Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [374]
The relationship between Savva and Alexis was uniformly sour. Only Tatiana had been able to save the serf from being systematically destroyed. When Alexis wanted to use Savva as a menial house-serf – ‘to teach him a lesson and some manners’ as Alexis put it – it was Tatiana who stopped him, pointing out: ‘Common sense at least should tell you he’s worth far more to you doing what he does best.’ And it was she who lent Savva money to get started again.
In the years that followed, Savva Suvorin wasted no time. Having been baulked of his object twice before, he pressed ahead with a relentless sense of urgency. When, right at the start, his old cousin Ivan Romanov offered to help – ‘I’ve three grown sons and a young boy growing too’ – he politely refused. He would have no partners, no interference, no one to slow him down.
In 1830, while Alexis was away at the crushing of another Polish uprising, Savva set up a small business for printing cottons. The profits were extraordinary. But when Alexis returned and saw what he had done, he tried to charge an obrok so high that it would almost have closed the business, and Savva told his wife grimly: ‘That fool doesn’t want to profit by me – he wants to ruin me.’
Only Tatiana, who ran the estate in Alexis’s absence, was able to restrain her son – and make it possible for Savva to operate. Thanks to her, and paying a reasonable obrok, he was able in ten years to build up a cloth mill with hired workers at Russka and to become richer than he had ever been before.
Yet despite this working arrangement, Alexis continued, each year, to become a little poorer. The reason was very simple. For though Tatiana could talk some sense into him about the running of the estate, she could do nothing about his personal expenses. And severe though he was, Alexis liked to live well. As his son Misha, destined for the guards, grew up, Alexis insisted on providing lavishly for him too. ‘For the honour,’ he said, ‘of the family.’ The result was that the extra obrok from Savva’s activities, instead of being ploughed back into the estate, just encouraged him to spend more, and still his expenses often exceeded his income.
By contrast, Savva’s treatment of his own son was harsh. While he and Maria were sad that God had only granted them a single child, ‘one is enough,’ Savva would say. Young Ivan, though not of his father’s towering build, was a shrewd boy with a fine singing voice. Though Savva had no objection to this, he knew where his son’s interest in music must end. When Ivan, aged thirteen, foolishly appeared in the house with a violin he had just acquired, Savva took it from him, examined it, and then with a blow that almost stunned the boy, broke it over his son’s head. ‘You’ve no time for that,’ he said simply, by way of explanation.
There was another source of friction between Savva and his master. This was that the serf was an Old Believer. He had kept his contact with the Theodosians, and though he did not seek to convert others, it would be noticed that, when he ate in company, he did so in the Old Believers’ manner – apart, using his own wooden bowl, and a little wooden spoon with a cross upon it.
Strictly speaking the Old Believers sects were loyal at this time. But to Alexis, this quiet profession of Savva’s faith was deeply objectionable – partly because it seemed like a sort of personal defiance and also, ‘It’s against the good of Russia,’ he firmly declared.
For in 1832, the government of Tsar Nicholas had formulated a doctrine that, in a way, summarized the outlook of all Russian administrations that century and even beyond. This was the famous doctrine of Official Nationality. It was declared in government, in the army, and above all in school, and resoundingly dictated