Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

‘And Alexei?’ Hadfield asked. ‘Is your husband with you?’

‘We’re no longer together,’ she said coolly.

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ ‘Don’t be. It was the right thing to do. I’m Vera Figner again.’

Madame Volkonsky began to twitter nervously about freedom from domestic drudgery and the importance of educating young women. Her views were muddled and it seemed to Hadfield she was paying no more than lip service to the rights of women out of polite deference to Vera. After a few uncomfortable minutes she made an excuse and slipped away.

‘Yuliya Sergeyovna is a sentimental supporter,’ said Vera in a low voice. ‘One of her uncles took part in the Decembrist revolt and was executed by Nicholas. She’s really a liberal.’ She pursed her lips in a show of disapproval that made her look even more beautiful.

‘Frederick used to join our discussion group in Zurich,’ she said, turning to her companions. ‘He spoke to us about his time at Cambridge University and of his friend Professor Maurice’s ideas about Christianity and socialism. But he’s read Marx too.’

‘Are you a believer, Dr Hadfield?’

‘This is my younger sister, Evgenia,’ said Vera, introducing the questioner.

Evgenia had her sister’s fine features and chestnut hair but her face was a little fuller, and, if not as classically beautiful, it was less severe. Hadfield had enjoyed the company of another of the Figner sisters in Zurich: Lydia had studied medicine too and rented rooms with Vera and her unfortunate husband. He had been closer to Lydia than her older, more formidable sibling. She was not as pretty, but warmer, with a bold sense of fun, quite careless of society’s good opinion. They had been lovers for a time. The memory of it made him feel uncomfortable.

‘A believer? Only in Christ’s teachings.’

‘Frederick does not accept the need for revolutionary methods,’ said Vera acerbically.

‘Terror? No. That sort of talk was fashionable in Switzerland. Some of our comrades were intoxicated with the idea that a revolutionary should be free to murder and steal on our behalf to bring about a more civilised society. Dangerous romantics, and very naive too.’

‘You’ve spent too long away from Russia, Doctor,’ said Evgenia sharply. ‘Our experience has taught us to view things differently.’

‘A lot has changed since I saw you last,’ said Vera. ‘Things are worse here.’ And she told Hadfield of the months she and Evgenia had spent ‘among the people’, working in the villages and hamlets of Samara.

‘You know, I was twenty-five years old and I’d never spoken to a common person before, not properly. We travelled the countryside visiting what the peasants call their “stopping huts”. Within minutes there would be thirty or forty patients — sores, wounds, skin diseases, incurable catarrhs of the intestines and syphilis. Filthy, unhygienic — in some places the pigs lived better.’

The Figners had held political classes to persuade the peasants the tsar was not their champion but their oppressor. Only a revolution could bring a more equal society, better health and education to Russia.

‘But what is the point in trying to convince people whose only concern is survival that they should protest, resist — they were completely crushed, Frederick.’

In the end, Vera and Evgenia were forced to flee. All over the country young radicals were being rounded up and charged with political crimes. Most were guilty of no more than calling for an end to despotism.

‘It was hopeless. We were going to change nothing, it was the same story everywhere — protests broken up, arrests, persecutions… but it was at this time…’ Vera’s voice tailed off as if she were in two minds about saying more. Then, after looking carefully about: ‘Alexander Soloviev came to visit us to talk to us about his plans…’

A frisson of anxiety tingled down Hadfield’s spine. Vera leaned closer: ‘Are you afraid?’

‘Only for you — and your sisters.’

She gave a short humourless laugh: ‘Don’t be.’ Then, lowering her voice until it was barely more than a whisper: ‘We’d already agreed there should be a direct campaign of violence against landlords and the police but it was impossible to recruit people to carry it out. Alexander Soloviev felt the death of the tsar — one man — would purify the atmosphere, that it would help persuade the intelligentsia of the need for a campaign among the masses.’

‘Purify? Oh, please,’ said Hadfield. ‘Tell me you weren’t foolish enough to be part of it.’

‘Alexander is a martyr.’ Evgenia’s voice was shaking with barely repressed fury and she made no effort to lower it. ‘He is the kindest man I know. He knew he would be taken.’

The murmur of voices seemed to die away and heads turned towards them.

‘He has given his life for the people.’ Reaching for her lace handkerchief, Evgenia pressed it in a trembling hand to her mouth. The drawing room was quiet enough to hear the chink of cups being married to saucers.

‘The tragedy is that he missed.’ An unusually high-pitched voice broke the silence. ‘I wouldn’t have.’

There was a gasp of surprise. The steely determination in the would-be assassin’s voice left no one in doubt he spoke in deadly earnest. Hadfield turned to find him standing in front of the fire only a few feet away. He was a singular-looking man: Jewish — Hadfield was sure of that — in his early twenties, short and slight, with a thin face, wispy red hair and a small goatee beard. He was wearing a belted chemise of red cotton.

‘I applaud his courage, of course.’ The would-be assassin stared at Hadfield defiantly as if daring him to make some sort of riposte. After a few awkward seconds, one of the students at the chimney piece came to his rescue.

‘What purpose would it serve — the death of one man?’ he demanded. ‘Is that going to win freedom for the people? Of course it isn’t.’

‘An active attack on the government — a blow to the centre,’ the would-be assassin countered forcefully.

Vera Figner leant forward to whisper: ‘Goldenberg. Grigory Goldenberg from Kiev.’

Incensed that anyone should seek to justify the assassination of the emperor in her house, Madame Volkonsky weighed boldly into the debate: ‘He freed the serfs from bondage — the Tsar Liberator, the people love him!’

‘He is the persecutor of the people,’ Goldenberg countered hotly.

‘He is badly advised by those around him… he, he…’ So great was their hostess’s indignation she was unable to speak for a moment. In desperation, she cast about her drawing room for an ally and her gaze settled on Hadfield. Too late he realised her intention and looked away — to no avail. ‘Doctor, what do you say as an Englishman?’

All eyes turned to him again.

‘I believe in democracy and education, good healthcare, a fairer distribution of wealth,’ he said, after a moment’s thought, ‘but I think terror will set back the cause of reform by frightening liberal opinion — just as it’s done in Ireland.’

There was a gentle murmur of assent in the room and, emboldened a little, Hadfield added: ‘And I am a doctor, Madame Volkonsky, it is my duty to save life not take it.’

‘You’re afraid! Afraid.’ The young woman’s voice was dripping with scorn. She was standing behind a sofa opposite. ‘What do you know of the suffering of our people?’

Again, gasps of surprise. Hadfield flushed hot with anger: ‘I have spent…’

She cut across him. ‘You talk of change but you aren’t prepared to do anything to bring it about!’ Her blue eyes flashed angrily about the room as if her challenge were to them all. ‘Alexander Soloviev loves the people and has sacrificed himself for them. But you cannot understand, you are a foreigner…’ And she turned away from him in a show of disgust.