CHAPTER SIX
A LIFE-CHANGING DAY
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
—Dostoevsky,
Crime and Punishment.
The Yusupov Palace on the Moika River, Saint Petersburg, August 14, 1863, afternoon
Boris was having a great day riding with Vlad around the hillsides east of the Moika Palace, hooping and yelling like a battle crazed Cossack. He was sweaty, happy, and content. His future as a military officer was assured, and he could scarcely contain himself long enough to get into a combat officer’s role. With the troubles stirring on the Crimea, he knew it would not be long before his ambitions would begin to be realized.
It was only a little discomfiting to see a hard-riding Cossack boy racing towards where he and Vlad were taking a well-earned cat-nap under the birches.
The boy halted from a full gallop and ran to Boris yelling, “Prince Boris, you are ordered by Prince Nikolai to come to see him in his library at once. Vlad, sir, you are not to accompany the prince.”
That was highly unusual and put something of a damper on Boris’s enthusiasm for life he was enjoying up to them. He mounted Kryzhu and raced off towards the Moika Palace behind the Cossack boy. Sensing urgency, Boris walked swiftly to his father’s library.
“Father, you sent for me,” he said to his father who was standing with his back to the entryway gazing at the row of latest European science books that arrived the previous day.
Boris knew he had been heard; so, he waited.
Prince Nikolai turned and looked at Boris, his expression as inscrutable as a natriyevo-vzlomshchik [soda-cracker].
“Take a seat.”
Boris sat in front of the huge desk. His father took his seat behind the desk instead of sitting beside his son as he usually did.
“Boris, my son, you have disappointed me,” Nikolai said quietly.
It was liked being stabbed with an ice pick.
“How, Father. I truly do not know.”
“Yes, you do, Son. I have met with a peasant girl named Anna Evgenovna Petrove and her parents, Yvegeni and Natasha. Do you recognize the names?”
A bridge collapsed on his head, and it took a moment for Boris to clear himself from the wreckage.
“Only Anna. I know only know Anna, not her patronymic or her surname or the names of her parents, Sir.”
His eyes fixed on the seams between the hard wood planks of the floor.
Nikolai spoke very quietly, almost in a whisper.
“You do not even have the decency to know the names of the mother of your child or anything about her background. You disgust me.”
“I…regret…I…I… mean, I am sorry, Father, so terribly sorry to have brought shame upon the House of Yusupov.”
“At least you have the decency to recognize the gravity of what you have done, foolish boy. Your fine mother and I have taken care of the problem. But you must pay.”
“Anything, Father. I will submit to anything you order.”
“Yes, you will. This is what will happen to you, and it will happen today. I will assemble the family and our serfs. You will be tied to a stake and lashed for your sin and for your foolishness. I will apply the whip. Then, you will face all the men you have been training in the Cossack military arts and confess in every detail why you have been whipped like a slave. Then you will beg their forgiveness and release every one of them from your personal service. Finally, you will beg them to come back to your service because you and any men you can muster will leave for the eastern region of Crimea at sunrise tomorrow. It seems that there has been another wicked riot in the ancient city of Kersh by Crimean Tatars. You will quell it under the orders of your godfather and general, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich Romanov.
“Should you succeed, you will regain your place, be made a permanent captain, and begin your education in the Tzar’s General Staff Academy. Should you fail, you will never be heard from again, and there will be no record of you as having ever been part of the House of Yusupov. Now, get out of my sight. Stand on the rear porch at five o’clock and watch the construction of the whipping post.”
Princess Tatiana clenched her teeth and observed the punishment meted out by her husband. The worst of it was the humiliation in front of the serfs. Her son was demeaned down to their level.
Boris did as his father ordered. He stoically endured the pain of the whipping and never uttered a sound. After the acute pain was over, he maintained a flat expression and without begging or whining or making excuses, he debased himself to the family servants. It was growing dusk when he finally got to the point of asking for volunteers from among his would-be Cossacks.
“After what you have witnessed today, you know that I have no right ask you to respond to my request that you follow me into battle for the empire. There is a battle to be fought in the Crimea, and I will be on the train for Moscow tonight. I ask any and all of you to go with me, but should you choose not to go with me, there will be no recrimination against you. If I have to go alone, so be it. I will fight for the empire and the tzar.”
Vlad stepped forward and stood at attention. He spread his arms out at his sides and waited. In a few seconds, the serfs who had trained under him and Prince Boris formed ranks beside and behind him. They saluted. Not a single man stayed back; in fact, fourteen men who had not been part of the training joined the others.
For the first time that day, Boris feared that he would humiliate himself by crying.