It was unpleasant, dangerous work as they moved forward towards their first objective. As they crossed a small square, a shell whistled overhead and exploded on a house a hundred yards behind them, sending a shudder through the ground. In the narrow street they had to negotiate next, there were two unexploded shells lying in the rubble. At last, however, they came to the place. It was a section of wall that had been built up to provide a gun emplacement. To reach it, however, one had to walk along another section which, whether through laziness or stupidity, had not been properly protected. And since a party of French snipers had established themselves in the section of ruined city beyond, it made a hazardous journey. Twice, as they had made their way along, Pinegin had pulled him down as a sniper’s bullet whistled overhead.
The task was easy enough. The men brought up kegs of powder. Misha and Pinegin arranged everything carefully, setting a fuse and laying it along the wall. Meanwhile, they sent the men away with the rest of the explosives.
For some reason, while the two men worked, it became very quiet. The snipers were certainly still out there, but waiting for them to show themselves. The bombardment had briefly paused. There was a faint breeze and the sun felt pleasantly warm. The sky was a pale blue.
And it was then that Misha Bobrov suddenly realized that he could commit murder.
They were quite alone. Their men were several hundred yards away and out of sight. The place was otherwise deserted. Pinegin, as it happened, was not armed. He was kneeling with his back to Misha, fiddling with the fuse, while he crouched by the wall, keeping out of the snipers’ sight.
So who in the world would ever be the wiser? It would be so easy to do. He had only to show himself for a moment upon the parapet – just enough to draw the snipers’ fire. Even a single shot would do – something their men would hear. And then… His hand rested on his pistol. A single shot, it hardly mattered how it was done. The back of the head would do. He would leave Pinegin there, blow up the emplacement, tell the men a sniper caught the captain. No one would even suspect.
Was it really possible that he, Misha Bobrov, could commit a murder? He was surprised to find that he could. Perhaps it was the months in that hell-hole that had made him more careless of human life. But he did not think that was it. No, he admitted frankly, it was the simple human instinct for self-preservation. Pinegin was going to kill him in cold blood. He was just doing the same, getting his shot in first.
And what was there to prevent him? Morality? What morality, ultimately, was there in a duel where both men agree to commit murder? Was Pinegin’s life really worth so much compared to his? Hadn’t he himself a wife and child at home, while this fellow had nothing but his cold heart and his strange pride? No, Misha decided, there was nothing to stop him killing Pinegin, except for one thing.
Convention. Just that. Was mere convention so strong as to allow him to the for it? Convention – a code of honour that was, when you really looked at it, insane.
His hand rested on his pistol. Still he did not move.
And then Pinegin turned and looked at him. Misha saw his pale blue eyes take in everything about him. And he knew Pinegin guessed.
Then Pinegin smiled, and turned his back again, and continued fiddling with the fuse.
It was several minutes later that they lit the fuse and watched the little spark run away from them, along the wall, to its destination. Just before it reached the barrels, they both ducked down and held their breath. But then, for some reason, nothing happened. ‘Damned suppliers,’ Pinegin muttered. There had been problems recently with all kinds of supplies, even military, reaching the army. ‘God knows what’s wrong now. Wait here,’ he ordered. And he ran up and, keeping his head low, made his way swiftly along the wall. Just before he reached the barrels, a single sniper’s bullet whistled harmlessly overhead. Then the barrels blew up.
1857
Only one thing puzzled Misha Bobrov when, late in 1857, he returned at last to Russka.
It concerned Savva Suvorin and the priest.
Of course, there were better things to think about. The new reign of Alexander II seemed likely to bring many changes. The Crimean War had been concluded on terms that were humiliating to Russia. She had lost her right to a navy in the Black Sea. But no one had any stomach for further hostilities. ‘First,’ Misha declared, ‘the Tsar must sort things out at home. For this war has almost ruined us.’ Everyone knew that things had to change.
And of all the reforms that were being spoken of, none was more important, and none would affect Misha more, than the possible emancipation of the serfs.
Upon this great subject, in the years 1856 and 1857, the whole of Russia was a seething mass of rumour. From abroad, the radical writer Herzen was despatching his noble journal The Bell into Russia, calling upon the Tsar to set his subjects free. Closer to home, returning soldiers had even started a rumour – that spread like wildfire – that the new Tsar actually had granted the serfs their freedom, but that the landlords were concealing the proclamations!
But amidst all this excitement, Misha Bobrov – though he personally believed that emancipation was desirable – was very calm. ‘People mistake the new Tsar,’ he told his wife. ‘They say he’ll be a reformer and perhaps he will. But actually he is a very conservative man, just like his father. His saving grace is that he is pragmatic. He will do whatever he has to do to preserve order. If that means freeing the serfs, he’ll do it. If not, he won’t.’
Many landowners, however, were nervous. ‘I’ll tell you a useful trick,’ one fellow landlord told him. ‘Some of us reckon that if the emancipation comes, then we’ll have to give the serfs the land they till. So what you can do is to take your serfs off the land – make them into household domestics for the time being. Then if this awful thing happens you’ll be able to say: “But my serfs don’t till any land.” And you may not have to give them a thing!’
And, indeed, Misha actually discovered one landlord in the province whose lands were completely untilled, but who had suddenly acquired forty footmen! ‘A trick,’ he remarked to his wife, ‘which is as stupid as it is shabby.’ The Bobrov serfs stayed where they were.
Whatever changes were coming, Misha was looking forward to being at home. He had inherited not only Bobrovo, but also the Riazan estate from Ilya. ‘I shall devote myself to agriculture and to study,’ he declared. After Ilya’s death five years before, he had discovered the huge unfinished manuscript of his Uncle’s great work. ‘Perhaps I can complete it for him,’ he suggested.
No, there were plenty of things to think about. But still, the matter of Suvorin and the priest intrigued him.
‘For the one thing I regret about giving Suvorin his freedom,’ Alexis had always told him, ‘is that once he’s not under my thumb, he’ll start bringing his Old Believers here and converting people. And I always promised the priest I wouldn’t let that happen.’
In his years away on military service, Misha had rather forgotten about this; but now he had returned and had begun making some enquiries, it was soon clear to him that, indeed, this transformation had taken place.
The Suvorin enterprise was growing rapidly. The jenny imported from England for the cotton plant had been a huge success. Savva Suvorin now employed half the people living in the little town of Russka. His son Ivan ran the business in Moscow. And while it was not clear to Misha whether all those Suvorin employed were Old Believers, there was certainly a core of them at the factory; and the fact that recent legislation had broken up some of the Old Believer groups, including the radical Theodosians, had obviously not stopped some sort of observances continuing almost openly. Indeed, Timofei Romanov once obligingly showed Misha the house in the town where they met to pray.