Police spies were everywhere. So tangled had the government's system of supervision become, that in order to prove himself to the terrorists he had infiltrated, a government agent had been forced to shoot the Minister of the Interior! Illegal political parties were forming.

True, there were bright spots. Under the brilliant Finance Minister, Sergei Witte, Russia's railways and heavy industry had made great strides. The Trans-Siberian line reached as far as the Pacific now. Foreign capital was pouring in, especially from France. But these developments, important though they were, scarcely as yet meant a great deal to the ordinary people, and indeed in recent years there had even been a mild economic depression.

But the cause of the cataclysm, when it came, was the war.

It was the same story as before, when Russia had so disastrously become involved in the Crimea. This time it was in the Far East where the Trans-Siberian railway had caused Russia to extend her influence, bullying the Chinese and coming into conflict with Japanese interest in the region. Over-confident in her army and navy, the mighty land empire had allowed herself to get into a war with the little island nation. And now she had been catastrophically beaten.

It was humiliating. Month after month, news came of Russian failure. Russian troops, fighting a distant war that neither they nor their families understood, were suffering appalling casualties. The cost of the war had caused economic chaos. There was a famine. And the government had not a friend. Even the Temporary Regulations the martial law still in force since 1881! were useless to contain the situation. The liberal gentry of zemstvos zemstvos begged the Tsar to grant the people an assembly. begged the Tsar to grant the people an assembly.

And then, in January of that year, had come Bloody Sunday.

This incident the spark which, most believe, ignited the great Russian conflagration was a strange and confused affair. The demonstration, led by a Ukrainian priest and demanding only the redress of grievances, wound its way in some confusion through the frozen streets of St Petersburg. The massacre did not, as always portrayed, take place in front of the Winter Palace. (The Tsar, in any case, was not in the city that day.) But in one of several incidents, frightened soldiers fired upon the crowd, causing the deaths of a number of people at the city's Narva Gate.

And then all hell broke loose. The liberal zemstvos zemstvos protested at the outrage. Strikes broke out. With consummate foolishness, the government closed the universities, leaving the student population on the streets with nothing to do. Every dissatisfied group in the empire, sensing a looming crisis, saw its chance to protest. There were riots in Finland, the Baltic states and Poland, as well as in Russia proper. By summer, police records detailed 492 significant disturbances. The huge textile mills at Ivanovo, north of Vladimir, were in an uproar. In journals and leaflets circulating in the cities, revolutionary articles began to appear under a pseudonym that until then had been known only in revolutionary circles: V. I. Lenin. During May and June came yet more crushing news from the east: the whole Russian fleet had been sunk. Soon after this, down at the Black Sea port of Odessa, the Russian battleship protested at the outrage. Strikes broke out. With consummate foolishness, the government closed the universities, leaving the student population on the streets with nothing to do. Every dissatisfied group in the empire, sensing a looming crisis, saw its chance to protest. There were riots in Finland, the Baltic states and Poland, as well as in Russia proper. By summer, police records detailed 492 significant disturbances. The huge textile mills at Ivanovo, north of Vladimir, were in an uproar. In journals and leaflets circulating in the cities, revolutionary articles began to appear under a pseudonym that until then had been known only in revolutionary circles: V. I. Lenin. During May and June came yet more crushing news from the east: the whole Russian fleet had been sunk. Soon after this, down at the Black Sea port of Odessa, the Russian battleship Potemkin Potemkin had mutinied. had mutinied.

What was the government to do? The police could not cope; the army was mostly in the east, defeated and beyond recall. All Russia waited.

And now little Ivan was in a fever of excitement. What was happening at Russka?

Until that morning, the town and the Suvorin factory had remained quiet. But just before noon, a man returning from the town reported: 'Something's going on there in the weaving shops.' By mid-afternoon word came: 'It's a strike.' And soon afterwards three girls from the village who worked at the cotton mill appeared and reported: 'They told us to go home.' And by these signs little Ivan understood that the revolution had come to Russka.

It was late that afternoon, however, that his Uncle Boris began to behave strangely.

Alexander Bobrov was still brooding irritably as he entered the market place at Russka that day.

He was a handsome, fair-haired boy, just fourteen, with the first faint down of a moustache on his upper lip. He had hurried towards the town as soon as he heard about the trouble. But not before certain words had passed between him and his father words that could not be unsaid. Which was why he was still frowning when he reached the town. Why couldn't he control himself?

They were a strange couple, father and son: so alike in looks, yet mentally so different. I suppose, Nicolai had thought, as he gazed at the boy that morning, some people are just born conservative.

The sad death of Nicolai's elder son some years before had left Alexander as his only heir now, and the boy took his position very seriously. A religious fellow, he liked to go to church with his grandmother Anna and was extremely proud of his family's ancient connection with the monarchy. Above all, he was anxious to take over the estate: and this, for a long time, had been the source of the tension between them.

How well Nicolai remembered his own disgust with his father Misha's handling of the estate; now it was his turn. Had he done any better? No. The Riazan estate, bit by bit, had gone; he had had numerous offers for pieces of the remaining woodlands and pastures at Russka one from the village commune, and two, for small parcels, from Boris Romanov. But each time he had refused because of the protests of his mother Anna and young Alexander. Now, he knew, he could not hold out much longer. 'The fact is,' he would say, 'since the Emancipation there hasn't been enough land for the peasants or for me.' His fate was not uncommon: half the landowners he knew had sold their estates in recent years, as the Russian nobility slipped into its final decline. But it was no use telling that to young Alexander.

And even this shortcoming was nothing compared to Nicolai's latest crime. 'For why,' his son had accused, 'are the workers making these wicked demands of the Tsar? It's because of the zemstvos zemstvos, Father because of you.'

Nicolai knew that he should have chastised the boy for such impertinence. Yet as he looked at his son standing there with indignant tears in his eyes, he couldn't bring himself to. For the fact was, the charge was perfectly true. It had been last year, even before the troubles broke out, that he and the other liberal men of the zemstvo zemstvo councils had met in St Petersburg and drafted their proposal to the Tsar, asking for an elected assembly, a parliament, to help govern the nation. How heady and exciting those meetings had been. Some present had declared that it was like the meeting of the Estates General before the French Revolution; and Nicolai himself had suddenly felt the same wonderful exaltation he had briefly known as a student, during The Going to the People, thirty years ago. If my son's a born conservative, I suppose I'm a born radical, he thought with a smile. And it was certainly true that when the troubles broke out after Bloody Sunday, the workers and revolutionaries, having no prepared political plan, had simply taken over the demands of the councils had met in St Petersburg and drafted their proposal to the Tsar, asking for an elected assembly, a parliament, to help govern the nation. How heady and exciting those meetings had been. Some present had declared that it was like the meeting of the Estates General before the French Revolution; and Nicolai himself had suddenly felt the same wonderful exaltation he had briefly known as a student, during The Going to the People, thirty years ago. If my son's a born conservative, I suppose I'm a born radical, he thought with a smile. And it was certainly true that when the troubles broke out after Bloody Sunday, the workers and revolutionaries, having no prepared political plan, had simply taken over the demands of the zemstvo zemstvo men, and demanded an elected assembly. And how much it says about our backward Russia, Nicolai reflected, that even now, in the year 1905, for the people to demand a vote in their country's affairs is seen by the government as little short of treason. men, and demanded an elected assembly. And how much it says about our backward Russia, Nicolai reflected, that even now, in the year 1905, for the people to demand a vote in their country's affairs is seen by the government as little short of treason.

It was certainly treason to young Alexander. For that was what the boy, in a flood of tears, had called back at his father as he rushed out of the room: 'Traitor!'

Alexander was halfway across the market square when he saw a familiar figure, and at once he smiled. It was Vladimir Suvorin.

The relationship between the young noble and the industrialist was very simple. The industrialist was Alexander's hero. Suvorin had hardly changed with the years: he was slightly heavier; there was a just perceptible greying at the temples; but for as long as Alexander could remember, his robust and perfectly tended figure had always been the same. It was not only Suvorin's extraordinary charm that captivated the boy; nor was it his great culture, of which Alexander was only dimly aware. The figure that the boy saw at Russka was the practical man of affairs: and above all, he was a conservative.

Though he took little interest in politics, it was almost inevitable that Vladimir Suvorin should be a conservative. Knowing young Alexander's tsarist loyalties, he used to laugh and say: 'You must not give me too much credit, my friend. It's only self-interest that makes me love the Tsar.'

Sometimes Suvorin would try to enlighten the boy. 'The Tsars have always seen the larger merchants as arms of the state, to make Russia strong,' he would explain. 'Peter the Great just taxed the great merchants into bankruptcy; but later administrations have been more intelligent, and nowadays they give us government contracts and protect us from outside competition with tariffs.' Once or twice, trying to give the boy a better appreciation of the world as it really was, he would caution him: 'Russian industry mostly prospers, Alexander, by exporting raw materials and by selling manufactured goods, usually of rather inferior quality, to our own huge empire and the poorer countries of the east. So the Tsar and his empire are good for me, that's all.' But even these blunt explanations did little to modify Alexander's view of Russia or his hero. Suvorin supported the Tsar. That was all that mattered. And it amused the older man, in a bluff way, to rest a large hand on the boy's shoulder and remark: 'My grandfather was your grandfather's serf, my friend. But I don't mind if you don't.'

When Alexander came up with him, Suvorin was walking towards the cotton mill. He nodded briefly as the youth fell into step beside him. 'It is really a strike?' young Bobrov asked.

'Yes.' The industrialist seemed quite calm.

'What will you do?' Alexander whispered. 'Call in the Cossacks?' He knew several strikes had already been broken up by the dashing Cossack cavalry squadrons. But to his surprise, Suvorin shook his head. 'I'm not such a fool,' he replied.

For half an hour they walked round various parts of the Suvorin enterprise the mill, the weaving looms, the dormitories. All the machines lay idle, but there was no sign of other trouble. The workers were mostly standing around in groups, talking quietly, and as Suvorin went by, he exchanged polite greetings with them. 'The strike's not against me or the working conditions, you see,' he explained to Alexander in a low voice. 'This is different. People from outside have come and persuaded them to strike in sympathy. They're demanding political reforms.' He smiled ruefully. 'Calling in the Cossacks would only make things worse.'

Alexander groaned. 'It's those zemstvo zemstvo men, like my father, isn't it?' he muttered. 'They've stirred up all this trouble.' men, like my father, isn't it?' he muttered. 'They've stirred up all this trouble.'

But to Alexander's surprise, Suvorin shook his head firmly. 'Don't blame your father,' he replied. 'Wait.' And for several more minutes he said nothing.

Only when they were outside in the warm and dusty street did Suvorin explain. Taking the boy by the arm, he walked up and down with him, speaking quietly but with conviction.

'You don't understand what is happening, my friend. Do you know the story of the emperor who had no clothes? Well, that's what is happening to the Tsar now. Think of it Russia is huge, inchoate, disorganized. A vast land of peasants where a semblance of order is maintained by an autocratic Tsar, his army and police, and a minority of privileged people like you who have few links with the people. But the whole state is a huge sham, don't you see? Because this is the key no one has any real power no one has any real power. The Tsar has no power because his army is in the east and he has no true link with his people. The government is not for the people, it's against them. You and your father have no power: you depend upon the Tsar for all your privileges. I have no power: I depend upon the Tsar to maintain order and protect my business. The people have no power, because they have no organization, and no idea what they want anyway.' He shrugged. 'The present crisis shows that the Tsar is actually unable to lead our society or to control it. The emperor has no clothes. And in this huge mess we call the empire, it will only take one spark to set off a huge fire. We could have a revolt any day, that would make the Pugachev look like a tea party. Total, mindless, chaos.' Suvorin sighed. 'That's why I'm being careful.'

'So what can the Tsar do?'

'Head them off. The only organized forces out there are two. There are the unions, still forming, and except for the railway men all professionals the doctors, teachers and lawyers and there are the zemstvo zemstvo men like your father, the only people with a programme. The Tsar has to come to terms with them and hope that the people will quieten down. The longer he takes, the worse it will be.' men like your father, the only people with a programme. The Tsar has to come to terms with them and hope that the people will quieten down. The longer he takes, the worse it will be.'

'But what about the Tsar and Holy Russia?' cried Alexander. 'The peasants believe in that.'

Suvorin smiled. 'They do on Feast Days, I dare say,' he replied. 'But only two people believe in Holy Russia every day of the year.'

'Who are they?'

'The Tsar himself, my young friend. Just the Tsar.' He grinned. 'And you!' He liked to tease the boy.

It was as they continued their walk round the town that Alexander noticed that Suvorin seemed to be looking for something. His eyes were constantly scanning the street before him: several times he turned abruptly to glance to one side. When Alexander asked him, however, what he was searching for, the industrialist quietly smiled. 'Not something, my friend. Someone.' He glanced down at young Bobrov.

'Hasn't it occurred to you,' Suvorin asked, 'that all the time we went round inside, we saw only familiar faces. No sign of the outsiders who stirred up the trouble. But I've discovered who it is: a single man.' He nodded thoughtfully. 'They call him Ivanov.'

'Will you arrest him?'

'No. I'd like to, but it would only create more trouble.'

'Are you going to speak to him?'

'I offered to, but he avoids me. He's a cunning devil.' He paused. 'I'd like to get a good look at him. Just so I'd know him another time.'

They continued to walk. They strolled to the little park by Suvorin's house and gazed down from the parapet over the woodlands and river below. Then they went back, past the church, into the market square. And then they saw him.

He was standing about a hundred yards away talking to a group of men and, for a moment, he was not aware that Suvorin and the boy were watching him. He was an unusual figure. One might have guessed he was in his late forties. His face was clean-shaven and marked by two deep lines that curved down his cheeks from the outer corners of each eye. There was a slight puffiness around the eyes themselves. And his head was covered with close-cropped, orange-red hair. 'So that's him,' Suvorin murmured. 'What a curious-looking fellow.' He would certainly know him again.

A moment later, the stranger caught sight of them and slipped away.

Alexander, too, took careful note of the face. So this, he thought, is the face of the enemy. For some reason he had a feeling that he might see him again.

Little Ivan watched his Uncle Boris, fascinated. His uncle had not seen him enter the passage and was unaware of his presence.

Only a few minutes had passed since Boris had been talking to the man from the Suvorin factory outside. He had seemed quite casual then. 'A ginger-haired fellow, eh? Well I never. About my age. Who did you say he was? Ivanov, eh? Never heard of him. And where did you say this fellow was staying? Out of Suvorin's way, I suppose. Ah, yes. Just outside the town. Well, well. Good luck to him, and to you all.'

Yet there was nothing calm about his Uncle now. Little Ivan had never seen him so excited as he paced up and down the big storeroom muttering to himself.

'Ivanov indeed. It's that devil. That ginger-headed devil. Murderer! This time I'll get you, though. I'll not miss you this time. Ah, my poor Natalia.'

He was muttering so vehemently that little Ivan was rather frightened. After a minute or two he slipped out again. But whatever could it mean?

It was unusual for Uncle Boris to go out hunting on a summer night, and especially to walk for miles. But tonight, for some reason, was an exception.

'I'm going down south to the marshes,' he remarked blandly. 'Find myself a good spot and see what the dawn brings.' The nights were short and warm. All kinds of game came over the marshes in the early morning. Dusk saw Boris preparing his gun cheerfully. Before he went, Ivan saw him slip a large hunting knife into his belt. 'Can't I come too?' he had begged, but Boris had just ruffled his hair and remarked: 'Next time.' Then as night fell, he had taken his boat, and paddled away towards the south.

It was only some time later, when she was putting him to bed, that the little boy had told his mother Arina about Uncle Boris's strange behaviour and asked: 'Who was Natalia?'

How oddly people were behaving that evening. Why had his mother turned so pale, then tried to hide it? And why, having told him to go to sleep and that she was going to join the rest of the family at a neighbour's, had she instead slipped silently out of the village?

He had watched her out of the window. She had gone up the slope, towards the Bobrov house.

But if all these things were puzzling to little Ivan, the scene the next morning was terrible.

The dawn had just been breaking when he had awoken and gone outside; and he had just been enjoying the first, tentative sounds of the birds when Boris had appeared, walking through the gloom. He could see that his Uncle was furious about something, but it seemed that the fury was not directed at him, for Uncle Boris had even smiled as he paused to exchange a few words.

'Anyone go up to the Bobrovs' last night?' The question was asked so casually, so easily, that the little fellow had not even thought as he answered.

'Only Mama.'

And now, as the family stood before him in the izba izba, Boris Romanov was trembling with rage.

'You warned him, didn't you?'

Arina quailed; yet even now, there was a hint of righteous defiance in her manner. 'What if I did?'

'What if you did? I'll tell you what.' And with a sudden spring he was upon her, knocking her down and hitting her twice, hard, in the face. 'You stupid cow! You Mordvinian!'

'Don't! Don't!' the little boy screamed, rushing to protect his mother.

But Boris picked him up and tossed him across the room so that he crashed into a bench and lay there, half-stunned.

Damn Arina! Damn the witch! Having taken his boat a little way down-river, Boris had hidden it on the far bank, then doubled back and walked through the darkness into Russka. At dead of night, armed with his long hunting knife, he had crept around the edge of the town to the house where that accursed ginger-headed villain had been staying. It was a warm night. Two men were sitting outside the door of the house opposite; he had waited patiently, in the shadows, for them to go inside. At last they had slowly risen to go. One door had shut. Then another. He had let a minute pass in silence. He had smiled to himself. He would place his hand over Popov's mouth, then slit his throat, whispering as he did so: 'Remember Natalia.' That would be it. Just so the devil knew just so he understood, as he went down, into the depths. With a bit of luck, they'll suppose one of Suvorin's men did it and arrest him too, he thought cheerfully. Revenge even if one had to wait thirty years was so infinitely sweet.

And then, suddenly, two horses were pounding along the little road, one with a rider, the other spare. What the devil? The two horses were pulling up sharply by the very house where Popov lay, the rider springing down and hammering on the door.

'Yevgeny Pavlovich! Popov, damn you! I know it's you. You've got to get out. Listen, it's Nicolai Mikhailovich. Come quick.'

Bobrov. How the devil did he know? Who tipped him off? And why should he save the fellow's skin anyway? Damn them all. They were all in league. And now when would he get his chance at revenge again?

He turned back to his sister.

'You traitor!' he bellowed. 'Do you know what you've done?'

'Yes,' she cried back with equal rage. 'I asked Bobrov to stop you. What of it? You can't go round killing people.'

'Not if he killed my own sister?'

'No.'

He glowered at her. 'I see you're a friend of Bobrov and the red-head,' he said, suddenly quiet. 'But I promise you one thing: I shan't forget this.'

And both Arina, and the terrified little Ivan, knew that he would not.

It was two days later that an unexplained fire burned down a section of Nicolai Bobrov's woods. People took it to be one more sign that the revolution was getting very near.

1906, May It was early evening, and in the great Moscow house, preparations were under way. Indeed, there was more than the usual air of expectancy amongst the servants, for this evening, they knew, some very strange guests were due to arrive. But then, they reflected, after the extraordinary events of the last year, anything might be expected.

In the comfortable upstairs room, however, everything was quiet. Mrs Suvorin, in a long, mauve silk gown, her heavy, rich brown hair only loosely pinned so that at any moment perhaps it might tumble down her elegant back, was sitting writing letters at a little desk.

Her daughter Nadezhda was sitting on a French empire chair with a tapestry cover. In front of her was a small round table covered with a heavy, tasselled cloth upon which she was resting her elbows while gazing at her mother.

She is certainly a handsome woman, Nadezhda thought, but I should make Papa a much better wife. Which was, perhaps, a rather strange thought for a little girl of eight.

The first thing people noticed about Nadezhda Suvorin was her auburn hair. She was allowed to wear it long and loose so that it fell in lustrous masses over her shoulders to her elbows. In a taffeta dress, silk stockings, shoes with satin ribbons and a big, wide-brimmed hat from under which her hair poured down, she looked enchanting. And then people would notice her eyes. They were very fine, deep brown, and they knew everything.

It was amazing what Nadezhda knew. Yet how should it be otherwise? Fate had decreed that her brother should be older: by the time she was six, he was already studying abroad. It was natural, therefore, that her father should turn to this bright little girl to be his companion.

She knew every painting in the great house. There were the contemporary Russians wonderful natural evocations of the country by Repin, Surikov, Seron, Levitan. Levitan had done a huge landscape of Russka a haunting vision of the little town on its high bank, seen from across the river under a deep blue sky full of retreating clouds. In the dining room hung portraits of her mother by Repin and her father by Vrubel. But her greatest delight was to take visitors through the rooms reserved for Vladimir's collection of European painters, which was dazzling; and middle-aged Russians who were scarcely familiar with such wonders themselves would be astonished as she prattled: 'This is a Monet; here's Cezanne. Renoir's nudes always seem to have the same two faces, don't you think?' Or: 'This is by Gauguin. He ran away from his wife and children and went to live in Tahiti,' On his last trip to Paris, her father had even brought back small pictures by two new artists: Picasso and Matisse. 'These are just getting started, so I bought them for you,' he had told her.

Vladimir delighted in taking this bright little person with him and showing her his world. As a patron of the arts he went everywhere and knew everyone. Already she had been to St Petersburg and seen the great Pavlova dance; she had visited the great Tolstoy at his Moscow house; at the Moscow Arts Theatre, which Vladimir helped support, she knew all the actors and had even met the playwright Chekhov. When she had been unimpressed by this modest man with his pince-nez, compared to the leonine figure of the great novelist, her father had told her: 'Never judge by appearances, Nadezhda. For Chekhov is great also. It's what people do that matters.' Which had caused her several times to demand, quite innocently, of distinguished old gentlemen visiting the house: 'Now tell me, Ivan Ivanovich, what exactly you have done' to their great confusion and Vladimir's huge amusement.

Only one thing puzzled little Nadezhda. Why was her mother often cool towards her father? To the outside world they seemed devoted, but the sharp-eyed child knew better. It was her, not her mother, that Vladimir took out: she had watched him approach his wife in private and had seen her gracefully drawing away. It was very strange. And no wonder therefore if the girl considered: I should look after him better.

It was now, having finished her letter, that Mrs Suvorin turned and stood up.

She was indeed a striking woman. With her tall, powerful body, her head thrown proudly back and her brown eyes gazing, apparently, down upon the world, she seemed more like a member of one of the princely families than a merchant's wife. When men looked at Mrs Suvorin however as they always did it was the fine points of colour on her cheeks, the creamy flesh of her wonderful, sloping shoulders, her splendid, rather low breasts that they noticed, while becoming instantly conscious of the powerful, controlled sensuousness that her elegance did not trouble to conceal. If she'd let me, strong men thought, I could make that body glow; while others, less certain of themselves, could only muse: Now that, my God, would take a proper man. A few, more poetic, thought they saw in those proud eyes a hint of sadness; but then, watching her in her drawing room, it was hard to know whether this might not be just an element of her art. One thing in any case was certain: Mrs Suvorin was in full bloom of her maturity.

As she rose, Mrs Suvorin noticed Nadezhda's eyes fixed upon her, and she gazed at her daughter thoughtfully before nodding to herself.

It would have surprised Nadezhda to know that her mother understood very well what was passing in her mind. Indeed, she had guessed it all long ago, and it made her feel guilty. But as she looked at the girl's accusing eyes, she could only sigh inwardly and reflect that there were things about her life that she could not explain to Nadezhda. Perhaps when the child was older. Perhaps never. At least, she thought sadly, whatever my faults, I am discreet.

'I must dress now,' she remarked briskly.

It promised to be an interesting evening. For these were certainly astonishing times.

Young Alexander Bobrov could only gasp. Of course, he had always known that his hero Suvorin was rich. 'He's a director of the Merchants' Society and the Commercial Bank, you know,' his father had explained. 'He's one of the elite.' And his home matched his position, being one of the half-a-dozen former princely palaces which had, in recent decades, passed into the hands of the new merchant magnates like Suvorin who had supplanted them in power.

Since they had special business to conduct, they had come a little before the other guests, and now as they awaited their host, young Alexander stared round the huge room into which they had been shown.

It was very long, high and vaulted like a church. Down the centre, on an immense oriental carpet, ran a massive table covered with a green cloth upon which, he supposed, a hundred people could easily have stood. Above, huge brass chandeliers lit what would otherwise have been a cavernous gloom, and caused the golden patterns inlaid in the vaulting to glow. Around the sides of the room, stout upright chairs and tables of dark wood were lined. Heavy, opulent, almost oppressive, it was like the palace of some Tsar from ancient Muscovy. But most astonishing of all were the walls: the paintings were hung so densely that their frames touched. Russian scenes, Impressionists, historical paintings their brilliant colours blazed out like new-made icons.

One of these, just above Alexander, especially caught his attention. It was a large historical picture of Ivan the Terrible. The mighty Tsar was standing in a long robe of gold brocade edged with fur; in his hand was a heavy staff, and his fearsome eyes were glaring down accusingly, straight at Nicolai Bobrov. As well they might, thought Alexander, considering his father's disgraceful errand.

For Nicolai had come to sell the merchant his estate.