Far Flies the Eagle (10 page)

She was huge and barbarian, hundreds of years behind the other European nations in national development, with an internal record of unparalleled violence and a reigning house composed of a long line of lunatics and tyrants. Alexander's vaunted Liberalism was remembered and treated as an eccentricity; he had ascended the throne by murdering the rightful ruler; he was reputed to be in love with his own sister, to be a weakling who wept at the sight of a battlefield and a few thousand corpses, vain, sensual, devoured by ambition. At the same time he was reported to be noble minded, religious, courageous and wise. A fool rushing to destruction or a cunning, ruthless adversary who had bided his time and duped the most formidable man in the world—no one knew which was his true rôle, and until the armies met in battle, no one would find out. On either side of the Russian frontier, the two great forces faced each other, waiting. Each was composed of half a million men.

CHAPTER FIVE

In the first months of that year of 1812, Alexander made several journeys to Tver to see his sister Catherine; on her marriage, he had given her a magnificent estate there, and an enormous income. The sight of Prince George of Oldenburg, pimpled and undersized, pricked Alexander's conscience when he thought that he had forced his sister into marriage with him. Conscience had long since ceased to be a word to the Czar; it troubled him violently over many things, and not least for having condemned his sister to the life she hated most, pampered inactivity. The fact that he knew her to be evil and unscrupulous did not excuse his own harshness, and he tried to make amends by lavishing money and favour on her. She had conspired against him, she had no more moral sense than an animal, and her debauches at Tver were already notorious; he knew all this, but her faults faded to insignificance beside the enormity of his own crime.

He had murdered his own father; lain in bed listening while a crowd of drunken traitors battered him to death, and then pretended to be sorry, to be innocent, so that his confederates and not himself should bear the blame. When he thought of that he thanked God for two mercies granted him; he had resisted the temptation to put Catherine Pavlovna to death, and he had been allowed the opportunity of repairing his terrible wrong by freeing the world from the tyranny of Napoleon.

Through the worry and intrigue of the past four years, the agnosticism of his early training had been replaced by the need of religious guidance, and with the admission of God there followed the sense of his own sin. During the long hours when he knelt praying, the feeling of guilt, of uncleanness, nearly overwhelmed him, and was followed by the urge to atone. It was not long before his resolve to humble Napoleon became inextricably involved with the idea of a reparation as tremendous as his crime. The first impulses of hatred, national jealousy and ambition which were the motivating forces in his pursuit of vengeance became swamped in a mystical sense of God-given mission. The approaching conflict filled him with exhilaration; he worked and planned with the energy of ten men—his pleasures dwindled as his duties grew. Marie Naryshkin became his only distraction from the crushing routine he had imposed on himself.

When he alighted from his gold-painted sledge and entered the Palace at Tver, his sister came forward to greet him. He kissed her affectionately, saluted his brother-in-law, and then asked Catherine to receive him privately in her apartments.

He had shed the heavy fur-lined greatcoat and was warming his hands by the fire when she came in.

“You look tired,” she said. “Very tired. I'll ring for some wine and we can have supper up here. I want to hear every word of news.”

“That's why I came,” he said. “I have some good news for you, Catherine, and I wanted to deliver it myself.”

He sat down, drawing his chair by the fire.

“What news?” she demanded. “Tell me quickly. You know I'm dying of boredom in this place.”

“Isn't George pleasant to you?”

“The devil take George. You know very well I don't rely on George for amusement.… Tell me the news!”

“It's about Prince Bagration,” Alexander said, watching her; he saw the colour rise in her olive skin.

“Bagration …”

“I'm giving him command of the Southern army,” he said.

Bagration was her lover; he spent weeks at Tver under the complaisant eye of George of Oldenburg, and the stories of his passion for the Grand Duchess and of hers for him were circulating through every salon in Petersburg. He was an exceptionally brave and able soldier; his appointment had no bearing on his relationship with Catherine, but Alexander knew how it would please her.

She laughed and swung round with the quick movement so characteristic of her. “Thank you, Alexander. He'll serve you well. Before God I shall miss him, though!”

“Has he made you happy, Catherine?” he asked. She looked down at him, her eyebrows raised in surprise at herself.

“I love him, but I respect him, which is so ridiculous, for I've never cared for anyone before. He's as noble as I'm base, and you can appreciate that, my brother. Tell me, how is our dear family? Mother still writes those irritating letters which I never answer. And how is the charming Marie—still in favour?”

“Everyone is well—they all send messages to you. As for Marie, I don't know what I'd do without her!”

Catherine laughed maliciously. “You'll do well enough. Really, you're so faithful to her it's indecent!”

“You misunderstand me.” He was irritated by her coarseness, but he repressed it. Love to Catherine meant only one thing. Bagration's nobility of character was equalled by tremendous virility; the gentler moods were not for Catherine, nor indeed for him.

“Marie gives me affection, loyalty. They're precious things. If you were Czarina you'd appreciate that.”

Catherine turned half away from him and stared into the fire. “There was a time when I might have been,” she said slowly.

Alexander's expression did not alter, though the confession astonished him. “I know that,” he said quietly. “Why do you tell me now?”

“Because Bagration says I was disloyal,” she answered. “I told him of it, and he was very angry. I can't bear his anger, Alex.”

She gazed at him out of her slanting eyes; bewildered by her own reaction. Alexander thought how beautiful she was, how tremendously alive. Everything about her radiated vitality, her shining black hair, the glowing healthy skin, her magnificent body in the revealing Empire dress. No wonder Bagration loved her; no wonder that any man who came in contact with her must be suspect, even her own brother. Perhaps God had forgotten to give His creation a soul, he thought suddenly; vain, cruel, treacherous and without moral values, the discovery of a fundamental decency in her feeling for Bagration had wrought havoc in her. He wanted to laugh at the irony of his sister falling in love with the most honourable and chivalrous soldier in Russia. And he pitied her, because for the first time she was defenceless, far more so than when he had tricked her and forced her into marriage. He also pitied Bagration, the recipient of such a woman's passion. If he abandoned her she'd kill him.

‘Catherine Pavlovna—of us all she is the true Romanov; somewhere, in spite of all the German inter-marriage, the strain of Peter the Great, of the Empresses Anna and Elizabeth Petrovna has come out in her,' he thought. ‘She belongs to a past century. A hundred years ago she would have been Empress of All the Russias by now and I would have been dead.…'

But aloud he said, “All that's past, Catherine, I spilt our father's blood and let that be the last crime to disgrace the name of Romanov. Everything happens according to God's will; had He wished you to reign instead of me, you'd have been born the eldest son. You've forgotten the wine,” he added gently.

She pulled a bell cord and then sat down on the opposite side of the enormous marble grate.

“God's will, eh? Don't tell me it's true that you've become religious!”

“I've discovered the need of Faith, if that's what you mean. If you bore on your conscience what I bear on mine, you would need it too.”

She shrugged, and the diamonds circling her throat blazed with the movement. “You shouldn't brood on Father's death, Alex. All that is past, you've just said so yourself. Then let it be. Forget it. We're a bad family; Constantine's a monster, Nicholas a heartless blockhead, I make no excuses for myself, God knows, and as for you, my dear brother, you're probably worse than any of us if the truth were known!”

He stared past her without answering; it was a mannerism that annoyed her because it baffled; it was impossible to deduce from his expression whether he had even heard her last remark.

At that moment a footman entered, and she ordered wine and supper to be brought to her rooms. If anything, her dislike of Alexander had increased during the last four years, but it was now tempered with a grudging respect; she realized at last that the brother she had dismissed as a weakling had outwitted her in the most subtle way.

The idol of the salons, she thought, watching him as he sipped his wine, his fine profile outlined by the firelight; equipped with every fashionable grace of bearing and accomplishment, ready with a soft word even for his enemies. As a result he was always underestimated, and, by God, what a mistake that was.…

‘No one really knows him,' she decided, ‘I least of all. Perhaps Marie Naryshkin does, but even that I doubt. He knows I hate him and hoped to overthrow him, but he's kind and generous to me, and God knows why, for he asks nothing in return.'

She put down her wineglass and said, “What other news have you, brother?”

“We shall be at war with France in a few months,” Alexander answered quietly. “And that leads me to the second thing I have to tell you. It will gladden your heart to hear that I intend to dismiss Speransky.”

She sat upright. “At last! At last you've listened to me!”

“And to Araktcheief and many others,” he reminded her. “I've hesitated because he's a good servant and Russia owes him a great deal.”

“He's a Jacobin,” she interrupted fiercely. “Low born and treacherous. All he wants is peace with Napoleon, the cur! When are you getting rid of him?”

“Soon now,” Alexander said. “When I return to Petersburg. And that's not the only change; I shall appoint your friend Feodor Rostopchine Governor of Moscow.”

Catherine's eyes widened. Rostopchine, the fanatical friend of their father, for so long a semi-exile till she welcomed him into her circle at Tver because his hatred of the French reflected her own feelings. Rostopchine and Araktcheief. Two phantoms out of the past instead of one; in some sinister way the influence of Paul the First was creeping back as his son recalled those men most prominent in his terrible reign.

“He's completely loyal,” Alexander explained. “I remember the service he gave my father and I hope he will give it to me. He can be trusted with the safety of Moscow before any other man in Russia. Naturally, my dear sister, you won't speak a word of what I've told you, even to Bagration. There's a faction at Court who wants peace with France as much as Speransky, and what I'm going to do must take them by surprise.”

“I know,” she said. “And Constantine's at the head of it, damn him. The miserable coward, he tells everyone we're going to lose the war; he predicts Napoleon will defeat us in a few months and have your head; it's his own he's worrying about. I shall never forgive him!”

Alexander glanced at her over the rim of his glass.

“Nor shall I,” he said.

On the evening of the 29th of March Speransky received a summons from the Emperor. He went to the Winter Palace, carrying his portfolio under his arm; he was quite determined to try and argue the Czar out of this mad project of war with Napoleon.

Speransky shook his head as he walked, lost in his own reflections as he conducted an imaginary conversation with Alexander. “Why ruin Russia, why pit his army against the greatest military genius in the world when there wasn't one Russian General to compare with him.… France had never violated Russian rights; the Duchy of Oldenburg, yes, Napoleon had seized that, but only because his allies were letting English goods flow into their ports in defiance of the agreed Continental System. Was Alexander going to sacrifice his people and lose his throne for the Duchy of Oldenburg?”

It was his sister Catherine, of course, Speransky concluded angrily. An evil troublemaker, anxious to destroy her country to satisfy her own personal spite against Napoleon. What a pity Alexander was too gentle to deal with her.… There was something to be said for the old system.…

He passed through the ante-room and was admitted to Alexander's private study.

Two hours later he emerged, his face as white as the papers his shaking hands were trying to put back into his portfolio. He walked away and down the long Palace corridors with jerking steps that were almost a run. In those few minutes he reverted to his former background; the Minister was a peasant again, a peasant in Court dress with a shabby dispatch case under his arm, trembling as if he were going to be beaten.

He knew instinctively that the news of his dismissal had preceded him with the uncanny speed that always informed a Court which way the wind of Imperial favour was blowing. No one bowed to him this time as he passed, and many turned their backs; some laughed and he heard them. His grey head shook as another imaginary conversation took place between him and Alexander.

‘If you have no further need of me, then I'll retire to my estates. I'll live quietly. Sire, I've had my fill of public service, but if you should ever want me …'

He left the Palace and drove home in his own sledge; in its privacy his face suddenly contorted and he wept.

Alexander sat on in his study. No one dared disturb him as the time passed; when Speransky had left he made a few notes, and then laid down his pen and covered his face with his hands. He could still see Speransky's face when he heard that his trusted Sovereign had had him watched by the Secret Police, when the accusations of partisanship for France and personal criticisms of the Emperor were read out to him.