And Misha Bobrov could only wonder what on earth this could mean.
Grigory was nineteen, with a pinched face and long, oily black hair which was parted, rather sadly, down the middle. He was not strong physically, and God had cursed him with teeth which gave him pain almost every day. But he was determined, in his quiet way. Determined to survive.
He was also frightened of Natalia Romanov, who loved him.
He had been one of a family of eight. His father had been a household serf who had drifted into casual labour in Vladimir and who, as soon as they were ten, had sent his children out to work. About once a month he had tied Grigory to a wooden bench and flogged him with birch twigs which he had thoughtfully wetted first. Yet, despite this, Grigory had been fond of him.
His father had not minded when, at the age of thirteen, Grigory had said he wanted to leave home. Indeed, Grigory had the impression that his parents were rather glad to get rid of him. But before he left, his father had given him one piece of advice to take with him on his road through life.
‘Take what you can from women, Grigory. But watch out. Sometimes they seem kind, but deep down, they want to hurt you. Remember that.’
He always had.
And now this girl. What did she see in him? She was pretty, lively; her father had his own holding: by Grigory’s standards, the Romanovs were rich. He could make her laugh: but then, with his sharp, rather cruel humour, he could make almost anyone laugh. He could make people laugh who hated him, and whom he hated.
So what could she want with him?
And why, in the name of the Lord, had she, that last night, asked him to marry her? He had looked at her with suspicious astonishment before gruffly replying: ‘I’ll have to think about that.’
When the two young men dressed as peasants appeared in the village that morning, nobody at first knew who they were – until Arina, coming out of the house took one look and called out: ‘Holy Master Nicolai, how you’ve grown!’ And a moment later, at the old woman’s insistence, they were inside the Romanov izba sitting by the big warm stove and eating sweetmeats.
When the family heard that Nicolai and his friend wanted to work in the village, they were mystified. Who could fathom the mind of a noble? But when Timofei cautiously enquired if they wanted to be paid, and was told they did not, his eyes opened wide at this stroke of good luck. ‘Go no further, Nicolai Mikhailovich,’ he said. ‘I can give you just what you want.’
And so it was, two hours later, that a puzzled Misha Bobrov encountered his son and young Popov quietly helping the peasant at the edge of a large field and, wise enough not to interfere, shook his head in amusement at the strange eccentricities of young people and returned to his house. ‘They’ll be hungry tonight,’ he remarked to his wife, and went to read a book.
Natalia watched the two visitors with curiosity too. She had been a little girl when Nicolai Bobrov went away to school and the landlord’s son was hardly more than a name to her. He was handsome, she thought, with his neatly trimmed moustache and beard and his bright blue eyes. Very handsome. But his friend with the ginger hair was different: she did not know what to make of him. He didn’t say much to Natalia and her family, leaving Nicolai to do the talking, and Natalia decided he must belong to some class of person that she had never seen before. Still, she considered, he’s nothing to do with me. She had other things to think about.
Especially Grigory.
Natalia loved her family. She did not want to hurt them. But when Boris said he was moving out, something had snapped inside her. She felt suddenly very lonely. She knew her father and mother needed her; yet when the previous evening Timofei had told her, as she feared, that she might have to go to the factory, she couldn’t help feeling resentful. If I do that for them, she decided, then I want something to make me happy too. Strangely, that meant Grigory.
Why him? The fact was, her prospects in the village were not good. The Romanovs were poor: with this new baby, her father certainly had nothing to give her as a dowry. And as she wasn’t a particular beauty, she would be lucky to get one of the better village boys. But in any case, it was the little fellow in the factory, with his sly wit, who had captivated her. There was something about him, an inner drive, that fascinated her. None of the village boys had that. When they had first struck up an acquaintance, she had started to teach him to read, and been astonished by his quickness. He did not seem to study things like other people: he attacked each subject, devouring it ferociously until he had mastered it. He’s like a tiger, she thought wonderingly. And yet, he was also vulnerable: he needed looking after. It was a combination she found attractive, compelling; and by the spring she had concluded: He may not be perfect, but there is no other man on earth like this.
Her plan was simple enough: Either he can come and live with us in the village, and then there’ll be two wages to bring home. Or if they won’t take him in, then I’ll go and live with him in Russka and they’ll get nothing. It was a way of asserting her independence, at least.
And so, all day, while Nicolai and Popov worked with her father, she thought about him.
She was quite surprised when, at dusk, Nicolai announced that he and his friend would be back again the following morning.
Nicolai was pleased. The first day had gone well. Yevgeny seemed to be satisfied too. We’ll get their confidence,’ he said. ‘But remember,’ he added sternly, ‘we mustn’t say anything for the time being. That’s the plan.’
‘Of course.’ The plan was everything.
How lucky he was, Nicolai thought, to be with Popov. Admittedly, he could sometimes be rather mysterious, so that you felt he was withholding information; but he seemed so certain about things, so definite. And now they were partners in this all-important business. He supposed that, one day, their names might even be listed with the others in the history books.
Meanwhile, he was looking forward to this evening. He had seen Yevgeny in action many times, and he wondered with amusement what his friend would do to his parents.
As Misha Bobrov waited in the salon for the two young men to come down for supper, he tried to conceal his excitement.
Not only did he long to find out what they were up to, but, as he told his wife: ‘You can be sure we have a great many things to discuss.’ He believed that he would give a good account of himself. Indeed, he thought that the students might be rather impressed.
The salon was a long, pleasant room, simply furnished with chairs and sofas of French design, and was graced with heavy blue curtains, parted at the centre and tied at the sides with large tassels. A fine mahogany glass-fronted bookcase, its decorative panels carved in the shape of classical lyres, stood handsomely at the far end of the room; on the mantel over the fire, a black marble clock, shaped like a rather stolid little Greek temple front, stared out into the room with confident self-satisfaction. In one corner, a round table was covered with a bright Turkey rug. And everywhere a mass of family pictures, from large oils to tiny cameos, were hung around the walls in no particular order.
As well as these conventional furnishings, however, there were several indications that Misha Bobrov was a gentleman somewhat out of the ordinary.
On each side of the bookcase was a picture – not the classical scenes his grandfather would have favoured, but bright, informal studies, one of a country landscape at sunset, the other of a wrinkled peasant’s face. These paintings by the new school, known as The Wanderers, gave him huge pleasure. ‘They are the first truly Russian painters since the makers of icons,’ he would say. ‘These young fellows paint Russian life as it really is.’ Indeed, in his study, he even had a little sketch by the best of these, the brilliant Ilya Repin, which showed a humble barge-hauler on the Volga, straining on his harness as if he were trying to be free. And when young Nicolai had shown some talent for drawing at school, Misha had urged him: ‘You try to draw like these young men, Nicolai – just as you really see things.’