Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [404]
As well as these conventional furnishings, however, there were several indications that Misha Bobrov was a gentleman somewhat out of the ordinary.
On each side of the bookcase was a picture – not the classical scenes his grandfather would have favoured, but bright, informal studies, one of a country landscape at sunset, the other of a wrinkled peasant’s face. These paintings by the new school, known as The Wanderers, gave him huge pleasure. ‘They are the first truly Russian painters since the makers of icons,’ he would say. ‘These young fellows paint Russian life as it really is.’ Indeed, in his study, he even had a little sketch by the best of these, the brilliant Ilya Repin, which showed a humble barge-hauler on the Volga, straining on his harness as if he were trying to be free. And when young Nicolai had shown some talent for drawing at school, Misha had urged him: ‘You try to draw like these young men, Nicolai – just as you really see things.’
Further evidence of the landlord’s character lay on the round table, in the form of several thick periodicals. These were the so-called ‘fat journals’ which had become such a feature of Russian intellectual life at that period. In these might be found, in serial form, the latest works of the great novelists of the day: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Turgenev. But they also carried political commentaries and essays of the most radical kind, so that their presence in the salon was a declaration by Misha Bobrov that said: ‘You see, I keep abreast of all that is going on.’
It was by this table that the landowner, with a great show of cheerfulness, greeted the two young men when they came down. It was clear to them both that he was holding himself in. As if nothing unusual had happened he conversed idly about the capital, the weather, the fact that his wife would be down shortly. And only after several minutes, with a show of nonchalance that almost made Nicolai burst out laughing, did he remark: ‘I hope you enjoyed your time in the fields today; but might one inquire what exactly you were doing?’
To which the young men answered just as they had agreed they would.
It seemed to Misha that the meal was going well. The red wine was excellent. In the warm light of the candles, under the gaze of his ancestors on the walls, he sat at the head of the table, happy and flushed, and doing most of the talking. His wife Anna – tall and dark, not clever but with decided opinions – graced the other end.
So the young men wanted to study village conditions. It was a novel idea, to work side by side with the peasants like this, but to Misha it seemed rather commendable. And when young Popov added that he was collecting folk tales, Misha was delighted. ‘I know most of Krylov’s fairy tales by heart,’ he told his visitor. ‘But my old nanny Arina is the one you should really talk to. She knows hundreds.’
Misha Bobrov believed he got on well with students. For a start, he was interested in education. He had been busy all that year with the district zemstvo trying to improve the local schooling. ‘We now give a basic education to one boy in six and one girl in twenty at Russka,’ he told them proudly. ‘And it would be twice that if Savva Suvorin didn’t place every obstacle in our way.’
He also let them know that he hated the Minister of Education. For some reason the Tsar was devoted to this man, a certain Count Dimitri Tolstoy – a distant kinsman of the great novelist – whose regime at the Education Ministry was so reactionary that he was known as ‘The Strangler’. And when Misha learned that Popov had studied at the medical school, where there had been a huge student strike some years before, he was quick to declare: ‘With that cursed Tolstoy at the Ministry, I can understand any student