The great crisis Ilya had suffered was easy enough to understand. All summer he had laboured at the plan of his great book. Every waking moment, all his mind, had gone into it. And by August he had produced a blue-print for a new Russia, a modern Russia, with western laws and institutions, and a vigorous economy – ‘maybe like that of the merchants and free farmers of America,’ There was really nothing wrong with Ilya’s plan. It was intelligent, practical, logicaclass="underline" he could see just how Russia could become a free and prosperous like any other nation.
And then the crisis, for Ilya, had begun.
In a way, as Sergei listened to his brother’s urgent explanation, the business was almost comic. He could just see poor Ilya waddling about in his room with furrowed brow, shaking his head at the problems of Russia and the universe. And yet at the same time, he understood and respected Ilya’s problem, which was not really comic at all, but represented the tragedy of his country. And this tragedy was expressed in a single statement.
‘For this was the trouble, Seriozha. The more my plan made sense, the more every instinct inside me said: “This is nonsense. This will never work.” ’ He shook his large head sadly. ‘To lose faith in your own country, the country you love, Seriozha: to feel that because your plan makes sense, that is exactly why it is doomed – that is a terrible thing, my friend.’
It was not uncommon; Sergei had known many thoughtful men, some in the administration, who suffered from exactly this agony of mind. Like many before, no doubt like many after, Ilya the civilized westernizer was being undermined, and mocked, by his own instinctive understanding of his native Russia.
Yet still, all summer, he had pressed on. ‘This was to be my life’s work, Seriozha. I couldn’t just toss it aside. I couldn’t just accept it was an exercise in futility, don’t you see? It was all I had.’ Week after week he had ploughed on, refining, improving and yet no less troubled. Until finally, after a sleepless night, the crisis had come that morning. He could go on no longer.
It was then, in a state of extreme nervous excitement, that Ilya had walked out of the house and gone – as he had not done in years – to the monastery. He himself hardly knew what had led him there. Perhaps a childhood memory. Perhaps an instinctive turning to religion when – as it had for him personally – all else had failed.
He had wandered about at the monastery for several hours without receiving any enlightenment. Then it had occurred to him to go and look at the little icon, the Rublev, which his family had given to the place all those centuries ago. ‘At first,’ he said, ‘I felt nothing. It was just a darkened object.’ But then, slowly, it seemed to Ilya that the little icon had begun to work upon him. He had stayed before it for an hour. Then a second.
‘And then, at last, Seriozha, I knew.’ He took Sergei’s arm excitedly. ‘I knew what was wrong with all my plans. It was exactly what you – you, my dear Seriozha – had told me. I was trying to solve Russia’s problems by using my head, by logic. I should have used my heart.’ He smiled. ‘You have converted me. I am a Slavophile!’
‘And your book?’ Sergei asked.
Ilya smiled. ‘I have no need to travel abroad now,’ he said. ‘The answer to Russia’s problems lies here, in Russia.’ And in a few brief words, he sketched out his new vision. ‘The Church is the key,’ he explained. ‘If Russia’s guiding force is not religion, then her people will be listless. We can have western laws, independent judges, perhaps even parliaments. But only if they grow gradually out of a spiritual renewal. That has to come first.’
‘And Adam Smith?’
‘The laws of economics still operate, but we must organize our farms and our workshops on a communal basis – for the good of the community, not the individual.’
‘It won’t be like the west then, after all.’
‘No. Russia will never be like the west.’
Sergei smiled. He did not know whether his brother was right or wrong, but he was glad to see that, for him at least, the agony seemed to be over. The debate between those who looked to the west and those who saw Russia as different would no doubt go on. Perhaps it would never be resolved.
‘It’s very late,’ he pleaded. ‘Please may I get some rest?’ And he finally persuaded a reluctant Ilya to depart.
There were still a few hours to go before the dawn. For some reason he found himself thinking almost continuously of Olga.
The little glade was very quiet. There was a faint sheen of dew upon the little mounds nearby that caught the early rays of the sun. In the middle distance they could see the little monastery, whose bell had just stopped ringing.
The two men had stripped to their shirts. There was a faint chill in the air which caused Sergei involuntarily to shiver.
Karpenko and Misha, both very pale, had loaded the pistols. Now they handed them to the two men.
And all the time, Misha kept thinking: I know this must be done. It is the only honourable way. And yet it’s insane. It is not real.
There was no sound, for some reason, not even a bird, as the two men paced slowly away from each other. All that could be heard was the faint sound of their feet brushing the short, damp grass.
They turned. Two shots rang out.
And both seconds ran, with a cry, to Sergei.
It was not surprising that the bullet had struck him precisely in the heart. Ever since he was a young man, Pinegin had never been known to miss. Down in the frontier forts, he had an enviable reputation for it: which was why, years ago, Alexis had remarked that Pinegin was a dangerous man.
When Alexis returned to Russka that afternoon and heard the news, he broke down and wept. At his request, Pinegin left at once.
But the most unexpected event took place that evening.
Sergei’s letter to Alexis was a very simple, but moving document. It asked his forgiveness, first, for any hurt he had brought the family. He told Alexis, frankly, how hard it had been for him to forgive the exile in the Urals that his brother had engineered; but thanked him for his restraint in the years since. And it ended with a single request.
For there is one great wrong I have done in my life – you may not agree because you follow the legal rules applying to serfdom – but to me, when I foolishly gave the game away and caused Savva Suvorin to be caught again, I did him a terrible wrong. You have a clear conscience about it, I know. But I have not, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I know from our mother that he has offered you a huge sum for his freedom. If you have any love for me, Alexis, I beg you to take it and let the poor fellow go free.
Twice Alexis read this. Twice he noticed that little phrase – ‘You have a clear conscience about it’ – and twice he shook his head sadly as he remembered the bank-notes he had hidden all those years ago.
And so it was that evening that, after struggling uselessly for decades, Savva Suvorin was astonished to be summoned to the manor house and told by Alexis, with a weary smile: ‘I have decided, Suvorin, to accept your offer. You are a free man.’
1855
Sevastopol. At times it seemed to Misha Bobrov that no one would ever get out of it.
We’re marooned, he used to think each day, like men on a desert island.
Yet of all those defending the place, of any man fighting in this whole, insane Crimean War, was there anyone, he wondered, in a stranger position than he? For while I struggle to survive in Sevastopol, he considered, I’m under almost certain sentence of death if I ever get out of it. The absurd irony of the situation almost amused him. At least, he thought, I can thank God I shall leave a son. His boy Nicolai had been born the previous year. That was one happy consolation at any rate.