Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [314]
Didn’t she realize that five years had passed? Didn’t she know that the Enlightenment was out of fashion and that the general was now dangerous? But of course she didn’t. Or if she does know, she doesn’t care, he supposed. She just wants to be amused.
Already, she was smiling with happy malice. ‘Well, General,’ she began, ‘I understand you mean to burn all our books now, as well as close our theatres.’
If only there were some way out: but there was none, and the general knew it. Alexander was trapped.
What followed was worse than anything he could have imagined. The general played his hand to perfection. He understood precisely how the universe had changed since the French Revolution: he had no need to defend himself from the Enlightenment. Instead, repeating their previous argument, point by point, he calmly and bluntly stated his case, pausing after each statement to announce: ‘But Alexander Prokofievich, I know, will disagree.’
It was brilliant. The old fellow had him exactly where he wanted him. Every time he invited Alexander to take up Countess Turova’s cause, he also gave him the chance to proclaim himself against the government: and Alexander guessed that the general would be delighted to take any statement he made and repeat it, verbatim, to the highest circles at court. Once, as a further taunt, he even remarked: ‘But you, as a friend of Radishchev, will no doubt disagree.’
What could Alexander do? He squirmed. It was humiliating. Once or twice he managed, lamely, to take the countess’s part; but most of the time he was reduced to defending himself, even weakly agreeing with the general, so that the old fellow, with quiet sarcasm, was able to say several times: ‘You seem to have changed your tune, young man,’ or: ‘I’m so glad that, after all, you agree with me.’
And all the time, Alexander could see the old countess becoming more and more irritated. She gave him a stern look at first, then tried to interrupt, then began to drum with her fingers on the arm of her chair. After a time she lifted up her hand and gazed at the back of it, as though to say: ‘I am so sorry that you, too, should have to be present at this débâcle.’ Couldn’t she really see the danger he was in? Obviously not. With each exchange he could feel her growing colder until, at last, she retreated into an ominous silence.
The general saved the coup de grâce for the end, and he executed it with all the confidence of a card-player who is taking the last, inevitable tricks. He set Alexander up nicely.
‘The Enlightenment,’ he said calmly, ‘has led to these Jacobins. But perhaps Alexander Prokofievich may have something good to say about these fellows?’
‘I have nothing good to say about Jacobins,’ Alexander replied quickly.
‘Very well. Yet these same Jacobins have claimed as their hero that Monsieur Voltaire who they say inspired them. The empress, as you know, has repudiated Voltaire. Do you?’
The trap was sprung. ‘Please go on,’ the general’s eyes seemed to glint triumphantly, ‘and give me something I can use at court to break you.’ And as Alexander wondered what to say, the silence was interrupted only by Countess Turova’s voice, cold as ice: ‘Yes, Alexander Prokofievich: what would you like to say about the great Voltaire?’
‘I admire the great Voltaire,’ he said carefully, after a pause, ‘just as the empress does. As for the Jacobins, they are utterly unworthy of such a great man.’
It was a clever answer. There was nothing