Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [349]
With a deep sense of satisfaction, Savva paid the old man. And now it was time to leave.
But, as usual, that was not so easy. The old fellow had somehow managed to get between him and the door. Two other younger men, with friendly but solemn faces, had joined him. ‘You would receive a warm welcome, you know,’ the old man reminded him for the twentieth time, ‘if you were to join us.’ And then, very seriously: ‘I would not sell this icon to most men.’
‘I thank you, but no,’ he replied, as he had done so many times before.
‘We can help you buy your freedom,’ one of the younger men remarked. But still Savva did not react. He had no wish to join them.
They were Old Believers. This was, nowadays, the name usually given to the sectarians – the old Raskolniki, – who had split off from the Church a century and a half before. There had been none in Russka since the burning of the church, and most had fled to the outer provinces during that period of persecution. But during the reign of Catherine they had been officially tolerated and there was now a sizeable community in Moscow. There were several rival groups: some who had their own priests, some who did without. And of all these there were none more remarkable than the group to which the fellows who ran this store belonged.
The Theodosian sect was rich and powerful. Its headquarters were by their cemetery in what had once been the village and was nowadays the outlying suburb of Preobrazhensk. They had numerous communes inside and outside the city. They owned public baths. They engaged in manufacturing and trading enterprises, and thanks to monopolies granted them by Catherine, it was the Theodosians who sold all the best icons. But the most striking thing about the sect was its curious economic organization.
For the Theodosians ran what were, in effect, cooperatives. Members of the sect could obtain loans from their coffers at low interest rates to start businesses. In all their enterprises – some of which were quite large textile factories – the poor were cared for by the community. And though some successful members grew extremely rich in their lifetimes, their assets at death were taken over by the community. Puritan, upright, its stricter members even celibate, this strange, almost monastic mixture of capitalist factory and village commune was a uniquely Russian solution to the challenges of the early industrial revolution.
Many times, since he had encountered them in Moscow, the Theodosians had urged Savva to join the sect. They could certainly have financed him. But each time he passed the high walls of the community’s compound he had thought: No, I do not want to give all I have to them. I want to be free.
He left the Theodosians in their store at last and made his way across Moscow to his own modest lodgings. This was a pleasant wooden house in a dusty street. On the door was a little sign with a name upon it – not his own, for being still a serf he could not legally own anything, but that of his landlord: Bobrov. Soon, he thought, that sign will say: Suvorin. And he went inside contentedly.
It was five minutes later that a messenger arrived with the letter from Tatiana.
She told him everything. That his father was already on his way to Siberia in chains; that he had lost all he had; that Bobrov was sending a man to take him back to Russka where, once again, he would be a poor serf. It ended with an act of generosity and a none too subtle hint.
Whatever you think fit to do, the
money I lent you is yours – I do not
wish to be repaid and will be glad
only to know that you are well.
His landlord’s wife was telling him to run away and keep the money. It was, he