It was only some time later, when she was putting him to bed, that the little boy had told his mother Arina about Uncle Boris’s strange behaviour and asked: ‘Who was Natalia?’
How oddly people were behaving that evening. Why had his mother turned so pale, then tried to hide it? And why, having told him to go to sleep and that she was going to join the rest of the family at a neighbour’s, had she instead slipped silently out of the village?
He had watched her out of the window. She had gone up the slope, towards the Bobrov house.
But if all these things were puzzling to little Ivan, the scene the next morning was terrible.
The dawn had just been breaking when he had awoken and gone outside; and he had just been enjoying the first, tentative sounds of the birds when Boris had appeared, walking through the gloom. He could see that his Uncle was furious about something, but it seemed that the fury was not directed at him, for Uncle Boris had even smiled as he paused to exchange a few words.
‘Anyone go up to the Bobrovs’ last night?’ The question was asked so casually, so easily, that the little fellow had not even thought as he answered.
‘Only Mama.’
And now, as the family stood before him in the izba, Boris Romanov was trembling with rage.
‘You warned him, didn’t you?’
Arina quailed; yet even now, there was a hint of righteous defiance in her manner. ‘What if I did?’
‘What if you did? I’ll tell you what.’ And with a sudden spring he was upon her, knocking her down and hitting her twice, hard, in the face. ‘You stupid cow! You Mordvinian!’
‘Don’t! Don’t!’ the little boy screamed, rushing to protect his mother.
But Boris picked him up and tossed him across the room so that he crashed into a bench and lay there, half-stunned.
Damn Arina! Damn the witch! Having taken his boat a little way down-river, Boris had hidden it on the far bank, then doubled back and walked through the darkness into Russka. At dead of night, armed with his long hunting knife, he had crept around the edge of the town to the house where that accursed ginger-headed villain had been staying. It was a warm night. Two men were sitting outside the door of the house opposite; he had waited patiently, in the shadows, for them to go inside. At last they had slowly risen to go. One door had shut. Then another. He had let a minute pass in silence. He had smiled to himself. He would place his hand over Popov’s mouth, then slit his throat, whispering as he did so: ‘Remember Natalia.’ That would be it. Just so the devil knew – just so he understood, as he went down, into the depths. With a bit of luck, they’ll suppose one of Suvorin’s men did it and arrest him too, he thought cheerfully. Revenge – even if one had to wait thirty years – was so infinitely sweet.
And then, suddenly, two horses were pounding along the little road, one with a rider, the other spare. What the devil? The two horses were pulling up sharply by the very house where Popov lay, the rider springing down and hammering on the door.
‘Yevgeny Pavlovich! Popov, damn you! I know it’s you. You’ve got to get out. Listen, it’s Nicolai Mikhailovich. Come quick.’
Bobrov. How the devil did he know? Who tipped him off? And why should he save the fellow’s skin anyway? Damn them all. They were all in league. And now when would he get his chance at revenge again?
He turned back to his sister.
‘You traitor!’ he bellowed. ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’
‘Yes,’ she cried back with equal rage. ‘I asked Bobrov to stop you. What of it? You can’t go round killing people.’
‘Not if he killed my own sister?’
‘No.’
He glowered at her. ‘I see you’re a friend of Bobrov and the red-head,’ he said, suddenly quiet. ‘But I promise you one thing: I shan’t forget this.’
And both Arina, and the terrified little Ivan, knew that he would not.
It was two days later that an unexplained fire burned down a section of Nicolai Bobrov’s woods. People took it to be one more sign that the revolution was getting very near.
1906, May
It was early evening, and in the great Moscow house, preparations were under way. Indeed, there was more than the usual air of expectancy amongst the servants, for this evening, they knew, some very strange guests were due to arrive. But then, they reflected, after the extraordinary events of the last year, anything might be expected.
In the comfortable upstairs room, however, everything was quiet. Mrs Suvorin, in a long, mauve silk gown, her heavy, rich brown hair only loosely pinned so that at any moment perhaps it might tumble down her elegant back, was sitting writing letters at a little desk.
Her daughter Nadezhda was sitting on a French empire chair with a tapestry cover. In front of her was a small round table covered with a heavy, tasselled cloth upon which she was resting her elbows while gazing at her mother.
She is certainly a handsome woman, Nadezhda thought, but I should make Papa a much better wife. Which was, perhaps, a rather strange thought for a little girl of eight.
The first thing people noticed about Nadezhda Suvorin was her auburn hair. She was allowed to wear it long and loose so that it fell in lustrous masses over her shoulders to her elbows. In a taffeta dress, silk stockings, shoes with satin ribbons and a big, wide-brimmed hat from under which her hair poured down, she looked enchanting. And then people would notice her eyes. They were very fine, deep brown, and they knew everything.
It was amazing what Nadezhda knew. Yet how should it be otherwise? Fate had decreed that her brother should be older: by the time she was six, he was already studying abroad. It was natural, therefore, that her father should turn to this bright little girl to be his companion.
She knew every painting in the great house. There were the contemporary Russians – wonderful natural evocations of the country by Repin, Surikov, Seron, Levitan. Levitan had done a huge landscape of Russka – a haunting vision of the little town on its high bank, seen from across the river under a deep blue sky full of retreating clouds. In the dining room hung portraits of her mother by Repin and her father by Vrubel. But her greatest delight was to take visitors through the rooms reserved for Vladimir’s collection of European painters, which was dazzling; and middle-aged Russians who were scarcely familiar with such wonders themselves would be astonished as she prattled: ‘This is a Monet; here’s Cézanne. Renoir’s nudes always seem to have the same two faces, don’t you think?’ Or: ‘This is by Gauguin. He ran away from his wife and children and went to live in Tahiti,’ On his last trip to Paris, her father had even brought back small pictures by two new artists: Picasso and Matisse. ‘These are just getting started, so I bought them for you,’ he had told her.
Vladimir delighted in taking this bright little person with him and showing her his world. As a patron of the arts he went everywhere and knew everyone. Already she had been to St Petersburg and seen the great Pavlova dance; she had visited the great Tolstoy at his Moscow house; at the Moscow Arts Theatre, which Vladimir helped support, she knew all the actors and had even met the playwright Chekhov. When she had been unimpressed by this modest man with his pince-nez, compared to the leonine figure of the great novelist, her father had told her: ‘Never judge by appearances, Nadezhda. For Chekhov is great also. It’s what people do that matters.’ Which had caused her several times to demand, quite innocently, of distinguished old gentlemen visiting the house: ‘Now tell me, Ivan Ivanovich, what exactly you have done’ – to their great confusion and Vladimir’s huge amusement.