Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [502]
At the age of twenty, Karpenko had grown into a strikingly handsome young fellow. He was clean-shaven, and his slim, dark good looks were so noticeable that Dimitri would often, with amusement, watch respectable ladies in the street forget themselves and stare after him as he passed. Dimitri used to see him in the company of artistic young women who were obviously very taken with him: but Karpenko preferred to keep his love life to himself and which, if any, of these young women had success with him Dimitri could only guess.
Occasionally Dimitri remembered his friend’s strange behaviour the day he met Rasputin; but he never saw anything like it again, and gradually put it out of his mind. Indeed, he could find few character flaws in Karpenko. Despite being handsome, he was not vain. Sometimes in the last two years, it was true, he had retreated into short bouts of moody silence; but these, Dimitri thought, might be nothing more than periods of creative concentration. The only fault he could find with his friend, really, was that his witty remarks were sometimes a little cruel; but that was understandable in someone with such a quick and brilliant mind as Karpenko.
Though their lives were more separate now, the two young men often went out together. Sometimes they would go to visit Vladimir Suvorin. The industrialist’s Art Nouveau house was complete now and it was an astonishing work of art. The main hall especially was breathtaking, with a floor of coloured marble and granite in a spiral design, lilac-coloured walls, stained glass windows that might have come from Tiffany, and a staircase of creamy white marble whose banisters, carved in elaborate, swirling shapes, looked as though they might melt at the touch of a hand. Vladimir was collecting a library of contemporary books which he had decided to place in the new house, and was then spending much of his spare time there. Karpenko, who was helping him obtain a fine collection of Futurist publications, seldom went there without bringing some new item which assured him a warm welcome.
And, of course, they went to see Nadezhda.
They were lively visits. Sometimes they would take some friends and then, more often than not, heated discussions would ensue in which Nadezhda, though she was only fifteen, was able to take some part. The subjects, in those heady days, were usually artistic rather than political; but they were invariably argued with extreme passion as only, perhaps, the Russians and the French can.
‘Have you read Ivan Sergeevich’s latest poem? What do you think?’
‘It’s terrible. Appalling. His attitude is sentimental but without real feeling. He is false.’
‘It’s outdated.’
‘He’s let everyone down. He’s completely discredited.’
‘He is dead. There’s nothing more to say about him.’
‘No. You are all wrong.’
The opinions would fly and Nadezhda would listen, gazing at Karpenko with sparkling eyes.
Sometimes Alexander Bobrov would appear on these occasions and then Karpenko if, say, the company had just condemned the poet Ivanov, would casually ask: ‘What do you think of Ivanov, Alexander Nicolaevich?’ So that when, as he always did, Alexander made some non-committal reply like: ‘Not bad,