that your soul suffers no loss at death, but rather passes instantly into another state. Your life is only a preparing of the spirit for its ultimate journey. Prepare yourself, therefore, without fear. Repent your sins, which stand against you. Beg for forgiveness. Make sure that your spirit, on the threshold of its journey, is humble.’ He got up.
Tatiana also rose. ‘Will it be soon?’ she asked.
‘The hour is always late,’ he replied quietly. ‘You must prepare. That is all.’
He gave her his blessing, and a little wooden cross. And then, just as she was leaving, he motioned her to stop.
‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘that before you pass over, you are to undergo a trial.’ He paused, gazing past her; then, turning his eyes back to her, he remarked: ‘Pray earnestly, therefore, as you prepare to receive a visitor.’
As she walked slowly back to the cart, she wondered what he meant.
It was a week later that a modest carriage, driven by an ill-dressed and rather grumpy-looking coachman, drew up to the house. In it sat Sergei. And with him was his wife.
At the age of forty-two, Sergei Bobrov looked what he was – a man whose talents had brought him minor standing, and who hoped for more. The two literary geniuses of his generation – his old friend Pushkin and, more recently, young Lermontov – had both appeared like meteors in the sky only to lose their lives in their prime. People looked to Sergei as a man who might, in his middle age, continue what they had begun when young. And perhaps part of the reason for the deepening of the lines upon his face was that, so far, he had not quite managed to justify this hope. His dark hair, worn long, had thinned at the front. He had thick side whiskers now, which were greying. His eyes looked somewhat strained. He had a slight paunch, which somehow suggested a kind of irritability. He came only seldom to Russka, and Tatiana knew he had constant problems with money; but he never complained.
And now, as soon as the couple were inside the house and the first civilities were done with, Sergei drew his mother to one side and explained: ‘The fact is, I’ve come to ask you all a favour.’
His old friend Karpenko, now living in Kiev, had invited him to tour the Ukraine. An arduous journey was planned, some of it on horseback and quite unsuitable for a woman. ‘If I’m going to do any good work,’ he confided, ‘I need a change of scene, the chance to get away.’ He expected to return in two months. In the meantime, he had come to ask: ‘Could I leave my wife with you?’
It would have seemed strange to Tatiana to refuse.
It was a pleasant gathering at dinner. In particular, it made Tatiana happy to see Alexis and Sergei together.
Over the years they had achieved a measure of reconciliation. And they had evolved a cast-iron rule for avoiding quarrels – which was simply never to discuss certain matters like the military or Savva Suvorin. And if she knew they had done all this chiefly for her sake, at least it was something.
If Alexis went out of his way to be agreeable, Ilya was beaming with pleasure. It was hard for this highly educated man to share many of his thoughts with her – still less with Alexis. But ever since Sergei’s appearance, Ilya had been galvanized, and before dinner she had heard him waddling about in his room, pulling out books and papers and muttering: ‘Ah, Seriozha! There are so many things we must discuss.’ If anyone would discover Ilya’s secret it would certainly be Sergei.
The one figure of mystery at the table was Sergei’s young wife. What could one make of her?
Sergei had married Nadia three years before. She was wellborn, a general’s daughter, whose fair hair and pretty appearance upon the dance floor had made her referred to in society, one year, as an ‘ethereal beauty’. It happened, that year, that Sergei too had been briefly in fashion. And it seemed that the girl and the rake had each fallen in love with each other’s reputation in the short-lived season. ‘She’s certainly blonde,’ Ilya had complained after their first meeting. ‘But I can’t see anything ethereal about her.’ Since the marriage, Sergei’s family had seen little of the girl. There had been a baby, lost when it was a week old, and no news of further pregnancies since. And now she sat quietly, looking a little bored but talking mostly to Alexis with whom, it seemed, she felt more at ease than with Ilya. If she was staying there all summer, Tatiana thought, no doubt she would know all about her before long.
At the end of the meal, Tatiana and Nadia both felt tired and decided to retire, while the men moved out on to the verandah to smoke their pipes and talk. The atmosphere between them now was mellow. Even Alexis, after talking to Sergei’s wife, was in a cheerful good humour; and when Sergei had given them the latest gossip from the capital, he turned to Ilya and remarked: ‘Well, brother, now that Seriozha is here, are you going to tell us, at last, what the devil you’ve been up to these last few weeks?’
And it was then that Ilya revealed his secret.
‘The fact is,’ he replied with a placid smile, ‘I’m leaving Russka.’ And as they gazed at him in astonishment he explained: ‘I’m going abroad to write a book. I’m calling it Russia and the West. It will be my life’s work.’
Perhaps it had been a sudden inspiration; perhaps the culmination of years of study. Or perhaps it had been the sight of Alexis’s medals, especially the Nevsky Order resting so ceremoniously upon his brother’s chest, which had suddenly brought it home to Ilya that while Alexis had already retired with proof of a lifetime’s accomplishment, he himself had absolutely nothing to show for his fifty-five years on earth. Whatever the cause, he had now decided to make a supreme effort: Ilya Bobrov, too, would leave some memorial.
He had spent a lifetime in study; he was a European, a progressive: what, then, could be better than to write the book which would lead his beloved Russia forward upon her destiny, so that future generations might look back and say: ‘Ilya Bobrov showed us the way’?
And now, with obvious pride, he outlined his plan. ‘My thesis,’ he explained, ‘is very simple. Russia has never, in all her history, been capable of governing herself. It has always been outsiders who brought order and culture to our land. In the days of golden Kiev it was norsemen who ruled us and the Greeks who gave us our religion. For centuries we lived in darkness under the Tartar yoke; but when we emerged, who led us forward into the modern world? Why the English, Dutch and German scientists and technicians imported by Peter the Great. Who gave us our present culture? Catherine the Great who brought us the Enlightenment from France. What philosophers inspire you and me, Sergei? Why, today’s great thinkers from Germany.