But if Misha thought he had settled matters, he had not reckoned with Yevgeny Popov; and it was with atonishment that he now turned as the red-headed student calmly addressed him.
‘Actually, I shall be staying here for some time.’
What new impertinence was this? ‘You’ll do as you are told and be gone at dawn,’ Misha snapped.
Yet still Popov only gazed at him imperturbably. ‘I think not,’ he replied. And as Misha started to grow red, he went on quietly: ‘Consider, Mikhail Alexeevich, your true position. Your son has incited the peasants to revolution. I didn’t. In the eyes of the authorities, it is Nicolai who is a criminal now. So your position is very weak. For myself, I care nothing about the authorities or anything they can do to me. But if you force me to, I could certainly make things very unpleasant for you and your son. If I say, therefore, that I wish to stay here for a while, it would probably be wiser of you to let me.’ And then he smiled.
Misha was dumbfounded. He looked first at one, then another of the young men. ‘And you call this man your friend?’ he said to Nicolai with disgust. And then, furiously, to Popov: ‘Do you really suppose you can get away with this?’
‘Yes.’
Misha was silent. He supposed it was true that the young troublemaker could be a danger to Nicolai. I wish to God I had more information – something I could pin on this Popov, he thought. Perhaps something would turn up. In the meantime, though he hated to show any weakness before this loathsome interloper, he decided to be cautious. ‘You can, perhaps, be useful,’ he said at last. ‘You can remain here a while on the following conditions: you are to refrain from any political activities; and you will tell people that Nicolai is sick. But if you start any trouble, or implicate Nicolai in any way with your activities, then you may find I have more influence with the authorities here than you think. Do you understand?’
‘That suits me very well,’ Popov said blandly, and strolled out of the room.
It was half an hour later that Nicolai came to Popov’s room. He found his friend in a calm but thoughtful mood.
‘That was a brilliant trick of yours, telling Father that you’d expose me,’ Nicolai said. ‘He didn’t know which way to look.’ He had never admired his clever friend more.
‘Yes. It was, wasn’t it?’
‘But what shall I do now?’ Nicolai asked urgently. ‘I can’t just give up. Should I go to another village, do you think, and try to raise the peasants there?’
To his disappointment, however, Popov shook his head. ‘For the moment, Nicolai,’ he said, ‘I want you to stay in the house and do just as your father asks.’ And when Nicolai began to protest, he stopped him. ‘The fact is, my friend, I have some business to attend to at Russka and your being here gives me just the cover I need. So do cooperate, there’s a good fellow.’
‘If you think that’s best,’ Nicolai said reluctantly. He looked at Popov curiously. ‘What are you up to?’
For several moments Popov did not answer. Then, rather thoughtfully, he remarked: ‘He’s right of course, your father.’
‘Is he? What about?’
‘The peasants. They won’t follow us.’
‘Perhaps in time,’ Nicolai suggested.
There was a silence.
‘God, how I despise them,’ Popov murmured.
Which left Nicolai rather confused.
Two weeks had passed since Nicolai’s attempt to start the revolution, and in the village of Bobrovo everything was quiet.
No one had set eyes on Nicolai Bobrov. It was known that he was up at the manor house. The serfs up there said he sometimes went for walks in the woods above the house; the rest of the time he seemed to rest or read books.
As for his friend Popov, he was often to be seen nowadays, wandering about with a notebook and sketch pad. Somewhere in the Bobrov house he had found an ancient, wide-brimmed hat that had once belonged to Ilya and which gave him the look of an artist; the people at Bobrovo would often see him wandering over the little bridge to sketch the village from the footpath on the other side of the river. Frequently, too, he would take the lane through the woods to Russka and draw the monastery or the town. And if anyone asked him about Nicolai Bobrov he would shake his head sadly and say: ‘Poor fellow. Let us hope he will recover soon.’
If the village was deceived, however, Arina was not. She said nothing, but she knew very well that Nicolai wasn’t ill. As for Popov: What is he up to, that evil one? she would ask herself. As the days went by, Arina several times confided to her daughter: ‘Something bad’s going to happen, Varya.’ But when asked what, she could only shake her head and say: ‘I don’t know.’
Perhaps, she realized, it was her own family troubles that gave her a sense of foreboding. Things were looking bad for the Romanovs. Young Boris and his wife were gone, and already she could see the strain was telling on Timofei. All alone now, the peasant’s simple face looked pale and abstracted, as if he were suffering pain. The money Natalia brought from the factory was a help, but there was something about the girl recently which made Arina wonder if she was reliable. I don’t like the look of her, she thought. She’ll run away or do something stupid. Varya’s pregnancy was not agreeing with her either. She was looking pale and unwell; and once when the two of them had gone into the woods to pick mushrooms, and the younger woman had tripped on a root and fallen face down on the ground, she had just lain there instead of getting up and moaned: ‘This baby’s going to kill me, Mother. I know it.’
As she considered these matters, it seemed clearer than ever to Arina that when it was born, the baby must be disposed of. It’s easier to be hard when you get old, she considered. You see things as they are. And if anything confirmed her in this view, it was the interview which took place between Natalia and the family one evening.
Natalia was rather proud of herself when she made the announcement.
In a way, she had reason to be: for her courtship of Grigory had been successful.
Right up to the end, it had been hard work. His reluctance and shyness had remained a constant challenge. Overcoming them had become a game she played with herself each day, and even Natalia was not fully aware how much this game had turned into an obsession. How slowly they had progressed from that first kiss, as she patiently cultivated the small flower of his trust and affection; how hesitantly it had grown from the cold, bare ground of his barren life. And what a sense of excitement it gave her to hold his small, bony form in her arms and feel him gradually spring into life. What was it, this result of her careful labours? Was it love? Was it affection? She supposed that, being life where before there was nothing, it must be. Above all, it gave her a strange and wonderful sense of possession. This, she thought, is mine. And since the completion of this process, the flowering, must be marriage, it seemed to her that when that took place, it would be the solution to everything.
As for Grigory, he allowed himself to be persuaded. Gradually, their innocent embraces became, for him, full of a new excitement. As his confidence grew he began to want, urgently, to explore her body and to possess her. And since she would only let him go so far, he understood well enough that they must be married if this new world of wonder was to be opened and revealed to him. All right then, I’ll do it and have her, he thought. We’ll get married.
And what then? He would lie with her. Her whole body would be his. The thought had become so thrilling that it made him laugh. What else would happen? He could hardly see beyond this except for one thing. As soon as we’re married, I’ll hit her in the face and give her a beating, he thought. That way I’ll be master in my own house. It wasn’t much, but it was the only thing he knew about marriage.