Nicolai gazed at him in astonishment. Was this all the young fellow had in mind – personal gain and the exploitation of others? What had become of the spontaneous revolution? ‘I’m afraid,’ he said sadly, ‘that wasn’t quite what I meant.’
As Nicolai and Popov walked up the slope to the manor, both were lost in their own thoughts. Perhaps, Nicolai considered, he had just expected things to happen too soon. A few more speeches, a few more days, weeks, even months, and the message would begin to get through. He would try again tomorrow, and the next day. He’d be patient.
It was Popov who finally broke the silence.
‘We should have told them the Tsar was giving them the land,’ he said gloomily. ‘I could even have forged a proclamation.’
‘But that would be against everything we stand for,’ Nicolai objected.
Popov shrugged.
‘It might have worked, though.’
Yet if Nicolai thought he had failed to win any converts, he was wrong; and he would have been surprised indeed to see into the mind of one member of the Romanov family the following morning. Natalia’s mind was in a whirl. It had not occurred to anyone to ask her opinion about the speech the evening before, but it had deeply moved her. Now, as she made her way out of the village in the early morning, the phrases were still echoing in her head: a new age, the end of oppression. Until that day, she had believed her father and put her faith in the faraway Tsar. Didn’t everyone? But as she had listened to Nicolai, it seemed to her that a whole world had opened up.
He was so beautiful. He’s like an angel, she had thought as the sun caught his face. Despite his peasant’s dress, he was so obviously a noble from another world. He was educated. Surely he must know many things that her poor father could not possibly understand.
She knew that what he said about the land was true. But recently she had experienced another kind of oppression, as bad as any in the days of serfdom: that of Suvorin and his factories. That was where the peasant was truly enslaved. Already she had come to hate it: and as for Grigory, she knew that his loathing of Suvorin was almost an obsession. Is there really a new age dawning, she wondered, where we shall all be free? And if so, won’t the peasants in the factory benefit from this revolution too? If she could just ask young Nicolai.
It was just as she started along the path into the woods that she saw Popov.
He had gone for an early stroll. He was ambling along, wearing a wide-brimmed hat like an artist’s, and as she approached, he gave her quite a pleasant smile. Normally, she would not have spoken to him; for though she had nothing against Nicolai’s friend, she had always felt rather shy in his presence. However, encouraged by the smile, and anxious to find out, she asked him: ‘This revolution and the new age that Nicolai Mikhailovich spoke of – will it change things in the factories too?’
He smiled again. ‘Why, certainly.’
‘What will happen?’
‘The factories will all be given to the peasants,’ Popov promptly replied.
‘We wouldn’t have to work such long hours? And Suvorin would be kicked out?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I have a friend,’ she said hesitantly, ‘who would be interested to hear of this, Nicolai Mikhailovich. But he is at the factory.’
And now Popov looked at her with interest. ‘I shall be in Russka this afternoon,’ he said, ‘if your friend would like me to speak to him.’ And seeing a trace of doubt on her face, ‘I know somewhere very private.’
Nicolai did not go to work in the fields that day; but in the late afternoon, when he went down to the village and mounted the stool in front of the Romanov izba, he noticed that the crowd assembling was much bigger than it had been the day before. This pleased him. He had not really wanted to speak again so soon. Popov had deserted him to go into Russka for some reason, and he might have waited for another occasion to speak if his friend had not urged him on. ‘Courage, my friend. They’ve had time to think about what you said yesterday. You may have made more converts than you think. Go to it, Nicolai.’
Not only was the crowd bigger, it was excited. Several of the senior men were in the throng and the village elder himself was standing at the back. They had been waiting for him.
It had not occurred to Nicolai that the villagers were planning to arrest him. Indeed, some of the men had wanted to go and fetch the local police officer from Russka beforehand, but the elder, bearing in mind that this was the landowner’s son, had refused. ‘I’ll hear what he says myself before I take action,’ he had decided. And now, as Nicolai prepared to address them once again, the elder listened carefully.
‘Once again, my friends, I stand before you with good news. I stand before you at the dawn of a new age. For today, all over our beloved Russia, great events are occurring. I speak not of a few protests; not of a hundred riots; not even of a huge uprising such as we have seen in the past. I am speaking of something more joyful, and more profound. I am speaking of the revolution.’
As the crowd gave a little gasp of anticipation, Nicolai saw the village elder start. But he did not notice Arina, hurrying out of the village.
Yevgeny Popov gazed calmly into the agitated face of Peter Suvorin. What a kindly, sensitive face it was, despite the over-large nose. How strange that grim old Savva Suvorin’s grandson should be such a poetic fellow.
For the document he had given Popov to read was almost a poem. Not that poor Peter Suvorin realized it, of course. He thought he had written a call to revolution.
They had a strange relationship. It had not taken Popov long to become Peter’s mentor. He had soon discovered Peter’s hatred of the Suvorin factory, his guilt about the workers there, his vague, poetic longings for a better world. Popov had given him a copy of What Is To Be Done and talked to him about his responsibilities for the future. More recently, Popov had indicated that he was part of a larger organization with a Central Committee. He could see this had intrigued Peter. He had dropped other hints about future action and hinted at the existence of the little printing press. And above all, he had achieved mastery over Peter by the simple art of giving or withholding approval. It was amazing how people needed approval. But though the heir to the huge Suvorin enterprise was obviously an important catch – potentially far more important than Nicolai Bobrov – he was so confused and idealistic that Popov had concluded: Although I can do what I want with him, I’m not sure how to use him.
The composition he had now brought Popov, sheet after sheet in his nervous handwriting, was the passionate distillation of all his thoughts. It was a cry for social justice, an almost religious invocation of human freedom; it spoke desperately of the oppression he saw in Russka – not so much of the body as of the spirit. And it concluded with a call to revolution. A gentle revolution.
It had taken him many hours to produce and now, with an anxious frown, he awaited his mentor’s verdict.
‘You mean,’ Popov asked, ‘that the people can take power peacefully, without bloodshed? That their oppressors will just give up without a fight when the people refuse to cooperate?’
‘Exactly.’
‘It would be like a sort of pilgrimage,’ Popov remarked.
‘Why, yes.’ Peter’s face cleared. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
Popov looked at him thoughtfully. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to use him, but he’d think of something. ‘I’ll keep this: it could be important,’ he said. ‘I shall report it to the Central Committee. In the meantime, hold yourself in readiness.’
Peter Suvorin flushed with pleasure. Popov put the paper in his pocket and turned to go. He was due to meet the girl Natalia and her friend in a short while. He wondered if that would be any more interesting.