"There is a woman at the beginning of all great things."
LAMARTINE.
The whizzing rush and discordant scream of the electric trams, the sun
warm upon his face, aroused Emile from a restless, fitful sleep of a
few hours. The street cries had begun to swell into a volume of sound,
and at the earliest dawn the whole place teemed with stir and life.
There was no hour in all the night in which Barcelona really slept.
Some of the shops did not close before midnight, and people were
continually passing through the Rambla, and entering and leaving the
_posadas_, which were open for the sale of wine and bread soon after
three o'clock in the morning.
Emile yawned and stretched, and pulled himself up slowly from the chair
by the open window in which he had fallen asleep. He was cramped and
stiff from his uncomfortable position. Anxiety and strain had deepened
the lines on his face, and his eyes were dull and sunken. He looked
less hard, less alert, and altogether more human and approachable.
A glance at the bed assured him that Arithelli was still asleep and in
exactly the same attitude as he had left her. Though her sleep was not
a natural one, at least it was better than drugs, and he had given her
a respite, a time of forgetfulness. In a few minutes he would have to
arouse her again to more pain and discomfort, and the inevitable
weariness of convalescence. He stood inhaling the wonderful soft air
and gathering up his energies to face the work of another day.
Arithelli's affairs had to be put straight, and Vardri provided for in
some way. He did not in the least know how this was all to be
accomplished, and at present the problems of the immediate future
seemed likely to prove a little difficult.
He was not by nature optimistic, and the events of the last few days
had made him even less so than ordinary. He felt that he must go back
to his rooms, and finish out his _siesta_ before he could work out any
more plans.
Arithelli awoke at once when he touched her and called her name, but
before she had realised where she was Emile was half way downstairs in
search of Maria.
As it happened it was Sunday morning, and being at least outwardly
devout, the damsel was just on the point of starting for an early Mass,
and was arrayed in her church-going uniform of black gown and _velo_,
and armed with missal and rosary.
Her round eyes widened and her round mouth grew sulky when she heard
that she was expected to go upstairs without further delay and attend
to Arithelli. Juan would be waiting for her outside the church door,
Maria reflected, and perhaps if she did not come he would seek others.
There was Dolores, of the cigarette factory, for example. The English
Señora could surely wait a few minutes. Her expression, and her
obvious unwillingness, supplied Emile with material for cynical
reflections upon the working value of religion. He did not trouble to
communicate his views to Maria, but merely gave orders and
instructions. His tone and manner were convincing. Like all the rest
of her sex Maria respected a man who knew what he wanted, and showed
that he intended to get it.
Emile made his way into the cool, shady Rambla, where a double avenue
of plane trees met overhead, and where a grateful darkness could always
be found even at mid-day. On either side of the promenade were the
finest shops, the gaiest _cafés_. A band of students passed him,
waving a scarlet flag and shouting a revolutionary _chanson_ of the
most fiery description. Emile scowled angrily. He had not the least
sympathy with these childish exhibitions of defiance, which he
considered utterly futile and a great waste of time. They did harm to
the serious aims and intentions of the Anarchist community, and were
often the means of getting quite the wrong people arrested.
At the Flower Market (La Rambla de las Flores) he paused to look at the
heaped roses, gorgeous against the grey stones. Daily they were
brought there in thousands, dew-drenched and fresh from the gardens of
Sária. He took up a loose handful from the piled mass of sweetness and
laid it down again.
Red roses were not for Fatalité. They would not suit her, and she had
good reason to loathe the colour that was symbolical of blood and
sacrifice. He chose instead a sheaf of lilies, long-stalked and
heavily scented, and despatched them in the care of a picturesque
_gamin_. Sobrenski and the others would certainly have considered him
hopelessly mad if they had known. It was many years since he had sent
flowers to a woman. His present life did not encourage little
courtesies and graceful actions. It was in the natural course of
events that all the comrades should help one another in every possible
way, but none of them made any virtue out of it. It was all done in
the most matter-of-fact way possible. As he had told Arithelli when
they had talked up at Montserrat, one only kissed the hands of a Marie
Spiridonova. And he was sending bouquets as to some _mondaine_ of the
vanished world and of his youth.
He shrugged and walked slowly on. In passing the house where Michael
Furness lodged, he stopped to leave a message as to Arithelli's
condition, and the advisability of another visit.
When "_The Witch_" touched at Corfu for letters Count Vladimir found
among them one that twisted afresh the thread of two destinies--his own
and that of a woman. His companion had still the same features and
colouring of the boy who had sung at night under the stars in the
harbour of Barcelona. Pauline Souvaroff still sang through the hours
between dusk and dawn, but her disguise had been discarded, and now
soft skirts trailed as she passed, and the cropped fair hair had grown
and twisted into little rings. Her secret had been no secret to Emile,
though Arithelli with her trick of taking everything for granted had
never guessed that Paul, the singer, was other than the boy he
professed to be. Besides the two women had never talked together
alone, and seldom even seen each other by daylight, for Pauline had
sought no one's company.
There was for her but one being in the world, and when she could not be
with the man she worshipped she was content to be with her thoughts and
dreams.
At first she had, like many another Russian woman, yearned to make an
oblation of herself in the service of her horror-ridden country, but
with the coming of love she had put aside all thoughts of vengeance.
The Cause was identified for her with the person of her lover. She
toiled willingly at it still, but from entirely different motives. His
interests were hers, and while he worked for the revolutionary party,
so also must she.
Pauline Souvaroff had loved much and given freely. All that she
possessed of beauty and charm, her whole body and soul she had laid at
the feet of the man at whose lightest word she flushed and paled, and
on whom she looked with soft, adoring eyes. She lived in dreams, a
life of drugged content in which there was neither past nor future.
In all the Brotherhood no one could be considered a free agent, and the
ordering of no man's life was in his own hands. The private actions of
each member were almost as well known as his public ones, for each man
spied systematically upon his companions. If the devotion of two
people to one another seemed likely to outrival their devotion to the
Cause, then separation came swiftly. Nothing would be said, no
accusations made, but each would receive orders that sent them in
opposite directions. The supporters of the Red Flag movement were
always particularly ingenious in arranging affairs to suit themselves.
An Anarchist could form no lasting ties. Some time in the future there
was always separation to be faced.
It was in Vladimir's power to settle matters in his own way by ignoring
Emile's letter, and remaining where he was in enjoyment of the present
idyll. As long as they kept out to sea they were safe. But he had
pledged his word to answer any summons and to give his help, and with
him, as with all men, love came only second to his work. Emile had
also explained Vardri's position, and it would be impossible to adjust
anything without being on the spot.
He read the letter over again, slowly and carefully. It hinted and
suggested more than it had said. Emile had just come from an interview
with Sobrenski, and there had been a talk of an entire re-organization
of the band. Some of the members would be required to carry on the
propaganda in other countries, Russia, for example. They all knew what
that meant--!
As he climbed the ladder by the yacht's side, and swung himself onto
the deck, the girl ran up to him with outstretched hands, her white
skirts fluttering behind her in the wind. She was as incapable of
disguising her feelings as a child, and she was a joyous pagan in her
happiness.
Vladimir slipped his hand under the warm round arm. "Have I been long,
_petite_? Come and walk up and down. I want to talk to you."
"You have found letters, _mon ami_?" Pauline asked carelessly.
"From Poleski. Yes. I'm afraid they are rather important ones. We
shall have to talk them over later on."
"When you like. Vladimir, do you remember the girl Monsieur Poleski
brought on board once for a few days. I never knew her real name. She
always looked so ill and miserable. Do you remember?"
"It is about this very girl that he has written."
Pauline looked up quickly. "She is dead?"
"No! No! I suppose you think that because she always looked such a
tragedy. However, she is very ill, out of danger now, but of course
not able to ride--she was in the Hippodrome, you know--and apparently
she has no money, so one must do something for them. Poleski has
barely enough for two, especially under these circumstances."
"I am sorry," Pauline said gently. "I remember how she used to sit all
day and look at the sea. Monsieur Poleski left her too much alone, and
always spoke so roughly, but I think he loved her."
Vladimir gave a short laugh.
"You're wrong there, child. No, I'm sure that's not the case with
Poleski."
"But she loves him?"
"Possibly! She always seemed to me uncanny with those extraordinary
eyes, and that voice. Poleski has certainly failed to educate her as
regards taste in clothes. You saw how she was dressed when she came on
board--!"
Half an hour later the anchor was up, and they were cutting through the
white-crested waves. The girl pointed to a green headland on the left
that rose suddenly and overhung the water like a sentinel on guard.
"I have been watching that all the morning in the distance, and I could
think of nothing but the Winged Victory in the Louvre. You remember
how she stands on a rough-hewn pedestal at the head of the marble
staircase, and she is all alone against a dull red background. And as
one looks one goes back all those centuries, and sees her as she was on
the day the Greeks set her up to celebrate their great sea-victory. It
must have all looked just as it does to-day, those centuries ago in the
Island of Samothrace. There was a strong wind blowing, and the waves
met and raced and leapt together, and the sky was the same wonderful
colour that it is now, and there were wild birds hovering and screaming
round her."
"What will you say to me, when I take you away from all this,--when we
have to go back to Barcelona?"
"But I shall go with you?" The blue eyes were searching his face, and
there was fear as well as a question in them.
"Do you suppose I shall leave you here alone, child?" He hated himself
for the evasive answer.
He turned her thoughts to other things, bidding her talk of those days
they had spent together in Paris. She had named it Paradise, and to
her it had been indeed a place of enchantment, for she saw it for the
first time, and Vladimir was always with her.
She had seen its treasures of art, and abandoned herself to its glamour
with the enthusiasm and the freshness of a child.
She had looked out of place in the artificial atmosphere of the
boulevards, among the gas-lit _cafés_, dazzling shop-windows,
_flâneurs_ and gaily dressed women. A man who wrote poetry, and
starved on what he received for his verses in the Quartier Latin, had
stood beside her for a few moments in the Rue de Rivoli, and had gone
home to his garret inspired to produce some lines in which he compared
her to the delicate narcissus blooms that died so quickly in the flower
sellers' baskets.
Together she and Vladimir had strolled among the wonders of the Louvre,
he critical and unmoved, but indulgent and gratified at her pleasure as
at the pleasure of a child.
Pauline had never been able to express what she felt. She could only
worship dumbly before the changeless unfading beauty of these relics of
the fairy-cities, of Athens, and Rome, and Alexandria. She had loved
the Greek marbles best. The weird shapes in the Corridor of Pan, the
glorious torso of the Venus Accroupie with the two deep lines in her
side that make her more human and alive than any other Venus, more
divine even than the Milo, faultless in her "serpentining beauty rounds
on rounds," serene and gracious in the shadow of her crimson-hung
alcove.
And Vladimir was wise, for he allowed her to dream, and did not show
her more than he could help of modern Paris.
From there they had gone to Brussels, then to Vienna, and last, and
most beautiful of all, Buda-Pesth, the city among the hills. They had
seen it first of all as Buda-Pesth should be seen, at night, hanging
between earth and sky, and with her million lights sparkling against
the soft darkness of the surrounding hills. Pauline's eyes had never
become satiated with the sight of beautiful things.
Perhaps, as she had told Vladimir, it was her love for him that had
given her this gift of clear-seeing. Without love she might have
allowed herself to be blindfolded as many other women are, by ambition,
or money, or intellect.