Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [291]
Only one worrying thought had crossed his mind: could he satisfy her? The empress had never been beautiful. Though her strong, German face and broad, intellectual forehead were fine, she was squat and frankly stout these days. She was fifty-seven and, he’d heard, sometimes a little short of wind.
But she was also Catherine, Empress of all Russia. In all the world there was no other being like her. Her power, her heroic position, her extraordinary mind – all these, for a man like Bobrov, in search of the summit of the world – made her desirable beyond all others. And, anyway, if there’s any problem in bed, I know how to get by, he considered. He was strong, fit, and not too sensitive. I’m always all right if I eat a good meal, he reminded himself.
And then … what a destiny! Mother Russia and all her mighty empire at his feet: he would be one of the innermost circle who ruled with the empress. There was no greater position in all the world. If he could just hold out a little longer.
Outside, St Petersburg slipped silently by, huge and magical. They were coming into the huge expanse of Peter’s Square, in front of the Admiralty. On his left he could see the long pontoon bridge that stretched across the frozen Neva to Vasilevsky Island. The bridge was not really needed, for the huge lagoon of ice was a busy thoroughfare in these winter months. Huge fairs were held upon it. He could see half a dozen roads across it, marked out by avenues of cut trees, or lamps which gleamed dimly until they almost faded in the darkness by the distant northern shore. A bonfire burned by the tip of the island. Further away, opposite the Winter Palace, was the faint shape of the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral’s slim spire against the night sky.
And it was now, as he came out on to the big expanse of the square, that something else, quite nearby, caught his eye: and for a few moments he seemed to forget himself, pulling the window of the sled open, letting the icy air freeze on his face as he gazed at it, with a look so strange that one would almost have thought he had been hypnotized.
It was the Bronze Horseman.
This huge statue, which had taken the French sculptor Falconet years to make, had only been put up recently; but already it was the most famous statue in all Russia. On a colossal granite rock a mighty horse, three times life size, reared up on its hind legs. Below it lay a serpent. And astride the horse, dressed in a Roman toga, was the living image of great Peter himself. In his left arm he held the reins, while his right, in a tremendous, imperial gesture, was stretched out, pointing across the broad Neva that lay before him.
Nowhere in the world, they said, was there a greater block of granite; never had such a huge casting in bronze been made. The splendid horse, copied from the finest in Catherine’s stables, seemed to be launching itself in an almost impossible leap forward into space. And now, as it did every time he saw it, the great statue took Alexander’s breath away. All his dreams and ambitions seemed to be expressed in this huge bronze hymn to Russia’s might. It had to be huge: had not Russia already cast, in Moscow, the biggest cannon and the greatest bell the world had ever seen? Of course St Petersburg should cast the largest statue in bronze. And although the narrow-minded priests had objected to Peter’s Roman, pagan dress, Bobrov saw that the French sculptor had captured the very essence of the new, imperial destiny that Peter had created for his country, and the genius of Catherine would complete. Russia, by her unconquerable will, would make a final, mighty leap and rule half the world.
The statue’s huge, granite plinth bore only the simple legend:
To Peter the First, from
Catherine the Second
Like a great phantom it dominated the dimly lit square. It was unassailable. And as Alexander