Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [485]
And it was in this last vein that, after they had rested on the mossy ground by the springs for a while, Karpenko suddenly turned to him rather seriously and remarked: ‘Tell me, Dimitri, have you ever heard the proposition they call the Extraterrestrials Argument?’
Dimitri shook his head.
‘It goes like this,’ Karpenko explained. ‘Imagine that beings arrived from another planet and saw how we live – all the injustice in our world. And they asked you: “What are you doing about it?” And you replied: “Not much.” What would they say, Dimitri? How could they understand such madness? “Surely,” they’d say, “any rational being would put such a state of affairs right, as his first and most pressing duty.”’ He looked at his friend earnestly. ‘Don’t you agree?’
‘I do.’
‘So, what I wanted to say, before I leave, is – shouldn’t we commit ourselves to do something, to make a new and better world, you and I?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Good, I knew you’d agree.’ Slowly and solemnly now he reached into his pocket and drew out a pin. Then he pricked his finger and drew blood and handed the pin to Dimitri. ‘We’ll make a pact, then,’ he said. ‘Blood brothers.’
And young Dimitri flushed with pride. It was the fashion just then, especially among young men in revolutionary articles, to use the ancient custom of blood brotherhood. But to think that Karpenko was doing him such an honour! Dimitri took the pin and did the same. Then they pooled their blood.
Karpenko had only been gone four days when Mrs Suvorin, receiving a message that her sister in St Petersburg was ill, felt obliged to depart. Nadezhda and Dimitri remained, however; with Vladimir and Arina there, it hardly seemed that they could come to any harm. And so a pleasant week passed.
It was the custom for the stable boys to take the horses down to the river each day. If they were being watched, this was done in an orderly manner; but if not, they would mount them bareback and, with loud whoops, go careening down the slope. Little Ivan, whenever he could escape Arina’s watchful gaze, would slip off to join in.
If Nadezhda had not been watching, that warm July day, perhaps Dimitri would not have done it; but seeing the nine-year-old Ivan looking cheerfully down at him from a horse in the stableyard, he suddenly decided: If the little boy can do it, so can I. And a moment later he had clambered on to a horse himself, and was moving out towards the slope.
First a walk, then a run: the horses were excited. Hoofs pounding on the hard ground; wild cries; the ground both coming to meet him, yet falling away at the same time. Dimitri clung to the horse’s mane. There was dust everywhere, a smell of sweat. Suddenly he felt a branch from a sapling slap him in the face and cut him. He laughed. Then he was losing his balance. How foolish. Next he was falling, headlong, as the flanks of the other horses rushed by. Then the ground, or was it the sky, hurled itself at him.
Dimitri heard his leg snap. In that strange, silent moment before the searing pain, he heard it quite distinctly. And he was still just conscious when Nadezhda came running down the slope to where he lay.
Dimitri did not realize, for some time, that things would never be the same.
They had put his bed downstairs, in the big, airy room where the piano was. He was not too bored. There were plenty of books. Arina