Read Online The Age of Ice: A Novel by J. M. Sidorova - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: J. M. Sidorova
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and an apology. That’ll have to do. Right?”
“Right,” said he. “That’s great! Show me how you wrote it, I’ll copy. I’m going with you.”
It was I who ended up bursting out with commonplace objections: the dangers, the penalties. But Svetogorov stilled me with words that at first seemed mysterious; it took me an extra moment to realize he spoke about his idol, Count Gregory Orlov: “Two years ago Grishka Orlov volunteered to go to Moscow to stamp out the riots and the plague. Personally inspected the hospitals, a goddamn hero. Do you know that I asked to go with him but he refused me? Don’t be a selfish bastard, Alexis, take me with you. I’m perishing here.”
What can I say? The next day I, my orderly Cyril, and my friend Svetogorov headed east.
• • •
All the way to the city of Kazan, on the Volga, we traveled in a country that was hospitable and familiar, save for the remnants of quarantine checkpoints against plague that still marred the road. We drove with speed and swapped out horses at every transit station—there were fresh horses and catered dinners, and traveling gentlemen of appropriate social rank still gathered for after-dinner pastimes. In transit lodges last thing before sleep, or in the confines of a kibitka, Svetogorov was a galloping monologue.
“So tell me, Alexis, does it not infuriate you? Watching all these doe-eyed juveniles made general and bathed in riches when you’re just hoping to slog to colonel before your teeth fall out? . . . No, I guess not. You don’t care. Then again—and I’m saying it as a friend—you’ve got the looks and the title, and relatives everywhere it matters, so you can do nothing but sit around and whistle your own tune. But I—I can’t do that. And I see all these Vassilchikovs and Potemkins shooting past me—and it vexes me, Alexis. I know that I can do just as well as they can. You knowhow I know it? Because the late Elizaveta herself, peace to her in Heaven, told me so on numerous occasions when she groaned in the most animated fashion due to my performance on her. I know I can be Empress Ekaterine’s favorite just as well as any Vassilchikov, and yet fortune won’t pick me out.”
He talked, I listened. In this nonchalant manner, we reached Kazan. There, everything changed.
The city was clamoring with rural gentry who had fled their estates across the Volga. The whole provincial administration was in various stages of fright or flight. South of Kazan, down the Volga, the city of Samara had already been deflowered by Pugachev’s hordes, and many foretold the same fate for Kazan.
Our plan, if one could call it that, had been to join an army heading toward Orenburg. But in Kazan we learned that no detachments were moving out in the foreseeable future. Kazan was expecting a new imperial envoy, a man called Bibikov, to arrive with reinforcements and take the reins. Perhaps then we could resume our peregrination, they told us. The delay was indeterminate and, to us, unacceptable.
What options did we have then? The only road that was not yet definitively under rebellion was a 450-mile diagonal across an approximate square formed by Kazan, Ufa, Samara, and Orenburg. A little over halfway in on that road, in the township of Bugulma, were stationed General Freiman’s troops, stagnant since Carr’s departure. If we reached Bugulma in time, we could join these troops before they would be redeployed toward Orenburg.
We procured three sturdy Bashkir horses and two sleighs, which we loaded with food and forage—again Herr Goldstein’s money came in handy—and we went.
• • •
It should be said that in peacetime our voyage would not have been anything out of the ordinary. The tyranny of winter in my country was much like the tyranny of its czars: harsh, but not altogether incompatible with pursuits of life. In peacetime, the transit stations, yama s, spaced every twenty miles or so, would have been well stocked with food,
“Right,” said he. “That’s great! Show me how you wrote it, I’ll copy. I’m going with you.”
It was I who ended up bursting out with commonplace objections: the dangers, the penalties. But Svetogorov stilled me with words that at first seemed mysterious; it took me an extra moment to realize he spoke about his idol, Count Gregory Orlov: “Two years ago Grishka Orlov volunteered to go to Moscow to stamp out the riots and the plague. Personally inspected the hospitals, a goddamn hero. Do you know that I asked to go with him but he refused me? Don’t be a selfish bastard, Alexis, take me with you. I’m perishing here.”
What can I say? The next day I, my orderly Cyril, and my friend Svetogorov headed east.
• • •
All the way to the city of Kazan, on the Volga, we traveled in a country that was hospitable and familiar, save for the remnants of quarantine checkpoints against plague that still marred the road. We drove with speed and swapped out horses at every transit station—there were fresh horses and catered dinners, and traveling gentlemen of appropriate social rank still gathered for after-dinner pastimes. In transit lodges last thing before sleep, or in the confines of a kibitka, Svetogorov was a galloping monologue.
“So tell me, Alexis, does it not infuriate you? Watching all these doe-eyed juveniles made general and bathed in riches when you’re just hoping to slog to colonel before your teeth fall out? . . . No, I guess not. You don’t care. Then again—and I’m saying it as a friend—you’ve got the looks and the title, and relatives everywhere it matters, so you can do nothing but sit around and whistle your own tune. But I—I can’t do that. And I see all these Vassilchikovs and Potemkins shooting past me—and it vexes me, Alexis. I know that I can do just as well as they can. You knowhow I know it? Because the late Elizaveta herself, peace to her in Heaven, told me so on numerous occasions when she groaned in the most animated fashion due to my performance on her. I know I can be Empress Ekaterine’s favorite just as well as any Vassilchikov, and yet fortune won’t pick me out.”
He talked, I listened. In this nonchalant manner, we reached Kazan. There, everything changed.
The city was clamoring with rural gentry who had fled their estates across the Volga. The whole provincial administration was in various stages of fright or flight. South of Kazan, down the Volga, the city of Samara had already been deflowered by Pugachev’s hordes, and many foretold the same fate for Kazan.
Our plan, if one could call it that, had been to join an army heading toward Orenburg. But in Kazan we learned that no detachments were moving out in the foreseeable future. Kazan was expecting a new imperial envoy, a man called Bibikov, to arrive with reinforcements and take the reins. Perhaps then we could resume our peregrination, they told us. The delay was indeterminate and, to us, unacceptable.
What options did we have then? The only road that was not yet definitively under rebellion was a 450-mile diagonal across an approximate square formed by Kazan, Ufa, Samara, and Orenburg. A little over halfway in on that road, in the township of Bugulma, were stationed General Freiman’s troops, stagnant since Carr’s departure. If we reached Bugulma in time, we could join these troops before they would be redeployed toward Orenburg.
We procured three sturdy Bashkir horses and two sleighs, which we loaded with food and forage—again Herr Goldstein’s money came in handy—and we went.
• • •
It should be said that in peacetime our voyage would not have been anything out of the ordinary. The tyranny of winter in my country was much like the tyranny of its czars: harsh, but not altogether incompatible with pursuits of life. In peacetime, the transit stations, yama s, spaced every twenty miles or so, would have been well stocked with food,
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