He nodded. ‘Well, you’re a widow and you’re rich. You can do as you please. But be careful.’ And then he added something that surprised her further. ‘Don’t trifle with Pinegin, though. He’s a very dangerous man.’
She wondered what he meant, but he wouldn’t say more.
She was very careful, therefore, in the coming week. She did not try to be distant, for that might have seemed rude. She was as friendly as before. But now several times she went out alone, or took her mother or Alexis if she strolled out with him. And all the time she watched the quiet soldier and pondered: was he so dangerous?
It was one afternoon in the first week of June, when the family was sitting at tea on the verandah, that they saw what appeared to be a small whirlwind approaching. The whirlwind came along the lane, vanished behind the trees, and then appeared at the gates of the little park. ‘Good God,’ Ilya exclaimed, ‘it’s a troika.’
There was in Russia no more noble conveyance. No one knew exactly when the fashion had begun – some said it came from Hungary – but if a young nobleman nowadays wanted to impress the world, he found the smartest coachman he could and harnessed up a troika.
The troika – also known as a unicorn – consisted of three horses running abreast. In the centre, between the shafts and under a brightly painted headboard, was the leader, who trotted. On each side were two wheelers, fanning outwards, who galloped – one furiously, the other coquettishly. It was difficult to handle, stylish, and the ultimate in elegance. And it was such an aristocratic carriage that now, in a cloud of dust, came whirling up the slope towards them.
As it reached the house, they could see two passengers within; but it was the splendidly dressed coachman, who now leaped down with a cry, who look strangely familiar and caused Alexis to mutter: ‘What the devil’s this?’
It was Sergei. And as he strode forward and, in the Russian manner, kissed each of them three times, he cheerfully announced: ‘Hello, Olga. Hello, Mama. Hello, Alexis. I’ve been exiled.’
He was bound to have got into trouble sooner or later. And as Olga reminded Alexis, one didn’t have to do much to be in hot water these days.
For one of the first acts of Tsar Nicholas, to ensure political order in his empire, had been to set up a new special police bureau – the so-called Third Department – and place at its head one of his most trusted friends, the redoubtable Count Alexander Benckendorff. Benckendorff’s task was simple. The Tsar, who meant well, would consider reforms at the proper times; but meanwhile – however long this process might take – there were to be no more Decembrists. Benckendorff was thorough. Already his gendarmes, in their light blue uniforms, seemed to be everywhere. And in particular, the Department paid close attention to enthusiastic young gentlemen with too little respect for authority – men like Sergei.
In fact, it was Sergei’s boyhood hero Pushkin who had really started it. Pushkin was making a name for himself. Already, some of his first, brilliant writing had been published. And already, the young poet’s Ode to Liberty had landed him in trouble with the authorities. The Tsar had told Benckendorff personally to censor young Pushkin’s work. It was not surprising therefore that Sergei, longing to step into the limelight with his hero, should have hastened to produce something shocking of his own.
Sergei Bobrov’s poem The Firebird was printed at his own expense – a huge sacrifice for a young fellow on a modest salary of seven hundred roubles a year. Pushkin, to whom he immediately dispatched a copy, had sent a letter of generous encouragement: and in truth, for a first effort, it wasn’t bad. The firebird of his story was – needless to say – a harbinger of liberty. And in two days, before the ink was dry, Benckendorff had impounded it.
The author was so little known, the action of the Third Department so quick, that a week later Sergei found himself not a celebrity, but under orders to return straight to the family estate at Russka and stay there until further notice. And here he was.
‘There’s a letter for you, Alexis,’ Sergei went on. ‘Very important,’ he added, as he drew it from the recesses of his coachman’s coat.
It was from Benckendorff himself. Alexis took it, without a word.
At first it seemed all might be well. Besides his manservant, Sergei had brought with him a pleasant young man from the Ukraine, called Karpenko, whom he had met in St Petersburg. Between herself, Pinegin, and this Karpenko, Olga hoped she could keep Sergei and his soldier brother apart.
Alexis, she could see, was doing his best to be pleasant. He was somewhat mollified by Benckendorff’s letter.
‘We think,’ the great man had written, ‘that the young man is a harmless scamp; but it will do him no harm to cool his heels in the country for a while. And I know, my dear Alexis Alexandrevich, that I can rely upon you to keep a wise and fatherly eye on him.’
‘I’ll do that all right,’ Alexis told Olga.
But about Sergei’s high spirits he could do nothing.
Dear Seriozha. He made light of everything. No one could resist his good humour for long. Since Benckendorff, like Tatiana, came from the Baltic nobility, he insisted on bringing his mother his verses for censorship. Once he even wrote out the Lord’s Prayer for her. ‘For under the Third Department’s rules,’ he explained, ‘most of the Lord’s Prayer will have to go.’ And when he was able to prove that this was indeed the case, even Alexis could not help smiling.
He set about teasing old Arina at once. ‘Dear old nanny, my dove,’ he would say, ‘we can’t have an old thing with her head full of fairy tales looking after young master Misha here. He needs an English governess. That’s the thing nowadays. We’ll send for one at once.’ As for the little boy, he was immediately fascinated by this wonderful uncle who made rhymes and drew funny pictures. ‘Misha, you are my little bear,’ Sergei would say. And the little fellow followed him around everywhere.
Sergei and his friend made an amusing pair. Karpenko was a small, dark, twenty year old with rather delicate features, and very shy. It was obvious that he was devoted to Sergei, who treated him kindly. With Sergei’s encouragement, the Ukrainian’s soft brown eyes would light up and he would give brilliant imitations of everyone from a Ukrainian peasant to the Tsar himself. Karpenko taught Misha to do a little dance like a bear. And after the priest of Russka had come to call one day, the Ukrainian did such an explosively funny imitation of the fat man greedily ordering a meal and trying to rearrange his red beard over his huge stomach, that Alexis actually burst out laughing.
To little Misha it seemed that, after the cold winter and his mother’s death, he had found himself in a strange new world of wonderful sunlight and magical shadow that delighted him, but whose signals he could not always decipher.
For everywhere now, at the Bobrovo estate, a rich sensuousness hung in the air.
Young Arina, with her rather plump young body and her reddish-gold hair: Misha thought she was beautiful. Her blue eyes seemed to light up with excitement whenever she saw his Uncle Sergei or Karpenko. She was a little shy of Sergei though, whereas she would let the dark Ukrainian put his arm around her.
Uncle Sergei was a marveclass="underline" there was no doubt. Everyone loved him. He would talk with clever Uncle Ilya by the hour, often in French. And he was always happy to come and sit at old Arina’s feet where he would declare: ‘I’ve read all Krylov’s folk tales, but even he never told them like you, my dear.’ Misha was puzzled therefore when once he saw his father glaring at Sergei when the latter’s back was turned, and he asked his Aunt Olga: ‘Doesn’t Papa love Uncle Sergei?’
‘Of course he does,’ she told him. And when, rather shyly, he asked his father, Alexis said the same thing.