I know that that evening I found it impossible to remain in my lonely

rooms; I went round to the Markovitch flat. I found Vera Michailovna and

Bohun preparing to go out; they were alone in the flat. He looked at me

apprehensively. I think that I appeared to him at that time a queer,

moody, ill-disposed fellow, who was too old to understand the true

character of young men's impetuous souls. It may be that he was

right....

"Will you come with us, Ivan Andreievitch?" Vera Michailovna asked me.

"We're going to the little cinema on Ekateringofsky--a piece of local

colour for Mr. Bohun."

"I'll come anywhere with you," I said. "And we'll talk about Rasputin."

Bohun was only too ready. The affair seemed to his romantic soul too

good to be true. Because we none of us knew, at that time, what had

really happened, a fine field was offered for every rumour and

conjecture.

Bohun had collected some wonderful stories. I saw that, apart from

Rasputin, he was a new man--something had happened to him. It was not

long before I discovered that what had happened was that Vera

Michailovna had been kind to him. Vera's most beautiful quality was her

motherliness. I do not intend that much-abused word in any sentimental

fashion. She did not shed tears over a dirty baby in the street, nor did

she drag decrepit old men into the flat to give them milk and fifty

kopecks,--but let some one appeal to the strength and bravery in her,

and she responded magnificently. I believe that to be true of very many

Russian women, who are always their most natural selves when something

appeals to the best in them. Vera Michailovna had a strength and a

security in her protection of souls weaker than her own that had about

it nothing forced or pretentious or self-conscious--it was simply the

natural woman acting as she was made to act. She saw that Bohun was

lonely and miserable and, now that the first awkwardness was passed and

he was no longer a stranger, she was able, gently and unobtrusively, to

show him that she was his friend. I think that she had not liked him at

first; but if you want a Russian to like you, the thing to do is to show

him that you need him. It is amazing to watch their readiness to receive

dependent souls whom they are in no kind of way qualified to

protect--but they do their best, and although the result is invariably

bad for everybody's character, a great deal of affection is created.

As we walked to the cinema she asked him, very gently and rather shyly,

about his home and his people and English life. She must have asked all

her English guests the same questions, but Bohun, I fancy, gave her

rather original answers. He let himself go, and became very young and

rather absurd, but also sympathetic. We were, all three of us, gay and

silly, as one very often suddenly is, in Russia, in the middle of even

disastrous situations. It had been a day of most beautiful weather, the

mud was frozen, the streets clean, the sky deep blue, the air harshly

sweet. The night blazed with stars that seemed to swing through the haze

of the frost like a curtain moved, very gently, by the wind. The

Ekateringofsky Canal was blue with the stars lying like scraps of

quicksilver all about it, and the trees and houses were deep black in

outline above it. I could feel that the people in the street were happy.

The murder of Rasputin was a sign, a symbol; his figure had been behind

the scenes so long that it had become mythical, something beyond human

power--and now, behold, it was not beyond human power at all, but was

there like a dead stinking fish. I could see the thought in their minds

as they hurried along: "Ah, he is gone, the dirty fellow--_Slava

Bogu_--the war will soon be over."

I, myself, felt the influence. Perhaps now the war would go better,

perhaps Stunner and Protopopoff and the rest of them would be dismissed,

and clean men... it was still time for the Czar.... And I heard Bohun,

in his funny, slow, childish Russian: "But you understand, Vera

Michailovna, that my father knows nothing about writing, nothing at

all--so that it wouldn't matter very much what he said.... Yes, he's

military--been in the Army always...."

Along the canal the little trees that in the spring would be green

flames were touched now very faintly by silver frost. A huge barge lay

black against the blue water; in the middle of it the rain had left a

pool that was not frozen and under the light of a street lamp blazed

gold--very strange the sudden gleam.... We passed the little wooden

shelter where an old man in a high furry cap kept oranges and apples and

nuts and sweets in paper. One candle illuminated his little store. He

looked out from the darkness behind him like an old prehistoric man. His

shed was peaked like a cocked hat, an old fat woman sat beside him

knitting and drinking a glass of tea....

"I'm sorry, Vera Michailovna, that you can't read English...." Bohun's

careful voice was explaining, "Only Wells and Locke and Jack London...."

I heard Vera Michailovna's voice. Then Bohun again:

"No, I write very slowly--yes, I correct an awful lot...."

We stumbled amongst the darkness of the cobbles; where pools had been

the ice crackled beneath our feet, then the snow scrunched.... I loved

the sound, the sharp clear scent of the air, the pools of stars in the

sky, the pools of ice at our feet, the blue like the thinnest glass

stretched across the sky. I felt the poignancy of my age, of the country

where I was, of Bohun's youth and confidence, of the war, of disease and

death--but behind it all happiness at the strange sense that I had

to-night, that came to me sometimes from I knew not where, that the

undercurrent of the river of life was stronger than the eddies and

whirlpools on its surface, that it knew whither it was speeding, and

that the purpose behind its force was strong and true and good....

"Oh," I heard Bohun say, "I'm not really very young, Vera Michailovna.

After all, it's what you've done rather than your actual years...."

"You're older than you'll ever be again, Bohun, if that's any

consolation to you," I said.

We had arrived. The cinema door blazed with light, and around it was

gathered a group of soldiers and women and children, peering in at a

soldiers' band, which, placed on benches in a corner of the room, played

away for its very life. Outside, around the door were large bills

announcing "The Woman without a Soul, Drama in four parts," and there

were fine pictures of women falling over precipices, men shot in

bedrooms, and parties in which all the guests shrank back in extreme

horror from the heroine. We went inside and were overwhelmed by the

band, so that we could not hear one another speak. The floor was covered

with sunflower seeds, and there was a strong smell of soldiers' boots

and bad cigarettes and urine. We bought tickets from an old Jewess

behind the pigeon-hole and then, pushing the curtain aside, stumbled

into darkness. Here the smell was different, being, quite simply that of

human flesh not very carefully washed. Although, as we stumbled to some

seats at the back, we could feel that we were alone, it had the

impression that multitudes of people pressed in upon us, and when the

lights did go up we found that the little hall was indeed packed to its

extremest limit.

No one could have denied that it was a cheerful scene. Soldiers,

sailors, peasants, women, and children crowded together upon the narrow

benches. There was a great consumption of sunflower seeds, and the

narrow passage down the middle of the room was littered with fragments.

Two stout and elaborate policemen leaned against the wall surveying the

public with a friendly if superior air. There was a tremendous amount of

noise. Mingled with the strains of the band beyond the curtain were

cries and calls and loud roars of laughter. The soldiers embraced the

girls, and the children, their fingers in their mouths, wandered from

bench to bench, and a mangy dog begged wherever he thought that he saw a

kindly face. All the faces were kindly--kindly, ignorant, and

astoundingly young. As I felt that youth I felt also separation; I and

my like could emphasise as we pleased the goodness, docility, mysticism

even of these people, but we were walking in a country of darkness. I

caught a laugh, the glance of some women, the voice of a young

soldier--I felt behind us, watching us, the thick heavy figure of

Rasputin. I smelt the eastern scent of the sunflower seeds, I looked

back and glanced at the impenetrable superiority of the two policemen,

and I laughed at myself for the knowledge that I thought I had, for the

security upon which I thought that I rested, for the familiarity with

which I had fancied I could approach my neighbours.... I was not wise, I

was not secure, I had no claim to familiarity....

The lights were down and we were shown pictures of Paris. Because the

cinema was a little one and the prices small the films were faded and

torn, so that the Opera and the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre and

the Seine danced and wriggled and broke before our eyes. They looked

strange enough to us and only accented our isolation and the odd

semi-civilisation in which we were living. There were comments all

around the room in exactly the spirit of children before a conjurer at a

party.... The smell grew steadily stronger and stronger... my head swam

a little and I seemed to see Rasputin, swelling in his black robe,

catching us all into its folds, sweeping us up into the starlight sky.

We were under the flare of the light again. I caught Bohun's happy eyes;

he was talking eagerly to Vera Michailovna, not removing his eyes from

her face. She had conquered him; I fancied as I looked at her that her

thoughts were elsewhere.

There followed a Vaudeville entertainment. A woman and a man in

peasants' dress came and laughed raucously, without meaning, their eyes

narrowly searching the depths of the house, then they stamped their feet

and whirled around, struck one another, laughed again, and vanished.

The applause was half-hearted. Then there was a trainer of dogs, a

black-eyed Tartar with four very miserable little fox-terriers, who

shivered and trembled and jumped reluctantly through hoops. The audience

liked this, and cried and shouted and threw paper pellets at the dogs. A

stout perspiring Jew in a shabby evening suit came forward and begged

for decorum. Then there appeared a stout little man in a top hat who

wished to recite verses of, I gathered, a violent indecency. I was

uncomfortable about Vera Michailovna, but I need not have been. The

indecency was of no importance to her, and she was interested in the

human tragedy of the performer. Tragedy it was. The man was hungry and

dirty and not far from tears. He forgot his verses and glanced nervously

into the wings as though he expected to be beaten publicly by the

perspiring Jew.

He stammered; his mouth wobbled; he covered it with a dirty hand. He

could not continue.

The audience was sympathetic. They listened in encouraging silence; then

they clapped; then they shouted friendly words to him. You could feel

throughout the room an intense desire that he should succeed. He

responded a little to the encouragement, but could not remember his

verses. He struggled, struggled, did a hurried little breakdown dance,

bowed and vanished into the wings, to be beaten, I have no doubt, by the

Jewish gentleman. We watched a little of the "Drama of the Woman without

a Soul," but the sense of being in a large vat filled with boiling human

flesh into whose depths we were pressed ever more and more deeply was at

last too much for us, and we stumbled our way into the open air. The

black shadow of the barge, the jagged outline of the huddled buildings

against the sky, the black tower at the end of the canal, all these swam

in the crystal air.

We took deep breaths of the freshness and purity; cheerful noises were

on every side of us, the band and laughter; a church bell with its deep

note and silver tinkle; the snow was vast and deep and hard all about

us. We walked back very happily to Anglisky Prospect. Vera Michailovna

said good-night to me and went in. Before he followed her, Bohun turned

round to me:

"Isn't she splendid?" he whispered. "By God, Durward, I'd do anything

for her.... Do you think she likes me?"

"Why not?" I asked.

"I want her to--frightfully. I'd do anything for her. Do you think she'd

like to learn English?"

"I don't know," I said. "Ask her."

He disappeared. As I walked home I felt about me the new interaction of

human lives and souls--ambitions, hopes, youth. And the crisis, behind

these, of the world's history made up, as it was, of the same

interactions of human and divine. The fortunes and adventures of the

soul on its journey towards its own country, its hopes and fears,

struggles and despairs, its rejections and joy and rewards--its death

and destruction--all this in terms of human life and the silly

blundering conditions of this splendid glorious earth.... Here was Vera

Michailovna and her husband, Nina and Boris Grogoff, Bohun and Lawrence,

myself and Semyonov--a jumbled lot--with all our pitiful self-important

little histories, our crimes and virtues so insignificant and so quickly

over, and behind them the fine stuff of the human and divine soul,

pushing on through all raillery and incongruity to its goal. Why, I had

caught up, once more, that interest in life that I had, I thought, so

utterly lost! I stopped for a moment by the frozen canal and laughed to

myself. The drama of life was, after all, too strong for my weak

indifference. I felt that night as though I had stepped into a new house

with lighted rooms and fires and friends waiting for me. Afterwards, I

was so closely stirred by the sense of impending events that I could not

sleep, but sat at my window watching the faint lights of the sky shift

and waver over the frozen ice....

X

We were approaching Christmas. The weather of these weeks was

wonderfully beautiful, sharply cold, the sky pale bird's-egg blue, the

ice and the snow glittering, shining with a thousand colours. There

began now a strange relationship between Markovitch and myself.

There was something ineffectual and pessimistic about me that made

Russians often feel in me a kindred soul. At the Front, Russians had

confided in me again and again, but that was not astonishing, because

they confided in every one. Nevertheless, they felt that I was less

English than the rest, and rather blamed me in their minds, I think, for

being so. I don't know what it was that suddenly decided Markovitch to

"make me part of his life." I certainly did not on my side make any

advances.

One evening he came to see me and stayed for hours. Then he came two or

three times within the following fortnight. He gave me the effect of not

caring in the least whether I were there or no, whether I replied or

remained silent, whether I asked questions or simply pursued my own

work. And I, on my side, had soon in my consciousness his odd,

irascible, nervous, pleading, shy and boastful figure painted

permanently, so that his actual physical presence seemed to be

unimportant. There he was, as he liked to stand up against the white

stove in my draughty room, his rather dirty nervous hands waving in

front of me, his thin hair on end, his ragged beard giving his eyes an

added expression of anxiety. His body was a poor affair, his legs thin

and uncertain, an incipient stomach causing his waistcoat suddenly to

fall inwards somewhere half-way up his chest, his feet in ill-shapen

boots, and his neck absurdly small inside his high stiff collar. His

stiff collar jutting sharply into his weak chin was perhaps his most

striking feature. Most Russians of his careless habits wore soft collars

or students' shirts that fastened tight about the neck, but this high

white collar was with Markovitch a sign and a symbol, the banner of his

early ambitions; it was the first and last of him. He changed it every

day, it was always high and sharp, gleaming and clean, and it must have

hurt him very much. He wore with it a shabby black tie that ran as far

up the collar as it could go, and there was a sense of pathos and

struggle about this tie as though it were a wild animal trying to escape

over an imprisoning wall. He would stand clutching my stove as though it

assured his safety in a dangerous country; then suddenly he would break

away from it and start careering up and down my room, stopping for an

instant to gaze through my window at the sea and the ships, then off

again, swinging his arms, his anxious eyes searching everywhere for

confirmation of the ambitions that still enflamed him.

For the root and soul of him was that he was greatly ambitious. He had

been born, I learnt, in some small town in the Moscow province, and his

father had been a schoolmaster in the place--a kind of Perodonov, I

should imagine, from the things that Markovitch told me about him. The

father, at any rate, was a mean, malicious, and grossly sensual

creature, and he finally lost his post through his improper behaviour

towards some of his own small pupils. The family then came to evil days,

and at a very early age young Markovitch was sent to Petrograd to earn

what he could with his wits. He managed to secure the post of a

secretary to an old fellow who was engaged in writing the life of his

grandfather--a difficult book, as the grandfather had been a voluminous

letter-writer, and this correspondence had to be collected and

tabulated. For months, and even years, young Markovitch laboriously

endeavoured to arrange these old yellow letters, dull, pathetic,

incoherent. His patron grew slowly imbecile, but through the fogs that

increasingly besieged him saw only this one thing clearly, that the

letters must be arranged. He kept Markovitch relentlessly at his table,

allowing him no pleasures, feeding him miserably and watching him

personally undress every evening lest he should have secreted certain

letters somewhere on his body. There was something almost sadist

apparently in the old gentleman's observation of Markovitch's labours.

It was during these years that Markovitch's ambitions took flame. He was

always as he told me having "amazing ideas." I asked him--What kind of

ideas? "Ideas by which the world would be transformed.... Those letters

were all old, you know, and dusty, and yellow, and eaten, some of them,

by rats, and they'd lie on the floor and I'd try to arrange them in

little piles according to their dates.... There'd be rows of little

packets all across the floor..., and then somehow, when one's back was

turned, they'd move, all of their own wicked purpose--and one would have

to begin all over again, bending with one's back aching, and seeing

always the stupid handwriting.... I hated it, Ivan Andreievitch, of

course I hated it, but I had to do it for the money. And I lived in his

house, too, and as he got madder it wasn't pleasant. He wanted me to

sleep with him because he saw things in the middle of the night, and

he'd catch hold of me and scream and twist his fat legs round me... no,

it wasn't agreeable. _On ne sympatichne saff-szem_. He wasn't a nice man

at all. But while I was sorting the letters these ideas would come to me

and I would be on fire.... It seemed to me that I was to save the world,

and that it would not be difficult if only one might be resolute enough.

That was the trouble--to be resolute. One might say to oneself, 'On

Friday October 13th I will do so and so, and then on Saturday November

3rd I will do so and so, and then on December 24th it will be finished.'

But then on October 13th one is, may be, in quite another mood--one is

even ill possibly--and so nothing is done and the whole plan is ruined.

I would think all day as to how I would make myself resolute, and I

would say when old Feodor Stepanovitch would pinch my ear and deny me

more soup, 'Ah ha, you wait, you old pig-face--you wait until I've

mastered my resolution--and then I'll show you!' I fancied, for

instance, that if I could command myself sufficiently I could just go to

people and say, 'You must have bath-houses like this and this'--I had

all the plans ready, you know, and in the hottest room you have couches

like this, and you have a machine that beats your back--so, so, so--not

those dirty old things that leave bits of green stuff all over you--and

so on, and so on. But better ideas than that, ideas about poverty and

wealth, no more kings, you know, nor police, but not your cheap

Socialism that fellows like Boris Nicolaievitch shout about; no, real

happiness, so that no one need work as I did for an old beast who didn't

give you enough soup, and have to keep quiet, all the same and say

nothing. Ideas came like flocks of birds, so many that I couldn't

gather them all but had sometimes to let the best ones go. And I had no

one to talk to about them--only the old cook and the girl in the

kitchen, who had a child by old Feodor that he wouldn't own,--but she

swore it was his, and told every one the time when it happened and where

it was and all.... Then the old man fell downstairs and broke his neck,

and he'd left me some money to go on with the letters...."

At this point Markovitch's face would become suddenly triumphantly

malevolent, like the face of a schoolboy who remembers a trick that he

played on a hated master. "Do you think I went on with them, Ivan

Andreievitch? no, not I... but I kept the money."

"That was wrong of you," I would say gravely.

"Yes--wrong of course. But hadn't he been wrong always? And after all,

isn't everybody wrong? We Russians have no conscience, you know, about

anything, and that's simply because we can't make up our minds as to

what's wrong and what's right, and even if we do make up our minds it

seems a pity not to let yourself go when you may be dead to-morrow.

Wrong and right.... What words!... Who knows? Perhaps it would have been

the greatest wrong in the world to go on with the letters, wasting

everybody's time, and for myself, too, who had so many ideas, that life

simply would never be long enough to think them all out."

It seemed that shortly after this he had luck with a little invention,

and this piece of luck was, I should imagine, the ruin of his career, as

pieces of luck so often are the ruin of careers. I could never

understand what precisely his invention was, it had something to do with

the closing of doors, something that you pulled at the bottom of the

door, so that it shut softly and didn't creak with the wind. A Jew

bought the invention, and gave Markovitch enough money to lead him

confidently to believe that his fortune was made. Of course it was not,

he never had luck with an invention again, but he was bursting with

pride and happiness, set up house for himself in a little flat on the

Vassily Ostrov--and met Vera Michailovna. I wish I could give some true

idea of the change that came over him when he reached this part of his

story. When he had spoken of his childhood, his father, his first

struggles to live, his life with his old patron, he had not attempted to

hide the evil, the malice, the envy that there was in his soul. He had

even emphasised it, I might fancy, for my own especial benefit, so that

I might see that he was not such a weak, romantic, sentimental creature

as I had supposed--although God knows I had never fancied him romantic.

Now when he spoke of his wife his whole body changed. "She married me

out of pity," he told me. "I hated her for that, and I loved her for

that, and I hate and love her for it still."

Here I interrupted him and told him that perhaps it was better that he

should not confide in me the inner history of his marriage.

"Why not?" he asked me suspiciously.

"Because I'm only an acquaintance, you scarcely know me. You may regret

it afterwards when you're in another mood."

"Oh, you English!" he said contemptuously; "you're always to be trusted.

As a nation you're not, but as one man to another you're not interested

enough in human nature to give away secrets."

"Well, tell me what you like," I said. "Only I make no promises about

anything."

"I don't want you to," he retorted; "I'm only telling you what every one

knows. Wasn't I aware from the first moment that she married me out of

pity, and didn't they all know it, and laugh and tell her she was a

fool. She knew that she was a fool too, but she was very young, and

thought it fine to sacrifice herself for an idea. I was ill and I talked

to her about my future. She believed in it, she thought I could do

wonderful things if only some one looked after me. And at the same time

despised me for wanting to be looked after.... And then I wasn't so ugly

as I am now. She had some money of her own, and we took in lodgers, and

I loved her, as I love her now, so that I could kiss her feet and then

hate her because she was kind to me. She only cares for her sister,

Nina; and because I was jealous of the girl and hated to see Vera good

to her I had her to live with us, just to torture myself and show that I

was stronger than all of them if I liked.... And so I am, than her

beastly uncle the doctor and all the rest of them--let him do what he

likes...."

It was the first time that he had mentioned Semyonov.

"He's coming back," I said.

"Oh, is he?" snarled Markovitch. "Well, he'd better look out." Then his

voice, his face, even the shape of his body, changed once again. "I'm

not a bad man, Ivan Andreievitch. No, I'm not.... You think so of

course, and I don't mind if you do. But I love Vera, and if she loved me

I could do great things. I could astonish them all. I hear them say,

'Ah, that Nicholas Markovitch, he's no good... with his inventions.

What did a fine woman like that marry such a man for?' I know what they

say. But I'm strong if I like. I gave up drink when I wished. I can give

up anything. And when I succeed they'll see--and then we'll have enough

money not to need these people staying with us and despising us...."

"No one despises you, Nicolai Leontievitch," I interrupted.

"And what does it matter if they do?" he fiercely retorted. "I despise

them--all of them. It's easy for them when everything goes well with

them, but with me everything goes wrong. Everything!... But I'm strong

enough to make everything go right--and I will."

This was, for the time, the end of his confidences. He had, I was sure,

something further to tell me, some plan, some purpose, but he decided

suddenly that he would keep it to himself, although I am convinced that

he had only told me his earlier story in order that I might understand

this new idea of his. But I did not urge him to tell me. My interest in

life had not yet sufficiently revived; it was, after all, none of my

business.

For the rest, it seemed that he had been wildly enthusiastic about the

war at its commencement. He had had great ideas about Russia, but now he

had given up all hope. Russia was doomed; and Germany, whom he hated and

admired, would eat her up. And what did it matter? Perhaps Germany would

"run Russia," and then there would be order and less thieving, and this

horrible war would stop. How foolish it had been to suppose that any one

in Russia would ever do anything. They were all fools and knaves and

idle in Russia--like himself.

And so he left me.

XI

On Christmas Eve, late in the evening, I went into a church. It was my

favourite church in Petrograd, rising at the English Prospect end of the

Quay, with its white rounded towers pure and quiet and modest.

I had been depressed all day. I had not been well, and the weather was

harsh, a bitterly cold driving wind beating down the streets and

stroking the ice of the canal into a dull grey colour. Christmas seemed

to lift into sharper, bitterer irony the ghastly horrors of this end

endless war. Last Christmas I had been too ill to care, and the

Christmas before I had been at the Front when the war had been young and

full of hope, and I had seen enough nobility and self-sacrifice to be

reassured about the true stuff of the human soul. Now all that seemed to

be utterly gone. On the one side my mind was filled with my friends,

John Trenchard and Marie Ivanovna. The sacrifice that they had made

seemed to be wicked and useless. I had lost altogether that conviction

of the continuance and persistence of their souls that I had, for so

long, carried with me. They were dead, dead... simply dead. There at

the Front one had believed in many things. Here in this frozen and

starving town, with every ghost working against every human, there was

assurance of nothing--only deep foreboding and an ominous silence. The

murder of Rasputin still hung over every head. The first sense of

liberty had passed, and now his dirty malicious soul seemed to be

watching us all, reminding us that he had not left us, but was waiting

for the striking of some vast catastrophe that the friends whom he had

left behind him to carry on his work were preparing. It was this sense

of moving so desperately and so hopelessly in the dark that was with me.

Any chance that there had seemed to be of Russia rising from the war

with a free soul appeared now to be utterly gone. Before our eyes the

powers that ruled us were betraying us, laughing at us, selling us. And

we did not know who was our enemy, who our friend, whom to believe, of

whom to take counsel. Peculation and lying and the basest intrigue was

on every side of us, hunger for which there was no necessity, want in a

land packed with everything. I believe that there may have been very

well another side to the picture, but at that time we could not see; we

did not wish to see, we were blindfolded men....

I entered the church and found that the service was over. I passed

through the aisle into the little rounded cup of dark and gold where the

altars were. Here there were still collected a company of people,

kneeling, some of them, in front of the candles, others standing there,

motionless like statues, their hands folded, gazing before them. The

candles flung a mist of dim embroidery upon the walls, and within the

mist the dark figures of the priests moved to and fro. An old priest

with long white hair was standing behind a desk close to me, and reading

a long prayer in an unswerving monotonous voice. There was the scent of

candles and cold stone and hot human breath in the little place. The

tawdry gilt of the Ikons glittered in the candle-light, and an echo of

the cold wind creeping up the long dark aisle blew the light about so

that the gilt was like flashing piercing eyes. I wrapped my Shuba

closely about me, and stood there lost in a hazy, indefinite dream.

I was comforted and touched by the placid, mild, kindly faces of those

standing near me. "No evil here...." I thought. "Only ignorance, and for

that others are responsible."

I was lost in my dream and I did not know of what I was dreaming. The

priest's voice went on, and the lights flickered, and it was as though

some one, a long way off, were trying to give me a message that it was

important that I should hear, important for myself and for others. There

came over me, whence I know not, a sudden conviction of the fearful

power of Evil, a sudden realisation, as though I had been shown

something, a scene or a picture or writing which had brought this home

to me.... The lights seemed to darken, the priest's figure faded, and I

felt as though the message that some one had been trying to deliver to

me had been withdrawn. I waited a moment, looking about me in a

bewildered fashion, as though I had in reality just woken from sleep.

Then I left the church.

Outside the cold air was intense. I walked to the end of the Quay and

leaned on the stone parapet. The Neva seemed vast like a huge, white,

impending shadow; it swept in a colossal wave of frozen ice out to the

far horizon, where tiny, twinkling lights met it and closed it in. The

bridges that crossed it held forth their lights, and there were the

gleams, like travelling stars, of the passing trams, but all these were

utterly insignificant against the vast body of the contemptuous ice. On

the farther shore the buildings rose in a thin, tapering line, looking

as though they had been made of black tissue paper, against the solid

weight of the cold, stony sky. The Peter and Paul Fortress, the towers

of the Mohammedan Mosque were thin, immaterial, ghostly, and the whole

line of the town was simply a black pencilled shadow against the ice,

smoke that might be scattered with one heave of the force of the river.

The Neva was silent, but beneath that silence beat what force and power,

what contempt and scorn, what silent purposes?

I saw then, near me, and gazing, like myself, on to the river the tall,

broad figure of a peasant, standing, without movement, black against the

sky.

He seemed to dominate the scene, to be stronger and more contemptuous

than the ice itself, but also to be in sympathy with it.

I made some movement, and he turned and looked at me. He was a fine man,

with a black beard and noble carriage. He passed down the Quay and I

turned towards home.

XII

About four o'clock on Christmas afternoon I took some flowers to Vera

Michailovna. I found that the long sitting-room had been cleared of all

furniture save the big table and the chairs round it. About a dozen

middle-aged ladies were sitting about the table and solemnly playing

"Lotto." So serious were they that they scarcely looked up when I came

in. Vera Michailovna said my name and they smiled and some of them

bowed, but their eyes never left the numbered cards. "_Dvar...

Peedecat... Cheteeriy... Zurock Tree... Semdecet Voisim_"... came from a

stout and good-natured lady reading the numbers as she took them from

the box. Most of the ladies were healthy, perspiring, and of a most

amiable appearance. They might, many of them, have been the wives of

English country clergymen, so domestic and unalarmed were they. I

recognised two Markovitch aunts and a Semyonov cousin.

There was a hush and a solemnity about the proceedings. Vera Michailovna

was very busy in the kitchen, her face flushed and her sleeves rolled

up; Sacha, the servant, malevolently assisting her and scolding

continually the stout and agitated country girl who had been called in

for the occasion.

"All goes well," Vera smilingly assured me. "Half-past six it is--don't

be late."

"I will be in time," I said.

"Do you know, I've asked your English friend. The big one."

"Lawrence?... Is he coming?"

"Yes. At least I understood so on the telephone, but he sounded

confused. Do you think he will want to come?"

"I'm sure he will," I answered.

"Afterwards I wasn't sure. I thought he might think it impertinent when

we know him so little. But he could easily have said if he didn't want

to come, couldn't he?"

There seemed to me something unusual in the way that she asked me these

questions. She did not usually care whether people were offended or no.

She had not time to consider that, and in any case she despised people

who took offence easily.

I would perhaps have said something, but the country girl dropped a

plate and Sacha leapt upon the opportunity. "Drunk!... What did I say,

having such a girl? Is it not better to do things for yourself? But

no--of course no one cares for my advice, as though last year the same

thing...." And so on.

I left them and went home to prepare for the feast.

I returned punctually at half-past six and found every one there. Many

of the ladies had gone, but the aunts remained, and there were other

uncles and some cousins. We must have been in all between twenty and

thirty people. The table was now magnificently spread. There was a fine

glittering Father Christmas in the middle, a Father Christmas of German

make, I am afraid. Ribbons and frosted strips of coloured paper ran in

lines up and down the cloth. The "Zakuska" were on a side-table near

the door--herrings and ham and smoked fish and radishes and mushrooms

and tongue and caviare and, most unusual of all in those days, a

decanter of vodka.

No one had begun yet; every one stood about, a little uneasy and

awkward, with continuous glances flung at the "Zakuska" table. Of the

company Markovitch first caught my eye. I had never seen him so clean

and smart before. His high, piercing collar was of course the first

thing that one saw; then one perceived that his hair was brushed, his

beard trimmed, and that he wore a very decent suit of rather shiny

black. This washing and scouring of him gave him a curiously subdued and

imprisoned air; I felt sympathetic towards him; I could see that he was

anxious to please, happy at the prospect of being a successful host,

and, to-night, most desperately in love with his wife. That last stood

out and beyond all else. His eyes continually sought her face; he had

the eyes of a dog watching and waiting for its master's appreciative

word.

I had never before seen Vera Michailovna so fine and independent and, at

the same time, so kind and gracious. She was dressed in white, very

plain and simple, her shining black hair piled high on her head, her

kind, good eyes watching every one and everything to see that all were

pleased. She, too, was happy to-night, but happy also in a strange,

subdued, quiescent way, and I felt, as I always did about her, that her

soul was still asleep and untouched, and that much of her reliance and

independence came from that. Uncle Ivan was in his smart clothes, his

round face very red and he wore his air of rather ladylike but

inoffensive superiority. He stood near the table with the "Zakuska," and

his eyes rested there. I do not now remember many of the Markovitch and

Semyonov relations. There was a tall thin young man, rather bald, with a

short black moustache; he was nervous and self-assertive, and he had a

high, shrill voice. He talked incessantly. There were several

delightful, middle-aged women, quiet and ready to be pleased with

everything--the best Russian type of all perhaps, women who knew life,

who were generously tolerant, kind-hearted, with a quiet sense of humour

and no nonsense about them. There was one fat red-faced man in a very

tight black coat, who gave his opinion always about food and drink. He

was from Moscow--his name Paul Leontievitch Rozanov--and I met him on a

later occasion of which I shall have to tell in its place. Then there

were two young girls who giggled a great deal and whispered together.

They hung around Nina and stroked her hair and admired her dress, and

laughed at Boris Grogoff and any one else who was near them.

Nina was immensely happy. She loved parties of course, and especially

parties in which she was the hostess. She was like a young kitten or

puppy in a white frock, with her hair tumbling over her eyes. She was

greatly excited, and as joyous as though there were no war, and no

afflicted Russia, and nothing serious in all the world. This was the

first occasion on which I suspected that Grogoff cared for her.

Outwardly he did nothing but chaff and tease her, and she responded in

that quick rather sharp and very often crudely personal way at which

foreigners for the first time in Russian company so often wonder.

Badinage with Russians so quickly passes to lively and noisy

quarrelling, which in its turn so suddenly fades into quiet contented

amiability that it is little wonder that the observer feels rather

breathless at it all. Grogoff was a striking figure, with his fine

height and handsome head and bold eyes, but there was something about

him that I did not like. Immensely self-confident, he nevertheless

seldom opened his mouth without betraying great ignorance about almost

everything. He was hopelessly ill-educated, and was the more able

therefore from the very little knowledge that he had to construct a very

simple Socialist creed in which the main statutes were that everything

should be taken from the rich and given to the poor, the peasants

should have all the land, and the rulers of the world be beheaded. He

had no knowledge of other countries, although he talked very freely of

what he called his "International Principles." I could not respect him

as I could many Russian revolutionaries, because he had never on any

occasion put himself out or suffered any inconvenience for his

principles, living as he did, comfortably, with all the food and clothes

that he needed. At the same time he was, on the other hand, kindly and

warm-hearted, and professed friendship for me, although he despised what

he called my "Capitalistic tendencies." Had he only known, he was far

richer and more autocratic than I!

In the midst of this company Henry Bohun was rather shy and

uncomfortable. He was suspicious always that they would laugh at his

Russian (what mattered it if they did?), and he was distressed by the

noise and boisterous friendliness of every one. I could not help smiling

to myself as I watched him. He was learning very fast. He would not tell

any one now that "he really thought that he did understand Russia," nor

would he offer to put his friends right about Russian characteristics

and behaviour. He watched the young giggling girls, and the fat Rozanov,

and the shrill young man with ill-concealed distress. Very far these

from the Lizas and Natachas of his literary imagination--and yet not so

far either, had he only known.

He pinned all his faith, as I could see, to Vera Michailovna, who did

gloriously fulfil his self-instituted standards. And yet he did not know

her at all! He was to suffer pain there too.

At dinner he was unfortunately seated between one of the giggling girls

and a very deaf old lady who was the great-aunt of Nina and Vera. This

old lady trembled like an aspen leaf, and was continually dropping

beneath the table a little black bag that she carried. She could make

nothing of Bohun's Russian, even if she heard it, and was under the

impression that he was a Frenchman. She began a long quivering story

about Paris to which she had once been, how she had lost herself, and

how a delightful Frenchman had put her on her right path again.... "A

chivalrous people, your countrymen".... she repeated, nodding her head

so that her long silver earrings rattled again--"gay and chivalrous!"

Bohun was not, I am afraid, as chivalrous as he might have been, because

he knew that the girl on his other side was laughing at his attempts to

explain that he was not a Frenchman. "Stupid old woman!" he said to me

afterwards. "She dropped her bag under the table at least twenty times!"

Meanwhile the astonishing fact was that the success of the dinner was

Jerry Lawrence. He was placed on Vera Michailovna's left hand, Rozanov,

the Moscow merchant near to him, and I did not hear him say anything

very bright or illuminating, but every one felt, I think, that he was a

cheerful and dependable person. I always felt, when I observed him, that

he understood the Russian character far better than any of us. He had

none of the self-assertion of the average Englishman and, at the same

time, he had his opinions and his preferences. He took every kind of

chaff with good-humoured indifference, but I think it was above

everything else his tolerance that pleased the Russians. Nothing shocked

him, which did not at all mean that he had no code of honour or morals.

His code was severe and stern, but his sense of human fallibility, and

the fine fight that human nature was always making against stupendous

odds stirred him to a fine and comprehending clarity. He had many

faults. He was obstinate, often dull and lethargic, in many ways grossly

ill-educated and sometimes wilfully obtuse--but he was a fine friend, a

noble enemy, and a chivalrous lover. There was nothing mean nor petty in

him, and his views of life and the human soul were wider and more

all-embracing than in any Englishman I have ever known. You may say of

course that it is sentimental nonsense to suppose at all that the human

soul is making a fine fight against odds. Even I, at this period, was

tempted to think that it might be nonsense, but it is a view as good as

another, after all, and so ignorant are all of us that no one has a

right to say that anything is impossible!

After drinking the vodka and eating the "Zakuska," we sat down to table

and devoured crayfish soup. Every one became lively. Politics of course,

were discussed.

I heard Rozanov say, "Ah, you in Petrograd! What do you know of things?

Don't let me hurt any one's feelings, pray.... Most excellent soup, Vera

Michailovna--I congratulate you.... But you just wait until Moscow takes

things in hand. Why only the other day Maklakoff said to a friend of

mine--'It's all nonsense,' he said."

And the shrill-voiced young man told a story--"But it wasn't the same

man at all. She was so confused when she saw what she'd done, that I

give you my word she was on the point of crying. I could see tears...

just trembling--on the edge. 'Oh, I beg your pardon,' she said, and the

man was such a fool...."

Markovitch was busy about the drinks. There was some sherry and some

light red wine. Markovitch was proud of having been able to secure it.

He was beaming with pride. He explained to everybody how it had been

done. He walked round the table and stood, for an instant, with his hand

on Vera Michailovna's shoulder. The pies with fish and cabbage in them

were handed round. He jested with the old great-aunt. He shouted in her

ear:

"Now, Aunt Isabella... some wine. Good for you, you know--keep you

young...."

"No, no, no..." she protested, laughing and shaking her earrings, with

tears in her eyes. But he filled her glass and she drank it and coughed,

still protesting.

"Thank you, thank you," she chattered as Bohun dived under the table and

found her bag for her. I saw that he did not like the crayfish soup,

and was distressed because he had so large a helping.

He blushed and looked at his plate, then began again to eat and stopped.

"Don't you like it?" one of the giggling girls asked him. "But it's very

good. Have another 'Pie!'"

The meal continued. There were little suckling pigs with "Kasha," a kind

of brown buckwheat. Every one was gayer and gayer. Now all talked at

once, and no one listened to anything that any one else said. Of them

all, Nina was by far the gayest. She had drunk no wine--she always said

that she could not bear the nasty stuff, and although every one tried to

persuade her, telling her that now when you could not get it anywhere,

it was wicked not to drink it, she would not change her mind. It was

simply youth and happiness that radiated from her, and also perhaps some

other excitement for which I could not account. Grogoff tried to make

her drink. She defied him. He came over to her chair, but she pushed him

away, and then lightly slapped his cheek. Every one laughed. Then he

whispered something to her. For an instant the gaiety left her eyes.

"You shouldn't say that!" she answered almost angrily. He went back to

his seat. I was sitting next to her, and she was very charming to me,

seeing that I had all that I needed and showing that she liked me. "You

mustn't be gloomy and ill and miserable," she whispered to me. "Oh! I've

seen you! There's no need. Come to us and we'll make you as happy as we

can--Vera and I.... We both love you."

"My dear, I'm much too old and stupid for you to bother about!"

She put her hand on my arm. "I know that I'm wicked and care only for

pleasure.... Vera's always saying so. But I can be better if you want me

to be."

This was flattering, but I knew that it was only her general happiness

that made her talk like that. And at once she was after something else.

"Your Englishman," she said, looking across the table at Lawrence, "I

like his face. I should be frightened of him, though."

"Oh no, you wouldn't," I answered. "He wouldn't hurt any one."

She continued to look at him and he, glancing up, their eyes met. She

smiled and he smiled. Then he raised his glass and drank.

"I mustn't drink," she called across the table. "It's only water and

that's bad luck."

"Oh, you can challenge any amount of bad luck--I'm sure," he called

back to her.

I fancied that Grogoff did not like this. He was drinking a great deal.

He roughly called Nina's attention.

"Nina... Ah--Nina!"

But she, although I am certain that she heard him, paid no attention.

He called again more loudly:

"Nina... Nina!"

"Well?" She turned towards him, her eyes laughing at him.

"Drink my health."

"I can't. I have only water."

"Then you must drink wine."

"I won't. I detest it."

"But you must."

He came over to her and poured a little red wine into her water. She

turned and emptied the glass over his hand. For an instant his face was

dark with rage.

"I'll pay you for that," I heard him whisper.

She shrugged her shoulders. "He's tiresome, Boris...." she said, "I like

your Englishman better."

We were ever gayer and gayer. There were now of course no cakes nor

biscuits, but there was jam with our tea, and there were even some

chocolates. I noticed that Vera and Lawrence were getting on together

famously. They talked and laughed, and her eyes were full of pleasure.

Markovitch came up and stood behind them, watching them. His eyes

devoured his wife.

"Vera!" he said suddenly.

"Yes!" she cried. She had not known that he was behind her; she was

startled. She turned round and he came forward and kissed her hand. She

let him do this, as she let him do everything, with the indulgence that

one allows a child. He stood, afterwards, half in the shadow, watching

her.

And now the moment for the event of the evening had arrived. The doors

of Markovitch's little work-room were suddenly opened, and

there--instead of the shabby untidy dark little hole--there was a

splendid Christmas Tree blazing with a hundred candles. Coloured balls

and frosted silver and wooden figures of red and blue hung all about the

tree--it was most beautifully done. On a table close at hand were

presents. We all clapped our hands. We were childishly delighted. The

old great-aunt cried with pleasure. Boris Grogoff suddenly looked like a

happy boy of ten. Happiest and proudest of them all was Markovitch. He

stood there, a large pair of scissors in his hand, waiting to cut the

string round the parcels. We said again and again, "Marvellous!"

"Wonderful!" "Splendid!"... "But this year--however did you find it,

Vera Michailovna?" "To take such trouble!..." "Splendid! Splendid!" Then

we were given our presents. Vera, it was obvious had chosen them, for

there was taste and discrimination in the choice of every one. Mine was

a little old religious figure in beaten silver--Lawrence had a silver

snuff-box.... Every one was delighted. We clapped our hands. We shouted.

Some one cried "Cheers for our host and hostess!"

We gave them, and in no half measure. We shouted. Boris Grogoff cried,

"More cheers!"

It was then that I saw Markovitch's face that had been puckered with

pleasure like the face of a delighted child suddenly stiffen, his hand

moved forward, then dropped. I turned and found, standing in the

doorway, quietly watching us, Alexei Petrovitch Semyonov.

XIII

I stared at him. I could not take my eyes away. I instantly forgot every

one else, the room, the tree, the lights.... With a force, with a

poignancy and pathos and brutality that were more cruel than I could

have believed possible that other world came back to me. Ah! I could see

now that all these months I had been running away from this very thing,

seeking to pretend that it did not exist, that it had never existed. All

in vain--utterly in vain. I saw Semyonov as I had just seen him, sitting

on his horse outside the shining white house at O----. Then Semyonov

operating in a stinking room, under a red light, his arms bathed in

blood; then Semyonov and Trenchard; then Semyonov speaking to Marie

Ivanovna, her eyes searching his face; then that day when I woke from my

dream in the orchard to find his eyes staring at me through the bright

green trees, and afterwards when we went in to look at her dead; then

worst of all that ride back to the "Stab" with my hand on his thick,

throbbing arm.... Semyonov in the Forest, working, sneering, hating us,

despising us, carrying his tragedy in his eyes and defying us to care;

Semyonov that last time of all, vanishing into the darkness with his

"Nothing!" that lingering echo of a defiant desperate soul that had

stayed with me, against my bidding, ever since I had heard it.

What a fool had I been to know these people! I had felt from the first

to what it must lead, and I might have avoided it and I would not. I

looked at him, I faced him, I smiled. He was the same as he had been. A

little stouter, perhaps, his pale hair and square-cut beard looking as

though it had been carved from some pale honey-coloured wood, the thick

stolidity of his long body and short legs, the squareness of his head,

the coldness of his eyes and the violent red of his lips, all were just

as they had been--the same man, save that now he was in civilian

clothes, in a black suit with a black bow tie. There was a smile on his

lips, that same smile half sneer half friendliness that I knew so well.

His eyes were veiled....

He was, I believe, as violently surprised to see me as I had been to see

him, but he held himself in complete control!

He said, "Why, Durward!... Ivan Andreievitch!" Then he greeted the

others.

I was able, now, to notice the general effect of his arrival. It was as

though a cold wind had suddenly burst through the windows, blown out all

the candles upon the tree and plunged the place into darkness. Those who

did not know him felt that, with his entrance, the gaiety was gone.

Markovitch's face was pale, he was looking at Vera who, for an instant,

had stood, quite silently, staring at her uncle, then, recovering

herself, moved forward.

"Why, Uncle Alexei!" she cried, holding out her hand. "You're too late

for the tree! Why didn't you tell us? Then you could have come to

dinner... and now it is all over. Why didn't you tell us?"

He took her hand, and, very solemnly, bent down and kissed it.

"I didn't know myself, dear Vera Michailovna. I only arrived in

Petrograd yesterday; and then in my house everything was wrong, and I've

been busy all day. But I felt that I must run in and give you the

greetings of the season.... Ah, Nicholas, how are you? And you, Ivan?...

I telephoned to you.... Nina, my dear...." And so on. He went round

and shook hands with them all. He was introduced to Bohun and Lawrence.

He was very genial, praising the tree, laughing, shouting in the ears of

the great-aunt. But no one responded. As so frequently happens in Russia

the atmosphere was suddenly changed. No one had anything to say. The

candles on the tree were blown out. Of course, the evening was not

nearly ended. There would be tea and games, perhaps--at any rate every

one would sit and sit until three or four if, for no other reason,

simply because it demanded too much energy to rise and make farewells.

But the spirit of the party was utterly dead....

The samovar hissed at the end of the table. Vera Michailovna sat there

making tea for every one. Semyonov (I should now in the heart of his

relations, have thought of him as Alexei Petrovitch, but so long had he

been Semyonov to me that Semyonov he must remain) was next to her, and I

saw that he took trouble, talking to her, smiling, his stiff strong

white fingers now and then stroking his thick beard, his red lips

parting a little, then closing so firmly that it seemed that they would

never open again.

I noticed that his eyes often wandered towards me. He was uneasy about

my presence there, I thought, and that disturbed me. I felt as I looked

at him the same confusion as I had always felt. I did not hate him. His

strength of character, his fearlessness, these things in a country

famous for neither quality I was driven to admire and to respect. And I

could not hate what I admired.

And yet my fear gathered and gathered in volume as I watched him. What

would he do with these people? What plans had he? What purpose? What

secret, selfish ambitions was he out now to secure?

Markovitch was silent, drinking his tea, watching his wife, watching us

all with his nervous frowning expression.

I rose to go and then, when I had said farewell to every one and went

towards the door, Semyonov joined me.

"Well, Ivan Andreievitch," he said. "So we have not finished with one

another yet."

He looked at me with his steady unswerving eyes; he smiled.

I also smiled as I found my coat and hat in the little hall. Sacha

helped me into my Shuba. He stood, his lips a little apart, watching me.

"What have you been doing all this time?" he asked me.

"I've been ill," I answered.

"Not had, I hope."

"No, not had. But enough to keep me very idle."

"As much of an optimist as ever?"

"Was I an optimist?"

"Why, surely. A charming one. Do you love Russia as truly as ever?"

I laughed, my hand on the door. "That's my affair, Alexei Petrovitch," I

answered.

"Certainly," he said, smiling. "You're looking older, you know."

"You too," I said.

"Yes, perhaps. Would I still think you sentimental, do you suppose?"

"It is of no importance, Alexei Petrovitch," I said. "I'm sure you have

other better things to do. Are you remaining in Petrograd?"

He looked at me then very seriously, his eyes staring straight into

mine.

"I hope so."

"You will work at your practice?"

"Perhaps." He nodded to me. "Strange to find you here...." he said. "We

shall meet again. Good-night."

He closed the door behind me.

XIV

Next day I fell ill. I had felt unwell for several weeks, and now I woke

up to a bad feverish cold, my body one vast ache, and at the same time

impersonal, away from me, floating over above me, sinking under me, tied

to me only by pain....

I was too utterly apathetic to care. The old woman who looked after my

rooms telephoned to my doctor, a stout, red-faced jolly man, who came

and laughed at me, ordered me some medicine, said that I was in a high

fever, and left me. After that, I was, for several days, caught into a

world of dreams and nightmares. No one, I think, came near me, save my

old woman, Marfa, and a new acquaintance of mine, the Rat.

The Rat I had met some weeks before outside my house. I had been

returning one evening, through the dark, with a heavy bag of books which

I had fetched from an English friend of mine who lodged in the

Millionnaya. I had had a cab for most of the distance, but that had

stopped on the other side of the bridge--it could not drive amongst the

rubbish pebbles and spars of my island. As I staggered along with my bag

a figure had risen, as it seemed to me, out of the ground and asked

huskily whether he could help me. I had only a few steps to go, but he

seized my burden and went in front of me. I submitted. I told him my

door and he entered the dark passage, climbed the rickety stairs and

entered my room. Here we were both astonished. He, when I had lighted my

lamp, was staggered by the splendour and luxury of my life, I, as I

looked at him, by the wildness and uncouthness of his appearance. He was

as a savage from the centre of Africa, thick ragged hair and beard, a

powerful body in rags, and his whole attitude to the world primeval and

utterly primitive. His mouth was cruel; his eyes, as almost always with

the Russian peasant, mild and kindly. I do not intend to take up much

space here with an account of him, but he did, after this first meeting,

in some sort attach himself to me. I never learned his name nor where he

lived; he was I should suppose an absolutely abominable plunderer and

pirate and ruffian. He would appear suddenly in my room, stand by the

door and talk--but talk with the ignorance, naïvete, brutal simplicity

of an utterly abandoned baby. Nothing mystical or beautiful about the

Rat. He did not disguise from me in the least that there was no crime

that he had not committed--murder, rape, arson, immorality of the most

hideous, sacrilege, the basest betrayal of his best friends--he was not

only savage and outlaw, he was deliberate anarchist and murderer. He had

no redeeming point that I could anywhere discover. I did not in the

least mind his entering my room when he pleased. I had there nothing of

any value; he could take my life even, had he a mind to that.... The

naïve abysmal depths of his depravity interested me. He formed a kind of

attachment to me. He told me that he would do anything for me. He had a

strange tact which prevented him from intruding upon me when I was

occupied. He was as quick as any cultured civilised cosmopolitan to see

if he was not wanted. He developed a certain cleanliness; he told me,

with an air of disdainful superiority, that he had been to the public

baths. I gave him an old suit of mine and a pair of boots. He very

seldom asked for anything; once and again he would point to something

and say that he would like to have it; if I said that he could not he

expressed no disappointment; sometimes he stole it, but he always

acknowledged that he had done so if I asked him, although he would lie

stupendously on other occasions for no reason at all.

"Now you must bring that back," I would say sternly.

"Oh no, Barin.... Why? You have so many things. Surely you will not

object. Perhaps I will bring it--and perhaps not."

"You must certainly bring it," I would say.

"We will see," he would say, smiling at me in the friendliest fashion.

He was the only absolutely happy Russian I have ever known. He had no

passages of despair. He had been in prison, he would be in prison again.

He had spasms of the most absolute ferocity. On one occasion I thought

that I should be his next victim, and for a moment my fate hung, I

think, in the balance. But he changed his mind. He had a real liking for

me, I think. When he could get it, he drank a kind of furniture polish,

the only substitute in these days for vodka. This was an absolutely

killing drink, and I tried to prove to him that frequent indulgence in

it meant an early decease. That did not affect him in the least. Death

had no horror for him although, I foresaw, with justice as after events

proved, that if he were faced with it he would be a very desperate

coward. He liked very much my cigarettes, and I gave him these on

condition that he did not spit sunflower seeds over my floor. He kept

his word about this.

He chatted incessantly, and sometimes I listened and sometimes not. He

had no politics and was indeed comfortably ignorant of any sort of

geography or party division. There were for him only the rich and the

poor. He knew nothing about the war, but he hoped, he frankly told me,

that there would be anarchy in Petrograd, so that he might rob and

plunder.

"I will look after you then, Barin," he answered me, "so that no one

shall touch you." I thanked him. He was greatly amused by my Russian

accent, although he had no interest in the fact that I was English, nor

did he want to hear in the least about London or any foreign town.

Marfa, my old servant, was, of course, horrified at this

acquaintanceship of mine, and warned me that it would mean both my death

and hers. He liked to tease and frighten her, but he was never rude to

her and offered sometimes to help her with her work, an offer that she

always indignantly refused. He had some children, he told me, but he did

not know where they were. He tried to respect my hospitality, never

bringing any friends of his with him, and only once coming when he was

the worse for drink. On that occasion he cried and endeavoured to

embrace me. He apologised for this the next day.

They would try to take him soon, he supposed, for a soldier, but he

thought that he would be able to escape. He hated the Police, and would

murder them all if he could. He told me great tales of their cruelty,

and he cursed them most bitterly. I pointed out to him that society must

be protected, but he did not see why this need be so. It was, he

thought, wrong that some people had so much and others so little, but

this was as far as his social investigations penetrated.

He was really distressed by my illness. Marfa told me that one day when

I was delirious he cried. At the same time he pointed out to her that,

if I died, certain things in my rooms would be his. He liked a silver

cigarette case of mine, and my watch chain, and a signet ring that I

wore. I saw him vaguely, an uncertain shadow in the mists of the first

days of my fever. I was not, I suppose, in actual fact, seriously ill,

and yet I abandoned myself to my fate, allowing myself to slip without

the slightest attempt at resistance, along the easiest way, towards

death or idiocy or paralysis, towards anything that meant the

indifferent passivity of inaction. I had bad, confused dreams. The

silence irritated me. I fancied to myself that the sea ought to make

some sound, that it was holding itself deliberately quiescent in

preparation for some event. I remember that Marfa and the doctor

prevented me from rising to look from my window that I might see why the

sea was not roaring. Some one said to me in my dreams something about

"Ice," and again and again I repeated the word to myself as though it

were intensely significant. "Ice! Ice! Ice!... Yes, that was what I

wanted to know!" My idea from this was that the floor upon which I

rested was exceedingly thin, made only of paper in fact, and that at any

moment it might give way and precipitate me upon the ice. This terrified

me, and the way that the cold blew up through the cracks in the floor

was disturbing enough. I knew that my doctor thought me mad to remain in

such a place. But above all I was overwhelmed by the figure of Semyonov.

He haunted me in all my dreams, his presence never left me for a single

instant. I could not be sure whether he were in the room or no, but

certainly he was close to me... watching me, sneering at me as he had

so often done before.

I was conscious also of Petrograd, of the town itself, in every one of

its amazingly various manifestations. I saw it all laid out as though I

were a great height above it--the fashionable streets, the Nevski and

the Morskaia with the carriages and the motor-cars and trams, the kiosks

and the bazaars, the women with their baskets of apples, the boys with

the newspapers, the smart cinematographs, the shop in the Morskaia with

the coloured stones in the window, the oculist and the pastry-cook's and

the hairdressers and the large "English shop" at the corner of the

Nevski, and Pivato's the restaurant, and close beside it the art shop

with popular post cards and books on Serov and Vrubel, and the Astoria

Hotel with its shining windows staring on to S. Isaac's Square. And I

saw the Nevski, that straight and proud street, filled with every kind

of vehicle and black masses of people, rolling like thick clouds up and

down, here and there, the hum of their talk rising like mist from the

snow. And there was the Kazan Cathedral, haughty and proud, and the book

shop with the French books and complete sets of Tchekov and Merejkowsky

in the window, and the bridges and the palaces and the square before the

Alexander Theatre, and Elisseieff's the provision shop, and all the

banks, and the shops with gloves and shirts, all looking ill-fitting as

though they were never meant to be worn, and then the little dirty shops

poked in between the grand ones, the shop with rubber goods and the

shop with an Aquarium, gold-fish and snails and a tortoise, and the shop

with oranges and bananas. Then, too, there was the Arcade with the

theatre where they acted _Romance_ and _Potash and Perlmutter_ (almost

as they do in London), and on the other side of the street, at the

corner of the Sadovia, the bazaar with all its shops and its trembling

mist of people. I watched the Nevski, and saw how it slipped into the

Neva with the Red Square on one side of it, and S. Isaac's Square on the

other, and the great station at the far end of it, and about these two

lines the Neva and the Nevski, the whole town sprawled and crept, ebbed

and flowed. Away from the splendour it stretched, dirty and decrepit and

untended, here piles of evil flats, there old wooden buildings with

cobbled courts, and the canals twisting and creeping up and down through

it all. It was all bathed, as I looked down upon it, in coloured mist.

The air was purple and gold and light blue, fading into the snow and ice

and transforming it. Everywhere there were the masts of ships and the

smell of the sea and rough deserted places--and shadows moved behind the

shadows, and yet more shadows behind _them_, so that it was all

uncertain and unstable, and only the river knew what it was about.

Over the whole town Semyonov and I moved together, and the ice and snow

silenced our steps, and no one in the whole place spoke a word, so that

we had to lower our voices and whispered....

XV

Suddenly I was better. I quite recovered from my fever and only lay

still on my bed, weak, and very hungry. I was happy, happy as I had not

been since I came to Petrograd. I felt all the luxury of convalescence

creeping into my bones. All that I need do was to lie there and let

people feed me and read a little if it did not make my head ache. I had

a water-colour painted by Alexander Benois on the wall opposite me, a

night in the Caucasus, with a heavy sweep of black hill, a deep blue

steady sky, and a thin grey road running into endless distance. A

pleasing picture, with no finality in its appeal--intimate too, so that

it was one's own road and one's own hill. I had bought it extravagantly,

at last year's "_Mir Eskoustva_," and now I was pleased at my

extravagance.

Marfa was very good to me, feeding me, and being cross with me to make

me take an interest in things, and acting with wonderful judgement about

my visitors. Numbers of people, English and Russian, came to see me--I

had not known that I had so many friends. I felt amiable to all the

world, and hopeful about it, too. I looked back on the period before my

illness as a bad dream.

People told me I was foolish to live out in this wretched place of mine,

where it was cold and wild and lonely. And then when they came again

they were not so sure, and they looked out on the ice that shone in

waves and shadows of light under the sun, and thought that perhaps they

too would try. But of course, I knew well that they would not....

As I grew stronger I felt an intense and burning interest in the history

that had been developing when I fell ill. I heard that Vera Michailovna

and Nina had called many times. Markovitch had been, and Henry Bohun

and Lawrence.

Then, one sunny afternoon, Henry Bohun came in and I was surprised at my

pleasure at the sight of him. He was shocked at the change in me, and

was too young to conceal it.

"Oh, you do look bad!" were his first words as he sat down by my bed. "I

say, are you comfortable here? Wouldn't you rather be somewhere with

conveniences--telephone and lifts and things?"

"Not at all!" I answered. "I've got a telephone. I'm very happy where I

am."

"It is a queer place," he said. "Isn't it awfully unhealthy?"

"Quite the reverse--with the sea in front of it! About the healthiest

spot in Petrograd!"

"But I should get the blues here. So lonely and quiet. Petrograd is a

strange town! Most people don't dream there's a queer place like this."

"That's why I like it," I said. "I expect there are lots of queer

places in Petrograd if you only knew."

He wandered about the room, looking at my few pictures and my books and

my writing-table. At last he sat down again by my bed.

"Now tell me all the news," I said.

"News?" he asked. He looked uncomfortable, and I saw at once that he had

come to confide something in me. "What sort of news? Political?"

"Anything."

"Well, politics are about the same. They say there's going to be an

awful row in February when the Duma meets--but then other people say

there won't be a row at all until the war is over."

"What else do they say?"

"They say Protopopoff is up to all sorts of tricks. That he says prayers

with the Empress and they summon Rasputin's ghost.... That's all rot of

course. But he does just what the Empress tells him, and they're going

to enslave the whole country and hand it over to Germany."

"What will they do that for?" I asked.

"Why, then, the Czarevitch will have it--under Germany. They say that

none of the munitions are going to the Front, and Protopopoff's keeping

them all to blow up the people here with."

"What else?" I asked sarcastically.

"No, but really, there's something in it, I expect." Henry looked

serious and important. "Then on the other hand, Clutton-Davies says the

Czar's absolutely all right, dead keen on the war and hates Germany...

_I_ don't know--but Clutton-Davies sees him nearly every day."

"Anything else?" I asked.

"Oh, food's worse than ever! Going up every day, and the bread queues

are longer and longer. The Germans have spies in the queues, women who

go up and down telling people it's all England's fault."

"And people are just the same?"

"Just the same; Donons' and the Bear are crowded every day. You can't

get a table. So are the cinematographs and the theatres. I went to the

Ballet last night."

"What was it?"

"'La fille mal gardée'--Karsavina dancing divinely. Every one was

there."

This closed the strain of public information. I led him further.

"Well, Bohun, what about our friends the Markovitches?" I asked. "How

are you getting on there?"

He blushed and looked at his boots.

"All right," he said. "They're very decent."

Then he burst out with: "I say, Durward, what do you think of this uncle

that's turned up, the doctor chap?"

"Nothing particular. Why?"

"You were with him at the Front, weren't you?"

"I was."

"Was he a good doctor?"

"Excellent."

"He had a love affair at the Front, hadn't he?"

"Yes."

"And she was killed?"

"Yes."

"Poor devil...." Then he added: "Did he mind very much?"

"Very much."

"Funny thing, you wouldn't think he would."

"Why not," I asked.

"Oh, he looks a hard sort of fellow--as though he'd stand anything. I

wouldn't like to have a row with him."

"Has he been to the Markovitches much lately?"

"Yes--almost every evening."

"What does he do there?"

"Oh, just sits and talks. Markovitch can't bear him. You can see that

easily enough. He teases him."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Oh, he laughs at him all the time, at his inventions and that kind of

thing. Markovitch gets awfully wild. He is bit of an ass, isn't he?"

"Do you like Semyonov?" I asked.

"I do rather," said Henry. "He's very decent to me. I had a walk with

him one afternoon. He said you were awfully brave at the Front."

"Thank him for nothing," I said.

"And he said you didn't like him--don't you?"

"Ah, that's too old a story," I answered. "We know what we feel about

one another."

"Well, Lawrence simply hates him," continued Bohun. "He says he's the

most thundering cad, and as bad as you make them. I don't see how he can

tell."

This interested me extremely. "When did he tell you this?" I asked.

"Yesterday. I asked him what he had to judge by and he said instinct. I

said he'd no right to go only by that."

"Has Lawrence been much to the Markovitches?"

"Yes--once or twice. He just sits there and never opens his mouth."

"Very wise of him if he hasn't got anything to say."

"No, but really--do you think so? It doesn't make him popular."

"Why, who doesn't like him?"

"Nobody," answered Henry ungrammatically. "None of the English anyway.

They can't stand him at the Embassy or the Mission. They say he's

fearfully stuck-up and thinks about nothing but himself.... I don't

agree, of course--all the same, he might make himself more agreeable to

people."

"What nonsense!" I answered hotly. "Lawrence is one of the best fellows

that ever breathed. The Markovitches don't dislike him, do they?"

"No, he's quite different with them. Vera Michailovna likes him I know."

It was the first time that he had mentioned her name to me. He turned

towards me now, his face crimson. "I say--that's really what I came to

talk about, Durward. I care for her madly!... I'd die for her. I would

really. I love her, Durward. I see now I've never loved anybody before."

"Well, what will you do about it?"

"Do about it?... Why nothing, of course. It's all perfectly hopeless.

In the first place, there's Markovitch."

"Yes. There's Markovitch," I agreed.

"She doesn't care for him--does she? You know that--" He waited, eagerly

staring into my face.

I had a temptation to laugh. He was so very young, so very helpless, and

yet--that sense of his youth had pathos in it too, and I suddenly liked

young Bohun--for the first time.

"Look here, Bohun," I said, trying to speak with a proper solemnity.

"Don't be a young ass. You know that it's hopeless, any feeling of that

kind. She _does_ care for her husband. She could never care for you in

that way, and you'd only make trouble for them all if you went on with

it.... On the other hand, she needs a friend badly. You can do that for

her. Be her pal. See that things are all right in the house. Make a

friend of Markovitch himself. Look after _him!_"

"Look after Markovitch!" Bohun exclaimed.

"Yes... I don't want to be melodramatic, but there's trouble coming

there; and if you're the friend of them all, you can help--more than you

know. Only none of the other business--"

Bohun flushed. "She doesn't know--she never will. I only want to be a

friend of hers, as you put it. Anything else is hopeless, of course.

I'm not the kind of fellow she'd ever look at, even if Markovitch wasn't

there. But if I can do anything... I'd be awfully glad. What kind of

trouble do you mean?" he asked.

"Probably nothing," I said; "only she wants a friend. And Markovitch

wants one too."

There was a pause--then Bohun said, "I say, Durward--what an awful ass I

was."

"What about?" I asked.

"About my poetry--and all that. Thinking it so important."

"Yes," I said, "you were."

"I've written some poetry to her and I tore it up," he ended.

"That's a good thing," said I.

"I'm glad I told you," he said. He got up to go. "I say, Durward--"

"Well," I asked.

"You're an awfully funny chap. Not a bit what you look--"

"That's all right," I said; "I know what you mean."

"Well, good-night," he said, and went.

XVI

I thought that night, as I lay cosily in my dusky room, of those old

stories by Wilkie Collins that had once upon a time so deeply engrossed

my interest--stories in which, because some one has disappeared on a

snowy night, or painted his face blue, or locked up a room and lost the

key, or broken down in his carriage on a windy night at the cross-roads,

dozens of people are involved, diaries are written, confessions are

made, and all the characters move along different roads towards the same

lighted, comfortable Inn. That is the kind of story that intrigues me,

whether it be written about out-side mysteries by Wilkie Collins or

inside mysteries by the great creator of "The Golden Bowl" or mysteries

of both kinds, such as Henry Galleon has given us. I remember a friend

of mine, James Maradick, once saying to me, "It's no use trying to keep

out of things. As soon as they want to put you in--you're in. The moment

you're born, you're done for."

It's just that spectacle of some poor innocent being suddenly caught

into some affair, against his will, without his knowledge, but to the

most serious alteration of his character and fortunes, that one watches

with a delight almost malicious--whether it be _The Woman in White, The

Wings of the Dove,_ or _The Roads_ that offer it us. Well, I had now to

face the fact that something of this kind had happened to myself.

I was drawn in--and I was glad. I luxuriated in my gladness, lying there

in my room under the wavering, uncertain light of two candles, hearing

the church bells clanging and echoing mysteriously beyond the wall. I

lay there with a consciousness of being on the very verge of some

adventure, with the assurance, too, that I was to be of use once more,

to play my part, to fling aside, thank God, that old cloak of apathetic

disappointment, of selfish betrayal, of cynical disbelief. Semyonov had

brought the old life back to me and I had shrunk from the impact of it;

but he had brought back to me, too, the presences of my absent friends

who, during these weary months, had been lost to me. It seemed to me

that, in the flickering twilight, John and Marie were bringing forward

to me Vera and Nina and Jerry and asking me to look after them.... I

would do my best.

And while I was thinking of these things Vera Michailovna came in. She

was suddenly in the room, standing there, her furs up to her throat, her

body in shadow, but her large, grave eyes shining through the

candlelight, her mouth smiling.

"Is it all right?" she said, coming forward. "I'm not in the way? You're

not sleeping?"

I told her that I was delighted to see her.

"I've been almost every day, but Marfa told me you were not well enough.

She _does_ guard you--like a dragon. But to-night Nina and I are going

to Rozanov's, to a party, and she said she'd meet me here.... Shan't I

worry you?"

"Worry me! You're the most restful friend I have--" I felt so glad to

see her that I was surprised at my own happiness. She sat down near to

me, very quietly, moving, as she always did, softly and surely.

I could see that she was distressed because I looked ill, but she asked

me no tiresome questions, said nothing about my madness in living as I

did (always so irritating, as though I were a stupid child), praised the

room, admired the Benois picture, and then talked in her soft, kindly

voice.

"We've missed you so much, Nina and I," she said. "I told Nina that if

she came to-night she wasn't to make a noise and disturb you."

"She can make as much noise as she likes," I said. "I like the right

kind of noise."

We talked a little about politics and England and anything that came

into our minds. We both felt, I know, a delightful, easy intimacy and

friendliness and trust. I had never with any other woman felt such a

sense of friendship, something almost masculine in its comradeship and

honesty. And to-night this bond between us strengthened wonderfully. I

blessed my luck. I saw that there were dark lines under her eyes and

that she was pale.

"You're tired," I said.

"Yes, I am," she acknowledged. "And I don't know why. At least, I do

know. I'm going to use you selfishly, Durdles. I'm going to tell you all

my troubles and ask your help in every possible way. I'm going to let

you off nothing."

I took her hand.

"I'm proud," I said, "now and always."

"Do you know that I've never asked any one's help before? I was rather

conceited that I could get on always without it. When I was very small I

wouldn't take a word of advice from any one, and mother and father, when

I was tiny, used to consult me about everything. Then they were killed

and I _had_ to go on alone.... And after that, when I married Nicholas,

it was I again who decided everything. And my mistakes taught me

nothing. I didn't want them to teach me."

She spoke that last word fiercely, and through the note that came into

her voice I saw suddenly the potentialities that were in her, the other

creature that she might be if she were ever awakened.

She talked then for a long time. She didn't move at all; her head rested

on her hand and her eyes watched me. As I listened I thought of my other

friend Marie, who now was dead, and how restless she was when she spoke,

moving about the room, stopping to demand my approval, protesting

against my criticism, laughing, crying out.... Vera was so still, so

wise, too, in comparison with Marie, braver too--and yet the same heart,

the same charity, the same nobility.

But she was my friend, and Marie I had loved.... The difference in that!

And how much easier now to help than it had been then, simply because

one's own soul _was_ one's own and one stood by oneself!

How happy a thing freedom is--and how lonely!

She told me many things that I need not repeat here, but, as she talked,

I saw how, far more deeply than I had imagined, Nina had been the heart

of the whole of her life. She had watched over her, protected her,

advised her, warned her, and loved her, passionately, jealously, almost

madly all the time.