METAMORPHOSIS
I never saw Uncle Egor again. I sometimes wonder what has become of
him. I suppose he is still there, and he is the winner! The Russian
peasant is the ultimate master of the Russian Revolution, as the
Bolsheviks are learning to their pain. Once I did set out, several
months later, to invoke his help in escaping pursuit, but had to turn
back. Uncle Egor lived in a very inaccessible spot, the railway line
that had to be traversed was later included in the war zone, travelling
became difficult, and sometimes the trains were stopped altogether.
There was a cogent reason, however, why I hesitated to return to Uncle
Egor except in an emergency. He might not have recognized me--and that
brings me back to my story.
Traversing the city on this cold February morning, I sensed an
atmosphere of peculiar unrest and subdued alarm. Small groups of
guards--Lettish and Chinese, for the most part--hurrying hither
and thither, were evidence of special activity on the part of the
Extraordinary Commission. I procured the Soviet newspapers, but they,
of course, gave no indication that anything was amiss. It was only
later that I learned that during the last few days numerous arrests of
supposed counter-revolutionists had been made, and that simultaneously
measures were being taken to prevent an anticipated outbreak of
workers’ strikes.
By the usual devious routes I arrived in the locality of my empty flat
“No. 5.” This, I was confident, was the safest place for me to return
to first. From there I would telephone to the Journalist, the Doctor,
and one or two other people, and find out if all was fair and square in
their houses. If no one had “been taken ill,” or “gone to hospital,” or
been inflicted with “unexpected visits from country relatives,” I would
look them up and find out how the land lay and if anything particular
had happened during my absence.
The prevailing atmosphere of disquietude made me approach the flat with
especial caution. The street was all but deserted, the yard was as foul
and noisome as ever, and the only individual I encountered as I crossed
it, holding my breath, was a hideous wretch, shaking with disease,
digging presumably for food in the stinking heaps of rubbish piled
in the corner. His jaws munched mechanically, and he looked up with
a guilty look, like a dog discovered in some overt misdeed. From the
window as I mounted the stairs I threw him some money without waiting
to see how he took it.
Arriving at No. 5, I listened intently at the back door. There was no
sound within. I was about to knock, when I recalled the poor devil
I had seen in the yard. An idea occurred--I would give him another
forty roubles and tell _him_ to come up and knock. Meanwhile, I would
listen at the bottom of the stairs, and if I heard unfamiliar voices at
the door I would have time to make off. They would never arrest that
miserable outcast, anyway. But the fellow was no longer in the yard,
and I repented of having thrown him money and interrupted his repast.
Misplaced generosity! I remounted the stairs and applied my ear to the
door.
Thump--thump--thump! Nothing being audible, I knocked boldly, hastily
re-applying my ear to the keyhole to await the result.
For a moment there was silence. Impatient, I thumped the door a second
time, louder. Then I heard shuffling footsteps moving along the
passage. Without waiting, I darted down the steps to the landing below.
Whoever came to the door, I hurriedly considered, would be certain,
when they found no one outside, to look out over the iron banisters. If
it were a stranger, I would say I had mistaken the door, and bolt.
The key squeaked in the rusty lock and the door was stiffly pushed
open. Shoeless feet approached the banisters, and a face peered
over. Through the bars from the bottom I saw it was the dull and
unintelligent face of the boy, Grisha, who had replaced Maria.
“Grisha,” I called, as I mounted the stairs, to prepare him for my
return, “is that you?”
Grisha’s expressionless features barely broke into a smile. “Are you
alone at home?” I asked when I reached him.
“Alone.”
Grisha followed me into the flat, locking the back door behind him. The
air was musty with three weeks’ unimpeded accumulation of dust.
“Where is Maria? See! I have brought her a lovely pair of brand-new
shoes. And for you a slab of chocolate. There!”
Grisha took the chocolate, muttering thanks, and breaking off a morsel
slowly conveyed it to his mouth.
“Well? Nothing new, Grisha? Is the world still going round?”
Grisha stared, and, preparatory to speech, laboriously transferred the
contents of his mouth into his cheek. At last he got it there, and,
gulping, gave vent somewhat inarticulately to the following unexpected
query:
“Are you Kr-Kr-_Kry-len-ko_?”
Krylenko! How the deuce should this youngster know my name of
Krylenko--or Afirenko, or Markovitch, or any other? He knew me only as
“Ivan Ilitch,” a former friend of his master.
But Grisha appeared to take it for granted. Without waiting he
proceeded:
“They came again for you this morning.”
“Who?”
“A man with two soldiers.”
“Asking for ‘Krylenko’?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you say?”
“What you told me, Ivan Ilitch. That you will be away a long time and
perhaps not come back at all.”
“By what wonderful means, I should like to know, have you discovered a
connection between me and any one called Krylenko?”
“They described you.”
“What did they say? Tell me precisely.”
Grisha shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. His sluggish brain exerted
itself to remember.
“Tall--sort of, they said, black beard ... long hair ... one front
tooth missing ... speaks not quite our way ... walks quickly.”
Was Grisha making this up? Surely he had not sufficient ingenuity! I
questioned him minutely as to when the unwelcome visitors had first
come, and made him repeat every word they had said and his replies. I
saw, then, that it was true. I was known, and they were awaiting my
return.
“To-day was the second time,” said Grisha. “First they came a few days
ago. They looked round and opened the cupboards, but when they found
them all empty they went away. ‘_Uyehal_--departed,’ said one to the
others. ‘There’s nothing here, so it’s useless to leave any one. When
will he return?’ he asks me. ‘There’s no knowing,’ I tell him. ‘Maybe
you’ll never come back,’ I said. Early this morning when they came I
told them the same.”
A moment’s consideration convinced me that there was only one line of
action. I must quit the flat like lightning. The next step must be
decided in the street.
“Grisha,” I said, “you have acquitted yourself well. If ever any one
asks for me again, tell them I have left the city for good, and shall
never return. Does Maria know?”
“Maria is still at the farm. I have not seen her for two weeks.”
“Well, tell her the same--because it’s true. Good-bye.”
Arriving in the street, I began to think. Had I not better have told
Grisha simply to say nobody had come back at all? But Grisha was sure
to bungle the moment he was cross-questioned and then they would think
him an accomplice. It was too late, anyway. I must now think of how
to change my appearance completely and with the minimum of delay. The
nearest place to go to was the Journalist’s. If he could not help me I
would lie low there till nightfall, and then go to the Doctor’s.
Limping along painfully, half covering my face with my scarf as if I
had a toothache, I approached the Journalist’s home. He lived on the
first floor, thank heaven, so there would be only one flight of stairs
to ascend.
From the opposite side of the street I scrutinized the exterior of the
house. Through the glass door I could see nobody in the hall and there
was nothing to indicate that anything was amiss. So I crossed the road
and entered.
The floor-tiling in the hall was loose and had long needed repair, but
I tiptoed over it gently and without noise. Then, with one foot on the
bottom stair, I stopped dead. What was that disturbance on the first
landing just over my head? I listened intently.
Whispering.
There must be two or three people on the first landing, conferring in
low tones, and from the direction of the voices it was clear they were
just outside the Journalist’s door. I caught the word “pick-lock,” and
somebody passed some keys, one of which seemed to be inserted in the
lock.
Thieves, possibly. But robbery was becoming rare in these days when the
bourgeoisie had scarcely anything more to be relieved of, and anyway
why should the Journalist’s flat particularly be selected and the theft
perpetrated in broad daylight? It was far more likely that the dwelling
was to be subjected to a sudden search, and that the raiders wished to
surprise the occupant or occupants without giving them time to secrete
anything. In any case, thieves or searchers, this was no place for me.
I turned and tiptoed hurriedly out of the hall.
And very foolish it was of me to hurry, too! for I should have
remembered the flooring was out of repair. The loose tiles rattled
beneath my feet like pebbles, the noise was heard above, and down the
stairs there charged a heavy pair of boots. Outside was better than in,
anyway, so I did not stop, but just as I was slipping into the street I
was held up from behind by a big burly workman, dressed in a leathern
jacket covered with belts of cartridges, who held a revolver at my head.
It is a debatable point, which tactics is more effective in a tight
corner--to laugh defiantly with brazen audacity, or to assume a
crazy look of utter imbecility. Practised to an extreme, either will
pull you through almost any scrape, provided your adversary displays
a particle of doubt or hesitancy. From my present bedraggled and
exhausted appearance to one of vacant stupidity was but a step, so when
the cartridge-bedecked individual challenged me with his revolver and
demanded to know my business, I met his gaze with terrified, blinking
eyes, shaking limbs, slobbering lips, and halting speech.
“Stand!” he bawled; “what do you want here?” His voice was raucous and
threatening.
I looked up innocently over his head at the lintel of the door.
“Is--is this No. 29?” I stammered, with my features contorted into an
insane grin. “It is--I--I mistook it for No. 39, wh-which I want. Thank
you.”
Mumbling and leering idiotically, I limped off like a cripple. Every
second I expected to hear him shout an order to halt. But he merely
glared, and I remembered I had seen just such a glare before, on the
face of that other man whom I encountered in Marsh’s house on the day
of my first arrival in Petrograd. As I stumbled along, looking up with
blinking eyes at all the shop- and door-lintels as I passed them, I saw
out of the corner of my eye that the cartridge-covered individual had
lowered his revolver to his side. Then he turned and re-entered the
house.
* * * * *
“The blades are pretty blunt, I am afraid,” observed the Doctor, as he
produced his Gillette razor and placed it on the table before me. “They
still mow me all right, but I’ve got a soft chin. The man who smuggles
a box-full of razor-blades into this country will make his fortune.
Here’s the brush, and soap--my last piece.”
It was late in the afternoon of the same day. I sat in the Doctor’s
study before a mirror, getting ready to perform an excruciating
surgical operation, namely, the removal with a blunt safety-razor of
the shaggy hirsute appendage that for nearly six months had decorated
my cheeks, chin, and nether lip.
The Doctor, as you see, was still at liberty. It was with some
trepidation that I had approached his house on this day when everything
seemed to be going wrong. But we had agreed upon a sign by which I
might know, every time I called, whether it were safe to enter. A
large box was placed in the window in such a position as to be visible
from the street. Its absence would be a danger-signal. The Doctor
had suggested this device as much for his own sake as mine: he had
no desire that I should come stumbling in if he were engaged in an
altercation with a delegation from _No. 2 Goróhovaya_, and there was no
house in the city that was immune from these unwelcome visitors. But
the box was in the window, so I was in the flat.
Before operating with the razor I reduced my beard as far as possible
with the scissors. Even this altered my appearance to a remarkable
degree. Then I brought soap-brush and blade into play--but the less
said of the ensuing painful hour the better! The Doctor then assumed
the rôle of hair-dresser. He cut off my flowing locks, and, though it
was hardly necessary, dyed my hair coal-black with some German dyestuff
he had got.
Except for one detail, my transformation was now complete. Cutting open
the lapel of the jacket I was discarding, I extracted a tiny paper
packet, and, unwrapping it, took out the contents--my missing tooth,
carefully preserved for this very emergency. A little wadding served
effectually as a plug. I inserted it in the gaping aperture in my top
row of teeth, and what had so recently been a diabolic leer became a
smile as seemly (I hope) as that of any other normal individual.
The clean-shaven, short-haired, tidy but indigent-looking person in
eye-glasses, who made his way down the Doctor’s staircase next morning
attired in the Doctor’s old clothes, resembled the shaggy-haired,
limping maniac of the previous day about as nearly as he did the cook
who preceded him down the stairs. The cook was going to engage the
house-porter’s attention if the latter presented himself, in order that
he might not notice the exit of a person who had never entered. So when
the cook disappeared into the porter’s cave-like abode just inside the
front door, covering with her back the little glass window through
which he or his wife always peered, and began greeting the pair with
enthusiastic heartiness, I slipped unnoticed into the street.
In the dilapidated but capacious boots the Doctor found for me I was
able to walk slowly without limping. But I used a walking-stick,
and this added curiously to my new appearance, which I think may be
described as that of an ailing, underfed “intellectual” of the student
type. It is a fact that during these days, when in view of my lameness
I could not move rapidly, I passed unmolested and untouched out of more
than one scuffle when raiders rounded up “speculators,” and crossed the
bridges without so much as being asked for my papers.
It took me several days to get thoroughly accustomed to my new
exterior. I found myself constantly glancing into mirrors and
shop-windows in the street, smiling with amusement at my own
reflection. In the course of ensuing weeks and months, I encountered
several people with whom I had formerly had connections, and though
some of them looked me in the face I was never recognized.
It was about a week later, when walking along the river-quay, that I
espied to my surprise on the other side of the road Melnikoff’s friend
of Viborg days whom I had hoped to find in Finland--Ivan Sergeievitch.
He was well disguised as a soldier, with worn-out boots and shabby cap.
I followed him in uncertainty, passing and repassing him two or three
times to make sure. But a scar on his cheek left no further doubt. So,
waiting until he was close to the gate of the garden on the west side
of the Winter Palace, the wall of which with the imperial monograms was
being removed, I stepped up behind him.
“Ivan Sergeievitch,” I said in a low voice.
He stopped dead, not looking round.
“It is all right,” I continued; “step into the garden; you will
recognize me in a minute.”
He followed me cautiously at some paces distance and we sat down on a
bench amongst the bushes. In this little garden former emperors and
empresses had promenaded when occupying the Winter Palace. In the olden
days before the revolution I often used to wonder what was hidden
behind the massive walls and railings with imperial monograms that
surrounded it. But it was only a plain little enclosure with winding
paths, bushes, and a small fountain.
“My God!” exclaimed Ivan Sergeievitch, in astonishment, when I had
convinced him of my identity. “Is it possible? No one would recognize
you! It is you I have been looking for.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Do you not know that Zorinsky is in Finland?”
Zorinsky again! Though it was only a week, it seemed ages since I had
last crossed the frontier, and the Zorinsky episode already belonged
to the distant past--when I was somebody and something else. I was
surprised how little interest the mention of his name excited in me. I
was already entirely engrossed in a new political situation that had
arisen.
“Is he?” I replied. “I went to Finland myself recently, partly to see
you about that very fellow. I saw your wife. But nobody seems to know
anything about him, and I have ceased to care.”
“You have no notion what a close shave you have had, Pavel Pavlovitch.
I will tell you what I know. When I heard from my wife that Varia
was arrested and that you were in touch with Zorinsky, I returned to
Finland and, although I am condemned by the Bolsheviks to be shot, set
out at once for Petrograd. You see, Zorinsky----”
And Ivan Sergeievitch unfolded to me a tale that was strange indeed. I
have forgotten some details of it, but it was roughly as follows:
Zorinsky, under another name, had been an officer in the old army. He
distinguished himself for reckless bravery at the front and drunkenness
in the rear. During the war he had had some financial losses, became
implicated in attempted embezzlement, and later was caught cheating
at cards. He was invited to resign from his regiment, but was
reinstated after an interval in view of his military services. He again
distinguished himself in battle, but was finally excluded from the
regiment shortly before the revolution, this time on the ground of
misconduct. During 1917 he was known to have failed in some grandiose
deals of a speculative and doubtful character. He then disappeared for
a time, but in the summer of 1918 was found living in Petrograd under
various names, ostensibly hiding from the Bolsheviks. Although his
business deals were usually unsuccessful, he appeared always to be in
affluent circumstances. It was this fact, and a certain strangeness
of manner, that led Ivan Sergeievitch to regard him with strong
suspicion. He had him watched, and established beyond all doubt that
he was endeavouring to gain admission to various counter-revolutionary
organizations on behalf of the Bolsheviks.
Shortly afterward, Ivan Sergeievitch was arrested under circumstances
that showed that only Zorinsky could have betrayed him. But he escaped
on the very night that he was to be shot by breaking from his guards
and throwing himself over the parapet of the Neva into the river.
In Finland, whither he fled, he met and formed a close friendship
with Melnikoff, who, after the Yaroslavl affair and his own escape,
had assisted in the establishment of a system of communication with
Petrograd, occasionally revisiting the city himself.
“Of course I told Melnikoff of Zorinsky,” said Ivan Sergeievitch,
“though I could not know that Zorinsky would track him. But he got the
better of us both.”
“Then why,” I asked, “did Melnikoff associate with him?”
“He never saw him, so far as I know.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “But Zorinsky said he knew him well and always
called him ‘an old friend’!”
“Zorinsky may have _seen_ Melnikoff, but he never _spoke_ to him, that
I know of. Melnikoff was a friend of a certain Vera Alexandrovna X.,
who kept a secret café--you knew it? Ah, if I had known Melnikoff had
told you of it I should have warned you. From other people who escaped
from Petrograd I learned that Zorinsky frequented the café too. He was
merely lying in wait for Melnikoff.”
“You mean he deliberately betrayed him?”
“It is evident. Put two and two together. Melnikoff was a known and
much-feared counter-revolutionary. Zorinsky was in the service of the
Extraordinary Commission and was well paid, no doubt. He also betrayed
Vera Alexandrovna and her café, probably receiving so much per head. I
heard of that from other people.”
“Then why did he not betray me too?” I asked, incredulously.
“You gave him money, I suppose?”
I told Ivan Sergeievitch the whole story; how I had met Zorinsky,
his offer to release Melnikoff, the sixty thousand roubles and other
payments “for odd expenses” amounting to about a hundred thousand in
all. I also told him of the valuable and accurate information Zorinsky
had provided me with.
“That is just what he would do,” said Ivan Sergeievitch. “He worked for
both sides. A hundred thousand, I suppose, is all he thought he could
get out of you, so now he has gone to Finland. Something must have
happened to you here, for he wanted to prevent your returning to Russia
and pose as your saviour. Is it not true that something has happened?”
I told him of the discovery of the Journalist’s flat and “No. 5,” but,
unless I had been tracked unnoticed, there was no especial reason to
believe Zorinsky could have discovered either of these. The betrayal
of the name “Krylenko” was of course easily traceable to him, but
whence had he known the addresses?
And then I remembered that I had never telephoned to Zorinsky from
anywhere except from “No. 5” and the Journalist’s, for those were the
only places where I could speak without being overheard. I suggested
the coincidence to Ivan Sergeievitch.
“Aha!” he cried, obviously regarding the evidence as conclusive. “Of
course he inquired for your telephone numbers directly you had spoken!
But he would not betray you as long as you continued to pay him.
Besides, he doubtless hoped eventually to unearth a big organization.
As for your betrayal, any time would do, and the reward was always
certain. It might be another hundred thousand for your haunts. And
then, you see, in Finland he would warn you against returning and get
some more out of you for this further great service. He was furious to
find you had just left.”
From the Windows of the Winter Palace prying eyes were looking down
into the garden. Two figures sitting so long on a cold day in the
bushes would begin to rouse suspicion. We rose and walked out on to the
quay.
Seating ourselves on one of the stone benches set in the parapet of
the river, Ivan Sergeievitch told me many things that were of the
greatest value. An entirely new set of associations grew out of this
conversation. He also said that Varia had just been released from
prison and that he was going to take her with him across the frontier
that night. He had been unable to find Stepanovna, but supposed she was
staying with friends. I agreed if ever I heard of her to let him know.
“Will Zorinsky come back to Russia, do you think?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” was the reply; and he added, again staring at my
transformed physiognomy and laughing, “But you certainly have no cause
to fear his recognizing you now!”
Such was the strange story of Zorinsky as I learnt it from Ivan
Sergeievitch. I never heard it corroborated except by the Doctor, who
didn’t know Zorinsky, but I had no reason to doubt it. It certainly
tallied with my own experiences. And he was only one of several. As
Ivan Sergeievitch observed: “There are not a few Zorinskys, I fear, and
they are the ruin and shame of our class.”
Twice, later, I was reminded acutely of this singular personage,
who, as it transpired, did return to Russia. The first time was when
I learned through acquaintances of Ivan Sergeievitch that Zorinsky
believed me to be back in Petrograd, and had related to somebody in
tones of admiration that he himself had seen me driving down the Nevsky
Prospect in a carriage and pair in the company of one of the chief
Bolshevist Commissars!
The second time was months later, when I espied him standing in
a doorway, smartly dressed in a blue “French” and knee-breeches,
about to mount a motor-cycle. I was on the point of descending from
a street-car when our eyes met. I stopped and pushed my way back
into the crowd of passengers. Being in the uniform of a Red soldier
I feared his recognition of me not by my exterior, but by another
peculiar circumstance. Under the influence of sudden emotion a sort of
telepathic communication sometimes takes place without the medium of
words and even regardless of distance. It has several times happened
to me. Rightly or wrongly I suspected it now. I pushed my way through
the car to the front platform and, looking back over the heads of the
passengers, imagined (maybe it was mere imagination) I saw Zorinsky’s
eyes also peering over the passengers’ heads toward me.
I did not wait to make sure. The incident occurred in the Zagorodny
Prospect. Passing the Tsarskoeselsky station I jumped off the car
while it was still in motion, stooped beneath its side till it passed,
and boarded another going in the opposite direction. At the station I
jumped off, entered the building and sat amongst the massed herds of
peasants and “speculators” till dusk.
Eventually I heard that Zorinsky had been shot by the Bolsheviks.
If so, it was an ironic and fitting close to his career. Perhaps
they discovered him again serving two or more masters. But the news
impressed me but little, for I had ceased to care whether Zorinsky was
shot or not.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR, DISGUISED]