Occasionally Dimitri remembered his friend’s strange behaviour the day he met Rasputin; but he never saw anything like it again, and gradually put it out of his mind. Indeed, he could find few character flaws in Karpenko. Despite being handsome, he was not vain. Sometimes in the last two years, it was true, he had retreated into short bouts of moody silence; but these, Dimitri thought, might be nothing more than periods of creative concentration. The only fault he could find with his friend, really, was that his witty remarks were sometimes a little cruel; but that was understandable in someone with such a quick and brilliant mind as Karpenko.
Though their lives were more separate now, the two young men often went out together. Sometimes they would go to visit Vladimir Suvorin. The industrialist’s Art Nouveau house was complete now and it was an astonishing work of art. The main hall especially was breathtaking, with a floor of coloured marble and granite in a spiral design, lilac-coloured walls, stained glass windows that might have come from Tiffany, and a staircase of creamy white marble whose banisters, carved in elaborate, swirling shapes, looked as though they might melt at the touch of a hand. Vladimir was collecting a library of contemporary books which he had decided to place in the new house, and was then spending much of his spare time there. Karpenko, who was helping him obtain a fine collection of Futurist publications, seldom went there without bringing some new item which assured him a warm welcome.
And, of course, they went to see Nadezhda.
They were lively visits. Sometimes they would take some friends and then, more often than not, heated discussions would ensue in which Nadezhda, though she was only fifteen, was able to take some part. The subjects, in those heady days, were usually artistic rather than political; but they were invariably argued with extreme passion as only, perhaps, the Russians and the French can.
‘Have you read Ivan Sergeevich’s latest poem? What do you think?’
‘It’s terrible. Appalling. His attitude is sentimental but without real feeling. He is false.’
‘It’s outdated.’
‘He’s let everyone down. He’s completely discredited.’
‘He is dead. There’s nothing more to say about him.’
‘No. You are all wrong.’
The opinions would fly and Nadezhda would listen, gazing at Karpenko with sparkling eyes.
Sometimes Alexander Bobrov would appear on these occasions and then Karpenko if, say, the company had just condemned the poet Ivanov, would casually ask: ‘What do you think of Ivanov, Alexander Nicolaevich?’ So that when, as he always did, Alexander made some non-committal reply like: ‘Not bad,’ the company would all look at each other or burst into howls of derision while Bobrov gazed at them glumly.
‘Poor old Alexander Nicolaevich,’ Karpenko would say behind his back. ‘He knows everything and understands nothing.’ And to his face he once remarked: ‘You keep studying, Alexander, but you’re always an artistic movement behind.’
Why did Karpenko hate Bobrov so much? ‘He represents every pig-headed Russian who ever lived,’ the Ukrainian claimed. But one day he confessed: ‘I can’t stand the interest he takes in Nadezhda. I try to expose him to her whenever I can.’
Yet what did he want with the girl himself? It was increasingly clear that she was in love with him: how much it was hard to know. And he did nothing to discourage her affection. ‘So you truly care for her?’ Dimitri once asked as they were returning home.
‘I feel protective, I think,’ Karpenko answered frankly. ‘I can’t bear to think of her being wasted on a booby like Bobrov.’
‘But what about you yourself?’
Karpenko gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t be silly. I’m a poor Ukrainian.’
‘Uncle Vladimir likes you.’
‘His wife doesn’t.’
Dimitri had occasionally noticed that, while she never said anything, Karpenko’s charming manner, which usually delighted older women, seemed to meet with a certain hauteur from Mrs Suvorin. ‘I don’t think she means anything,’ he said. And after a short pause: ‘You’re not just letting her love you to spoil things for Bobrov, are you?’
To which, to his great surprise, Karpenko suddenly let out a little moan. ‘You don’t understand anything, do you? She’s like no other girl in the world.’
‘So you do love her?’
‘Yes, damn you, I love her.’
‘Then there’s hope,’ Dimitri said cheerfully.
But Karpenko only shook his head with a despondency Dimitri had never seen before. ‘No,’ he declared quietly, ‘there isn’t any hope for me.’
It was on a December evening in 1913 that the bad feeling that had long been simmering between Nadezhda Suvorin and her mother suddenly erupted.
The spark which lit the flame was the simple fact that Mrs Suvorin had warned her to be careful of Karpenko.
What was wrong with him? the girl demanded to know. Was he too poor? Did her mother have social ambitions? But Mrs Suvorin denied these charges. ‘Frankly, it’s his character. And to tell you the truth, I think he’s playing with you. He’s not serious. So don’t lose your heart.’ That was all she would say.
And Nadezhda decided she hated her.
She was in love with Karpenko. How could she not be? Was there anyone more brilliant, more handsome? She had admired him as a child, but now, in the flush of her adolescence, she was suffering all the yearnings of first love. She might have forgiven her mother’s attack, however, had it not been for one fact.
A year ago she had discovered about Popov.
It had been late one night that she had happened to wake and, wandering out along the passage, heard a faint sound in the hall. To her surprise she had seen her mother glide across the hall to the door to let a stranger in; and crouching by the balcony, just as she used to do as a child, she had seen them mounting the stairs together. Her mother and the red-head, Popov.
For a while she found it hard to believe. Her mother and the Socialist? And apart from her disgust she had thought: How could she do such a thing to poor Papa? Yet he tolerates her. He is a saint. And ever since, though she said nothing, she thought of her mother as a secret enemy.
And it was unfortunate, therefore, that on the very evening of Mrs Suvorin’s remark about Karpenko, Popov should have chosen to come again.
Had Nadezhda known Popov’s mission that night, however, she would have been still more astonished. Even more, perhaps, than was Mrs Suvorin when she heard it.
‘Would you like,’ he asked simply, ‘to run away?’
How strange. When he was younger the idea would have been unthinkable, but now he was wondering whether to give up.
A few years ago, he had hoped to extract money from the Suvorins for the Bolshevik cause. Knowing all he did, he supposed he might have. Yet he had not.
God knew, the party needed funds. Not long ago a new Bolshevik newspaper had been started with articles by a strange young fellow from Georgia whose writing reminded one of a priest intoning the liturgy. ‘Stalin’ he had called himself, in the revolutionary manner – man of steel. All that year Popov had tried to find funds for Pravda, but he had never asked Mrs Suvorin.
She had become a being apart. He supposed he loved her. And now he was thinking, instead, of asking her to finance their personal flight.