_WHAT FOLLOWED._
The next day the hotel, which was full of guests of various
nationalities, was humming with excitement. A man dressed in woman’s
clothes had been arrested on the ice the previous night, and was lodged
in the fortress, waiting examination. This was the first piece of gossip
which came to my ears as I sat, with Jack, taking my breakfast at a
small table a little apart from the others. Katy had a violent headache,
and could not come down, and I was glad, as she thus escaped the
scrutiny of the many eyes turned toward us as the talk flowed on in low
tones, but not so low that I did not catch much of it.
The man arrested was Ivan Scholaskie, masquerading as his sister, and a
noted nihilist and head of every plot which had been hatched in Russia
for the last twenty years, one would suppose, to hear the remarks made
in Russian, German and Italian, all of which I understood, but was glad
Jack did not, especially when, in lowered tones and gestures, we were
indicated as the Americans who had been with Ivan—three of them, they
said, and one a young lady, who had fainted and been carried off the
ice. Hurrying through my breakfast, I went to Katy, whose face was very
white and whose eyes were red with weeping.
“We must do something to save him”, she said, while Jack reëchoed her
words.
He was in a very defiant mood, and ready to fight the entire Russian
Government, if necessary. But what could we do? I thought of M. Seguin,
whose influence was great. But he had once searched for Ivan himself.
There could be no help from that quarter, and I sat down by Katy, trying
to soothe her, and ascertain why she was so unstrung, and whether it
were possible that in her heart there had been born a feeling for Ivan
different from what she had felt for Sophie. But she was noncommittal on
that point.
“She never seemed quite like a woman,” she said, “and the night we were
at her mother’s and the officer was looking for Ivan, something told me
he was sitting by me, and I nearly fell off my chair. Then I rallied,
and tried to think I was mistaken; but, when she kissed me in the
dressing room, I was sure she was a man. No girl ever kissed me like
that. Oh—oh!” and she burst into a paroxysm of tears, while Jack walked
the room, raging like a young lion, and declaring he’d do something!
There was nothing we could do, except to see the poor mother, and this
fell to me. She had heard of the arrest, and was very glad to see me.
“The girl Zaidee came here on her way home,” she said, “knowing I would
be very anxious when Sophie did not come. She gave me her account;
perhaps yours is different.”
I told her all I could recall, and tried to comfort her. But she shook
her head sadly.
“There is no bright spot,” she said, “and I must bear it. They have
wanted Ivan for a long time. He is shrewd and eloquent, and makes
stirring speeches. I don’t know of anything worse. But, when once they
suspect a person, there is little hope, for every act, every movement,
is exaggerated. You are kind to come here, but you must not stay. I,
too, am a suspect, though Heaven only knows why! When Ivan’s father was
banished, he took an oath that he would do what he could to help the
nihilists. He was only twenty-one—a rash boy, with his father’s love for
secrecy and adventure and hate of the government. He is short for a man,
with a fair, smooth face, on which he could never make a beard grow. He
was in England at school two years, with his sister Sophie, and
conceived the idea there of personating her, which he did to perfection,
and he has often eluded the police in that guise. He has been in Paris
two years, at the Bon Marché. Sophie is in Paris, too. I wanted to see
him, and he wanted to see me. He is a great mother’s boy, and he came,
choosing a woman’s dress partly for safety and partly because the
excitement pleased him. His own hair is light and rather thin. The hair
you saw was a wig, made in Paris, and so natural that it could not be
detected. He is very popular, and has many friends. Some met him at the
frontier, others at the station here, and they have called on him in
greater crowds than I liked. I was always dreading some evil, and now it
has come. If he had kept in Sophie’s clothes, the evil might have been
averted, but he would go to their meetings in his own dress, and this is
the result. The night you were here, and Michel Seguin came, I felt my
life strings snap, for I was nearly sure he knew it was Ivan, and
refrained from arresting him for your sake. He can be very stern on
occasion, but is also kind. He was kind to my husband, and will be to
Ivan, if he is sent to Siberia, as is probable. I shall follow him in
time, and die there. When I can, I will write you, if you will leave me
your address.”
I gave it to her, and asked if there was anything more I could do.
“Yes,” she said; “bring me your niece. I can tell you in confidence,
Ivan was very fond of her. From the moment he saw her, she took so
strong a hold of him that he could think of little else. ‘If I were an
American, I’d try to win her,’ he often said; and, as it was, he thought
of going to America, and becoming one of its citizens, hoping this might
help his cause. Poor Ivan! My dear boy! All his hopes blasted! Nothing
but Siberia now!”
She didn’t cry—she couldn’t—but her face quivered, and her red eyes had
in them a look I did not like. The next day I took Katy to see her, and
found her with the same drawn expression on her face; but it relaxed at
sight of Katy, and it seemed to me there was a faint moisture in her
tired, sunken eyes. Katy saw it, and with her soft hand she closed the
lids gently, and saying to the poor woman: “Try to cry; it will do you
good.”
I watched the process anxiously, and was delighted, at last, to see a
great tear force its way under the lids and roll down her cheek. It was
succeeded by another and another, until they fell like rain, amid moans
and gasps, as if crying gave her pain.
“I believe you have saved my life,” she said, when the paroxysm had
subsided. “I had not cried before since they took my husband away, and
there was a pressure like fire in my head and eyes.”
She did seem better, and at last fell asleep, with Katy smoothing her
white hair and forehead.
That night M. Seguin called, seeming at first under some restraint, as
if he had lost favor with us. He did not mention Ivan until I asked
where he was, and what would probably be his fate.
“Siberia, undoubtedly; but not for a long time, as they can find nothing
criminal against him,” he said. “He is an agitator—a stirrer-up. He kept
the thing simmering wherever he went. A very fine fellow, but a
dangerous man, with his principles and pleasing personality. We had to
arrest him to keep him out of mischief. I am sorry that you were present
at the arrest.”
I think he said all this on Katy’s account, but she made no comment.
There were two red spots on her cheeks, and her eyes were unnaturally
bright, as she listened to him.
“Since you have been so intimate with Ivan, and came from Paris with
him, you will probably be questioned as to what you know of his
movements,” Michel said to us.
“Oh, no!” Katy gasped, and the red on her cheeks faded to a deadly
pallor. “I can’t be questioned. I have done enough. My scarlet cloak
betrayed him.”
Michel looked pityingly at her, as he tried to reassure her by saying
the examination would be a mere formality and she had nothing to dread.
He did not stay long after this, but before he went he told us his
mother was soon going to Monte Carlo, and would take Zaidee with her.
“She is very fond of Monte Carlo, and very successful, as a rule—or
Zaidee is. I am told she frequently tells my mother where to put her
money, and mother listens to her as she never listens to anyone else.
You did a good thing when you gave your hat to that girl! She has it
yet, and wears it sometimes, I believe; at least, I occasionally see her
with a most wonderful headgear.”
After he was gone Katy began to cry. She dreaded the ordeal that lay
before her, should we be questioned with regard to our acquaintance with
Ivan. Jack rather anticipated it.
“All you have to do is to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth,” he said, adding, with a boy’s bravado, “but I shall do
more. I shall tell ’em what I think of ’em. I’ve wanted a chance at
’em.”
The next day he had his chance, and we were questioned separately and
individually with regard to our connection with the Scholaskies, and, as
each told the same story, without any variation, we were believed, and
not molested as partisans. I heard that Jack called the officials fools,
and said some very uncomplimentary things of the Russian Government, and
when the officers laughed, and called him a silly boy to fall in love
with a man, he called them liars, and, when one of them threatened him
for contempt, he told them to do their worst, if they wanted his father
about their ears, with the U. S. A. and a war ship and the President,
and a lot more.
M. Seguin was present, acting as interpreter, and softening a good deal
that Jack said, but the officers knew he was a reckless boy, and were
more amused than angry. Poor little Katy was white as a sheet at first,
but, gathering courage as the examination proceeded, told what she knew
in a straightforward way, and then, with streaming eyes, pleaded for
Ivan, that his punishment might be of the mildest form. She was not
taunted with being in love, as Jack had been, but was treated with a
kindness and deference one would hardly expect from those grim Russians.
Try as we might, we could hear nothing definite of Ivan, until Zaidee
brought us the news that he was to go to Siberia for three or four
years, and his mother would follow him as soon as she was able.
“I’d go, too, and see to ’em, if I didn’t have to look after old Madame
Seguin, and keep her from drinking too much,” she said, with a queer
grimace. “She is very fond of wine, and would get as drunk as a fool if
I did not stop her. I touch her arm, and she knows what I mean. That’s
why I stand behind her, and, when I think she has had enough, I go for
her. At Monte Carlo she gets so excited that she don’t know anything,
and I have to tell her to put up the money she has won, and when to put
it down. She’s a queer one.”
For Michel she had only words of praise. “A splendid man that! No one
need be afraid of him, except they are bad,” she said, forgetting the
time when, a poor street waif, she used to run at the sight of him.
We tried to see Ivan, but that was impossible. We could only send him a
message and a good-by through Michel Seguin, who promised to do for him
all he consistently could do.
“Perhaps he may write to you,” he said, looking at Katy, who had been
like a wilted flower ever since the arrest, caring for nothing, except
to leave the city as soon as possible. She went once alone to call on
Madame Scholaskie, and when she returned she seemed much happier. Madame
had promised to write, if Ivan could not, and sundry messages, I was
sure, were given to his mother for him.
Two days later we left St. Petersburg, with only M. Seguin at the
station to say good-by. He was there officially, and was looking tired
and worn, I thought, and sorry that we were leaving. As I stood by him
for a moment, when no one was near, I said: “Do you think Nicol Patoff
is in Siberia?”
“I know he isn’t,” he replied, and I continued: “It is very strange that
he should disappear so absolutely and for so long a time.”
“Yes, very strange!” he said; and I went on: “When you do hear from him,
whether for good or bad, will you let me know?”
“Certainly,” he said; and added: “You have not forgotten him, I see.”
“No,” I answered. “I shall never forget him. If I have said less of him
during this visit to your city, it is because so many exciting things
have taken place. You remember the messages I gave you for him?”
“Yes!”
“You will give them to him?”
“Yes; and shall I tell him that, if he were a free man among men, you
might possibly listen to his suit, if he cared to press it?”
“No—oh, no!” I said, quickly, feeling as I never had before that Nicol’s
place had been taken by the man before me, and between whom and myself
there could never be anything but friendship.
“I am sorry for Nicol,” he said; “and now you must go; but you will come
again?”
I nodded negatively, as I gave him my hand, which he held till the last
moment; and I felt his warm clasp long after our train had left the city
and we were plunging into the snow and ice which lined our way to the
frontier. As we crossed it and shook off the Russian soil or snow from
our feet, I said, “Thank God!” with more fervency than I had done before
when I left the country behind me.
In his journal, at our first stopping place, Jack wrote: “Thank the
Lord, we are out of Russia, and can _sneeze_, if we want to. I have had
a jolly time, too. An adventure with a real nihilist, and seen him
arrested. I always said she had big feet and hands. But she was game,
and I liked her. I don’t understand Katy, unless she was in love with
him. She says she suspected it was Ivan, and not Sophie, that night at
Mme. Scholaskie’s. Well, I had a squabble with some gendarmes, and told
’em what I thought of ’em, and I guess I just missed Siberia. I ought to
be satisfied with my Russian trip, and I am, and don’t care to repeat
it; but what a lot I shall have to tell when I get home!”