Summary
A vodka-soused tavern in the Ukrainian backwoods becomes the crucible for an entire empire’s rot: fiddles scrape, boots stomp, and a Jewish innkeeper’s daughter is pawed by uniformed carrion until a restless aristocrat—Count Borris, heir to Kiev’s gubernatorial scepter—intervenes like a thunderclap. The storm that drove him indoors is nothing beside the political tempest he unwittingly uncorks: slurs turn to denunciations, the secret police descend, and the innkeeper’s son Ossip, newly sworn to the Nihilist cipher, is cornered with forbidden pamphlets that could topple thrones. Father sacrifices himself to the Tsar’s frozen galleys; mother and daughter are left to trudge toward oblivion. Love, illicit and luminous, blooms between the disgraced Count and the branded Jewess, sealing his fate: insignia ripped from his breast, he plunges into the revolutionary underworld, endures mock trials by candle and ice, and ultimately engineers a spectacular inferno beneath the Ministerial palace. Amid sulphur and chandeliers, prisoners shatter their shackles and scatter across the steppe like constellations loosened from the sky; a sleigh ride at whip-crack velocity carries the innkeeper’s ravaged clan to a waiting schooner and, beyond it, the mirage of a republic without pogroms.
Synopsis
The story opens in a typical Russian Kaback, or inn. The peasantry are enjoying a rollicking country dance. It is attended by a dissolute Russian officer and his companion who, under the influence of Vodka, insult the daughter of the Jewish innkeeper. The young Count Borris, son of the Governor-General of Kiev, happens to be there seeking shelter from the storm which is raging outside. He protects the young Jewess from the insult of the drunken officers, and throws them out. They return during the night to make trouble for the innkeeper, and Count Borris, rising from his bed, again saves them from persecution. Love springs up between the young girl and Count Borris. In the meantime Ossip, the son of the innkeeper, has joined the secret order of the Nihilists. When the order is raided by the secret police Ossip is entrusted with the papers of the organization. When taken to task by his father for becoming a member of the organization, he admits that he is a Nihilist. The Russian officer, who Count Borris drove from the inn, spreads the report which reaches the Governor-General that the innkeeper's family are suspected of being Nihilists; he is instructed to act as spy in the Nihilist's den. He brings the news to the Governor that there is a secret order of Nihilists in Kiev. The place is raided, but the son of the innkeeper manages to save the papers which he gives to his father. The father and son are arrested and brought before the Governor. The father takes the blame, and is sentenced to hard labor in Siberia. In the meantime, Count Borris has become very much in love with the daughter of the sentenced innkeeper and meets her clandestinely. He is spied upon by some of his father's officers, who tell the Governor that Count Borris is being bewitched by a Jewess. The Governor-General accuses his son, who admits that he loves the girl. He is then degraded by having the insignia of his rank torn from his uniform. Burning his bridges behind him, he seeks out Ossip, his sweetheart's brother, and asks him to enlist him in the cause. They put him through a terrible test, but he shows his manhood by refusing to turn informer on his new friends. The scene changes to the terrible march of the Nihilist prisoners under the guard of Russian soldiers across the frozen steppes. The Nihilists, acting on the information they received by secret means, draw lots to assassinate the Minister of Interior, who is to be in attendance at the coming Embassy Ball. The Nihilists successfully carry out a spectacular explosion, causing a fire to break out in the palace. After awful privations, some of them through the assistance of Count Borris escape. Among the fortunate ones are the innkeeper, his wife and daughter, who reach a place of comparative safety. With the aid of a loyal family servant, who drives them at breakneck speed across the snow, they reach a port and embark on a ship which takes them safely to God's Land of Liberty.
