But while most of us were very much at sea as to why exactly we had

arrived at Omsk, Nikolai Vasilievich seemed immune from doubt. Nikolai

Vasilievich, suspicious of the punitive expedition, had arrived at the

seat of the anti-Bolshevik Administration to seek redress and

compensation in regard to his gold-mines. I think it was chiefly for my

British uniform that Nikolai Vasilievich asked me to accompany him on

his visit to the General at the General Staff, before whom he was going

to lay his case. I noticed that Nikolai Vasilievich had always had a

curious habit of establishing some connexion between his personal

grievance and some powerful outside influence, as, for example, the

general question of Allied intervention; and he insisted that he and we

and intervention were really all one affair, and that hence a favourable

solution of his financial difficulties was all part and parcel of that

scheme which aimed at the defeat of Bolshevism.

We entered a large dirty waiting-room where crowds of petitioners

awaited their turn with a patience that bordered on spiritual

resignation: after the Russian manner they all desired to see the head

man personally, whose life was consequently spent in interviews. A nasty

dirty little woman with a nasty dirty little child, pointing at me with

a dirty finger, was saying to her howling offspring, in an attempt to

pacify her next-of-kin, “Is that your daddy, is he? Is that your daddy?”

The General was an elusive person, a wily man, a master in the art of

compromise. He was the idol of the Allies. He was one of those few who

could so wangle things, so balance favours, as to please at once all the

multitudinous Allies and even curry favour with a large majority of

Russians. His habitual procedure was this. If an Ally asked him, for

example, for the allotment of a certain building, he always promised

without reserve. Then the Russian organization in possession of that

building would at once cry out in protest; and he immediately assured

them that they would be allowed to keep the building: the whole matter,

he explained, was a mere misunderstanding. Then the Russian organization

stayed, and when the Ally came to take the building over they referred

the Ally to the General. And when the Ally came to him and asked for

explanation, the General, with a charming smile, would say, “Well, you

see that building is not really suitable for your use. I will find you a

better one.” Then the Ally waited. He must have time, the General said;

and actually he played on time, on “evolution.” And in the meantime

there was a _coup d’état_; or the Russian organization went bankrupt; or

the particular Allied representative who had been worrying him was

replaced by another, with whom the General would begin again at the

beginning; or the Allied troops were about to be withdrawn; or the city

was recaptured by the Sovets; or there was a fire and the correspondence

was buried in the flames. He was a man who had no use whatever for “free

will” and played entirely on “predestination.”

The General listened to Nikolai Vasilievich’s emotional narrative in a

friendly manner, and smiling pleasantly he rose and shook hands, as if

to show that the interview was at an end, saying, “You may rest assured

that it will be quite all right. Call again one of these days.”

Nikolai Vasilievich went out, beaming. “Well,” he said, “it seems

settled.” I tendered my heartiest congratulations.

Then “one of these days” we called upon the General a second time.

Nikolai Vasilievich laid great stress on the dastardly action of the

Czechs--that nation just then being out of court with the government at

Omsk--but the General merely said, “Wait till the Supreme Ruler returns

from Perm. I can do nothing without the Supreme Ruler.”

Nikolai Vasilievich then waited for the return of the Supreme Ruler; and

presently we called again. The General’s manner, as he received us, was

considerably less sunny than it had been on the two previous occasions.

“You have been here before,” he greeted Nikolai Vasilievich. “You must

have patience and wait.”

“_Wait?_” asked Nikolai Vasilievich in a tone of secret terror, the

terror of a man who had been doing naught else all his life--and knew

its meaning.

“Yes, I advise you to wait. Have patience.”

“How long?” asked Nikolai Vasilievich.

“How do I know?” the General replied. “Wait--and you will see.”

Now, was it that Nikolai Vasilievich had waited long enough and seen

nothing? Was it that in the circumstances he thought it sounded too

much like a mockery? Or was it the explosion of that brewing

restlessness that he had gathered in the years of intermittent waiting:

the last puff of ineffectual remonstrance before his final sinking into

hopeless resignation? But suddenly Nikolai Vasilievich went wild. I had

never seen him in that state before. He abused the General in immoderate

terms. He accused him first of turning honest people into Bolsheviks;

then of being in the pay of Moscow. He threatened to lead a rebellion

against the Kolchak State. Nikolai Vasilievich ceased to be a man and

became an incarnation: Man having lost his patience: Humanity gone wild

in the waiting. He thundered forth at the adversary, and his ruined

hopes were the woes of Humankind. Then, coming to the end of his

intellectual resources, but far from having yet exhausted his spiritual

wrath, he made reference to the Day of Judgment. The door into the

chancery flew open, and the Chief of Staff, the Aide-de-camp, and heads

of various departments dashed upon the scene, wondering what on earth

had happened; and shouting loudly Nikolai Vasilievich hurled abuse upon

the Chief-of-Staff, the Aide-de-camp, and the heads of various

departments. And then in the waiting-room he went for a stray Admiral, a

petitioner like himself, and hurled abuse at him as well.

“All right,” the General said at length. “All right. If you won’t be

reasonable, I shall have to resort to the recognized procedure. Guard!”

And he ordered them to take Nikolai Vasilievich away. Nikolai

Vasilievich still raged and fluttered, and the guards came up to him

with signs of deference and indecision. “Come on, sir,” they persuaded

him, “he really means it.” And taking him each under one arm, they

dragged him out into the open.

We walked back to the train.

“What those people will not realize,” I took it up to humour him, “is

that you can’t live on nothing. Waiting doesn’t feed you, and waiting

doesn’t clothe you; and when you have a family----”

“Of course, one can borrow,” said Nikolai Vasilievich.

“Yes, of course,” I agreed.

Fanny Ivanovna greeted him with “Well, Nikolai, is it all arranged?”

A fiendish look came on his face, as though he said, “The hell it is!”

and all the more fiendish because he did not say it.

She sighed conspicuously. And her sigh gave him a nervous shudder. A

look of hate came into his steel-grey eyes. “She even sighs

offensively,” he said to me, “as though she meant to charge me with the

necessity of doing so.”

“Nikolai!” she cried, “don’t let yourself go before strangers. What will

Andrei Andreiech think of you! You know I am not to blame because the

mines won’t pay. And you ought to remember that I advised you to sell

them long ago, and if you had listened to me then we shouldn’t have been

in this plight. Well, well, it’s no use quarrelling now. We’ve got to

wait, that’s all.”

The ironic fascination of the situation at this point proved

irresistible. “There’s an English proverb,” I supplied: “‘All things

come to him who waits.’”

“Hm!” said Nikolai Vasilievich.

“And there’s another one: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’”

“Excellent proverbs!” he said dryly.

Kniaz popped his head out from behind the paper, like a mouse, and

added, “There’s our own Russian proverb, too: ‘The slower you drive the

farther you get.’”

“You, Kniaz, had better read your paper,” retorted Nikolai Vasilievich

acidly. “What does it say in there?”

I stood at the window of the stationary train and watched the sinking

landscape dissolve in the gathering gloom about us. Why did the winter

air seem so acutely strange, as if charged with something, a kind of

tenderness, a warm, transfiguring love ...? Nikolai Vasilievich came to

my side and watched, his hands in his trouser pockets.

“Pigs in the ditches,” he brooded, “pigs in offices, everywhere.... A

town of pigs. That General ... oh! what a pig....”

VI

The “affiliation” of Eisenstein into our “society” was a tribute to his

own unflagging perseverance. It so happened that while in Vladivostok

the Admiral had been in urgent need of a dentist, and quite by accident

he tumbled against Eisenstein, who had set up a practice there. The

Admiral, though he loathed all Jews, was yet favourably impressed by

Eisenstein because on his first visit to him he heard Eisenstein engage

in a vigorous cursing of his Chinese servant. He liked to see a man who

knew how to put “these people” in their places, a man who knew how to

assert his own authority, a man who did not talk about “equality” and

such-like tosh (discordant with his sentiment), “utopia,” “socialism,”

and that sort of thing, you know, that has made the world, etc. etc.

There was altogether too much Bolshevism abroad, and the vigorous action

of the dentist with his Chink appealed to him unspeakably.

“This clamouring for allowing men from below to come up to the top and

not imposing individuals of the old governing class from above,” he

said. “All damned well to talk like that, but in the meantime is anarchy

to be allowed to continue unchecked? Apparently so.”

“Orright! Orright!” said Eisenstein.

This seemed the only word he knew in English. But it did not baffle him

in the least; indeed he preferred to converse in English by means of its

continual solitary use to any reasonable conversation in Russian; and

when the Admiral spoke Russian to him he still replied, “Orright!

Orright!” The Admiral had found him an amazing dentist. The Admiral’s

teeth and dentistry seemed the subject he was least interested in of

all. He talked politics and finance. At intervals strange men and women

of a strong Hebrew strain would run into the room, and Eisenstein,

leaving the Admiral with his mouth wide open and cotton-wool stuck under

his tongue, would exchange queries in a quick and agitated manner with

these dark intruders. The Admiral would hear such phrases as “What is

the yen to-day? How much is the dollar?” And if the Admiral chanced to

touch the question of finance, Eisenstein would pounce upon him with

inquiries: “Do you want dollars? How many dollars? Or can I sell you

francs?” Or suddenly he would ask the Admiral to recommend his being

made a British subject. Where was the difficulty? He could always change

his name Eisenstein to Ironstone, which, he believed, sounded jolly well

in English.

In a crisis he would suddenly drop his instruments on the floor and rely

upon his naked hands, which by the way, he never washed between his

clients. He was always one of two things: either extremely optimistic,

when he said that the most violent pain was nothing; or very

pessimistic, when he said that nothing could be done to alleviate the

pain. Sometimes he was extremely indolent and said that nothing was

required to be done and all was well; and sometimes violently

enthusiastic for huge undertakings, for the most drastic and sweeping

reforms, for extracting all the remaining teeth in the Admiral’s mouth

and substituting gold all over, and all sorts of crowns and bridges of

his own invention that ran into four-figure dollars and were evidently

going to hang loose in the Admiral’s mouth. All the while he would talk

and inflict his own political views on his clients, which were that the

English were both fools and clever knaves: the apparent contradiction

did not disturb him in the least; and if the Admiral showed any

inclination to contradict some amazing insinuation, he would just press

the needle a little and manipulate it on the nearest nerve in the tooth

and so silence all opposition. He would talk of the exchange at

Vladivostok and of how easy it was to make money, and when asked how to

do it he would say you had only to turn one currency into another,

whether yen, dollars, sterling or roubles, and a vast fortune was

assured you, evidently quite irrespective of the order of turnover, or

the particular currency, or the amount employed, or the rate at which

the transactions were being effected. He would talk all the while, never

stopping the whole time the client was there; and then at the finish

stick a piece of saturated cotton-wool into any hole in any tooth, take

no heed of your protests, and tell you to come again any time, any

day--when he would keep you waiting for whole hours at a stretch. He

would see you out, shouting in the passage in reply to any question you

might have put: “Orright! Orright!” as he closed the door upon you; and

then turn to the next patient.

He attended to the Admiral’s teeth twice in Vladivostok, and then

hearing through a third person that the Admiral was not quite satisfied

with the finality of his work, he left the coast and joined the Admiral

on his own initiative at Omsk (in order to evade military service at the

Base), and now stated that he was a member of the Admiral’s party. He

was followed by Baron Wunderhausen, now a second lieutenant in Kolchak’s

Army, who arrived in Omsk and asked the Admiral to take him on as his

interpreter. This was conceded. The young Baron, who said that he was

anxious to help, displayed a curious lack of judgment, or if his aim was

flattery, a curious ignorance of the art. He held that Russia was a

“feminine” nation, which should be controlled and directed by a

“masculine” nation like England; and that Great Britain should raise,

equip, and officer an army of Buriats, Khirghiz, Kalmucks, and other

native races in order to conquer Russia. As for himself, the Baron

wanted to wash his hands of the whole business, to get into the British

Army, to renounce his Russian nationality, and get a post somewhere in

Persia or Mesopotamia. It seemed more and more as one lived longer that

to get White Russia on her legs was like trying to get a featherbed to

stand on end.

Occasionally we would visit the front, and the Admiral would interfere

in everything. He would look and shake his head: the pace and method of

extermination would appear to him thoroughly inadequate. We stood behind

a gunner who kept on firing at a tree, as such; apparently for no other

reason.

“What are you firing at?” the Admiral asked.

The man pointed at the tree.

“Are there any Reds behind?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. The question to him seemed immaterial.

“Have you got a telephone there?”

The man shook his head.

“But what are you aiming at?”

He pointed at the tree.

It transpired that four regiments composing the division had gone over

to the enemy that very morning. Of the division there remained just

fourteen men, the Commander and his divisional headquarters, comprising

about three hundred officers. We saw the Commander in his office and

asked him what he thought he would do. He said that he would wait; he

thought the men might return.

“Who are you counting on,” said the Admiral sarcastically, “God?”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” sighed the Commander, “we have no one else to

count upon.”

And the Admiral felt shamed.

But the men, it seems, did not return. They ran as fast as their legs

would carry them over to the Bolshevik lines, and the Bolsheviks,

thinking that they were being attacked by overwhelming numbers, fled in

disorder....

The Admiral was gloomy. The wind cut us in the face in our rapid drive.

Slowly and gradually afternoon evolved into evening.

“That _Peking and Tientsin News_,” I broke the silence, “seems to be

somewhat pro-Bolshevik.”

“It’s always pro-Something,” the Admiral grunted.

He looked out of the window of the car on the vast snow-covered plains

stretching all around us and brooded darkly.

“Some people,” said he, “think snow beautiful. I think it idiotic.”

* * * * *

Although technically the presence of Nikolai Vasilievich’s family on our

train was but a temporary measure, yet it was recognized by all, through

that deeper human instinct that defies illusion, that there was an

element of permanence about it that would give points to the oak tree.

Of course, the Admiral could always have cleared his train of the family

by subjecting them to a prolonged machine-gun fire; but, as with

soldiers, diplomats and politicians, the personal morality of sailors is

much above their national morality. Need I say that they remained? The

motive of their journey was that Nikolai Vasilievich was perpetually

compelled to see some General in some town along the line about his

gold-mines, for his gathering suspicions concerning the integrity of the

punitive expedition had now been amply justified. And then, as time went

on, the motive, as motives do, dissolved into a habit. But the relations

between the Zina-Uncle Kostia wing and that of Fanny Ivanovna and the

three sisters, and similarly, the relations between Fanny Ivanovna and

Magda Nikolaevna, were far from satisfactory. At wayside stations and

impromptu halts in fields and glades and valleys, when we all left the

train and hastened to take exercise, there had been awkward situations;

and when the three sisters had occasion to pass Zina or any of her

little sisters they never failed to put out their tongues at

them--presumably as a sign of disapproval of Nikolai Vasilievich’s

approval of them.

We parted with them as we got back to Vladivostok; but they continued

coming to our parties; and the rumour spread that Fanny Ivanovna was, as

they say, _bien vue_ at the Admiral’s “Court.” Only once, the very

haughty wife of an insignificant officer, newly landed at the port,

sounded the alarm: “A _Problem_ has arisen in _Society_! _Can_ we

receive a German, or _can_ we not?” But the problem, like so many

problems, died its death without solution.

VII

It was the day after General Gaida’s unsuccessful rising. “They’ve gone

out for a walk with those three American naval officers,” Fanny Ivanovna

told me when I called. “Just the two of us, as usual,” she added

somewhat bitterly. Kniaz, seated in the corner, audibly confirmed her

statement, as it were, by sucking sweets. There was an acute scent of

eau-de-Cologne in the room.

“How charming!” I exclaimed, bending forward to examine a tiny little

jumper that she was knitting.

“Oh, that’s for my godchild.”

“Who?”

“Oh, the little girl I christened. Madame Olenin’s little daughter.

She’s just three weeks old to-day. A dear little thing.”

“Another niece for Uncle Kostia, what! They do turn them out in that

family. Zina has more cousins than any girl alive!”

“Well,” said Fanny Ivanovna, “the little thing can’t help being her

cousin. And Madame Olenin is really very nice. What does it matter after

all if she’s her aunt? I respect her all the same, and she did so want

me to be the godmother, and the little girl is called Fanny after me.”

The canary hopping to and fro punctuated the swift movement of her

accustomed fingers.

“My dear Andrei Andreiech,” she burst out in answer to my question as to

when Nikolai Vasilievich would be back, “there was a time when I knew

all about his movements. But that time is over. I feel more and more as

we live longer that my hold on him is weakening. And I feel with every

day it’s getting weaker and weaker, and he is slipping away from me, and

I am powerless to stop him. And soon I shall cease to bother altogether.

He can stay there all night if he pleases.”

“I’ve seen Zina lately. She looks quite grown up.”

“Oh, what a headache I have!” She dipped her folded handkerchief into a

bowl of eau-de-Cologne and pressed it to her forehead. “If I hadn’t Nina

to console me--Oh, you have no idea what a tender, loving heart our Nina

has.”

“Nina _tender_?”

“You don’t know her. Do you remember that day you arrived here, and I

was so anxious to know where she had been? Well, she wouldn’t tell me

then because ... she thought it might upset her plan. Afterwards she

told me. She had been to see her mother.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, it seems her mother wants to make it up with me--wants, in fact,

that we should start a business together. Hats.”

“And won’t you?”

She thought for a time. “I don’t think I could,” she said at last,

“after what she’s _said_ about me.”

There was a pause of silence, which the canary, though, did nothing to

observe. “But if I do, it will be solely for Nina’s sake. Poor child,

she so wants to make our peace.”

“But doesn’t Sonia, as the eldest sister, ever take the lead?”

“Sonia?” She laughed. “Why, look at Sonia. We have a nickname for

her--‘Miss Moon.’ It suits her admirably. And Sonia is deceitful.

Yesterday she lied to me. She said that they had been to see their

mother, but as a matter of fact Nina told me afterwards that they had

gone to a dance on the American cruiser with Mr. Ward and White and

Holdcroft.”

“What, again!”

“Yes, I am very much against it,” she confided. “I was furious. I said

to Nina: ‘Andrei Andreiech and your father had nearly lost their lives

looking for you everywhere during the firing.’ But all she said was,

‘There was no need to.’”

“They had been on the American Flagship ... on the American

Flagship....” My mind could not digest the news. Yesterday when the

firing had begun, Nikolai Vasilievich rushed in, panic-stricken, and

said that the three sisters had been lost in the upheaval. I had been

sitting in the little office with Sir Hugo, who was writing to a Czech

Colonel of his acquaintance to apologize for mis-spelling the Colonel’s

name in a recent letter. This done, Sir Hugo looked through some old

minutes of past meetings to see if there was any matter which had not

been quite thoroughly thrashed out. He thought he was about to find such

a matter, when a rifle report echoed sharply through the air, and was

immediately followed by a multitude of others. We rose and looked out of

the window. The projected _coup_ had broken out.

There was a continuous rattle of machine-gun fire. The station building

and the square before it were being attacked by Gaida’s men and defended

by British-trained cadets from Russian Island School. A fearless cadet

in British khaki lay on the bridge that traversed the rails, fully

exposed to view, and rattled off his machine-gun; then he lay still.

Several bodies were already lying on the square, some dead, others

wriggling with pain.

Most of the remaining family had been removed to an empty barracks near

the station before fighting had become desperate. But it was not till

we had launched into the streets that we asked ourselves how we proposed

to set about our task. On we walked, looking in at stray houses,

inquiring at private flats; but I think at heart we realized that our

action was more by way of satisfying our consciences, for we had not a

ghost of an idea where to look for them. Returning, we perceived the two

mothers lamenting bitterly the death of the same children (which they

had been quick to take for granted)--but still not on speaking terms

with each other. A window had been knocked out by a stray shell.

Firing subsided and then resumed and grew in intensity, as darkness

descended upon the town. A drizzling November snow now fell upon the

wrangling troops. The station changed hands more than once. Some wounded

men had been picked up and dragged into a hospital rigged up in the

barracks, and were heard moaning and groaning the long night through,

while the city shook under fire of field-guns.

The morning unveiled a gruesome picture. The snow that had fallen in the

night, and was still falling, now covered the ground and its dead bodies

some inches deep. The square, the streets, the yards, the rails, and

sundry ditches betrayed them lying in horrid postures, dead or dying.

Those that were not dead, when discovered were finished with the bayonet

by the “loyal” troops, amid unspeakable yells. Then they lay still and

stiff in horrible attitudes. Men and women would stoop over them, gaze

and wonder. Perhaps there is nothing that brings home so clearly the

conviction of the temporary nature of human things as the sight of a

dead body. What a moment since had been a human being with a life and

purpose of his own was now an object, like a stone or a stick....

“I shall not forget that night,” said Fanny Ivanovna, “nor what I saw

this morning. The faces of the prisoners, some almost green from fright,

as they stood with their hands up in the cold grey light of the morning,

and the babyish face of that Cossack subaltern--a veritable mother’s

darling--as he detailed them into two parties. And then that other boy

of about the subaltern’s own age, awfully good looking, who had been

hiding in the chimney all night and was forgotten and only remembered as

the prisoners had been marched off to the station to be killed. Then

came that terrible rattle of machine-guns from within. He was hurried up

to the boyish subaltern who motioned in an off-hand manner in the

direction of the station; and then a soldier ran across with him--the

soldier in front, the boy following--hastening to be in time for the

firing-party. But the firing had just that moment come to an end. The

boy fumbled in his pocket and gave some folded paper to the soldier;

then vanished into the station. And some moments afterwards there came

those three solitary shots.”

“When I entered the station,” I said, “I saw piles of dead bodies lying

on the steps on which rich red blood trickled down all the way; and on

top of all that handsome boy, with the back of his scalp blown off. They

were shot at by machine-guns as they were being driven down the stone

staircase in the station, and their boots had been removed and

appropriated by their executioners. One man three hours afterwards was

still breathing heavily. He lay on the steps, bleeding, and covered by

other bleeding bodies. Another man in the pile was but slightly hit. He

lay alone in the pile of dead, with a curious mob and sight-seeing

soldiery walking about him, shamming death. After three hours he rose

and walked away, but was caught and shot.”

“Horrible!” she said. “It’s shameful! The Whites kill the Reds, the Reds

kill the Whites ... and nobody is any the farther. If people would only

realize that killing is the first thing they shouldn’t do.”

“The proposition would appear self-evident. But it seems as if the one

idea of the Kolchakites is bloodshed to suppress bloodshed; and that

this also happens to be the idea of the Bolsheviks; and that the

Kolchakites are shocked at it.”

“Why can’t human beings settle things by conference?”

“They must be human beings for that, Fanny Ivanovna.”

“Sir Hugo surely----”

“Sir Hugo’s chief preoccupation at a conference is to commit another

allied gentleman into saying ‘Yes’ on any given point, and then by a

series of masterful, elaborate and elusive thrusts of speech to commit

him into saying ‘No’; and then to point out the contradiction. It is

what Sir Hugo calls ‘displaying the good old fighting spirit.’ His

attention is essentially devoted to the careful recording of documents

that find their way into our office accidentally, documents which in

themselves he regards as inessential and unimportant. And the Admiral

hates Sir Hugo’s love of detail and exactitude which seems bent on

proving to him very clearly and precisely the uncertainty and vagueness

of his own position.”

She sighed.

“It is a consolation,” said she, “to think that there are other useless

people in the world besides ourselves....”

The snow still fell in heaps as I walked home, and it grew markedly

colder, and one felt the onset of winter; while prisoners, it was said,

were being killed in prison--noiselessly--out of consideration for the

Allies in the city.

VIII

Who can convey at all adequately that sense of utter hopelessness that

clings to a Siberian winter night? Wherever else is there to be found

that brooding, thrilling sense of frozen space, of snow and ice lost in

inky darkness, that gruesome sense of never-ending night, and black

despair and loneliness untold, immeasurable? Add to this the knowledge

of a civil war fumbling in the snow, of people ill-fed, ill-clothed and

apathetic, lying on the frozen ground, cold and wretched and diseased. A

snowstorm is blowing furiously; the wooden house groans and yells in the

night; the tin roof squeals in agony, fearful lest it be cast to the

winds; and the storm now howls like a beast, now sobs like a child, now

dies away, gathering for another outburst....

The house was lit and warm and comfortable. It was the Admiral’s house.

But the Admiral was away, and in his absence I had conceived it possible

to give a dinner-party. The arrangement of the guests at table had been

a delicate but delicious business. I had placed Fanny Ivanovna at the

side of Magda Nikolaevna. I had seated Nikolai Vasilievich side by side

with Eisenstein. I had sprinkled some of Zina’s sisters amongst the

three sisters. And there was Sir Hugo, who talked in French about the

Russian situation to Zina’s mother (who feared God, and knew no French);

and it was evident, moreover, as he talked that his daily paper was not

the _Daily Herald_ but rather the _Morning Post_.

The table was littered with bottles of the very best wine, procured from

the Admiral’s private cellar, and the expression of my guests became, as

they do become under the influence of wine, more impulsive and less

amenable to the control of the will. Their will seemed, as the feast

proceeded, to become less and less amenable to the authority of the

conscience. Kniaz had been drinking cocktails wholesale. He had never

tasted one before, and found that his life had been wasted. “They are

exquisite,” he said.

“They are,” Sir Hugo said. “They induce one to forget their price....

Oh, no, no! I didn’t mean it in that way, Prince. Do have another

cocktail.”

I sat still among my guests, strangely flushed, and the vast sea of

Russian life seemed to be closing over me. I saw Fanny Ivanovna talking

to Magda Nikolaevna, somewhat timidly perhaps and with undue reserve,

but still _talking_! Eisenstein was gleaming with silent satisfaction as

he surveyed “the family.” He felt, I think, that he was one of it at

last, and now he was all right. Nikolai Vasilievich on more than one

occasion addressed Eisenstein as “Moesei Moeseiech” in an amiable if not

familiar _sotto voce_. Zina’s mother spoke very eagerly to Sir Hugo

about the persecution of the Russian priesthood by the Bolsheviks, but

much of her eloquence was lost upon him. Sir Hugo’s knowledge of her

language, in spite of his long residence in Russia, was inexplicably

remote. When he was asked if he could talk Russian well, he would say

“Moderately.” But, as a matter of fact, his ability to express himself

in Russian was, I think, confined to hailing a cab in that language by

crying out the word “Izvozchik,” and then, seated therein, muttering the

word “Poshol!” which he usually mispronounced as “Push off”--both words

happily meaning literally the same thing and so adequately similar in

sound as to serve his purpose.

General Bologoevski, on my left, was holding forth on the situation.

“Looks pretty hopeless,” I remarked.

“Not a bit of it,” rejoined the General.

“But they are retreating everywhere.”

“On purpose,” said the General.

“But whatever for?”

“Well, there was a conference of generals ... I presume ... who have

decided it. I think it a good thing myself.”

“Why?”

“Well ... we’ll entrap them.”

“I am most pessimistic.”

“I am perfectly optimistic--quite certain of victory.”

“Why, General?”

“Denikin.”

“He is advancing very slowly.”

“Ah, but he is about to enter Great Russian territory.”

“Well, what’s there in that?”

“Why,” he explained, “the Great Russians are the only real decent

Russians. I am a Great Russian myself.”

I nodded with significance, as if to indicate that this made all the

difference in the situation.

Then, once again, Fanny Ivanovna sat silent. Perhaps she thought of her

position, insecure and unconventional, disused, no longer wanted; and of

her instincts so discordant with her life, her instincts that had always

been on the side of respectability, the purity of home life, the

sanctity of marriage, and the very things, in fact, that had always been

denied her: so much so that in her unstable, questionable position she

had yet been stringently insistent on this aspect of their life, and

always in her heart was reminded that she had no title to enforce that

law, no claim, beyond a doleful craving for the decencies of usage and

convention. Perhaps the presence of Nikolai Vasilievich’s two other

wives had served to remind her of the painful irony of her life; perhaps

the wine affected her with melancholy as it had affected me. Perhaps she

pondered on her broken life, her sacrifices that had gone unnoticed; or

pictured to herself her eventual return to Germany, the cruel

astonishment of those for whom she too had sacrificed her life. And it

may have occurred to her, as a belated after-thought in life, that

possibly she had been “sat upon” too often and too much.

But no; it was not quite that. There was something fatalistic, and yet

almost defiant, in her look. A blend of optimistic resignation. What was

it? What was she discovering? Why that smile? It was as though in

desperation she had given him full rein and found, to her amazement,

that he did not seem to pull as hard as when she held him tight.

I perceived that my dinner-party promised well. I caught Fanny

Ivanovna’s eye and raised my glass; and instantly I had her glass

refilled. My head began to swim. I discovered an agreeable warmth in my

body, and the expression that had come on my face seemed to be getting

out of my control. “Fanny Ivanovna,” I cried, “never mind my expression:

I know it is stupid. It has come on of its own accord, and I cannot

quite remove it, though I feel that a smile may develop of itself at any

moment.”

“Look,” Nina said to Sonia, “how awfully funnily his face changes from

smile to seriousness. Look!”

I smiled a drunken smile.

“Look: there again!”

I should have explained here that I had a passion for that white and

pasty substance that Russians eat at Easter--paskha, and when I was in

Russia I made it my habit to eat it in and out of season. I had a

pyramid of considerable dimensions locked up in the safe.... And now, at

the close of dinner, the secret was betrayed. A dash was made for it.

The guests armed themselves with knives, forks, and spoons and dug into

the substance and cleared it away in less than twenty minutes. They then

lay moaning and suffering not a little from its effect on their

abounding stomachs.

We were jolly, exuberant, self-centred and sentimental. I felt

distinctly pleased with myself. I knew not why; that is the secret of

good wine. Some people laughed, others after the manner of the Slav were

fain to weep; and outside there raged the snowstorm of a Siberian winter

night.

Fanny Ivanovna, Magda Nikolaevna, Čečedek, Eisenstein, Nikolai

Vasilievich, reclined on sofas and arm-chairs, smoked and sipped

liqueurs; and Sonia, Nina, Vera, Zina and her sisters and Baron

Wunderhausen made a noise in the adjoining rooms and did wild things

with the furniture.

Uncle Kostia stood on the hearth-rug, dazed and very red in the face,

and held forth at great length: his Russian soul a reservoir of

overflowing feeling. “I feel positively strange,” he said. “I swear I

never felt like this before. I nodded, do you know, to some point in an

argument with which at the time I happened to agree, and to my great

embarrassment I somehow kept on nodding quite in spite of myself, and

keep on nodding--do you see me, Fanny Ivanovna?--though the portion of

the argument with which I had expressed agreement long died in oblivion.

I know it is the wine. It is good wine, and--to make a long story

short--I am drunk. But I don’t care. This is an exceptional night. It is

a memorable night. Fanny Ivanovna and Nikolai Vasilievich and Magda

Nikolaevna, Moesei Moeseiech, Zina, Sonia, Nina, Vera, Kniaz: I swear I

never felt so near to you as I do feel to-night. I feel beastly

sentimental. I feel that I could howl aloud. I feel that presently I

will go round and kiss each one of you in turn. Look into your own

hearts. What is the use of pretending? We are all one family and Nikolai

Vasilievich, our dearly beloved, much-respected Nikolai Vasilievich, is

our parent and guardian. He stood by us well in our hour of need. His

task has been an uphill task; but has he complained of us? Not once. He

has borne the burden of many families without a sigh of protest.

Speaking for myself, we men of letters have to lean for our support on

stalwart men like Nikolai Vasilievich, and it is indeed largely on their

generous help that art and literature must depend. As you know, we men

of letters are no business men, but if as a writer and a student of life

and human nature I may presume to give advice: don’t lose courage,

Nikolai Vasilievich. Remember, we are all behind you; we shall follow

you, if need be, to the end of the earth. Courage, Nikolai Vasilievich!

Keep hard at it! Keep hard at it!”

We became agitated. We all spoke at once, perhaps for no other reason

than that we had been deprived of speaking for so long. And then,

suddenly, we subsided, for on the floor above us, occupied by a Russian

family, some one was playing the piano. It was Chopin. We listened to

the music and grew still, and our souls were all music as though he had

touched their strings. And the house seemed charmed, and the gruff

Siberian night looked in through the window and listened in silence....

For his is the grace and sweet melancholy of romance, and his the

laughter of silver trumpets, and tears as bright as the dew at dawn. His

sorrows are no graver than the sorrow of the gold-red sunset, and his

sobs are the sobs of the sea, the echo of the waves weeping on the

rocks. And it has all been to him a dream in music, and when we hear it

we dream with him....

“And Fanny Ivanovna,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “is now a widow!”

A thought flashed across my brain. “Fanny Ivanovna,” I cried, “I had

meant to ask you what was that funeral procession you all followed

yesterday?”

“My husband’s,” she said, and I was struck unpleasantly by her tone of

mirth and triumph.

“Eberheim?”

“Yes,” smiled Nikolai Vasilievich; “she is a widow now. A _merry

widow_!” And Fanny Ivanovna laughed in a loud and jarring manner. It

seemed odd why I had not guessed so obvious a candidate when I had seen

the funeral procession pass by my window, and had supposed that the

corpse had been some victim of the Gaida outbreak. We all felt that it

was the best thing for the man, and nothing more was said on the

subject. Eisenstein, in an impossible condition, sang sentimental gipsy

songs to his own accompaniment on the piano, and his voice was such that

the cat hid itself in the house and could not be found for three days

afterwards; and Nikolai Vasilievich was assisting him in a rather timid

staccato baritone. Sonia, Nina, Vera, Zina and her sisters, Baron

Wunderhausen and I were jazzing in the adjoining room. Fanny Ivanovna

and Magda Nikolaevna, seated side by side on the sofa, were discussing,

somewhat timidly it seemed, Magda Nikolaevna’s proposal that they should

start a millinery establishment together, procuring fashionable

“Parisian” hats from Peking and Shanghai and selling them at great

profit in Vladivostok; and Zina’s father was sleeping, mouth wide open,

in his chair.

IX

She was going along quickly, wrapped in the familiar fur; and it was

snowing merrily.

“Nina!”

She turned round and stopped, smiling. And the bright white winter day

seemed to be smiling with her. It was the day of the Social

Revolutionary _coup d’état_. Early in the morning troops of

revolutionary partisans had occupied the city peacefully and taken

possession of the public buildings, to wild cheering from the local

crowds. The Russian national flag had been hauled down and a red one

hoisted in its stead. Processions had appeared with revolutionary

banners, and the town was decorated in red. “Have you heard the news?”

she said. “Pàvel Pàvlovich, the Baron, has fled to Japan overnight,

without telling us a word.”

“Of course, he was in danger of being arrested by the Reds,” I said.

“But I suppose he’ll come back some day.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“What does Sonia think?”

“She’s glad.”

“_Glad?_”

“Yes. She was going to leave him herself ... to marry Holdcroft. But

now....”

“Now what?”

“But now _he’s_ left her.”

“Well, all the better, then. Saves trouble.”

“It’s ... humiliating.”

We went on together and, nearing home, we cut through masses of new

snow. It was one o’clock. The sun shone yellow. She put her hand into my

coat pocket. Tender flecks, falling from the sky, would linger on her

brows and lashes. We fumbled and wrangled in the snow; and, with that

bird-like look of hers, she said, “To-day ... I like you.”

At the American Headquarters dance last night she had been strangely,

inexplicably hostile; and Fanny Ivanovna had made it worse by exhorting

her to dance with me against her will. And, of course, there were Ward

and White and Holdcroft. I remember sitting there that night with a

sense of injury. What was the matter? Had I usurped too many of her

dances? I felt as a man might feel who in a moment of particular

goodwill towards mankind discovers that his watch has been pickpocketed.

I said nothing, but strove to put it all into my look. She came up to

me, rapturous, delicious. There was about her that night a disquieting,

elusive charm. “I told you that I love you. What else do you want?” She

said it with just that torturing proportion of smile and earnestness

that you could not tell how it was meant: and very likely that was just

how it was meant. I remember I ransacked my soul for something stinging.

“You can’t love,” I said. “You’re not a woman; you’re a fish.” It is

unfair to analyse love-reasoning unless in a similar emotional

temperature. The dance over, our coats on, we sat and waited for the

car, Nina looking rather sulky.... And to-day what a change the sunshine

has wrought!

We reached their house. “Come in,” she said.

“No.”

She went in, took off her coat, and while I lingered, came back and

stood on the steps.

“You’ll catch cold like that.”

She shook her head.

“I wish,” said I, “that women would propose to men.... I should love to

say, ‘Oh, why can’t we remain just friends?’”

She looked at me. “You would say it to _me_?”

“Jokingly, of course.”

“I shan’t propose then.”

“And if I said it seriously, would you propose then?”

“Yes,” she laughed.

“Aren’t we supposed to be engaged, though?”

“Are we?”

“I think so.”

“We’ll marry but divorce at once,” she said, “and live separately, and

meet only once a year.”

And then the door opened and Nikolai Vasilievich said somewhat angrily

to me: “Either come inside, or go. She’ll catch cold standing here with

nothing on.” And as he vanished he rather slammed the door.

“Go in, Nina, or he’ll be angry.”

“Take no notice of him. None of us take any notice of him. That’s why he

is angry.”

“Then I’ll go in,” I said. And we both went in, and heard Fanny Ivanovna

saying: “Believe me, Sonia, it’s all for the best. If you like, send

him a post-card with ‘Good riddance’ on it. That’s all you need say.”

And as I listened, it transpired further--for misfortunes never come

alone--that Baron Wunderhausen was not a baron, and not even

Wunderhausen.

Sonia was downcast. “What the devil does it matter, anyhow,” argued

Nikolai Vasilievich, “above all now that he is gone, whether he is a

baron or no baron, Wunderhausen or no Wunderhausen?” But Sonia would not

hear of it. That he should have left without telling her a word! That he

should have lied to her all these years! Also she had always scoffed at

him for his title, thought it ridiculous, almost a deliberate

affectation. But now that the truth had been revealed to her and she

knew that he had never had a title, she felt that she had been insulted

rudely, married under false pretences. Well, she would insist on a

divorce; she would take good care that she was the first in the field to

insist on it. Holdcroft was extraordinarily attractive. He seemed rather

keen on Vera, though. But how beautifully he danced.

And just that moment the gramophone, which Vera was fiddling with, broke

loose into an intoxicating one-step. Nina, standing by it, echoed at the

end of each refrain--“My-y-y _cell_-ar!” as the music galloped into

syncopation.

“Whose is the gramophone?”

It was Olya Olenin’s, the timid “football” little niece of Uncle

Kostia.

“There they are!” cried Sonia. Three U.S. naval uniforms appeared in the

window.

“If only we had more room here,” sighed Fanny Ivanovna. But how

scrupulously clean she kept the little that there was of it.

“_I_’m for ever _blow_-ing bub-_bles_,” hissed the gramophone....

“_Fu_--fu fu fu _fu_--fu fu----” whistled Nikolai Vasilievich. And,

forgetful of her prodigal baronial spouse, Sonia dodged the chairs and

sofa in the embrace of Holdcroft, while Kniaz sat in his corner seat, a

little in the way, and read his paper and sucked sweets.

“You want to go?” Fanny Ivanovna looked at Nikolai Vasilievich with a

solicitude that suggested a desire to anticipate his wishes. “All right.

We’ll have our tea now. Sonia! Nina! Vera! Tea.”

“There’s no hurry,” he calmed her.

During tea he was hilarious. He had been out in the streets and mixed

with the crowds. What hilarious, happy crowds! The change had come about

at last. Something would happen _now_. He said he thought it would be a

few days only till the thing was finally settled. He meant to go and see

some of the new ministers. A quite decent Government, it seemed; and

what good order, all things considering. The Social-Revolutionaries had

a double platform; they appealed to those who had no use for

international militarism on revolutionary grounds, and to those who had

no use for revolution on national grounds. And Nikolai Vasilievich

thought that such broad-minded, reasonable people could not fail to see

his point as regards the gold-mines. I sat listening to him and in my

influx of sudden happiness eating more than I really wanted to; for I

felt she was _à moi_ once more.

He went out at last, and Fanny Ivanovna shut the door behind him. She

looked at me, smiled, and then heaved a little sigh. “I let him do as he

pleases,” she said. “Perhaps it’s better so. We’ll see....”

As it darkened we took Olya home, and trailing our feet in the deep

snow, carried the uncomfortably heavy gramophone, and marched in various

formations, halted, marched again, and then, towards the climax, carried

Nina in a burial procession. At the Olenins we danced again, I claiming

Nina and the three American boys having to put up with what was “second

best.” Madame Olenin, a suckling in a jumper at her breast, stood in the

doorway and watched. A ten-years-old military cadet had followed her

into the room and also stood in the doorway, in a civilian overcoat, and

gaped at us. “Our Peter,” said she, “is a loyal little monarchist and

refuses to take off his shoulder-straps in spite of the Red _coup

d’état_.” The maternal hand stroked the offspring’s hair in a tender

gesture. “But I made him put on this civilian overcoat on top. It isn’t

safe, you know.”

I came up and cuddled little Fanny in a rather inefficient fashion and

lavished unmitigated praise, as is the classic way when talking to a

mother of her babe. And then little Fanny, as is the classic way with

babies, for no apparent cause, began howling, howling without rhyme or

reason. I was made to play the piano, and I was pleasantly aware that

Nina advertised me and showed me off as though I was her own special

merchandise. The snow in the yard was pink from the sun as we jumped

about on the sofa. She took water in her mouth and blew it out into my

face, whereon I got her into a corner and slapped her hard, while the

others looked on in amusement. She was trying to bite my hands; and then

as we went out she _would_ insist on fastening my overcoat.

The others trailed behind, and we could hear their laughter growing

fainter as we walked ahead. The snow creaked agreeably beneath our feet.

It was five o’clock and there were the first signs of twilight. We

passed the sombre silhouette of their little wooden house. Oh, how sad

were these things in the winter.... Darkness was swiftly setting in. We

crossed the wood. The tall pine-trees, covered with a thick coating of

snow, stood mute and dreaming in the twilight; only their peaks moved

ever so gently to and fro, murmuring some vague complaint.

Then, suddenly, we came out into the open and saw the sea. Clad in an

armour of ice, it was as smooth as a mirror. Here and there a monstrous

snow-covered lump rose from the surface. The sky was grey and fretful

and darkness fell upon us with every minute. The sun, as it set, slowly

cast a feeble red flame on the sea chained in ice, and the crescent

moon spread a yellow light over the surface, glimmering in varied

colours on the ice, the snow, the glaciers. The wind strengthened and

the frost pricked at my ears.

“Say something! Say something!”

“What shall I say?”

“Why, you’re worse than Kniaz!” I exclaimed.

She smiled.

“Say that the sea is a dazzling sight, that the moon is ... well,

anything you like, that the sun is red copper.”

She looked as though all this was nothing, but she alone was real. “Why

falsify the tone? It’s there: I can see it.”

“Is this not beautiful then? You’re an amazing creature! One doesn’t

know which side to get hold of you. I talk to you about ... about ...

_this_” (a florid gesture to the sea). “You tell me it is false.”

“_This_” (an imitative florid gesture) “is all right. But please don’t

talk about it to me.”

She was silent.

“I liked you this morning,” she said then. “But _now_----!”

“You see, the trouble is,” said I, “that you can’t talk of anything but

fox-trots.”

“Last night at the American dance,” she said, “I danced with Ward.”

“I know, I saw you,” I said in a tone of condemnation.

“He’s very nice; I like him; but I can’t talk of anything to him. He

asked me, ‘Do you like fox-trots?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And when later on we

danced the waltz, he said, ‘Do you like waltzes?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And

he said. ‘I like them too.’”

“There you are!” I cried triumphantly. “You’ve got to stick to me and

sack all the rest!”

“You are nice,” she said, “and there are days when I like you--though

_you_ never know when they are. But ... I can’t talk to you.”

And she added, “I am going home.”

The sun contracted and grew more red and feeble as the moon shone

brighter and cast an even yellow light upon the space around us. Fretful

fantastic shadows flitted across the ice. Objects about us grew black.

Darkness was now hard upon us.

We returned by moonlight that glimmered on the snow.

X

Six weeks elapsed, and the snow was melting in the valley. When the sun

appeared behind the trees the birches, steeped in water, had that

silvery appearance which is beautiful beyond measure. Spring was in the

air.

It was a dinner, a formal, drunken, tedious affair that I must needs

attend. I sat between General Bologoevski and a British flag-lieutenant,

who had fallen in love with Nina at first sight and now drank in

greedily everything I had to say about her. In this building, not so

long ago, other men had met their death. At each _coup d’état_ this

house had been besieged. Fugitives had taken shelter in these rooms.

Even on this sofa a body had been stabbed to death. And now we revelled

noisily. The dark, dark night of early spring was a breathing, watching

presence. The bare white-plastered walls seemed to prick their ears.

What has happened? Nothing. The nights were drawing in. The three

sisters had gone to a dance. And so had Ward, White and Holdcroft. When

now I called on them, more often I would find the older folks alone. How

melancholy, but strangely fascinating, were these evenings: this

gathering of souls dissatisfied with life, yet always waiting patiently

for betterment: enduring this unsatisfactory present because they

believed that this present was not really _life_ at all: that _life_ was

somewhere in the future: that _this_ was but a temporary and transitory

stage to be spent in patient waiting. And so they waited, year in, year

out, looking out for _life_: while life, unnoticed, had noiselessly

piled up the years that they had cast away promiscuously in waiting, and

stood behind them--while they still waited....

What Nikolai Vasilievich actually waited for was best known to himself.

His hopes had been built up on the assumption of a sudden recovery of

his gold-mines, a possibility he connected somehow with political

developments in the Far East. It would not be fair to examine critically

the grounds he had for this ambitious expectation, from any rational

standpoint. Nikolai Vasilievich had built up enchanted castles of a rare

magnitude and beauty upon this somewhat flimsy and elusive foundation;

and he could not have now examined this foundation with an open mind

without ruining his dreams. And Nikolai Vasilievich had further

committed himself to the continued sustaining of illusions by

identifying in his mind certain definite promises of a financial nature

that he had made to Zina and her people, his daughters, Fanny Ivanovna,

his wife and Kniaz, with his dreams, indeed in such a manner that his

dreams had become vital realities to them; and this important

consideration had served the further purpose of giving his dreams all

the more the appearance of realities. He had private doubts, of course;

but he brushed them aside in a manly manner: he could not afford to do

otherwise. He waited for political changes. He was not clear in his mind

as to what particular political changes would serve his purpose. He did

not know. He was wise enough to know that in conditions so complex and

multitudinous as those in Siberia there was no telling which particular

political combination would affect his gold-mines favourably. Moreover,

he did not want to know. He did not want to know because he felt that if

he knew, his happiness henceforth must needs depend on the single chance

of that particular political combination, alone likely to affect his

gold-mines favourably, coming into power; rather did he like to think

that his happiness depended on _any kind_ of change on the political

horizon--a more than likely possibility.

At last he saw hopeful signs. The Social Revolutionary partisans had

occupied the city, and from day to day he waited for an indication of

their attitude towards his gold-mines. This indication came to hand at

last when they called for him and put him into prison for having taken

part in that lamentable punitive expedition of which, as a matter of

fact, he was the chief victim. His term of imprisonment, unpleasant as

it was, had yet served the good purpose of further cementing his

multitudinous family. His daughters, Zina, Čečedek, Kniaz, Fanny

Ivanovna, his wife, Eisenstein, Uncle Kostia, Zina’s father, and the

book-keeper Stanitski, all met in their frequent calls in the cell of

the bread-winner.

On dragged the dinner. General Bologoevski at my side was telling me

that he was at heart a democrat, that he sincerely wished to see a

government that was more democratic than the old “damrotten government”

under the Czar. Yes, his heart, he said, was democratic, and even when

he was in Tokio he could not suffer himself, yes, he could not suffer

himself (he put his hands upon his heart), big and strong as he was, to

be pulled by a dwarf slave. So he placed the coolie in his riksha and

pulled the man himself. And yesterday he went with his own Chink cook to

a Chinese theatre and sat out the whole performance in an incredible

atmosphere. Now was that not democracy? And if it wasn’t, well, he

questioned what democracy really was. He did his bit. What else did the

people want? They were never satisfied.

And then that unknown quantity, that strange old man Sir Hugo, fired off

a jewel. Sitting opposite, I could hear a Captain of the U.S. Navy

talking of the decline of discipline; to which Sir Hugo answered in his

heckling manner, “Well, Captain Larkin, I don’t think I can agree with

you, and I should be inclined, if you’ll allow me, to suggest to you

that your people are not as disciplined as our men, or, should I say,

they have not had the same experience of discipline.”

“Well, may be yes; may be no,” said the other. “It seems, though, Sir

H_ugo_, they have done about equally well in the war, anyhow.”

Whereon Sir Hugo was convulsed with merriment. “Splendid fellow, Captain

Larkin! Good. Very good. Splendid! Ha, ha, ha, ha! You’re a diplomat,

Captain Larkin, you know. Oh, yes, you are. Very clever, very diplomatic

indeed. Ha, ha, ha, ha! I notice you use just the right word. Ha, ha,

ha, ha! You say ‘it _seems_.’ You’re not _committing_ yourself, now are

you, eh?”

Captain Larkin ate his fish in silence. What was the world indeed coming

to?

On dragged the dinner. The black panes of the big bare windows stared

unflinchingly. Yes, the three sisters had gone to a dance with the three

American boys; and I could picture to myself that other private little

dance when I had quarrelled with her deliberately, to bring matters to a

head, to know where I stood. But the quarrel had not “come off,” and her

attitude was as ever unintelligibly vague. Then I sat there and watched

her outline--what a girl!--and her side-long, bird-like look....

In came two Italian tenors, fingering their guitars. We leaned back in

our chairs, watched the cigar smoke descend on the wine, listened how

the southern mellow voices defied the breaking rigour of the night of

early spring.

“To-morrow,” said the Flag-Lieutenant, “at 7.30 comes the ice-breaker,

and off we barge into the open.”

“To-o-re-e-_ador_----! To-o-rrre-ado-o-o-o-_or_! Tam-tram-taram-tam----”

“Two vermouths!”

“That’s the stuff to give ’em!”

Hand upon heart, the singers emptied the glasses.

“Stenka Razin! Stenka Razin! The Russian robber song,” enjoined the

table.

“_Ah! je ne connais pas, messieurs._”

And we sang the Russian robber song as best we could, and the Italianos

both joined in as soon as they had got the hang of it. Dinner over, we

sat about anyhow, and another soloist, a Hungarian prisoner of war,

half-wailed, half-sobbed a Russian song that ended with the desperate

refrain of “Never, never, _never_, never ... never....” The Russian

General’s eyes blinked in the cigar smoke. “What’s that play, you

remember--‘Those are not tears: it’s the juice of my soul. The juice of

my soul....’” Then the old Hawaian band--we had been well provided for

that evening--played “_Tell me_,” by request.

“They played this at that dance,” said the Flag-Lieutenant. “To-morrow

at 7.30 we’re off. I wonder if we shall ever come back.”

“Those are not tears: it’s the juice of my soul....”

As we passed into the ante-room, the company was getting rowdy. A French

Colonel, cigar in mouth, was throwing gramophone records on the floor,

as though they were quoits, adding, with a blissful side-long smile at

me, “_Les disques!_” Somebody had released the gramophone, and a rowdy

one-step was the result. Cocktails, wine, liqueurs, whisky ... 7.30, the

ice-breaker, the juice of my soul, never, never, _les disques_.... Like

dregs, they had been stirred from the bottom, swam up and began to flow

hither and thither with the rolling of the tide. Abrupt impressions

crowd my brain. Nina. Spring. A trip by motor to the Garden City. We

lose our way. A bearded student of the intellectual brand offers to see

us through, gets in next to the chauffeur and directs him, but presently

loses his way too. “This hill,” says he, as if to justify himself, “used

to be on the right bank of the river.” “Heaven knows what’s happened to

it,” say I. She laughs. Oh, how she laughs! We arrive at last--and, oh!

horror! We meet her father and Zina. We lunch at the new Casino

restaurant. The old proprietor shakes his clients by the hand

respectfully, but bullies the waiters. It is Sunday. The sunlit sea,

too, has a festive, leisurely appearance. We walk into a public park

with the notice “Cattle and Other Ranks not admitted.” Supper at the

Casino restaurant. When evening comes the bullied waiters, conscious of

the approach of the Red Army, demand a share in the profits in addition

to their wage. The old proprietor shouts louder than he would and looks

to the public for moral support. “None of your Bolshevism here, please!”

he shouts, putting on in emphasis what he lacks in weight; and they can

all feel that he is frightened of them. We talk to two Russian soldiers.

One of them has never heard of Admiral Kolchak. “You fool,” says the

other, “he’s that English General who gives you clothing.” We return in

the early evening. The sky is flushed; the _datchas_ steeped in foliage.

The seaway sunlit route. Pink light everywhere. The approach of summer,

the feeling that we should act in unison with nature, and the crushing,

curbing sense that we dare not--oh! for so many reasons. The waiting,

the suspension of plans owing, among other things, to the civil war. The

prevailing Russian atmosphere--chronic uncertainty. The wild flowers in

the grass at the road-side. The American regimental dance that night.

She looks at me, sits near me. I help her on with her coat; then to step

into the car. And the nocturnal moonlit journey homeward.... Youth! Her

splendid, wonderful youth. How trivial, how great. How much, how

little. That’s how we live. A flash here; a scent there. It’s gone, and

it’s the devil to recapture....

The big black window-panes still stare at you indecently; that’s why

somebody throws a bottle through them. The gramophone shoots painful

memories through my feverish brain. Now she is dancing with them....

They are playing rugger with a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. Oh!

the pictures. Somebody has set a match to the imitation palm-tree. Good

job! And somebody else has poured a bottle of whisky into the piano.

Uproarious shouts. A fat, flabby Major stands on the table, shouting

“Charing Cross. All change here!” and then begins to sell the furniture

by auction and imitate a Bolshevik speaker all in the same breath. I am

dragged up on the table. Shouts of “Speech! Speech!” My mouth begins to

move but the voice seems to be coming out of an empty barrel; both I and

they seem some one else. The table begins to sway like a ship--a

pendulum--and I feel that I am being supported on my legs only by some

outward spirit. _Les disques._ The juice of my soul. Ha, ha, ha, ha! I

laugh feebly but awfully funnily, as I am being carried out under the

arms. My room. Never, _never_.... Oh!... The bed is a merry-go-round, a

spindle. I dash out on to the floor. The floor revolves the other way.

Damn! Somebody ties a wet handkerchief round my head, and says, “You’re

a brick.... Nina. _Les disques_.... Youth.... Your splendid, wonderful

youth....”

XI

That evening I called on them to say good-bye, for we were leaving on

the morrow. The occasion coincided with the release of Nikolai

Vasilievich from prison, following on the seizure of the fortress by the

Japanese. Already through the windows there gazed the evening of early

spring. The church bells on that Easter Sunday, the most festal day in

the year, rang dolefully through the Christian city seized by a heathen

yellow race, and spoke of better days.

There had been another night of firing. The headquarters of the Russian

Zemstvo had been fiercely bombarded in the night. Then when at last the

building was stormed by Japanese troops they found, to their amazement,

that there was no one there. General Bologoevski, who had been attached

of late to the Russian Staff, discovered on the morrow that he had lost

yet another government overnight. Down came the red flag and up went the

flag of the Rising Sun. Russian prisoners tied to their Korean

colleagues were being led through the streets on a rope, like cattle.

Then, these lives wasted, this damage done, “their honour satisfied,” as

said the Nippon officers, they turned to the scattered government and

invited them to return to their shattered offices and resume their

interrupted duties. And Nikolai Vasilievich, released from prison, was

inclined to think that the little Nippons were, on the whole, good

fellows.

Fanny Ivanovna and he, alone in the house, were about to have tea. The

canary in the cage seemed livelier at the approach of spring. The cat

was growing fatter. The samovar could not be made to work. Nikolai

Vasilievich, dressed up in a morning-coat, put on white leather gloves

and blackened them considerably as he grappled inefficiently with the

large insurgent samovar that blew up columns of black smoke in the

little hall; while Fanny Ivanovna, as usual, shouted advice to him from

the adjoining room that really only served to annoy him.

“Sit down, Andrei Andreiech,” she said, “he won’t be long. Well,

Nikolai,” she shouted, “can you manage it? Andrei Andreiech is _waiting_

for his tea.”

“Shut up!” came his angry voice amid angry, recalcitrant hissing.

“Nikolai! Please! What will Andrei Andreiech think of you?”

There was no _kulich_, no _paskha_. But Fanny Ivanovna had done up the

table as well as she could for the occasion; and there was something

pathetic about the poor results she had attained compared with the

lustre of pre-war Easter-week in Petersburg. We sat at table, and no one

spoke. Nikolai Vasilievich was sad. Was he sad because he had returned

from prison to something that was only prison in a mitigated form? Was

it that the suspense had been too long, that he had succumbed in the

waiting? Was it that he had suddenly, secretly, for no particular

reason, on the eve of great changes, lost faith in the recovery of his

mines? Or was it just reaction, the unexpectedness of his release? How

much the one, how much the other, who can tell? The emotion of the soul

is an elusive thing. There is a subtlety about the moods that bears no

introspection. These nights in early spring in Vladivostok are so

intolerably sad that oft-times one might weep for no other reason than

that life was passing untouched, unrealized, a drudgery with but a gleam

of beauty....

Only later in the evening it transpired from his conversation that he

hesitated. He hesitated what to do. His mind was in a state of

perplexity and doubt. His finances were coming to an end. Should they

all follow Baron Wunderhausen to Yokohama on the off-chance that he has

secured some post there? But he remembered that the Baron was not a

baron, and not even Wunderhausen, and he felt that he would be safer not

to count on him. They might follow the Admiral to England, as the

Russian General was doing; or remain with Eisenstein in Vladi, who was

beginning to succeed as a dentist here--there was a dearth of them--and

wait till the mines materialize? Perhaps he had better wait. Things

seemed to be moving now at last, and perhaps there was more hope now

than there had been hitherto.

After supper the Admiral and Sir Hugo came to say good-bye. Also,

gradually, the family collected. The room was now full of people. The

talk, as ever, lapsed into politics. The Russians have a habit of

suspecting the “Allies” of unheard-of calumnies, so much so in fact that

even the surprising attitude of innocence adopted by the allied

representatives, who sincerely know no better, seems a fairer statement

of the true position. The incentive to bloodshed in this miserable

Russian business, as in fact the incentive to all murder, is not so much

a matter of wanton wickedness as wanton ignorance: a metaphysical

confusion of motive: a chaos of the mind: a matter of muddled ethics. It

is an integral part of Russian hospitality that they blackguard an

“ally” to his face for the “calumnious machinations” practised by his

Government in foreign affairs. The amusing thing about it is that this

blackguarding is so deplorably inconsistent. One is apt to be shouted

down for the “betrayal” of Kolchak, the “annexation” of the Caucasus,

and the starvation by blockade by one’s host, who will have it that all

these diabolical acts have been deliberately designed by Mr. Lloyd

George in order to “humiliate” Russia for her early exit from the war.

But really all this angry denunciation is almost meant as a compliment:

to show how much they like you personally despite your racial

blackguardism, which they take for granted. Thus accosted, one is apt to

become heated, stick up for the Government of one’s country, and

overstate facts. The room becomes a bear-garden.

Eisenstein opened the attack. “Your allied diplomats,” he said, “are

hopeless. Some months ago I had occasion to see one of these worthy

representatives of the diplomatic corps on behalf of a number of Jews

that were in danger of being massacred by Kolchak’s officers. The

diplomat, my client, by the way, was a marvellous linguist, a wonderful

specimen of humanity. There he sat before me, maintaining a most

distressing silence in twenty-eight foreign languages. ‘I beg of you to

intercede,’ I said, ‘to prevent their being massacred. I entreat you,

sir, to protest.’

“‘My dear Mr. Eisenstein,’ he said at last, ‘how can I protest--before

they are killed? I want facts to go upon. I cannot act before I have

facts. Facts, Mr. Eisenstein, facts!’

“‘Sir,’ I cried, ‘you will have _deadly_ facts, if you are satisfied to

wait at all.’

“‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘I am not going to risk my reputation for flimsy

rumours of this kind. I have been a diplomat now for thirty-six years,

and never once in my career, sir, have I said anything that ... well,

could be misconstrued ... to mean something. And I am certainly not

going to revise my methods now.’ And that was all I got out of him.”

“You Allies,” said Uncle Kostia, “have no sense of humour. I’m a

sedentary worker, a man of letters, no fighting man in any sense. I sit

in my room all day and watch your intervention through the window, so to

speak. And it amuses me to see how you are fussing over us and always in

the wrong direction, running about like clowns in a circus. A naval

gentleman of yours will arrive at the port, fresh and raw from the high

seas, and will be moved to request enlightenment from his more

experienced colleagues on this rather elementary question: ‘Who is

Kolchak? Is he a Bolshevik?’ He will be corrected in his erroneous

supposition; and then, a week later, he will begin to dabble in Russian

politics and will undertake brief excursions along the coast and fire

now and then, somewhat promiscuously, at groups of villagers, whom in

his simplicity he believes to be Bolsheviks--boom--boom--boom--boom! He

will set them flying in all directions, perhaps kill a cow or so. After

such a trip he will return to port, cheery and in good spirits; and

after some little while the scattered villagers will return to their

village, consume the cow, and resume their interrupted occupations....

Wonderful minds you have! You will prop up some half-witted general and

send in stores of clothing and munitions. And the fruit of it? The

Bolshevik divisions wearing British uniforms with royal buttons, and the

Bolshevik minority in Moscow nationally strengthened in the face of

foreign enemies. I sit at my window, writing, reading, and the news

dribbles through: ‘Omsk fallen. Kolchak shot. Allies packing up.’ It

seems ... silly.”

“Quite,” said the book-keeper Stanitski. It was a curious thing that the

book-keeper Stanitski should not have been seen in Nikolai Vasilievich’s

household till the absence of finances in the firm of Nikolai

Vasilievich provided him with nothing to record. Nikolai Vasilievich

still went to his office every afternoon to talk things over with

Stanitski and possibly to keep up the feeling that he was still a

business man; and sometimes Zina would come and see him at his office.

Stanitski was glad of these visits; for he would then drop the paper he

had been reading--there was absolutely nothing to do--and take part in

their conversation. As business gradually dribbled down to nothing, one

felt that the book-keeper Stanitski was becoming less of an employee and

more of a friend and hanger-on. He was absolutely indispensable to

Nikolai Vasilievich, for Stanitski was an optimist.

“Kolchak was impulsive and well-meaning,” said Eisenstein, “but

unfortunate in his selection of a task. He dismissed General Ditrich,

who wanted to give up Omsk to save the Army, and replaced him by General

Saharov, who undertook to keep Omsk; whereon General Saharov lost both

Omsk and the Army.”

“You Jews,” said the Admiral, “are all damned Bolsheviks.” When the

Admiral spoke of Jews he was filled with anger and, curiously, his face

assumed a kind of Semitic expression.

“I wasn’t, Admiral,” he said. “I might be one now. There may be a gleam

of hope there at least. There’s none here.”

“_I_ wasn’t one,” said Kniaz, his eyes and nostrils flaming with

passion, “till you Allies made me one!” The room grew still. We all

turned round and stared at him. He had come in an hour or so ago, said

nothing and consumed a box of chocolates all by himself. For twenty

years or more he had said nothing. We felt that he had had ample time to

think deep thoughts: and there at last he was pouring them out: giving

us the benefit of all these years of silent contemplation: releasing the

compressed fervour of his humiliated and down-trodden patriotism.

“Kniaz! Kniaz!” cried Fanny Ivanovna in alarm. “Kniaz!”

But there was no stopping him. He spoke with the tremor and vehemence of

a man who had held his tongue for twenty years. He overwhelmed us with

surprise, but he seemed no less overwhelmed himself, flushed and

marvelling at what was the matter with him. “Why I personally object to

your meddling in our affairs,” he cried, “is because it implies the

impression as if you could manage your own.” Fearful, flaming words spat

from his fiery mouth. “Ireland. India. Egypt.” Etc., etc, etc.

An Admiral contradicted by an adult person not subject to Naval

regulations is a man at a disadvantage.

“They are just a pack of damned Bolsheviks, the lot of them, that’s all

they are,” said he.

“Jew-led, I suppose,” laughed Eisenstein.

“The Russian question,” said the Admiral, “is a very big question, and I

do not propose to discuss it here.”

“You have made it into a big question,” they all shouted, “because you

had not the imagination to foresee how it would grow into a big question

when it was yet a little one.”

“I wonder,” said the Admiral, “if you have held these views

consistently throughout the revolution, if you had always been opposed

to our help?”

“Well,” said Kniaz, “when I thought you would back up a moderate

democratic party I was at least more hopeful of the issue.”

“_Which_ ‘moderate party,’ pray?”

“Avksentiev’s Government. The Directorate.”

“Oh, those!” scoffed the Admiral. “They weren’t much good. They did not

believe in armies, and fighting, and that sort of thing.”

Kniaz looked up at him and pondered over the Admiral’s uniform and

probably thought that fighting, for the gallant sailor, was really an

end in itself. And Kniaz concluded with the words: “And now having

thoroughly muddled up our issues, you leave us to the tender mercies of

the Japanese.” But Sir Hugo, conceiving that they were arguing beside

the point, snatched that phrase from him and stepped in between them

with much dignity. He must have felt that the occasion called for a

clear brain like his own to clear the misunderstanding.

“I think, Prince Borisov” (and we all stared at Kniaz: it was indeed

characteristic that Sir Hugo should be the first to know the Prince’s

name), “that you are totally mistaken as to the object of the Allies in

Siberia. You use that most unfortunate word ‘invasion.’ There was no

question of ‘invasion.’ Our sole object in coming out to Russia, and the

Admiral will confirm it, was to establish one indivisible national

Russia by creating one strong united Russian Army--and that object, I

am glad to say, we have now achieved.”

“One national Russia! Excuse me, but--but--but--but if there is any

national Russia to-day it is all on the other side. As for the Russian

Army, the only Russian Army now is the Bolshevik Army. The others have

all melted away.”

“Ho! Kniaz is a Bolshevik!” cried Fanny Ivanovna.

“Ho! ho!” cried the others.

“I will not argue about details, Prince Borisov. I am not a biologist

and I don’t dissect. And I don’t propose to be dragged into pedantic

microscopic analysis as to which is the particular political party to

which the army, for the moment, swears allegiance. I am satisfied that

it is a strong _Russian_ Army, which it has been our object to create.

And I will now say good-bye to you, and I will ask you to accept my very

best wishes for the welfare of your great country, sir, and your

personal welfare, too. Good-bye.”

The Admiral and Sir Hugo then vanished with Nikolai Vasilievich, and

Fanny Ivanovna went after them into the little hall to see them out,

while I remained behind.

“Sonia! Vera! Nina!” came from Fanny Ivanovna. “How dark! Light the

_elektrichno_!”

“Why don’t you tell her,” I said to the three sisters, “that it is not

‘_elektrichno_,’ but ‘_elektrichestvo_’?”

“We’ve told her hundreds of times,” they replied in unison, “but she

will have it her own way ‘_elektrichno_’ and ‘_elektrichno_.’”

The Admiral’s departure had set the ball spinning. Very soon the bulk of

them was gone. And then the incredible happened. The three American boys

arrived and took the three sisters to a dance. And on the eve of my

departure! I heard their laughing voices in the street, as the door

closed upon them. That settled it. How they enjoyed themselves! How they

enjoyed life! As for me, I would have to go home and pack.... That

settled it.

I sat alone with Nikolai Vasilievich and Fanny Ivanovna.

“Wasn’t Kniaz great?” said Nikolai Vasilievich.

“Who could have expected such eloquence from Kniaz?” said Fanny

Ivanovna.

“Last night,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “Fanny Ivanovna and Kniaz sat

alone and drank. They were quite drunk when I got home.” And he laughed

in a sad, kindly manner.

“We only had a little port,” said Fanny Ivanovna. “Kniaz drank but said

nothing. He _is_ a funny man. He bought some live chickens, and he keeps

telling me every day at supper that he will bring me fresh eggs as soon

as the chicks grow up and begin to lay. His contribution, you see, to

the supper he consumes here! The chickens have had time to grow into old

hens--but the eggs are not forthcoming. And when I say to him, ‘Kniaz,

what about these eggs?’ he answers in a tone as though I had wronged

him, ‘But, Fanny Ivanovna, they are only chickens yet.’”

“He is always borrowing money from me,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “and

he owes me many hundred thousand roubles--we have lost count, what with

the exchange!--and two days ago he borrowed forty roubles just to pay

his cab. He plays cards all day, and yesterday he won twenty thousand

roubles; and when Fanny Ivanovna suggested that he should pay me back,

at any rate some of his debt, he gave me back the forty roubles!”

Nikolai Vasilievich smiled again in a sad and kindly manner. What

beautiful and kindly eyes he had....

And then we talked of Petersburg and the old days, of pre-war Easter,

and their charming house in the Mohovaya.

“And do you remember the _Three Sisters_, Nikolai Vasilievich?”

“Don’t I! I was so wild that night because I had to miss an appointment

I had made with Zina. Oh, I was so wild that night....” He looked at his

watch.

“Well!” he said, and rose, yawning. “I’ve got to go.”

He put on his coat, for the night was fresh and damp, and his goloshes,

as the roads were muddy. We heard the door close on him as he went out.

“Always going to Zina’s?”

“Yes,” said Fanny Ivanovna. “But it’s quite all right. They play cards

there every night.” And then added for further reassurance: “He is

passionately fond of cards ... and it keeps him occupied....”

“And do you remember that other play ... at the Saburov?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.... Oh, what was the ending of that play? We had

to leave before the end. I was curious how it would end. But I think you

stayed to the last?”

“Yes.... She is waiting for him to come back to her. She is waiting

confidently because he has left his silk hat on the table. So she is

waiting. But his valet comes and takes the hat; and she breaks down--and

curtain!”

“Oh,” she said.

“Nikolai Vasilievich liked it,” I observed.

“Did he like it?”

She did not like it. By her face I could see that she did not like his

liking it. It was as if the thing was peculiarly discordant with her own

mood and trend of thought, as if she feared, against her hope, that

Nikolai Vasilievich, in spite of all, might one day follow the example

of the gentleman with the silk hat ... and send Stanitski to her for his

suits and underclothes.

She brooded.

“How long ago it seems,” she said at last. “To think how long ago!...

and we are still the same. Nothing has changed ... nothing. Then it was

the climax, and we held our breath expecting that now ... now something

_must_ happen. Nothing happened. Then our whole life stood on edge, and

the edge was sharp. We felt that the crisis could not last. We waited

for an explosion. But it never came. The crisis still dragged on: it

lapsed into a perpetual crisis; but the edges blunted. And nothing

happened. Life drags on: a series of compromises. And we drag along, and

try to patch it up ... but it won’t. And it won’t break. And nothing

happens. Nothing ever happens. Nothing happens....”

“When I was very young,” I said, “I thought that life must have a plot,

like a novel. But life is most unlike a novel; more ludicrous than a

novel. Perhaps it is a good thing that it is. I don’t want to be a

novel. I don’t want to be a story or a plot. I want to live my life as a

life, not as a story.”

“Yes,” she said, pursuing her own thought. “Nothing happens.

_Nothing_....”

The black night gazed through the window. The samovar produced

melancholy notes. Tea was getting cold on the table.

XII

“Would she come?” I thought, as next morning we drove off to the wharf.

We passed a lonely square with a solitary Chink with a tin sword. That

was the last we saw of Vladivostok.

The family came to see us off in practically its full strength. But she

did not come. That settled it.

Nikolai Vasilievich was unshaven--a perfectly correct omission in a

Russian gentleman. He wore blue spectacles, a bowler hat, a summer coat

and goloshes. On the pier we talked of the political situation. The

Admiral repeated but one phrase: “We are not to blame.” The Russian

General shook his head and blamed some vague, unknown power in rather

vague, indefinite terms with a rather vague, indefinite blame, and then

summed up the situation with “I told you so!” though the substance of

his telling was all very mysterious. But both fools and wise men alike

had long given up the attempt to discover any meaning whatsoever in this

resplendent General’s utterances; and if they listened to him at all,

their attention was usually concentrated on his face or uniform or any

other object near at hand.

She had not come. That settled it.

It rained, as on the day we arrived.

Then the Admiral came up to Nikolai Vasilievich to say good-bye. “Well,

Nikolai Vasilievich,” he said, “what will you do?”

“Well ... I’ll wait,” said Nikolai Vasilievich. “I don’t think it can be

long now....”