Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

The man who walked behind the ‘Two Thieves’ walked alone. Suffering from the after effects of heavy food and cheap brandy, Modest Tolkach studiously ignored the stony glances of the women as he hastened to reach the fresh air outside. It had been unfortunate that the Cross should have fallen from the boy’s hands just as he had bent to kiss it. It did not necessarily mean that he was damned, although, after his supper with Anatoli Pobednyev the previous night, he felt that nothing would surprise him. Things would be different when he was on the council. The fat imbecile couldn’t stay Mayor forever.

Ignoring the hospital administrator, Pirogov moved forward and then stopped as he caught sight of Dr. Tortsov leading his wife away from the screen, with his assistant Chevanin dutifully in tow.

The carpenter stood his ground; he had his pride. He owed the doctor money, he reminded himself; that was all. In any case, Tortsov was all right. If you couldn’t pay immediately, he didn’t kick up a fuss. But the debt was already a week old.

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he watched as the doctor, seeing him, muttered a few words to his assistant, who looked in his direction and nodded. It had not occurred to him before that perhaps Chevanin, as the physician who had actually delivered the baby, would be collecting the payment. He sensed that the younger man would be far less inclined to extend his credit than his employer. He braced himself for the inevitable as the Tortsovs drew level with him and then passed him by. Chevanin hung back and greeted him.

“Good morning Gleb Pirogov.”

“Good morning, Sir.”

“The doctor would like to speak to you when you leave. A quick word, that is all.”

Pirogov nodded in acknowledgement, and Chevanin moved on. The carpenter watched morosely, inwardly cursing his luck, as Nikolai Alexeyevich Dresnyakov and Alexandra Alexeyevna Dresnyakova emerged from the thinning crowd. Brother and sister, they differed only in height and hairstyles. Pirogov moved forward again, pushing his way through the outer fringes of the congregation. But for the order for the ten sleighs, he would have already paid Tortsov’s bill. Instead, every copeck of his working capital had gone to Kavelin’s timber yard for materials and he had had to turn away smaller jobs in order to finish the work on time. Now he would definitely have to go to Izminsky. Such was life.

In front of the screen, Father Arkady had changed the acolytes around. The boy who had let the crucifix slip was now swinging the incense burner; the boy with the cloth was now holding the Cross. Impatient to leave, the remaining worshippers had formed the semblance of a queue. Prison director Skyralenko, the tunic of his Imperial Penal Service uniform worn shiny at the elbows, was quickly being followed by the lesser merchants: Shiminski, Kubalchov and Pusnyan and their wives.

There was another pause while Madame Roshkovskaya was gently lowered to her knees. Those at the back craned their necks and, seeing the reason for this new delay, started talking quietly amongst themselves. For Nina Roshkovskaya, they were prepared to wait. Even Pirogov, standing next to Irkaly Ovseenko who already smelled strongly of drink, nodded in agreement with his fellow craftsman’s tut of sympathy. There was something fundamentally wrong with a world which afflicted a harrowing condition upon such a beautiful woman. To many in the town, divided by class, rank and political beliefs, Roshkovsky’s wife provided the sole unifying link: the admiration they felt, as they watched her daily battle with the disease that was slowly crippling her, went far beyond the limits of cheap sentiment. There was a quality to her suffering that was universal and yet, at the same time, peculiarly Russian.

The darker the night, the brighter the stars.
The deeper the pain, the closer to God.

Madame Roshkovskaya could not be measured by the standards of ordinary people. Her beauty was not the same as Madame Kuibysheva’s. For all her wealth, the fur merchant’s young wife looked tawdry beside the invalid’s finely chiselled aristocratic features. Nina Roshkovskaya’s obstinate determination to live every day as if her illness was a minor inconvenience spoke of a bravery beyond that of the most decorated soldier in the garrison. Knowing that Dr. Tortsov could do nothing for her, she was still able to greet him as a valued friend. With the exception of the doctor and her husband, no one had ever heard her complain of the pain she was in, though it was obvious to all. She had not even turned to Father Arkady: her presence at the service spoke not of any deeply held beliefs but of her unshakeable determination to attend the church whenever she wished. She had what those strange people, the English, called ‘grit’.