Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [350]
But he only sighed. It was no use. If I take the money and I’m caught, they’ll only say I stole it. Her letter won’t do me any good. Carefully he wrapped up notes to the value of her loan. He would leave them with a merchant he could trust who would get them to her. Then he considered what to do.
He would not go back. Not to the Bobrovs after what they had done. He would sooner die. As I dare say I shall, he thought. No, he would run away. There were ways of doing it. Men pulled the barges down the Volga. Backbreaking work. Several thousand men died at it every year. But you could get away like that – far away to the south and east with few questions asked. Or perhaps head east, for the distant colonies of Siberia where they wanted men, no matter who. Perhaps he would even try to find his father. It’s lucky, he considered, that I’m strong.
It seemed that, after all, he had lost his duel with the Bobrovs. But even so, he would not give up – not in a thousand years.
One thing at least was certain: he would never see that cursed place Russka again.
It was on the very day his father sent poor Suvorin away from Russka that, far away in the north-eastern province of Novgorod, Alexis Bobrov made a remarkable discovery.
The day was bright, with a sharp, damp wind blowing when he arrived at the place. The three young officers who rode with him were in cheerful spirits. ‘Though I’m sure I shall hate anything devised by that oaf,’ one remarked scornfully. But Alexis, as he passed through the gates and along the well-kept road, was filled with curiosity.
The oaf was the famous general Arakcheyev.
It was one of the strange features of the reign of the enlightened, even poetic, Tsar Alexander that he should have come to choose General Arakcheyev as his closest adviser. Perhaps it was an attraction of opposites. The general was half-educated and bad-tempered; his face was coarse, his hair close-cropped, his body perpetually stooped forward as though under the weight of the stern tasks he set himself. Alexis had come to admire him for the brilliant way he had directed artillery in the great campaign of 1812. ‘He may be crude,’ he told his companions, ‘but he is loyal to the Tsar and he gets things done.’ Like many straightforward soldiers – that was how Alexis liked to see himself – he had been delighted when the Tsar made Arakcheyev his closest councillor.
And it was here in Novgorod province that the general, upon the Tsar’s command, had now undertaken one of the greatest social experiments in Russian history.
The moment they entered the huge estate, Alexis sensed something strange about the place. The peasants looked odd; the road had no ruts in it; but only when they came to the village itself did the party gasp with astonishment.
It was not a Russian village at all. The haphazard collection of peasant izbas that had once stood there had been completely razed; in their place, row upon row of neat cottages. They were identical – each painted blue with a red porch and white fence. ‘Good God,’ Alexis muttered, ‘it’s like a barracks.’ Then he noticed the children.
They were little boys, some no more than six years old. They came swinging by, in perfect step and singing, under orders from a sergeant. They were in uniform. And then Alexis realized what had seemed so strange since he arrived: everyone was identically dressed, and none of the peasants had a beard.
‘Yes, you’ll find perfect order,’ explained the young officer who showed them round. ‘We have three sizes of uniform for the children – quite enough. They wear uniforms at all times. The men are cleanshaven: it’s neater. Iron discipline – we beat a drum when it’s time to work in the fields.’ He grinned. ‘We can almost make them mow a meadow in step!’
And a few minutes later, when they were shown inside the cottages, Alexis was even more astonished. They were all spotless. ‘How do you do it?’ he asked.
‘Inspections. See,’ the young man pointed to a list hanging on a wall. ‘That’s an inventory of everything