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Автор Andrew Williams
Andrew Williams
TO KILL A TSAR
ST PETERSBURG, c. 1880
1879
…[the] requirements of the constitution consisted: first, in the promise to devote all one’s mental and spiritual strength to revolutionary work, to forget for its sake all ties of kinship, and all personal sympathies, love and friendships: second, to give one’s life if necessary, taking no thought of anything else, and sparing no one and nothing… these demands were great, but they were easily fulfilled by one fired with the revolutionary spirit, with that intense emotion which knows neither obstacles nor impediments, but goes forward, looking neither backward nor to the right nor to the left…
1
Ice is scraped from the carriageway in readiness, but it is still treacherous and the tsar must tread with care.
At eight o’clock the guard at the commandant’s entrance to the Winter Palace came smartly to attention and the doors swung open for the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias. A tall man with the bearing of a soldier, Alexander II was in his sixtieth year, handsome still, with thick mutton chop whiskers and an extravagant moustache shot with grey, a high forehead and large soft brown eyes that lent his face an air of vulnerability. His appearance was greeted by a murmur of excitement from the small crowd of the curious and the devout waiting in the square. On this iron grey St Petersburg morning, the islands on the opposite bank of the Neva were almost lost in a low April mist, and tiny drops of rain beaded the tsar’s fur-lined military coat and white peaked cap. As was his custom, he walked alone but for the captain of his personal guard who followed at several paces. Head bent a little, his hands clasped behind his back, a brisk ten minutes to clear his thoughts before the meetings with ministers and ambassadors that would fill the day.
From the north-east corner of the square he made his way into Millionnaya Street and on past the giant grey granite Atlantes supporting the entrance to the New Hermitage Gallery his father had built for the royal collection. Then to the Winter Canal and the frozen Moika River, its banks lined with the yellow and pink and green baroque palaces of the aristocracy.
A carriage rattled along the badly rutted road, sloshing dirty melt water across the pavement and the tsar’s cavalry boots. At the Pevchesky Bridge, he turned and the square lay open before him again, the stone heart of imperial Russia: to his right the Winter Palace, and to his left the vast yellow and white crescent-shaped building occupied by the General Staff of his army. A score or more of his people stood at the corner of this building, stamping their feet, blowing vapour into balled hands, waiting for a glimpse of their ‘Little Father’. From this group, a tall young man in a long black uniform coat and cap with cockade stepped forward and walked towards the tsar. His features were half hidden by the upturned collar of his coat and a thick moustache. He stopped beneath one of the new electric street lamps at the edge of the square and, as the tsar approached along the pavement, gave a stiff salute. Something in his demeanour, in his wide unblinking eyes, caught and held the tsar’s gaze and brought to his mind a childhood memory of a bear he had seen cornered by hunting dogs. He walked past but after a few steps this uneasy thought made him turn to look again.
