Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [363]
Nothing is ever hidden from household servants. The growing rift between Alexis and Sergei had been noticed at once. Within minutes of their angry encounter that day, everyone knew. And it had caused the young serf to consider his position very carefully before, that evening, giving the older brother a careful account of a certain matter. When he had told his story, the landlord seemed pleased.
‘You were quite right to tell me this,’ Alexis said. ‘You will speak of it to no one,’ he added, ‘but if it ends well, then I’ll let your family off a year’s obrok.’ The manservant was delighted.
And that very day, Alexis put certain enquiries in motion.
Afterwards, Olga blamed herself. Yet she had meant so well.
The tension in the house, all the next day, was terrible. Alexis looked like thunder. They dined in near-silence. In the evening, she tried to persuade Sergei to come out for a stroll with her, but he obstinately refused and sat at one end of the salon while Alexis, at the other end, ignored him entirely. Everyone spoke in low tones, but Olga, looking at the two brothers, was terrified that at any moment, some careless word might start a quarrel. Sergei, in particular, looked as if he was ready to provoke his older brother. What could she do to keep the peace?
It was then that, looking at Karpenko, she suddenly thought she had had an inspiration.
‘Why don’t you tell us,’ she suggested, ‘a Cossack story?’
He blushed with pleasure. He understood very well what she wanted. How glad he was to be useful to Olga and Sergei, these two people he loved. And so, in a quiet voice, he began.
He was intensely proud of his Cossack ancestry. In no time they were all spellbound as he told them tales of the ancient days, of the wild Cossacks riding over the open steppe, and of the great river raids from the Zaporozhian camp down the mighty Dniepr. Tatiana sat with mouth open in wonder; Ilya put down his book; Pinegin nodded with approval and murmured: ‘Ah, yes. That is good.’ And even Alexis did not notice when Sergei moved his chair closer, in order to hear better.
What a gay, thrilling world the little Cossack opened before them. What mad feats of bravery, what good fellowship, what wild freedom! Olga congratulated herself on her choice: and if the young fellow was a little carried away, surely there could be no harm in that.
For there was something else about the tales, too: a haunting beauty, an air of nostalgia and even melancholy that she discerned in his tone – as there always is when one speaks of a world that has entered its twilight. ‘The old Zaporozhian sich is gone,’ he said quietly at one point. ‘Catherine the Great destroyed that.’ And later, rather sadly: ‘The Cossacks are all good Russians now.’ If he felt a tinge of regret for the past, Olga didn’t blame him. The disciplined Tsarist regiments of today’s Cossacks were fine in their way, but a far cry from the freedom of older times.
Ilya in particular was captivated. ‘My God,’ he exclaimed, ‘you tell your stories so well that if you want to make a literary reputation, you should write them down. Have you considered it?’
And it was then that the trouble began. For having blushed with pleasure and admitted that he had, Karpenko then added a curious and unexpected statement. ‘Actually,’ he confessed, ‘what I really want is to write them in the Ukrainian language. They sound even better that way.’
It was a perfectly innocent remark, though undoubtedly surprising. ‘Ukrainian?’ Ilya queried. ‘Are you sure?’ Olga, too, found herself puzzled. For the Ukrainian dialect, though close to Russian, had no literature of its own except one comic verse. Even Sergei, always willing to support his friend, couldn’t think of anything to say in favour of this odd idea.
And it was now that Alexis spoke.
Though he had obviously enjoyed the Cossack’s stories, Olga had noticed her elder brother’s expression