Olga He read it again and smiled. Life at the prestigious Smolny School for Girls in the city of St Petersburg could be grim. He was not surprised that his lively, bright-eyed little sister was hating her first year. And though the risks might be great, he had only asked himself one question when he received the letter: what would Pushkin do? For Pushkin would have gone to her. Pushkin was his hero.

Sergei Bobrov was happy at Tsarskoe Selo. He was quick, intelligent, and even had talent. He could draw well and make up a verse in French or Russian better than any other boy in his class. 'But if only I could do these things like Pushkin,' he would sigh. Pushkin: the boy writer of daring verses; the cartoonist. Pushkin with his mop of curly hair, his soft but brilliant eyes, his wayward humour. He was always getting himself into scrapes and always after women too. That year was his last at the school, and though some of the masters thought he was a mischief-maker, to the boys he was already a celebrity.

It was thanks to a common interest that Pushkin had taken notice of Sergei a love of Russian folk tales. His nanny Arina, the serf woman, had taught Sergei most of what he knew: the tale of the fabulous firebird, the hero Ilya of Murom 'You should see my fat brother Ilya for a real comparison with the legendary hero!' he would laugh and countless others. Even Pushkin was impressed with his knowledge. 'Always keep those folk tales in your mind, my young versifier,' he would say. 'They contain the true spirit, the special genius of Russia.'

It was Pushkin, however, who had led Sergei into serious trouble. It had begun with a cartoon scandalous but light-hearted which Pushkin had drawn after the final defeat of Napoleon. It showed the angelic Tsar Alexander returning in triumph but having grown so fat in the west that the triumphal arches were hastily being widened for him! It was some months later that Sergei followed his hero. His target, however, was the new and intensely pious Minister of Education one of the noble Golitsyn family. And his cartoon showed the Minister making a detailed personal inspection of the girls at the Smolny School, to ascertain their morals! It was outrageous, and though few of the teaching staff at the school had any love for the authoritarian minister, he was solemnly warned: 'Any more trouble from you, Bobrov, and you'll be expelled.'

Whatever the risk of trouble, however, Sergei knew what he must do. It'll be all right, he told himself. And anyway, I won't let Olga down.

The early morning was still dark when Sergei slipped out. A groom was waiting for him with a horse half a mile from the school and soon he was clattering down the road to St Petersburg. The road was empty. Sometimes he passed between long, dark lines of trees that seemed about to come together and smother him. Then the land would open out into a wasteland of desolate brown traversed by grey gashes of unmelted snow. More than once, he half-expected to hear the cry of a wolf. The icy wet air stung his face.

And yet he was happy. A day before, he had sent a message to Olga, telling her where to meet him, and in his mind's eye he could see her pale face and hear her voice saying: 'I knew you would come.' It made him feel warm inside. How lucky he was to have such a beautiful sister. How happy he was to be a Bobrov.

And how fortunate to be alive and a Russian at such a time! Never had the world looked so exciting. The great threat of Napoleon had finally been laid to rest in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. Now the British had put the aggressor of Europe on the distant Atlantic island of St Helena, from which there would be no escape. Russia, meanwhile, was now stronger than ever before in her history. Down in the south-east, in the Caucasus Mountains, the ancient Kingdom of Georgia had at last been joined to Russia's empire. In the north, Finland, long under Swedish control, had also been taken over by the Tsar. In the distant east, across the sea, Russia not only possessed Alaska but had now established a fort in California too. And, most splendid prize of all, at the great Congress of Vienna where, after Napoleon, the assembled powers had redrawn the map of Europe, Russia had been given almost the whole of her ancient rival Poland, with her lovely capital of Warsaw.

But what really excited young Sergei was Russia's new place in the world. No longer the barbarous Asiatic kingdom cut off from the western world; no longer the backward pupil of Dutch and German adventurers, English and French. At the congress, it was the Russian Tsar who took the lead. More even than this, Russia had proclaimed her own, special mission.

'Let us put a final end to these terrible wars and bloody revolutions,' the Tsar had proclaimed to the governments of Europe. 'Let the European powers come together in a new and universal brotherhood, founded solely on Christian charity.'

This was the famous Holy Alliance. It was, by any standards, an astonishing document. Russia even proposed a shared, European army the first international peace-keeping force to police this universal order.

Admittedly such grand ideas had existed before, in the days of the Roman Empire or the medieval Church; but the Holy Alliance with its mystical language was profoundly Russian. And if the devious diplomats of the west signed it with a cynical smile, and the pragmatic British refused even to do that, every Russian knew that the west was corrupt. Simple, straightforward, warm-hearted, fervent: the Holy Alliance was the Russians at their best. No wonder that young Sergei Bobrov the schoolboy felt exalted.

The city of St Petersburg was already in sight, under a platinum sky, when Sergei reached the post-house where he changed horses; and the harsh, bright morning was well advanced by the time he entered the capital.

The Smolny Convent School lay some three miles east of the Winter Palace, at the far end of the Neva basin where the river curved round to the south. Since he had time, Sergei took a leisurely route along the embankment beside the pink granite of the quays, past the great statue of the Bronze Horseman, the old Admiralty and the Palace. The Admiralty though it still contained shipyards was being refashioned to a severe neo-classical design, surmounted by a high, golden fleche to echo the slim golden spire of the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral across the water. Sergei breathed a sigh of contentment. How wonderful it was to be in St Petersburg.

There was another reason, too, for his excitement.

For in the northern capital of St Petersburg, in the month of April, it was the season of the break-up of the ice. Though much of the snow and slush had been cleared from the grey streets, there remained, through the centre of the city, the great white lagoon of the frozen Neva, and at this time it began to melt. The roads across it had been dismantled. Soon, before the ice floes began to move, they would take up the pontoon bridges too. And today, as he rode along the embankment, he could see great fissures across the Neva's surface and, from time to time, hear a great crack, loud as a pistol shot, as another section broke up. How thrilling it was, on this chilly, damp morning, to feel the wet air on one's face and know that here, too, the huge northern world, in its own indomitable fashion, was making life anew. As Sergei rode along, his young heart was dancing.

And it was dancing with excitement still as he came to the long, closed wall of the Smolny Convent.

He had told Olga in his message exactly where to go and when. Pushkin himself had told him about the little window in the wall where one could enter unobserved. Sure enough, it was there, about twelve feet up. Having left his horse at an inn, therefore, Sergei discreetly made his way to this spot and waited. He waited an hour. Then at last the window opened.

There were two hours before she would be missed. They sat side by side in the little whitewashed room, his arm around her shoulder and her head, from time to time, resting upon his chest as they talked softly together.

He loved her. Of the other Bobrovs, she resembled Alexis the most. Her build was slender though there was nothing weak about her long limbs and elegant, tapering hands. She had her brother's slightly Turkish features with a long, chiselled nose, and a mouth that turned down with faint irony at the corners; but whereas there was a trace of cruelty in Alexis's face, in hers there was only refinement. Her eyes were deep blue and sometimes seemed a little startled at the world, although they could suddenly become transformed into a glowing gaiety. And how gratefully, now, they looked up at him.

She was not happy, and no wonder. The education at the Smolny School was outstanding. As well as the embroidery, dancing and cooking one might expect young ladies to learn, the girls were taught languages, geography, mathematics and physics as well a progressive education which astonished visitors even from America. But the discipline was harsh. 'We sing psalms before every meal,' Olga said sadly. And then, shaking her head: 'It's a prison.' For from autumn until the end of spring, when the school year ended, the Smolny girls were virtually locked in the convent precincts. 'I hate them all, even the other girls,' she whispered.

He understood that she was only lonely. He held her gently, her long brown hair falling across his arm, and let her talk for nearly an hour until, gradually, she became more cheerful and even began to laugh. Then, nestling close to him she murmured: 'Enough of my boring life, Seriozha. Talk to me. Tell me about the world.'

It made him so proud, to know that she looked up to him. And since his own mind was so full of ideas, it was no time before Sergei was excitedly outlining to her his hopes for the future.

'The Tsar will create a new Russia,' he told her. 'Serfdom is going. There'll be a new constitution. Look at what he's already done in the Baltic states and in Poland. That's the future.'

For as well as now abolishing serfdom in the Lithuanian and Baltic territories, Tsar Alexander had just amazed everyone by granting the newly acquired kingdom of Poland a very liberal constitution, with almost no censorship, an elected assembly, and votes for a wide section of the population.

'And that's only the start,' Sergei assured her. 'When Russia itself gets a new constitution, we shall be like Britain, or even America!'

The enthusiastic claim was not as wild as it sounded. The enlightened Tsar Alexander had in fact sought the advice of English diplomats, and of President Jefferson of the United States, on how to devise a new government. Years ago, his talented minister Speransky had drawn up a proposal which included separated powers, an elected parliament a duma duma and even elected judges. Even now, an official group had started to prepare a plan for dividing Russia into twelve provinces which would each have considerable autonomy. True, the Tsar was enigmatic one could not be sure quite where he stood. But then this was Russia, where all change was slow and difficult. and even elected judges. Even now, an official group had started to prepare a plan for dividing Russia into twelve provinces which would each have considerable autonomy. True, the Tsar was enigmatic one could not be sure quite where he stood. But then this was Russia, where all change was slow and difficult.

'And what will your part be, Seriozha, in this wonderful new Russia?' Olga asked.

Oh, he knew that. He was certain about his own life. 'I'm going to be a great writer,' he said boldly.

'Like your friend Pushkin?'

'I hope so. Do you realize,' he went on, enthusiastically, 'that until the time of Catherine, Russian literature hardly existed! There was nothing but a lot of mouldy old psalms and sermons in Church Slavonic the devil to understand. People like us wrote verse or plays in French. No one wrote a thing worth reading in actual Russian until Lomonosov, when Father was young, and dear old Derzhavin the poet, God bless him, who's still with us. So you see,' he exclaimed happily, 'it's for us to begin. No one can tell us what to do. You should hear Pushkin's verse. It's extraordinary.'

Olga smiled. She loved to watch her brother and his enthusiasms. 'You'll have to work hard at it, Seriozha,' she said thoughtfully.

'Of course.' He grinned. 'And what are you going to do, when you get out of this convent-prison?' he asked playfully.

'Get married, of course.'

'To whom?'

'A handsome officer in the guards.' She smiled. 'Who writes poetry in Russian.'

He nodded thoughtfully and then, to his surprise, felt sad. I wish I could be that man, he thought.

Soon afterwards, it was time to go.

The afternoon was drawing in when, tired but happy, Sergei returned the horse and walked the last half mile through the cold slush towards the school. No one was about; he slipped inside and made his way towards his quarters where his friends would be waiting. With luck he would not even have been missed. There was the door. He opened it. And started with surprise.

The high room was empty, except for a single, tall, slim figure in riding boots and uniform who stood by the grey light of the window and who now slowly turned towards him.

'Alexis!' His heart gave a jump; a little wave of joy swept over him. 'How long have you been here?'

And then, suddenly, his smile faded.

'Where have you been?' Alexis's voice was cold, cutting as a razor.

'Nowhere.'

'Liar! They've been searching the school for you for two hours.'

'I'm sorry.' Sergei hung his head. There was nothing he could say.

'Being sorry is useless,' Alexis said with a cold rage. 'I came to see you as I happened to be here on business. While I've been waiting I have heard a good deal about you. You drew cartoons of the minister and you're under threat of expulsion. I suppose you know that?'

'Yes.'

'I persuaded them not to expel you. You ought to be whipped. I offered to do it myself for the family honour.' He paused, waiting it seemed, for this last statement to have its full effect.

What was it, at that moment, that prompted Sergei to say something that he didn't even mean? Was it irritation with Alexis's lecturing tone, the shock of being caught, the fear of his punishment or, perhaps, a sudden impulse to strike out because the brother he loved and worshipped was seemingly turning against him? Whatever the cause, he suddenly blurted out: 'To hell with the family honour!'

Alexis gasped. He had not gone to a school like this: he had gone, and as soon as he could, into his regiment. Service to the Tsar, family honour these were his gods. He had no idea how it was possible for this boy to be so disloyal. Yet what was it that now made Alexis do the unforgivable? Was it a row he had had with a superior officer the day before and his fear for his own career? Was it a mistress who had dismissed him contemptuously the week before? Was it a streak of cruelty in his nature that secretly had been awaiting an excuse to inflict pain ever since, six months before, he had heard for the first time a certain piece of information in Moscow? Whichever of these, in a voice that was both icy and venomous he hissed: 'That may be. But to me, to the rest of us, it matters a great deal. And kindly remember that, though you are not one of us, you still carry our name and we expect you to behave accordingly. Do you understand?'

'What do you mean, not one of us?'

'I mean, you brown-eyed little interloper, that you are not to our parents' shame a Bobrov. But, because we do care about honour, we treat you as if you were.' And then, as if it were a head cold that she had caught one day and lost: 'At a time when she was lonely, our mother committed an indiscretion in Moscow. Long ago. It was over at once. Nobody knows. You don't belong but we pretend you do. And since we have lent you our name, you will honour it.' He paused. 'If you ever breathe a word of this to anyone, I will kill you.'

Then, having wantonly destroyed his brother, he left.

Later that night, finishing his letters home which, through cold tears, he found difficulty in seeing, Sergei wrote: I am very happy here at school, my dear parents. Today I saw Alexis, who is also well, and this, too, made me happy. Give my love to Arina and her little niece.

He had always supposed his mother was perfect and that his parents loved him. Perhaps, if he was not a Bobrov, if he was unwanted, it scarcely mattered what he did with his life.

1822, January Tatiana gazed round the little market place. For the first time after a month of dull days the morning sky was clear and all around Russka the snow was shining. Savva the serf was about to get into his sled. He was returning to Moscow. How smart he looked in his new coat. He turned and made her a low bow, and she smiled.

For they shared a secret.

Though Russka was quiet that morning, there were many indications that nowadays it was a busier place than before. True, the walls frowning from the high river bank were still as stout as in the time of Ivan the Terrible; the tall, forbidding watchtower with its steep tent roof still rose into the sky; but within the walls there were two wide streets of wooden houses on each side of the market, intersected by three more. Behind the church, there was now a broad avenue with rows of trees down the centre and on one side three neat stone merchants' houses, with classical features. At the end of this avenue was a small park, and past that the old fortification wall had been lowered and a small esplanade laid out with a pleasant view over the river and the surrounding countryside. Outside the walls, on the side away from the river, the scattered huts and smallholdings had grouped themselves into several lanes which petered out into fields about a quarter of a mile away. The total population was about two thousand. In short, though certainly not the city designated by Catherine, Russka had still managed to assume the character of a small town.

Dear Savva: how close they had grown in the last four years. She was rather lonely sometimes. Alexander had become sick and this had made him rather uncommunicative. Sergei was employed in the Foreign Ministry nowadays, which kept him busy in St Petersburg and Moscow. Olga had recently married a handsome young guards officer with an estate near Smolensk, so she was absent. And Alexis, now married, had been posted down to the Black Sea, at the great port of Odessa. The previous month he had had a son, whom he had named Mikhail. But it might be years before Tatiana saw her first grandchild. So there's only Ilya and me, really, she thought sadly. And though Ilya was at home, his large, placid head was usually in a book; one couldn't talk to him about anything practical.

But Savva and his father were practical: that was what she liked about them. They ran two little factories in Russka now, each employing a dozen people. One wove woollen cloth, the other linen. And the two men were so well organized that they still had time to spare. Indeed, the previous year she had persuaded her husband to let Savva's father go down to supervise the Riazan estate with the result that its revenues immediately rose sharply. She often went into Russka to watch the Suvorins' activities and talk to Savva about his business.

And it was these talks that had first led to a great realization, and her present secret plan.

For though one would never have guessed it in the country houses of the gentry Russia was slowly changing; and the change was taking place in the very region in which she lived.

There had always been several sources of wealth in Russia. The salt beds and the furs in the huge northern wilderness, which had once made the merchants of ancient Novgorod rich; the wonderful black earth, the chernozem chernozem, of the warm Ukraine; and since the time of Ivan the Terrible there had gradually been added the minerals of the Ural Mountains, far to the east, and some very modest trade from the huge, barely colonized wastes of Siberia that lay beyond.

Yet it was here, in the old Russian heartland around Moscow, where the weather was terrible and the land was poor, that the greatest strides were now being made. For here was the home of Russian manufacturing. Leather goods, metalwork, icon painting, cloth, linen, the printing of silks imported from the east, and most recently, cotton manufacture: these were light industries that could be set up in town or village. Then there were the old ironworks at Tula and the huge armaments factories of Moscow. The greatest market for iron, as well as many other commodities, lay only a few days to the east, where the Volga and the Oka met at the ancient frontier city of Nizhni Novgorod. In Catherine's reign, an enterprising merchant family had even set up a glass factory in a village not twenty miles away from Russka. And above all, the provincial capital city of Vladimir, with a new industrial town called Ivanovo to the north of it, was becoming a huge new centre of the textile business.

By the standards of western Europe this new industrial and commercial activity was unimpressive. Under five per cent of Russians lived in towns, against twenty per cent in France and over thirty in England. But it was a beginning.

And to Tatiana, the more she understood it, the more exciting it became. Often Savva would remark to her: 'Ah, Tatiana Ivanovna, what I could do if only I had more money to invest!' She saw what huge opportunities there were and, having nothing else to occupy her active nature, brooded about them constantly.

'If our serfs can set up little factories,' she would challenge her husband, 'we could set up big ones.'

It was a perfectly reasonable statement. Though most of the gentry despised such merchant activities, there were others who did not. Indeed, some of the greatest magnates were also owners of large industrial enterprises which were worked by their serfs. Bobrov could have set up a plant like the nearby glass-making factory without loss of face.

But he was not interested. 'Who would run it after I am gone?' he demanded. 'Alexis? He's a soldier. Ilya? He'd be incapable.' He shook his head. 'Far better to build up the estates for them than get into risky projects none of us understand. Besides,' he would remind her, 'it's far simpler to let the serfs do it all: we get our reward by taking their profits in obrok obrok payments.' And when she was still unsatisfied, he remarked wearily: 'You're just a German.' payments.' And when she was still unsatisfied, he remarked wearily: 'You're just a German.'

Tatiana had long supposed that she knew Savva; yet it was only a year before that she had fully realized the secret passion that drove him. It came to light one day when she was quizzing him gently about his personal life. The two Suvorins, as well as being entrepreneurs, were highly unusual in another way too: they were both single. Savva's father was a widower. But Savva himself, though thirty-three now, was still unmarried. It was unheard of. The priest at Russka had spoken to him about it many times; Bobrov had threatened to force him to marry. But he had been strangely evasive. And only then had he at last confessed to Tatiana: 'I'll never marry until I'm free. I'd sooner go into the monastery.'

'Who will you marry?' she had asked.

'A merchant's daughter,' he replied. 'But no merchant will let his daughter marry a serf, since then she becomes a serf too.'

So that was it. He wanted to buy his freedom. Several times already he had approached Bobrov on the subject, but the landlord had waved him away. 'Every landlord has a price though,' he told Tatiana. 'And then ...' Then she suspected he would do great things.

And so Tatiana had formed her plan. It was very simple, if somewhat unusual. And it rested on the perfect understanding which she now reached with Savva.

At first Alexander Bobrov was puzzled by his wife's desire that he should sell Savva and his father their freedom. 'What's it to you?' he would enquire. But weeks and months went by, and she continued to badger him: 'Let them go, Alexander Prokofievich. You say you want to put money by. Take your profit now then, and sell them their freedom.'

'I sometimes think you prefer those serfs to your own family,' he would remark drily.

But still she had persisted until, just a week ago, and in order to get some peace, he had at last promised wearily: 'Very well. But if they want their freedom, they can pay me fifteen thousand roubles for it and nothing less.' After bleeding them white for so many years, he calculated, there was no possibility of their raising such a sum.

At which Tatiana only smiled.

Her understanding with Savva was very straightforward. 'I shall persuade Alexander Prokofievich to sell you your freedom, Savva. I will also lend you the money you need, free of any interest. A year after you get your freedom, however, whenever that may be, you will repay me exactly twice what I lent you. Is that agreed?' He had bowed low. 'Very well then,' she had told him. 'Leave it to me. But tell no one.'

It might be highly unorthodox for a lady to concern herself with a serf like this especially behind her husband's back but the plan was entirely sensible. Suvorin would get his freedom; Bobrov a substantial sum of money to pass on; and she would discreetly increase the little nest-egg she was building up for Sergei.

And though the sum Bobrov had demanded for the Suvorins' freedom was huge, she had faith in the serf. It might take time, but he would find it.

Already she had lent him a thousand roubles. Now, this bright January morning, she had come into Russka with more another thousand. 'Take it to Moscow and use it well,' she told him.

And as he mounted the sled and bowed again, she did not know that Savva had another secret, that he was concealing from her. He would have enough money now, to buy his freedom by the end of that very year.

The duel between master and serf was nearly over.

July Olga gazed at her husband fondly. They had spent the last month together on the estate near Smolensk and, it seemed to her, she had never known such happiness. There was a glow upon her skin, a softness when she came near him, which made even the serfs on the estate smile and declare: 'Truly they are man and wife.'

Then, with a laugh, she passed him Sergei's letter.

He had always written to her regularly, ever since his schooldays, often enclosing a poem too, or some funny drawings. She kept the letters and loved to go over them again, when she had nothing to do. This one was characteristic.

My dear little Olga, No doubt your husband is beating you regularly, in the old-fashioned way so I send you news to cheer you up.

I have found a charming group of friends. We meet in the Archives of the Foreign Ministry in Moscow and call ourselves the Lovers of Wisdom.

(For that goddess, you know, like all women, needs many lovers.) We read the great German philosophers, especially Hegel and Schelling. And we discuss the meaning of life and the genius of Russia; and we are ardent and altogether pleased with ourselves.Do you know that the universe is in a state of becoming? It is so. Each idea has an opposite. When they combine, they produce a new and better idea, which in turn finds its opposite and so on until in this wonderful way the whole universe approaches perfection. Our human society, here on earth, is just the same. We are all of us just evolving ideas in the great cosmic order. Is that not wonderful?

Do you feel the grand cosmic forces, my little Olga or does your husband beat you too much? Sometimes I feel them. I see a tree and I say: 'That's the cosmos, evolving.' But then sometimes I don't. I hit my head against a tree the other day and didn't feel cosmic at all. Perhaps if I'd hit it harder ...I must stop now. My friends and I have to follow our cosmic destiny and go out drinking. Then I shall seek the cosmos with a certain lady of my acquaintance.I will now tell you an interesting fact. Our esteemed Minister of Education is so suspicious of philosophy that no chair in that subject is allowed in St Petersburg.

I know of one man who discreetly lectures on philosophy in the botany department, another who teaches from his chair in agriculture. Only in our beloved Russia can the nature of the universe be considered a branch of agriculture!I'm awfully sorry your husband is such a brute. Write to me at once if you want me to rescue you.Your ever loving, Seriozha September It was the end of summer, which had been long that year. The buggy bumped along the dirt road; it went at an unhurried pace because old Suvorin was careful to avoid the numerous ruts and potholes; and besides, what was the use of hurrying anywhere when one was driving Ilya Bobrov?

It was three days since they had left the city of Riazan. Tomorrow they would get to Russka. 'And it would have been tonight, sir, if you could get up in the mornings,' the grey-bearded serf had remarked. To which Ilya had replied with a smile and a sigh: 'I dare say you're right, Suvorin. I don't know why I find it so hard, I'm sure.'

The sunlight was already tinged with red. The track passed between endless stands of silver birch and larch trees, their leaves now turning to a rustling gold, against the pale blue sky. Soon, as the sun sank lower, the pigeons would come dipping over the tree-tops.

And now the trees opened out, and large fields appeared. Like many in the area, this village grew flax, barley and rye. The harvest was done. Little yellow-brown haystacks dotted the nearest field. Along its boundary, a bank of wormwood and nettles lent a faint, bitter smell to the air. As they approached the first izba izba, they were greeted by a barking dog and a large woman with a basket of mushrooms in her arms. Soon afterwards, they came to an inn.

'We'll have to stop here for the night,' Suvorin remarked gloomily.

The inn was typical of its kind: a large room with tables and benches, a big stove in one corner, and a grumpy tavernkeeper, who immediately became obsequious when he caught sight of Ilya. While Suvorin saw to the horses, Ilya sat down near the stove and called for tea.

It had been a satisfactory journey. He was glad now that Tatiana had at last persuaded him to go with old Suvorin. They had thoroughly inspected the Riazan estate at least, Suvorin had taken their rents, sold the crops and some timber, and were returning to Russka with a considerable sum of money. Since the Riazan estate was one day to be his Alexis would get Russka he supposed it was as well he should get to know the place. Suvorin had even induced him to walk about outside so that his colour had improved from its usual pastiness.

Ilya Bobrov was not an invalid; yet thanks to Tatiana's folly he had grown up genuinely uncertain whether he was well or not. He was no fool. Kept often in bed as a child, he began to read voraciously, and had learned from his father both a love of French literature and enlightened philosophy. Unfortunately, however, and because his father had, ultimately, been defeated by life, he had taken in, without even knowing it, a subconscious sense that everything was useless. Failure and impotence seemed, to Ilya, inevitable. A kind of torpor descended upon him. And though he often had an acute sense that he was wasting his life, that he must shake this torpor off, somehow, because he never had to, he did not. Now, at the age of twenty-eight, he was amiable, lazy, unmarried and decidedly fat. 'I am too stout,' he would say apologetically, 'but I don't know what's to be done about it.'