A POSTPONED WEDDING.
In June of that year, shortly before Makar escaped from prison, the
unhappy Empress of Russia died after a long illness that was generally
ascribed to her many years of jealousy and anguish. The Czar signified
his intention to enter into morganatic wedlock with Princess Dolgoruki
at once. His sons and brothers remonstrated with him, pleading for a
postponement of the marriage until the end of a year's mourning; but he
was passionately devoted to the princess, with whom he had been on terms
of intimacy for the past few years; he was determined to have these
relations legitimatised, and, in view of the unrelenting campaign of the
Terrorists, he felt that he could not do so too soon. Several members of
the imperial family then went on a foreign tour, and the wedding was
quietly solemnised on July 31 in Livadia, Crimea, where the Czar and his
bride remained for a long honeymoon.
Pavel's and Clara's wedding was to take place in the early part of
October. The relations of the sexes among the Nihilists were based upon
the highest ideals of purity, and the marriage bond was sacred in the
best sense of the word, but they were not given to celebrating their
weddings. When a couple became man and wife the fact was recognised as
tacitly as it was made known, the adoption by the bride of her husband's
name being out of the question in a world in which passports and names
were apt to be changed every day. Still, there were exceptions, and
Pavel insisted upon being one of these. In his overflowing bliss he
often cast the spartanism of the movement to the winds, and now he was
bent upon indulging himself in the "romanticism" of having his wedding
proclaimed at a gathering of his most intimate friends. This was to be
done at the close of an important revolutionary meeting, at the same
lodgings where we once saw Pavel, Zachar and My Lord at a gathering of
military officers. A high government official who occupied the first
floor of the same building was giving an elaborate reception which kept
the house porters busy and the street in front crowded with carriages
and idlers; so the central organisation of the Party of the Will of the
People took advantage of the occasion and held one of its general
meetings under cover of the excitement. The assemblage, which was made
up of about sixty or seventy persons of both sexes, comprised nearly
every member of the Executive Committee in town, and some candidates for
admission to the Executive who were allowed to participate in its
deliberations without a vote. Most of the revolutionists present had
taken part in attempts on the life of the Czar, as also in some of the
recent assassinations. One man, a southerner, was the hero of the most
sensational rescue during the past few years, having snatched from the
Kieff prison, in which he had contrived to obtain the position of head
keeper, three leaders of an extensive revolutionary plot. This man, the
Janitor and Purring Cat now constituted the Governing Board (a
sub-committee clothed with dictatorial powers) of the Terrorists'
Executive.
The police were hunting for the people here gathered throughout the
empire. Had the present meeting been discovered by spies the whole
movement would have been seriously crippled for a considerable time.
Indeed, the complex conspiracies of the Will of the People were an
element of fatal weakness as well as a manifestation of fascinating
strength. The Terror absorbed the best resources of the party,
necessitating highly centralised organisation, with the threads of a
scattered national propaganda in the hands of a few "illegals" who were
liable to be seized at any moment.
The street was full of police, but these had all they could do to salute
the distinguished guests of the first floor and to take care of the
carriages and the crowd of curiosity seekers.
Partly through Pavel's influence and partly because she was an "illegal"
and had produced a very favourable impression, Clara had made the
acquaintance of many of the revolutionary leaders and been admitted as a
probationary member of the Executive Committee. The present gathering
was the first general meeting of the central body she had attended.
"So this is the Executive Committee!" she was saying to herself. This,
then, was the mysterious force that people were talking about in timid
whispers; that the Czar dreaded; that was going to make everybody free
and good and happy. This was it, and she was attending its meeting. She
could scarcely believe her senses that she actually was there. She knew
many of the members, but she had never seen several of them together.
The present meeting almost benumbed her with a feeling of reverence,
awe, and gratitude. Even those she had met often since her arrival in
St. Petersburg seemed different beings now, as though spiritualised into
that mysterious force that seemed mightier than the Czar and holier than
divinity. An overpowering state of exaltation, of something akin to the
ecstasy of a woman upon taking the veil, came over her. Pavel was dearer
than ever to her, but in her present mood their love impressed her as a
jarring note. Self-sacrifice, not personal happiness, was what appealed
to her, and by degrees she keyed herself up to a frame of mind in which
her prospective married life seemed a gross profanation of the sanctuary
to which she had been admitted.
"Let us postpone it, Pasha dear," she whispered to him, with a thrilling
sense of sacrificing her happiness to the cause.
"Why?" he demanded in perplexity.
They went into the adjoining room. "What is the trouble? What's the
trouble?" he demanded, light-heartedly.
"No trouble at all, dearest," she answered affectionately. "You are
dearer than ever to me, but pray let us postpone it."
"But there must be some reason for it," he said with irritation.
"Don't be vexed, Pashenka. There is really no special reason. I simply
don't feel like being married--yet. I want to give my life to the
movement, Pasha. I am enjoying too much happiness as it is." She uttered
it in grave, measured, matter-of-fact accents, but her hazel eyes
reflected the uplifted state of her soul.
"Oh!" he exclaimed with a mixed sense of relief and adoration. "If
that's what you mean, all I can say is that I am not worthy of you,
Clara; but of course, the question of giving our lives to the cause has
nothing to do with the question of our belonging to each other. Or,
rather, it's one and the same thing."
She made no reply. The very discussion of the subject jarred on her.
"You are in a peculiar mood now, and you are an angel, anyhow, but
to-morrow you'll see the matter in a different light."
"At any rate, let us postpone it, Pashenka." And she led the way back to
the meeting room.
Many of the company knew of the expected announcement, and when they
heard that it was not to take place they felt sorely disappointed. When
the business of the meeting had been disposed of, a Terrorist named
Sablin waggishly drank the health of Mlle. Yavner and the social
revolution, to the accompaniment of the rapturous band of the first
floor, and then he began to improvise burlesque verses on her as a
newcomer, with allusions to her power over Pavel. This revolutionist was
one of the "twin poets" of the party, his muse, which had a weakness for
satire, being the gayer of the two. The "grave bard," whose name was
Morosoff, was in Switzerland now. The two were great chums. As always,
Sablin was the great convivial spirit of the company. When he was not
versifying, he was making jokes, telling anecdotes or trying to speak
Little-Russian to Purring Cat, who, being from Little Russia, answered
his questions with smiling passivity. Some of his rhymes related to
Purring Cat's interminable side-whiskers, Zachar's habit of throwing out
his chest as he walked, the reticence of the tall man with the Tartarian
face, and, above all, the Janitor's explosions of wrath when one "was
not continually leering around for spies."
The Janitor cursed him good-humouredly, without stuttering, and resumed
his discussion with a man who looked like the conventional image of
Christ, and with Urie, the tall blond man with typical Great-Russian
features who had introduced Pavel to the Nihilist world and whom he
still called "Godfather." The gay poet then took to versifying on the
"three blond beards" of this trio.
Zachar made the most noise, dancing cossack hops till the floor shook
under his feet, singing at the top of his lungs, filling the large room
with deafening guffaws. Baska, the light complexioned "housewife" of the
dynamite shop, who looked like a peasant woman, was the greatest giggler
of all the women present. Grisha, her passport husband at that shop, and
her real husband--a thin man with Teutonic features, known among the
revolutionists as "the German"--were also there.
Sophia, the daughter of the former governor of St. Petersburg, sat by
Clara's side, smiling her hearty good wishes upon her. She looked like a
happy little girl, Sophia, her prominent cheeks aglow, and her clear
blue self-possessed eyes full of affection and sweet-spirited
penetration. She was engaged to Zachar, and Pavel's courtship had
enlisted her tender interest. There were several other women at the
gathering, two or three of them decidedly good-looking.
There was an unpublished poem, "Virgin Soil," by the "gay bard," which
Clara had heard him recite and which portrayed, among other things, a
Nihilist woman becoming a mother in her isolated cell. Her child is
wrested from her arms to perish, and she goes insane. The episode, which
is part of a bitter satire on a certain official, is based on fact. As
Clara now thought of it and beheld the demented woman nursing a rag, a
shudder passed through her frame.
"Cheer up, Clara! Cheer up!" Zachar thundered. "We don't want any long
faces to-night."
Clara smiled, a sorry smile, and Zachar went on hopping and laughing.
But when Sophia stroked her hand, smilingly, Clara buried her face in
her bosom and gave way to a quick sob.
"What does it mean?" Pavel asked.
"Nothing," Clara answered, gleaming through her tears.
There were four or five Jews in the assemblage, but Makar was not among
them. His cherished dream had been realised at last. He was working in a
secret printing office. Establishments of this sort were guarded with
special solicitude, so in view of his absent-mindedness, Makar never
left the place for fear of bringing back some spy. The other
revolutionists who worked in the same printing shop and who were
registered at the police station as residents of the house had each his
or her day off. Makar alone was not registered. The porters of the house
had never seen him, and the composing room was his prison.
The only other Jewess in the room was a dark insignificant looking woman
named Hessia Helfman. She was touchingly bashful, so that at one time
Clara had offered to befriend her. She had soon discovered, however,
that the dark little Jewess was in charge of a most important conspiracy
station. On closer acquaintance Hessia had proved to be quite talkative
and of an extremely affectionate nature. Clara's attachment to her had
become greater still when she had learned that Purring Cat was her
husband. The great thing was that he was a Gentile and a nobleman,
although not a prince. Clara had told herself that the equality of Jew
and Gentile and their intermarriage among socialists was a matter of
course and that the circumstance attracted no special attention on her
part, but she knew that it did.
As she now looked at Hessia and her husband, she said to herself, with a
great sense of relief: "She is as good as I, anyhow. If she could marry
the man she loves I can."
But her joy in this absolution from her self-imposed injunction soon
faded away. To sacrifice her happiness seemed to her the highest
happiness this evening. She would surpass Hessia. If there was a world
in which platonic relations were called for theirs was that world. The
image of a demented woman fondling a rag in her prison cell came back to
her.