‘Well, but how are you going to pay all the expenses alone? And your
propaganda is essential. You must forgive me, I am not asking out of
curiosity: when I left Russia for ever, I had the thought in my mind of
doing something useful for her, and I made up my mind to leave a small
sum of money with you. Should your printing-press need it, or the Russian
propaganda generally, then you must make use of it.’
Again I could do nothing but look at him with amazement.
‘Neither the printing-press nor Russian propaganda nor I are in need of
money; on the contrary, things are going swimmingly. Why should I take
your money? But though I refuse to take it, allow me to thank you from
the bottom of my heart for your kind intention.’
‘No, it is all settled. I have fifty thousand francs. I shall take thirty
thousand with me to the Islands, and I shall leave twenty with you for
propaganda.’
‘What am I to do with it?’
‘Well, if you don’t need the money you can give it back to me if I
return; but if I don’t return within ten years, or if I die—use it
for the benefit of your propaganda. Only,’ he added, after a moment’s
thought, ‘do anything you like ... but don’t give anything to my heirs.
Are you free to-morrow morning?’
‘Certainly, if you like.’
‘Do me the favour to take me to the bank and to Rothschild; I know
nothing about it, I can’t speak English, and speak French very badly. I
want to make haste to get rid of the twenty thousand and be off.’
‘Very well, I will take the money—but on these conditions: I will give
you a receipt.’
‘I don’t want a receipt.’
‘No, but I want to give you one—I won’t take your money without it.
Listen. In the first place, it shall be stated in the receipt that your
money is entrusted not to me alone, but to me and to Ogaryov. In the
second, since you may get sick of the Marquesas Islands and begin to pine
for your native country ...’ (he shook his head). ‘How can one tell of
what one does not know?... There is no need to specify the object with
which you give us the capital, we will only say that the money is put at
the complete disposal of Ogaryov and myself; should we make no other use
of it, we will invest the whole sum for you in securities at five per
cent. or thereabouts, guaranteed by the English Government. Then I give
you my word that we will not touch your money except in case of extreme
necessity for propaganda purposes; you may reckon upon it in any case,
except that of bankruptcy in England.’
‘If you insist on taking so much trouble, do so. And let us go to-morrow
for the money!’
The following day was an extremely amusing and busy one. It began with
the bank and with Rothschild. The money was paid in notes. B. at first
announced the guileless intention of changing them into Spanish gold
or silver. Rothschild’s clerks looked at him in amazement, but when, as
though suddenly awakening, he said in broken Franco-Russian: ‘Well, then,
a _lettre de crédit_ to the _Île Marquise_,’ Kessner, the manager, bent
an alarmed and anxious look upon me, which said better than any words:
‘He is not dangerous, is he?’ Never before in Rothschild’s bank had any
one asked for a letter of credit to the Marquesas Islands.
We decided to take thirty thousand francs in gold and go home; on the way
we went into a café. I wrote the receipt; B. for his part wrote for me
that he put eight hundred pounds at the complete disposal of myself and
Ogaryov; then he went home to get something and I went off to a bookshop
to wait for him there; a quarter of an hour later he came in, pale as a
sheet, and announced that of his thirty thousand francs two hundred and
fifty, that is ten pounds, were missing.
He was utterly overwhelmed. How the loss of two hundred and fifty francs
could so upset a man who had just given away twenty thousand without any
secure guarantee is again a psychological riddle of human nature.
‘Had not you a note too much?’ he asked me.
‘I have none of the money with me, I gave it to Rothschild, and here
is the receipt, precisely eight hundred.’ B., who had changed his
French notes into pounds with no necessity to do so, scattered them on
Tchorszewski’s counter; he counted them and counted them over again;
ten pounds were missing, and that was all about it. Seeing his despair,
I said to Tchorszewski: ‘I’ll somehow take that damned ten pounds on
myself; here he has done a good deed and is punished for it.’
‘It is no use grieving and discussing it,’ I said to him. ‘I propose
going straight to Rothschild’s.’
We drove there. It was by now after four and the bank was closed. I went
in with B., who was overwhelmed with confusion. Kessner looked at him,
and, smiling, took a ten-pound note from the table and handed it to me.
‘How did it happen?’ ‘Your friend when he changed the money gave me two
ten-pound notes instead of two five-pound ones, and at first I did not
notice it.’ B. stared and stared at it, and commented: ‘How stupid it is
that ten-pound notes and five-pound notes are the same colour; who would
notice the difference? You see what a good thing it is that I changed the
money into gold.’
Comforted, he came to dine with me, and I promised to go and say good-bye
to him next day. He was quite ready to start. A little shabby, battered
trunk such as cadets or students carry, a greatcoat tied up in a strap,
and ... and ... thirty thousand francs in gold tied up in a thick
pocket-handkerchief, as people tie up a pound of gooseberries or nuts!
This was how the man was setting off for the Marquesas Islands.
‘Upon my soul!’ I said to him; ‘why, you will be robbed and murdered
before you are afloat, you had better put your money in your trunk.’
‘It is full.’
‘I will get you a bag.’
‘No, I would not think of it.’
And so he went off.
At first I supposed that he would be killed for a certainty and I should
incur the suspicion of having sent some one to kill him.
From that day no sign nor sound of him again.... I put his money in
Consols with the firm intention of not touching it except in the case of
the printing-press or propaganda being in the utmost straits.
For a long time no one in Russia knew of this incident; then there were
vague rumours, for which we were indebted to two or three of our friends
who had promised to say nothing about it. At last it was discovered that
the money really existed and was in my keeping.
This news served as an apple of discord, as a chronic irritant and
ferment. It appeared that every one needed the money—while I did not give
it to them. They could not forgive me for not having lost the whole of
my own property—and here I had a deposit given me for the propaganda;
and who were ‘the propaganda’ if not they? The sum quickly grew from
modest francs to silver roubles, and was still more tantalising for
those who desired to consume it privately for the public benefit. They
were indignant with B. for having entrusted the money to me and not to
some one else; the boldest among them declared that it was an error on
his part; that he really meant to give it not to me but to a Petersburg
political circle, and that, not knowing how to do this, he had given it
to me in London. The audacity of these opinions was the more remarkable
since no one knew B.’s surname or had heard of his existence, and since
he had not spoken to any one of his intention before his departure, nor
had any one spoken with him since then.
One man needed the money to send emissaries; another for establishing
centres on the Volga; a third for the publication of a journal. They
were dissatisfied with the _Kolokol_, and did not readily respond to our
invitation to work on it.
I resolutely refused to give the money; and let those who demanded it
tell me what would have become of it if I had.
‘B. may return without a farthing,’ I said; ‘it is not easy to make a
fortune by founding a socialist colony in the Marquesas Islands.’
‘He is sure to be dead.’
‘But what if to spite you he is living?’
‘Well, but he gave you the money for the propaganda.’
‘So far I do not need it.’
‘But we do.’
‘What for precisely?’
‘We must send some one to the Volga and some one to Odessa....’
‘I don’t think that is very necessary.’
‘So you don’t believe in the urgency of sending them?’
‘I do not.’
‘He is growing old and getting miserly,’ the most determined and
ferocious said about me in different variations.
‘But why mind him? Just take the money from him and have done with it,’
the still more resolute and ferocious added, ‘and if he resists, we will
show him up in the papers and teach him to keep other people’s money.’