Blood and Salt (16 page)

“So it wasn’t that he liked Taras, then?” Ivan asks.

Myro shakes his head. “Taras was a lesser person. Property. In fact, there’s a story about the time Taras took down one of Englehardt’s paintings and made a copy of it when the lord and his lady were away for the evening.”

“What happened?” Ivan asks.

“The lord came home and found out. He was furious. He had Taras flogged.”

“You mean he hit him?”

“No, I mean the next day he sent him to his overseer to be beaten.”

For half a minute no one speaks. They feel anger, shame. This is how people like them were treated.

“How do you know all these things?” asks Ihor. “I’ve heard of Shevchenko all my life, and nobody ever told me such stories.”

“I’ve studied his life for many years,” Myro says. “And my father had an uncle at the university in Lviv who spent decades collecting information about the poet, and he passed it down to my father, who gave it to me. But you don’t have to believe me. I only thought it would be something we could talk about. To pass the time.”

Ihor nods. He might not admit it, but he’s interested. The man in the picture everyone has seen is starting to come to life. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“Proshu
, continue with the story. I think everyone would be glad to hear it.”

“Dyakuyiu,”
Myro says. “I will be happy to continue.” Everyone settles down again.

“You see, in St. Petersburg, young Taras learned many things. He worked hard in his apprenticeship, and whenever he could, he developed his art. At night he’d sneak out of his master’s house to a beautiful park where classical statues stood like frozen gods. In the dim moonlight he would sketch them, trying to learn how to draw the human figure. Night after night he worked, until one night someone saw him – a famous art critic and historian, curious about the shabby-looking boy on a cold stone bench, blind to everything but the marble statue in front of him.”

Taras couldn’t walk away if he wanted to. He’s never heard any of this before, but can immediately imagine it, as if he too had ventured into the St. Petersburg night to answer a desperate need.

“The famous man talked to Taras, questioning him about his life and his goals. Few people had ever been interested in him, and Taras poured it all out. The critic – Soshenko was his name – saw Taras’s talent and admired the spirit that drove him out into the night. He brought Taras to his house. Showed him his paintings. Introduced him to his friends.”

“This feels like some legend or fairy tale,”
Yuriy says. “It feels like something I should always have known.”

“It was the beginning of a great change. Taras began to meet other artists and they became his friends. He entered a new life, filled with the give and take of spirited conversation. He saw that people could sit for hours and talk about drawing and painting. He was in an enchanted place where everyone loved the same things he did. Where he was not a freak because all he wanted was to draw and paint and learn.”

Myroslav stops for breath as more men pull up chairs. Pretty soon there are thirty or forty people sitting on chairs or lounging against bunks.

“Yet still there was a barrier between Taras and the others. A barrier to genuine, open discourse, an unspoken embarrassment and horror that could not be tolerated. The young man was still owned by Englehardt. And so, Taras’s closest friends, most of them Russian artists, devised a plan to free him. In a generous gesture, one of them – Bruillov was his name – painted a picture and the others sold it by raffle and bought his freedom. I said it was generous, and it was, although not beyond what such a man could fairly easily do for a friend.

“Now, here I must be fair. Many people subscribed to this scheme to free Taras. Generous Russians. They wanted to help a talented young man gain his freedom. These even included some members of the tsar’s own family.”

“What?”
Yuriy says. “Why would they do that?”

“They admired art. They still thought it was fine to have serfs, but they acknowledged that some people’s talents might transcend that. They committed a brief kindness which in no way undercut their beliefs.”

“But all his ideas about Ukraine being a country –” Ivan says.

“Ah, but those ideas were not well known at this time in his life. That came later.” Everyone settles back to listen.

“After that, Taras Shevchenko blossomed in many ways. His friends helped him enter the Russian Academy and his name became known as a painter and engraver. Although he was born a peasant, he was able to enter into middle-class and even upper-class society, had access to fine homes and elegant entertainments. Taras could be filled with joyous and amusing talk. He sang and danced, and recited poetry with fire, with grace. People responded to that, wealthy and talented people. And he was grateful for the kindness of others.”

The men try to imagine what such splendid parties might be like. Most have seen the outside of grand homes, but not the inside. Taras remembers the ornate buildings lining the streets of Chernowitz and wonders if the great houses of St. Petersburg looked like them.

“Of course, he couldn’t totally shake off what he’d been,” Myro goes on. “Couldn’t ever be one of them, not for all his charm – and people said he had great charm and an intense, compelling way of talking, especially when he spoke his beloved Ukrainian. Probably too intense for many people.”

Everyone gazes at Myro with sympathy when he says “his beloved Ukrainian.”

Like Shevchenko, he shows them the beauty of their language.

“Tell us more about his life in St. Petersburg,” Ihor says. “Make us see it.”

“Make us a story,”
Yuriy says.

“Dobre,”
Myro says. “I will try.”

St. Petersburg by night
looked so lovely, so luminous; it worked its way into his skin, his muscles, his heart. The lamp glow spilling from windows, the pale sheen of moon and stars, touched his face with silver and gold until it seemed his mind was filled with light. It hurt him to know the Russians had created this beauty – a nighttime world so magical, so fine, that perhaps it could only exist next to the poverty all around.

Was that what he was to believe?

How could some have far more than they needed without others going hungry? Was that how it went? He didn’t know. But he thought that some day there could be enough for everyone to have a good life and that great works of art might still be created.

Why do we measure value by gold and silver? he wondered. One, because they were rare and therefore costly. But it was more than that; they had beauty of their own, like the sunshine and moonlight they called to mind.

Tonight the count, Alexander Ivanovich Kalnikov, had invited him to a soirée – an intimate party he’d called it. Taras knew by now what that meant: ten or twenty guests, the count’s numerous family, and servants enough – serfs enough – to make everything run smoothly. A warm fire, the glow of lamps, the gorgeous colours of the low-cut gowns the women wore, at least the younger women. Young girls waiting for suitable marriages, hair fresh and neat, complexions untouched by hot sun in the fields or fierce, cold winds that turn your face and hands a red that doesn’t go away even when you come in the house and sit by the
peech.

He imagined the moment at the door and almost wished to turn back to his lonely room. No one was ever rude, but the servants’ eyes followed him through the elegant rooms. They knew the truth: he didn’t belong. He’d been admitted to this glamorous circle of fame, money and privilege because of his talent. It had vaulted him first out of work in the fields, then out of his master’s house, and it had bought him freedom. But the servants know he’s one of them. He thinks the count understands how bewildering and humiliating it can be, since they’ve spoken together often and without the reserve he usually feels with the wealthy and high-born. Perhaps his wife and daughters know as well.

He reached the count’s house with its tall windows overlooking the street, rang the bell, and there was Semyon, the butler, opening the door at once, as if he’d been waiting. He took Taras’s second-hand hat and coat and hung them with the others, and Taras could see him quelling the urge to brush something off them, threadbare but spotless though they were. The thought, “Pretend all you like, you are no better than I,” seemed always to lurk in Semyon’s eyes.

Most often the servants of the wealthy were happy to see him and exchange a few words. One of their own had been freed and accepted among their masters. This Semyon, though, had a streak of envy and malice. If he must be a servant, why should Taras escape? That must be how he saw it.

He led Taras into the spacious reception room, lit by dozens of candles, the gilded plasterwork reflecting dancing light into a newcomer’s eyes. “Taras Hryhoryvich Shevchenko, Member of the Academy of Arts,” he announced. Taras was the only man there with no title, no position in government or the army. No land or property, no ancient provenance.

The ordeal of entrance passed quickly. People looked up for a moment, bowed or even smiled in his direction, then turned slowly back, formal and smooth as a figure in a dance, to the people they were talking to before he arrived. As he passed he heard snatches of conversation in the elegant French they’d learned from their nurses and tutors. If there were nothing else, no distinction of dress or good looks or outstanding skill, these upper-class Russians would know each other by this borrowed eloquence. Taras could try to play this game – he’d picked up a basic knowledge of French in his master’s house – but he won’t lower himself to use it.

It was enough he had to speak to them in Russian, knowing that most of them didn’t even recognize Ukrainian as a language. That is, if they’d ever considered the matter at all.

Imagine, he thought. People too refined, too
rich, to speak their native tongue. How could anyone be truly admirable who would erase what he really was and affect another country’s language and customs? Whenever he was introduced to such people, he’d see that moment’s struggle, that slight jolt as they forced themselves to recall and speak Russian.

Kalnikov was different. He looked up with his bright eyes and beckoned him with a nod of the head. Taras approached him, although he sat beside the old crone his dowager mother, who was swathed in dull lavender satin that had seen as many seasons as Taras’s own evening clothes. She diverted herself, the count had confided, with planning matches for her many relatives of both sexes with people who could bring them some increase of wealth or position. Now she fussed with the already perfect flowers in the hair of the count’s youngest daughter – Tatiana, a rosy-faced girl of fifteen, her low neckline softened by some kind of gathered sheer material. Taras was touched by her beauty and youth. For as pampered as she was, she would soon be faced with the question of betrothal and marriage. If she were a great artist or possessed the ability to manage some grand enterprise, it wouldn’t matter. For her there was only one profession, one path.

The count rose and came to him, surely a mark of favour, since it saved him the pain of making conversation with the dowager. He would have liked to greet Tatiana, though, as she was giving him her sweetest smile, not in a flirtatious way, but because she was happy and full of life and had the smile ready for anyone who came along, especially young men taken up by her father.

“Good evening, my dear fellow,” the old gentleman said, touching Taras’s shoulder, “you’re just the person I need to talk to.”

Taras bowed and wished him a good evening.

The count’s round face seemed to shine with good health, or at least good food and wine. His silvery hair and beard were meticulously trimmed, his clothing was impeccable. He took Taras’s arm and walked him over to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows framed in deep blue velvet. Looking out, Taras felt connected once more to the glowing night.

“Do you by any chance know what I’m talking about?” the count asked in a playful tone. “Has some rumour reached you?”

Taras smiled. “I assure you, sir, that your words are completely new and mysterious to me. No rumour of any kind has reached me. Other than that this man Shevchenko is a villain who should be sent packing.”

The count laughed heartily. “I think you’re safe for the moment. But I see you really haven’t heard a word, a rare thing in this town of intrigue and gossip. Well, my dear man, I’m very excited. I have a commission for you.”

“I am at your service. What – or whom – would you have me paint?”

“Oh, it’s a grand scheme,” old Kalnikov said. “A portrait, you know. Just myself with my family. But we want it large as life, and if you should happen to see more beauty in us than the world in general can see, none of us will find it in our hearts to criticize you. Only we also want it to be warm and jolly, so that years from now it will be a memory of all of us happy together.”

There could be only one answer and Taras bowed deeply. “It will be an honour. Nature has given you and your family so much beauty that I need only portray, not enhance it. But I hope you anticipate nothing which will interfere with your family’s happiness?”

“No. Nothing at the moment. But you know, bad things may happen, even to a fortunate family like ours, and besides, we shall one day or another see our Tatiana leave us. Wish she didn’t have to.”

“Well, I will accept your commission with great pleasure. I think Countess Tatiana can never look more beautiful than she does now in the bosom of her family.”