Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [511]
Gradually he learned what had happened. The shell whose blast had so nearly killed him was a tiny part of a huge bombardment which had pushed the Russian army in the north back from Poland nearly three hundred miles.
‘It’s a catastrophe,’ Nadezhda told him, the third day he was well enough to talk. ‘Most of Lithuania’s gone. They’re advancing across Latvia. And our people are still pulling back. Old General Sukhomlinov’s been dismissed. About time too. Everyone says the government’s incompetent. They say we can only hope for help from St Nicolas the Miracle-worker!’
But the really fascinating news came from his father.
Though the Tsar had dismissed the Duma early in the year and ruled by decree, the set-backs in the war had been so great that he had been forced to call it into session again, and so Nicolai Bobrov was in the capital. So great had the anti-German feeling been since war began that the government had changed the capital’s name from St Petersburg, with its German-sounding ending, to the more Russian Petrograd. It was from Petrograd, therefore, that Nicolai’s letters were now addressed.
They were full of information. He gave his son character sketches of the important men in the parliament: Rodzianko, the chairman of the Duma, portly but wise; Kerensky, the leader of the Socialists – ‘A good speaker, but with no real political plan except to destroy the Tsar’ – and several others. He related all the gossip from the court. ‘The Empress’s friend, the fellow Rasputin, caused so much trouble with his lechery that he’s been sent back to his family in Siberia. Let’s hope he stays there.’ And above all, to Alexander’s amazement, his father was optimistic.
The Germans can’t defeat Russia for a simple reason: we continue to retreat and we always have reserves. Napoleon found the same thing. Even if we abandon the capital, we shall still exhaust them.
But this present crisis is our last and best opportunity to reform the government. The Tsar didn’t want to call the Duma back but now he’s had to. We shall force some measure of democracy on him and save Russia by doing so.
Out of the defeat comes victory, my dear boy.
Alexander could only hope his father was right.
For a long time he was still very weak. It seemed the blast had damaged his insides in some way. His wounds, which were extensive, still caused him pain. ‘But you’re young. You’ll mend,’ the doctor told him cheerfully. They put him in a wheelchair and arranged a room for him downstairs so that he could wheel himself out on to the verandah and enjoy the company.
The house was busy. Dear Arina, as housekeeper, ran everything with wonderful efficiency, and she personally would supervise the samovar of tea and the wonderful pastries that appeared on the verandah every afternoon. Despite the war, the little museum and the workshops were functioning and Arina’s son Ivan, now sixteen, was an apprentice to the woodcarver there and showing great signs of promise.
Though Peter Suvorin and Karpenko remained in Moscow, the rest of the family had all moved to the country and Alexander was interested to see how each person seemed to have their own appointed task. Mrs Suvorin was busy helping a new Zemstvo organization to house the flood of refugees from the front. ‘We’ve even got two Jewish families in the village,’ she informed them. Vladimir had converted the Russka cloth-works into a small armaments factory, making cartridges and grenades. As for Dimitri, he was playing and composing each day. A dozen suites for piano and two movements of his first symphony were already written, the scores being kept in a locked cupboard which was treated by all the family with the reverence that used to be reserved for an icon.
And then there was Nadezhda.
Her father had set up a little nursing home where wounded soldiers could convalesce in Russka, and every day she would go over there to nurse them. Sometimes those that were fit enough were brought over for tea at the house. And though Alexander sometimes observed a slight coldness in the girl towards her mother, it