one else. That was wrong.... I ought to have thought most of Nicholas;
but I knew that I could give her a home, that she could have everything
she wanted. And still she would be with me. Nicholas was only too ready
for that. I thought I would care for her until some one came who was
worthy of her, and who would look after her far better than I ever
could.
"But the only person who had come was Boris Grogoff. He loved Nina from
the first moment, in his own careless, conceited, opinionated way."
"Why did you let him come so often to the house if you didn't approve of
him?" I asked.
"How could I prevent it?" she asked me. "We Russians are not like the
English. In England I know you just shut the door and say, 'Not at
home.'
"Here if any one wanted to come he comes. Very often we hate him for
coming, but still there it is. It is too much trouble to turn him out,
besides it wouldn't be kind--and anyway they wouldn't go. You can be as
rude as you like here and nobody cares. For a long while Nina paid no
attention to Boris. She doesn't like him. She will never like him, I'm
sure. But now, these last weeks, I've begun to be afraid. In some way,
he has power over her--not much power, but a little--and she is so
young, so ignorant--she knows nothing.
"Until lately she always told me everything. Now she tells me nothing.
She's strange with me; angry for nothing. Then sorry and sweet
again--then suddenly angry.... She's excited and wild, going out all the
time, but unhappy too.... I _know_ she's unhappy. I can feel it as
though it were myself."
"You're imagining things," I said. "Now when the war's reached this
period we're all nervous and overstrung. The atmosphere of this town is
enough to make any one fancy that they see anything. Nina's all right."
"I'm losing her! I'm losing her!" Vera cried, suddenly stretching out
her hand as though in a gesture of appeal. "She must stay with me. I
don't know what's happening to her. Ah, and I'm so lonely without her!"
There was silence between us for a little, and then she went on.
"Durdles, I did wrong to marry Nicholas--wrong to Nina, wrong to
Nicholas, wrong to myself, I thought it was right. I didn't love
Nicholas--I never loved him and I never pretended to. He knew that I did
not. But I thought then that I was above love, that knowledge was what
mattered. Ideas--saving the world--and he had _such_ ideas! Wonderful!
There was, I thought, nothing that he would not be able to do if only he
were helped enough. He wanted help in every way. He was such a child, so
unhappy, so lonely, I thought that I could give him everything that he
needed. Don't fancy that I thought that I sacrificed myself. I felt that
I was the luckiest girl in all the world--and still, now when I see that
he is not strong enough for his ideas I care for him as I did then, and
I would never let any trouble touch him if I could help it. But
if--if--"
She paused, turned away from me, looking towards the window.
"If, after all, I was wrong. If, after all, I was meant to love. If love
were to come now... real love... now...."
She broke off, suddenly stood up, and very low, almost whispering, said:
"I have fancied lately that it might come. And then, what should I do?
Oh, what should I do? With Nicholas and Nina and all the trouble there
is now in the world--and Russia--I'm afraid of myself--and ashamed...."
I could not speak. I was utterly astonished. Could it be Bohun of whom
she was speaking? No, I saw at once that the idea was ludicrous. But if
not--.
I took her hand.
"Vera," I said. "Believe me. I'm much older than you, and I know. Love's
always selfish, always cruel to others, always means trouble, sorrow,
and disappointment. But it's worth it, even when it brings complete
disaster. Life isn't life without it."
I felt her hand tremble in mine.
"I don't know," she said, "I know nothing of it, except my love for
Nina. It isn't that now there's anybody. Don't think that. There is no
one--no one. Only my self-confidence is gone. I can't see clearly any
more. My duty is to Nina and Nicholas. And if they are happy nothing
else matters--nothing. And I'm afraid that I'm going to do them harm."
She paused as though she were listening. "There's no one there, is
there?" she asked me--"there by the door?"
"No--no one."
"There are so many noises in this house. Don't they disturb you?"
"I don't think of them now. I'm used to them--and in fact I like them."
She went on: "It's Uncle Alexei of course. He comes to see us nearly
every day. He's very pleasant, more pleasant than he has ever been
before, but he has a dreadful effect on Nicholas--"
"I know the effect he can have," I said.
"I know that Nicholas has been feeling for a long time that his
inventions are no use. He will never own it to me or to any one--but I
can tell. I know it so well. The war came and his new feeling about
Russia carried him along. He put everything into that. Now that has
failed him, and he despises himself for having expected it to do
otherwise. He's raging about, trying to find something that he can
believe in, and Uncle Alexei knows that and plays on that.... He teases
him; he drives him wild and then makes him happy again. He can do
anything with him he pleases. He always could. But now he has some plan.
I used to think that he simply laughed at people because it amused him
to see how weak they can be. But now there's more than that. He's been
hurt himself at last, and that has hurt his pride, and he wants to hurt
back.... It's all in the dark. The war's in the dark... everything...."
Then she smiled and put her hand on my arm. "That's why I've come to
you, because I trust you and believe you and know you say what you
mean."
Once before Marie had said those same words to me. It was as though I
heard her voice again.
"I won't fail you," I said.
There was a knock on the door, it was flung open as though by the wind,
and Nina was with us. Her face was rosy with the cold, her eyes laughed
under her little round fur cap. She came running across the room, pulled
herself up with a little cry beside the bed, and then flung herself upon
me, throwing her arms around my neck and kissing me.
"My dear Nina!" cried Vera.
She looked up, laughing.
"Why not? Poor Durdles. Are you better? _Biédnie_... give me your
hands. But--how cold they are! And there are draughts everywhere. I've
brought you some chocolates--and a book."
"My dear!..." Vera cried again. "He won't like _that_," pointing to a
work of fiction by a modern Russian literary lady whose heart and brain
are of the succulent variety.
"Why not? She's very good. It's lovely! All about impossible people!
Durdles, _dear_! I'll give up the party. We won't go. We'll sit here and
entertain you. I'll send Boris away. We'll tell him we don't want him."
"Boris!" cried Vera.
"Yes," Nina laughed a little uneasily, I thought. "I know you said he
wasn't to come. He'll quarrel with Rozanov of course. But he said he
would. And so how was one to prevent him? You're always so tiresome,
Vera.... I'm not a baby now, nor is Boris. If he wants to come he shall
come."
Vera stood away from us both. I could see that she was very angry. I had
never seen her angry before.
"You know that it's impossible, Nina," she said. "You know that Rozanov
hates him. And besides--there are other reasons. You know them
perfectly well, Nina."
Nina stood there pouting, tears were in her eyes.
"You're unfair," she said. "You don't let me do anything. You give me no
freedom, I don't care for Boris, but if he wants to go he shall go. I'm
grown up now. You have your Lawrence. Let me have my Boris."
"My Lawrence?" asked Vera.
"Yes. You know that you're always wanting him to come--always looking
for him. I like him, too. I like him very much. But you never let me
talk to him. You never--"
"Quiet, Nina." Vera's voice was trembling. Her face was sterner than I'd
ever seen it. "You're making me angry."
"I don't care how angry I make you. It's true. You're impossible now.
Why shouldn't I have my friends? I've nobody now. You never let me have
anybody. And I like Mr. Lawrence--"
She began to sob, looking the most desolate figure.
Vera turned.
"You don't know what you've said, Nina, nor how you've hurt.... You can
go to your party as you please--"
And before I could stop her she was gone.
Nina turned to me a breathless, tearful face. She waited; we heard the
door below closed.
"Oh, Durdles, what have I done?"
"Go after her! Stop her!" I said.
Nina vanished and I was alone. My room was intensely quiet.
XVII
They didn't come to see me again together. Vera came twice, kind and
good as always, but with no more confidences; and Nina once with flowers
and fruit and a wild chattering tongue about the cinemas and Smyrnov,
who was delighting the world at the Narodny Dom, and the wonderful
performance of Lermontov's "Masquerade" that was shortly to take place
at the Alexander Theatre.
"Are you and Vera friends again?" I asked her.
"Oh yes! Why not?" And she went on, snapping a chocolate almond between
her teeth--"The one at the 'Piccadilly' is the best. It's an Italian
one, and there's a giant in it who throws people all over the place, out
of windows and everywhere. Ah! how lovely!... I wish I could go every
night."
"You ought to be helping with the war," I said severely.
"Oh, I hate the war!" she answered. "We're all terribly tired of it.
Tanya's given up going to the English hospital now, and is just meaning
to be as gay as she can be; and Zinaida Fyodorovna had just come back
from her Otriad on the Galician front, and she says it's shocking there
now--no food or dancing or anything. Why doesn't every one make peace?"
"Do you want the Germans to rule Russia?" I asked.
"Why not?" she said, laughing. "We can't do it ourselves. We don't care
who does it. The English can do it if they like, only they're too lazy
to bother. The German's aren't lazy, and if they were here we'd have
lots of theatres and cinematographs."
"Don't you love your country?" I asked.
"This isn't our country," she answered. "It just belongs to the Empress
and Protopopoff."
"Supposing it became your country and the Emperor went?"
"Oh, then it would belong to a million different people, and in the end
no one would have anything. Can't you see how they'd fight?"... She
burst out laughing: "Boris and Nicholas and Uncle Alexei and all the
others!"
Then she was suddenly serious.
"I know, Durdles, you consider that I'm so young and frivolous that I
don't think of anything serious. But I can see things like any one else.
Can't you see that we're all so disappointed with ourselves that nothing
matters? We thought the war was going to be so fine--but now it's just
like the Japanese one, all robbery and lies--and we can't do anything to
stop it."
"Perhaps some day some one will," I said.
"Oh yes!" she answered scornfully, "men like Boris."
After that she refused to be grave for a moment, danced about the room,
singing, and finally vanished, a whirlwind of blue silk.
* * * * *
A week later I was out in the world again. That curious sense of
excitement that had first come to me during the early days of my illness
burnt now more fiercely than ever. I cannot say what it was exactly that
I thought was going to happen. I have often looked back, as many other
people must have done, to those days in February and wondered whether I
foresaw anything of what was to come, and what were the things that
might have seemed to me significant if I had noticed them. And here I am
deliberately speaking of both public and private affairs. I cannot quite
frankly dissever the two. At the Front, a year and a half before, I had
discovered how intermingled the souls of individuals and the souls of
countries were, and how permanent private history seemed to me and how
transient public events; but whether that was true or no before, it was
now most certain that it was the story of certain individuals that I was
to record,--the history that was being made behind them could at its
best be only a background.
I seemed to step into a city ablaze with a sinister glory. If that
appears melodramatic I can only say that the dazzling winter weather of
those weeks was melodramatic. Never before had I seen the huge buildings
tower so high, never before felt the shadows so vast, the squares and
streets so limitless in their capacity for swallowing light and colour.
The sky was a bitter changeless blue; the buildings black; the snow and
ice, glittering with purple and gold, swept by vast swinging shadows as
though huge doors opened and shut in heaven, or monstrous birds hovered,
their wings spread, motionless in the limitless space.
And all this had, as ever, nothing to do with human life. The little
courtyards with their woodstacks and their coloured houses, carts and
the cobbled squares and the little stumpy trees that bordered the canals
and the little wooden huts beside the bridges with their candles and
fruit--these were human and friendly and good, but they had their
precarious condition like the rest of us.
On the first afternoon of my new liberty I found myself in the Nevski
Prospect, bewildered by the crowds and the talk and trams and motors and
carts that passed in unending sequence up and down the long street.
Standing at the corner of the Sadovia and the Nevski one was carried
straight to the point of the golden spire that guarded the farther end
of the great street. All was gold, the surface of the road was like a
golden stream, the canal was gold, the thin spire caught into its
piercing line all the colour of the swiftly fading afternoon; the wheels
of the carriages gleamed, the flower-baskets of the women glittered like
shining foam, the snow flung its crystal colour into the air like thin
fire dim before the sun. The street seemed to have gathered on to its
pavements the citizens of every country under the sun. Tartars, Mongols,
Little Russians, Chinamen, Japanese, French officers, British officers,
peasants and fashionable women, schoolboys, officials, actors and
artists and business men and priests and sailors and beggars and hawkers
and, guarding them all, friendly, urbane, filled with a pleasant
self-importance that seemed at that hour the simplest and easiest of
attitudes, the Police. "Rum--rum--rum--whirr--whirr--whirr--whirr"--like
the regular beat of a shuttle the hum rose and fell, as the sun faded
into rosy mist and white vapours stole above the still canals.
I turned to go home and felt some one touch my elbow.
I swung round and there, his broad face ruddy with the cold, was Jerry
Lawrence.
I was delighted to see him and told him so.
"Well, I'm damned glad," he said gruffly. "I thought you might have a
grudge against me."
"A grudge?" I said. "Why?"
"Haven't been to see you. Heard you were ill, but didn't think you'd
want me hanging round."
"Why this modesty?" I asked.
"No--well--you know what I mean." He shuffled his feet. "No good in a
sick-room."
"Mine wasn't exactly a sick-room," I said. "But I heard that you did
come."
"Yes. I came twice," he answered, looking at me shyly. "Your old woman
wouldn't let me see you."
"Never mind that," I said; "let's have an evening together soon."
"Yes--as soon as you like." He looked up and down the street. "There are
some things I'd like to ask your advice about."
"Certainly," I said.
"What do you say to coming and dining at my place? Ever met Wilderling?"
"Wilderling?" I could not remember for the moment the name.
"Yes--the old josser I live with. Fine old man--got a point of view of
his own!"
"Delighted," I said.
"To-morrow. Eight o'clock. Don't dress."
He was just going off when he turned again.
"Awfully glad you're better," he said. He cleared his throat, looked at
me in a very friendly way, then smiled.
"_Awfully_ glad you're better," he repeated, then went off, rolling his
broad figure into the evening mist.
I turned towards home.
XVIII
I arrived at the Baron's punctually at eight o'clock. His flat was in a
small side street off the English Quay. I paused for a moment, before
turning into its dark recesses, to gather in the vast expanse of the
frozen river and the long white quay. It was as though I had found my
way behind a towering wall that now closed me in with a smile of
contemptuous derision. There was no sound in the shining air and the
only figure was a guard who moved monotonously up and down outside the
Winter Palace.
I rang the bell and the "Schwitzer," bowing very ceremoniously, told me
the flat was on the second floor. I went up a broad stone staircase and
found a heavy oak door with brass nails confronting me. When this slowly
swung open I discovered a very old man with white hair bowing before me.
He was a splendid figure in a uniform of dark blue, his tall thin figure
straight and slim, his white moustaches so neat and fierce that they
seemed to keep guard over the rest of his face as though they warned
him that they would stand no nonsense. There was an air of hushed
splendour behind him, and I could hear the heavy, solemn ticking of a
clock keeping guard over all the austere sanctities of the place. When I
had taken off my Shuba and goloshes I was ushered into a magnificent
room with a high gold clock on the mantlepiece, gilt chairs, heavy dark
carpets and large portraits frowning from the grey walls. The whole room
was bitterly silent, save for the tick of the clock. There was no fire
in the fireplace, but a large gleaming white stove flung out a close
scented heat from the further corner of the room. There were two long
glass bookcases, some little tables with gilt legs, and a fine Japanese
screen of dull gold. The only other piece of furniture was a huge grand
piano near the window.
I sat down and was instantly caught into the solemn silence. There was
something threatening in the hush of it all. "We do what we're told,"
the clock seemed to say, "and so must you." I thought of the ice and
snow beyond the windows, and, in spite of myself, shivered.
Then the door opened and the Baron came in. He stood for a moment by the
door, staring in front of him as though he could not penetrate the heavy
and dusky air, and seen thus, under the height and space of the room, he
seemed so small as to be almost ridiculous. But he was not ridiculous
for long. As he approached one was struck at once by the immaculate
efficiency that followed him like a protecting shadow. In himself he was
a scrupulously neat old man with weary and dissipated eyes, but behind
the weariness, the neatness, and dissipation was a spirit of indomitable
determination and resolution. He wore a little white Imperial and a long
white moustache. His hair was brushed back and his forehead shone like
marble. He wore a black suit, white spats, and long, pointed, black
patent-leather shoes. He had the smallest feet I have ever seen on any
man.
He greeted me with great courtesy. His voice was soft, and he spoke
perfect English, save for a very slight accent that was rather charming;
this gave his words a certain naïvete. He rubbed his hands and smiled in
a gentle but determined way, as though he meant no harm by it, but had
decided that it was a necessary thing to do. I forget of what we talked,
but I know that I surrendered myself at once to an atmosphere that had
been strange to me for so long that I had almost forgotten its
character--an atmosphere of discipline, order, comfort, and above all,
of security. My mind flew to the Markovitches, and I smiled to myself at
the thought of the contrast.
Then, strangely, when I had once thought of the Markovitch flat the
picture haunted me for the rest of the evening. I could see the Baron's
gilt chairs and gold clock, his little Imperial and shining shoes only
through the cloudy disorder of the Markovitch tables and chairs. There
was poor Markovitch in his dark little room perched on his chair with
his boots, with his hands, with his hair... and there was poor Uncle
and there poor Vera.... Why was I pitying them? I gloried in them. That
is Russia... This is....
"Allow me to introduce you to my wife," the Baron said, bending forward,
the very points of his toes expressing amiability.
The Baroness was a large solid lady with a fine white bosom and strong
white arms. Her face was homely and kind; I saw at once that she adored
her husband; her placid smile carried beneath its placidity a tremulous
anxiety that he should be pleased, and her mild eyes swam in the light
of his encouragement. I was sure, however, that the calm and discipline
that I felt in the things around me came as much from her domesticity as
from his discipline. She was a fortunate woman in that she had attained
the ambition of her life--to govern the household of a man whom she
could both love and fear.
Lawrence came in, and we went through high folding doors into the
dining-room. This room had dark-blue wall-paper, electric lights heavily
shaded, and soft heavy carpets. The table itself was flooded with
light--the rest of the room was dusk. I wondered as I looked about me
why the Wilderlings had taken Lawrence as a paying guest. Before my
visit I had imagined that they were poor, as so many of the better-class
Russians were, but here were no signs of poverty. I decided that.
Our dinner was good, and the wine was excellent. We talked, of course,
politics, and the Baron was admirably frank.
"I won't disguise from you, M. Durward," he said, "that some of us watch
your English effort at winning the heart of this country with sympathy,
but also, if I am not offending you, with some humour. I'm not speaking
only of your propaganda efforts. You've got, I know, one or two literary
gentlemen here--a novelist, I think, and a professor and a journalist.
Well, soon you'll find them inefficient, and decide that you must have
some commercial gentlemen, and then, disappointed with them, you'll
decide for the military... and still the great heart of Russia will
remain untouched."
"Yes," I said, "because your class are determined that the peasant shall
remain uneducated, and until he is educated he will be unable to
approach any of us."
"Quite so," said the Baron smiling at me very cheerfully. "I perceive,
M. Durward, that you are a democrat. So are we all, these days.... You
look surprised, but I assure you that the good of the people in the
interests of the people is the only thing for which any of us care. Only
some of us know Russia pretty well, and we know that the Russian peasant
is not ready for liberty, and if you were to give him liberty to-night
you would plunge his country into the most desperate torture of anarchy
and carnage known in history. A little more soup?--we are offering you
only a slight dinner."
"Yes, but, Baron," I said, "would you tell me when it is intended that
the Russian peasant shall begin his upward course towards light and
learning? If that day is to be for ever postponed?"
"It will not be for ever postponed," said the Baron gently. "Let us
finish the war, and education shall be given slowly, under wise
direction, to every man, woman, and child in the country. Our Czar is
the most liberal ruler in Europe--and he knows what is good for his
children."
"And Protopopoff and Stürmer?" I asked.
"Protopopoff is a zealous, loyal liberal, but he has been made to see
during these last months that Russia is not at this moment ready for
freedom. Stürmer--well, M. Stürmer is gone."
"So you, yourself, Baron," I asked, "would oppose at this moment all
reform?"
"With every drop of blood in my body," he answered, and his hand flat
against the tablecloth quivered. "At this crisis admit one change and
your dyke is burst, your land flooded. Every Russian is asked at this
moment to believe in simple things--his religion, his Czar, his country.
Grant your reforms, and in a week every babbler in the country will be
off his head, talking, screaming, fighting. The Germans will occupy
Russia at their own good time, you will be beaten on the West and
civilisation will be set back two hundred years. The only hope for
Russia is unity, and for unity you must have discipline, and for
discipline, in Russia at any rate, you must have an autocracy."
As he spoke the furniture, the grey walls, the heavy carpets, seemed to
whisper an echo of his words: "Unity... Discipline... Discipline...
Autocracy... Autocracy... Autocracy...."
"Then tell me, Baron," I said, "if it isn't an impertinent question, do
you feel so secure in your position that you have no fears at all? Does
such a crisis, as for instance Milyukoff's protest last November, mean
nothing? You know the discontent.... Is there no fear....?"
"Fear!" He interrupted me, his voice swift and soft and triumphant. "M.
Durward, are you so ignorant of Russia that you consider the outpourings
of a few idealistic Intelligentzia, professors and teachers and poets,
as important? What about the people, M. Durward? You ask any peasant in
the Moscow Government, or little Russia, or the Ukraine whether he will
remain loyal to his Little Father or no! Ask--and the question you
suggested to me will be answered."
"Then, you feel both secure and justified?" I said.
"We feel both secure and justified"--he answered me, smiling.
After that our conversation was personal and social. Lawrence was very
quiet. I observed that the Baroness had a motherly affection for him,
that she saw that he had everything that he wanted, and that she gave
him every now and then little friendly confidential smiles. As the meal
proceeded, as I drank the most excellent wine and the warm austerity of
my surroundings gathered ever more closely around me, I wondered whether
after all my apprehensions and forebodings of the last weeks had not
been the merest sick man's cowardice. Surely if any kingdom in the world
was secure, it was this official Russia. I could see it stretching
through the space and silence of that vast land, its servants in every
village, its paths and roads all leading back to the central citadel,
its whispered orders flying through the air from district to district,
its judgements, its rewards, its sins, its virtues, resting upon a basis
of superstition and ignorance and apathy, the three sure friends of
autocracy through history!
And on the other side--who? The Rat, Boris Grogoff, Markovitch. Yes, the
Baron had reason for his confidence.... I thought for a moment of that
figure that I had seen on Christmas Eve by the river--the strong grave
bearded peasant whose gaze had seemed to go so far beyond the bounds of
my own vision. But no! Russia's mystical peasant--that was an old tale.
Once, on the Front, when I had seen him facing the enemy with bare
hands, I had, myself, believed it. Now I thought once more of the
Rat--_that_ was the type whom I must now confront.
I had a most agreeable evening. I do not know how long it had been
since I had tasted luxury and comfort and the true fruits of
civilisation. The Baron was a most admirable teller of stories, with a
capital sense of humour. After dinner the Baroness left us for half an
hour, and the Baron became very pleasantly Rabelaisian, speaking of his
experiences in Paris and London, Vienna and Berlin so easily and with so
ready a wit that the evening flew. The Baroness returned and, seeing
that it was after eleven, I made my farewells. Lawrence said that he
would walk with me down the quay before turning into bed. My host and
hostess pressed me to come as often as possible. The Baron's last words
to me were:
"Have no fears, M. Durward. There is much talk in this country, but we
are a lazy people."
The "we" rang strangely in my ears.
"He's of course no more a Russian than you or I," I said to Lawrence, as
we started down the quay.
"Oh yes, he is!" Lawrence said. "Quite genuine--not a drop of German
blood in spite of the name. But he's a Prussian at heart--a Prussian of
the Prussians. By that I don't mean in the least that he wants Germany
to win the war. He doesn't--his interests are all here, and you mayn't
believe me, but I assure you he's a Patriot. He loves Russia, and he
wants what's best for her--and believes that to be Autocracy."
After that Lawrence shut up. He would not say another word. We walked
for a long time in silence. The evening was most beautiful. A golden
moon flung the snow into dazzling relief against the deep black of the
palaces. Across the Neva the line of towers and minarets and chimneys
ran like a huge fissure in the golden, light from sky to sky.
"You said there was something you wanted to ask my advice about?"
I broke the silence.
He looked at me with his long slow considering stare. He mumbled
something; then, with a sudden gesture, he gripped my arm, and his heavy
body quivering with the urgency of his words he said:
"It's Vera Markovitch.... I'd give my body and soul and spirit for her
happiness and safety.... God forgive me, I'd give my country and my
honour.... I ache and long for her, so that I'm afraid for my sanity.
I've never loved a woman, nor lusted for one, nor touched one in my
whole life, Durward--and now... and now... I've gone right in. I've
spoken no word to any one; but I couldn't stand my own silence....
Durward, you've got to help me!"
I walked on, seeing the golden light and the curving arc of snow and the
little figures moving like dolls from light to shadow. Lawrence! I had
never thought of him as an urgent lover; even now, although I could
still feel his hand quivering on my arm, I could have laughed at the
ludicrous incongruity of romance, and that stolid thick-set figure. And
at the same time I was afraid. Lawrence in love was no boy on the
threshold of life like Bohun... here was no trivial passion. I realised
even in that first astonished moment the trouble that might be in store
for all of us.
"Look here, Lawrence!" I said at last. "The first thing that you may as
well realise is that it is hopeless. Vera Michailovna has confided in me
a good deal lately, and she is devoted to her husband, thinks of nothing
else. She's simple, naïve, with all her sense and wisdom...."
"Hopeless!" he interrupted, and he gave a kind of grim chuckle of
derision. "My dear Durward, what do you suppose I'm after?... rape and
adultery and Markovitch after us with a pistol? I tell you--" and here
he spoke fiercely, as though he were challenging the whole ice-bound
world around us--"that I want nothing but her happiness, her safety,
her comfort! Do you suppose that I'm such an ass as not to recognise the
kind of thing that my loving her would lead to? I tell you I'm after
nothing for myself, and that not because I'm a fine unselfish character,
but simply because the thing's too big to let anything into it but
herself. She shall never know that I care twopence about her, but she's
got to be happy and she's got to be safe.... Just now, she's neither of
those things, and that's why I've spoken to you.... She's unhappy and
she's afraid, and that's got to change. I wouldn't have spoken of this
to you if I thought you'd be so short-sighted...."
"All right! All right!" I said testily. "You may be a kind of Galahad,
Lawrence, outside all natural law. I don't know, but you'll forgive me
if I go for a moment on my own experience--and that experience is, that
you can start on as highbrow an elevation as you like, but love doesn't
stand still, and the body's the body, and to-morrow isn't yesterday--not
by no means. Moreover, Markovitch is a Russian and a peculiar one at
that. Finally, remember that I want Vera Michailovna to be happy quite
as much as you do!"
He was suddenly grave and almost boyish in his next words.
"I know that--you're a decent chap, Durward--I know it's hard to believe
me, but I just ask you to wait and test me. No one knows of this--that
I'd swear--and no one shall; but what's the matter with her, Durward,
what's she afraid of? That's why I spoke to you. You know her, and I'll
throttle you here where we stand if you don't tell me just what the
trouble is. I don't care for confidences or anything of the sort. You
must break them all and tell me--"
His hand was on my arm again, his big ugly face, now grim and obstinate,
close against mine.
"I'll tell you," I said slowly, "all I know, which is almost nothing.
The trouble is Semyonov, the doctor. Why or how I can't say, although
I've seen enough of him in the past to know the trouble he _can_ be.
She's afraid of him, and Markovitch is afraid of him. He likes playing
on people's nerves. He's a bitter, disappointed man, who loved
desperately once, as only real sensualists can... and now he's in love
with a ghost. That's why real life maddens him."
"Semyonov!" Lawrence whispered the name.
We had come to the end of the quay. My dear church with its round grey
wall stood glistening in the moonlight, the shadows from the snow
rippling up its sides, as though it lay under water. We stood and looked
across the river.
"I've always hated that fellow," Lawrence said. "I've only seen him
about twice, but I believe I hated him before I saw him.... All right,
Durward, that's what I wanted to know. Thank you. Good-night."
And before I could speak he had gripped my hand, had turned back, and
was walking swiftly away, across the golden-lighted quay.
XIX
From the moment that Lawrence left me, vanishing into the heart of the
snow and ice, I was obsessed by a conviction of approaching danger and
peril. It has been one of the most disastrous weaknesses of my life that
I have always shrunk from precipitate action. Before the war it had
seemed to many of us that life could be jockeyed into decisions by words
and theories and speculations. The swift, and, as it were, revengeful
precipitancy of the last three years had driven me into a self-distrust
and cowardice which had grown and grown until life had seemed veiled and
distant and mysteriously obscure. From my own obscurity, against my
will, against my courage, against my own knowledge of myself,
circumstances were demanding that I should advance and act. It was of no
avail to myself that I should act unwisely, that I should perhaps only
precipitate a crisis that I could not help. I was forced to act when I
would have given my soul to hold aloof, and in this town, whose darkness
and light, intrigue and display, words and action, seemed to derive some
mysterious force from the very soil, from the very air, the smallest
action achieved monstrous proportions. When you have lived for some
years in Russia you do not wonder that its citizens prefer inaction to
demonstration--the soil is so much stronger than the men who live upon
it.
Nevertheless, for a fortnight I did nothing. Private affairs of an
especially tiresome kind filled my days--I saw neither Lawrence nor
Vera, and, during that period, I scarcely left my rooms.
There was much expectation in the town that February 14th, when the Duma
was appointed to meet, would be a critical day. Fine things were said of
the challenging speeches that would be made, of the firm stand that the
Cadet party intended to take, of the crisis with which the Court party
would be faced.
Of course nothing occurred. It may be safely said that, in Russian
affairs, no crisis occurs, either in the place or at the time, or in the
manner in which it is expected. Time with us here refuses to be caught
by the throat. That is the revenge that it takes on the scorn with
which, in Russia, it is always covered.
On the 20th of February I received an invitation to Nina's birthday
party. She would be eighteen on the 28th. She scribbed at the bottom of
Vera's note:
Dear Durdles--If you don't come I will never forgive you.--Your loving
Nina.
The immediate problem was a present. I knew that Nina adored presents,
but Petrograd was now no easy place for purchases, and I wished, I
suppose as a kind of tribute to her youth and freshness and colour, to
give her something for which she would really care. I sallied out on a
wonderful afternoon when the town was a blaze of colour, the walls dark
red, dark brown, violet, pink, and the snow a dazzling glitter of
crystal. The bells were ringing for some festival, echoing as do no
other bells in the world from wall to wall, roof to roof, canal to
canal. Everybody moved as though they were inspired with a gay sense of
adventure, men and women laughing; the Isvostchicks surveying possible
fares with an eye less patronising and lugubrious than usual, the flower
women and the beggars and the little Chinese boys and the wicked old men
who stare at you as though they were dreaming of Eastern debauches,
shared in the sun and tang of the air and high colour of the sky and
snow.
I pushed my way into the shop in the Morskaia that had the coloured
stones--the blue and azure and purple stones--in the window. Inside the
shop, which had a fine gleaming floor, and an old man with a tired eye,
there were stones of every colour, but there was nothing there for
Nina--all was too elaborate and grand.
Near the Nevski is a fine shop of pictures with snow scenes and blue
rivers and Italian landscapes, and copies of Repin and Verestchagin, and
portraits of the Czar. I searched here, but all were too sophisticated
in their bright brown frames, and their air of being the latest thing
from Paris and London. Then I crossed the road, threading my way through
the carriages and motor cars, past the old white-bearded sweeper with
the broom held aloft, gazing at the sky, and plunged into the English
Shop to see whether I might buy something warm for Nina. Here, indeed, I
could fancy that I was in the High Street in Chester, or Leicester, or
Truro, or Canterbury. A demure English provincialism was over
everything, and a young man in a high white collar and a shiny black
coat, washed his hands as he told me that "they hadn't any in stock at
the moment, but they were expecting a delivery of goods at any minute."
Russian shopmen, it is almost needless to say, do not care whether they
have goods in stock or no. They have other things to think about. The
air was filled with the chatter of English governesses, and an English
clergyman and his wife were earnestly turning over a selection of
woollen comforters.
Nothing here for Nina--nothing at all. I hurried away. With a sudden
flash of inspiration I realised that it was in the Jews' Market that I
would find what I wanted. I snatched at the bulging neck of a sleeping
coachman, and before he was fully awake was in his sledge, and had told
him my destination. He grumbled and wished to know how much I intended
to pay him, and when I said one and a half roubles, answered that he
would not take me for less than three. I threatened him then with the
fat and good-natured policeman who always guarded the confused junction
of the Morskaia and Nevski, and he was frightened and moved on. I sighed
as I remembered the days not so long before, when that same coachman
would have thought it an honour to drive me for half a rouble. Down the
Sadovya we slipped, bumping over the uneven surface of the snow, and the
shops grew smaller and the cinemas more stringent, and the women and men
with their barrows of fruit and coloured notepaper and toys more
frequent. Then through the market with the booths and the church with
its golden towers, until we stood before the hooded entrance to the
Jews' Paradise. I paid him, and without listening to his discontented
cries pushed my way in. The Jews' Market is a series of covered arcades
with a square in the middle of it, and in the middle of the square a
little church with some doll-like trees. These arcades are Western in
their hideous covering of glass and the ugliness of the exterior of the
wooden shops that line them, but the crowd that throngs them is Eastern,
so that in the strange eyes and voices, the wild gestures, the laughs,
the cries, the singing, and the dancing that meets one here it is as
though a new world was suddenly born--a world offensive, dirty, voluble,
blackguardly perhaps, but intriguing, tempting, and ironical. The
arcades are generally so crowded that one can move only at a slow pace
and, on every side one is pestered by the equivalents of the old English
cry: "What do you lack? What do you lack?"
Every mixture of blood and race that the world contains is to be seen
here, but they are all--Tartars, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Indians,
Arabs, Moslem, and Christian--formed by some subtle colour of
atmosphere, so that they seem all alike to be citizens of some secret
little town, sprung to life just for a day, in the heart of this other
city. Perhaps it is the dull pale mist that the glass flings down,
perhaps it is the uncleanly dust-clogged air; whatever it be, there is a
stain of grey shadowy smoke upon all this world, and Ikons and shabby
jewels, and piles of Eastern clothes, and old brass pots, and silver,
hilted swords, and golden-tasselled Tartar coats gleam through the
shadow and wink and stare.
To-day the arcades were so crowded that I could scarcely move, and the
noise was deafening.
Many soldiers were there, looking with indulgent amusement upon the
scene, and the Jews with their skull-caps and the fat, huge-breasted
Jewish women screamed and shrieked and waved their arms like boughs in a
storm. I stopped at many shops and fingered the cheap silver toys, the
little blue and green Ikons, the buckles and beads and rosaries that
thronged the trays, but I could not find anything for Nina. Then
suddenly I saw a square box of mother-of-pearl and silver, so charming
and simple, the figures on the silver lid so gracefully carved that I
decided at once.
The Jew in charge of it wanted twice as much as I was ready to give, and
we argued for ten minutes before a kindly and appreciative crowd. At
last we arranged a compromise, and I moved away, pleased and satisfied.
I stepped out of the arcade and faced the little Square. It was, at that
instant, fantastic and oddly coloured; the sun, about to set, hung in
the misty sky a perfect round crimson globe, and it was perched, almost
maliciously, just above the tower of the little church.
The rest of the world was grey. The Square was a thick mass of human
beings so tightly wedged together that it seemed to move backwards and
forwards like a floor of black wood pushed by a lever. One lamp burnt
behind the window of the church, the old houses leaned forward as though
listening to the babel below their eaves.
But it was the sun that seemed to me then so evil and secret and
cunning. Its deep red was aloof and menacing, and its outline so sharp
that it was detached from the sky as though it were human, and would
presently move and advance towards us. I don't know what there was in
that crowd of struggling human beings and that detached red sun.... The
air was cruel, and through all the arcades that seemed to run like veins
to this heart of the place I could feel the cold and the dark and the
smoky dusk creeping forward to veil us all with deepest night.
I turned away and then saw, advancing towards me, as though he had just
come from the church, pushing his way, and waving a friendly hand to me,
Semyonov.
XX
His greeting was most amiable. He was wearing a rather short fur coat
that only reached to a little below his knees, and the fur of the coat
was of a deep rich brown, so that his pale square yellow beard
contrasted with this so abruptly as to seem false. His body was as ever
thick and self-confident, and the round fur cap that he wore was cocked
ever so slightly to one side. I did not want to see him, but I was
caught. I fancied that he knew very well that I wanted to escape, and
that now, for sheer perversity, he would see that I did not. Indeed, he
caught my arm and drew me out of the Market. We passed into the dusky
streets.
"Now, Ivan Andreievitch," he said, "this is very pleasant... very....
You elude me, you know, which is unkind with two so old acquaintances.
Of course I know that you dislike me, and I don't suppose that I have
the highest opinion of _you_, but, nevertheless, we should be interested
in one another. Our common experience...." He broke off with a little
shiver, and pulled his fur coat closer around him.
I knew that all that I wanted was to break away. We had passed quickly
on leaving the Market into some of the meanest streets of Petrograd.
This was the Petrograd of Dostoeffsky, the Petrograd of "Poor Folk" and
"Crime and Punishment" and "The Despised and Rejected."... Monstrous
groups of flats towered above us, and in the gathering dusk the figures
that slipped in and out of the doors were furtive shadows and ghosts. No
one seemed to speak; you could see no faces under the spare pale-flamed
lamps, only hear whispers and smell rotten stinks and feel the snow,
foul and soiled under one's feet....
"Look here, Semyonov," I said, slipping from the control of his hand,
"it's just as you say. We don't like one another, and we know one
another well enough to say so. Neither you nor I wish to revive the
past, and there's nothing in the present that we have in common."
"Nothing!" He laughed. "What about my delightful nieces and their home
circle? You were always one to shrink from the truth, Ivan Andreievitch.
You fancy that you can sink into the bosom of a charming family and
escape the disadvantages.... Not at all. There are always disadvantages
in a Russian family. _I_ am the disadvantage in this one." He laughed
again, and insisted on taking my arm once more. "If you feel so strongly
about me, Durward" (when he used my surname he always accented the
second syllable very strongly) "all you have to do is to cut my niece
Vera out of your visiting list. That, I imagine, is the last thing that
you wish. Well, then--"
"Vera Michailovna is my friend," I said hotly--it was foolish of me to
be so easily provoked, but I could not endure his sneering tone. "If you
imply--"
"Nonsense," he answered sharply, "I imply nothing. Do you suppose that I
have been more than a month here without discovering the facts? It's
your English friend Lawrence who is in love with Vera--and Vera with
him."
"That is a lie!" I cried.
He laughed. "You English," he said, "are not so unobservant as you seem,
but you hate facts. Vera and your friend Lawrence have been in love with
one another since their first meeting, and my dear nephew-in-law
Markovitch knows it."
"That's impossible," I cried. "He--"
"No," Semyonov replied, "I was wrong. He does not know it--he suspects.
And my nephew-in-law in a state of suspicion is a delightful study."
By now we were in a narrow street, so dark that we stumbled at every
step. We seemed to be quite alone.
It was I who now caught his arm. "Semyonov!" I said, and my urgency
stopped him so that he stood where he was. "Leave them alone! Leave them
alone! They've done no harm to you, they can offer you nothing, they are
not intelligent enough for you nor amusing enough. Even if it is true
what you say it will pass--Lawrence will go away. I will see that he
does. Only leave them alone! For God's sake, let them be!"
His face was very close to mine, and, looking at it in the gathering
dark, it was as though it were a face of glass behind which other faces
passed and repassed. I cannot hope to give any idea of the strange
mingling of regret, malice, pride, pain, scorn, and humour that those
eyes showed. His red lips parted as though he would speak, for a moment
he turned away from me and looked down the black tunnel of the street,
then he walked forward again.
"You are wrong, my friend," he said, "if you imagine that there is no
amusement for me in the study of my family. It _is_ my family, you know.
I have none other. Perhaps it has never occurred to you, Durward, that
possibly I am a lonely man."
As he spoke I heard again the echo of that voice as it vanished into the
darkness.... "No one?" and the answer: "No one."...
"Don't imagine," he continued, "that I am asking for your pity. That
indeed would be humorous. I pity no one, and I despise the men who have
it to bestow... but there are situations in life that are intolerable,
Ivan Andreievitch, and any man who _is_ a man will see that he escapes
from such a thing. May I not find in the bosom of my family such an
escape?" He laughed.
"I know nothing about that," I began hotly. "All I know is--"
But he went on as though he had not heard me.
"Have you ever thought about death since you came away from the Front,
Durward? It used to occupy your mind a good deal while you were there, I
remember--in a foolish, romantic, sentimental way of course. You'll
forgive my saying that your views of death were those of a second-hand
novelist--all the same I'll do you the justice of acknowledging that you
had studied it at first hand. You're not a coward, you know."
I was struck most vividly with a sense of his uneasiness. During those
other days uneasy was the very last thing that I ever would have said
that he was--even after his catastrophe his grip of his soul did not
loosen. It was just that loosening that I felt now; he had less control
of the beasts that dwelt beneath the ground of his house, and he could
hear them snarl and whine, and could feel the floor quiver with the echo
of their movements.
I suddenly knew that I was afraid of him no longer.
"Now, see, Alexei Petrovitch," I said, "it isn't death that we want to
talk about now. It is a much simpler thing. It is, that you shouldn't
for your own amusement simply go in and spoil the lives of some of my
friends for nothing at all except your own stupid pride. If that's your
plan I'm going to prevent it."
"Why, Ivan Andreievitch," he cried, laughing, "this is a challenge."
"You can take it as what you please," I answered gravely.
"But, incorrigible sentimentalist," he went on, "tell me--are you,
English and moralist and believer in a good and righteous God as you
are, are you really going to encourage this abominable adultery, this
open, ruthless wrecking of a good man's home? You surprise me; this is a
new light on your otherwise rather uninteresting character."
"Never mind my character," I answered him; "all you've got to do is to
leave Vera Michailovna alone. There'll be no wrecking of homes, unless
you are the wrecker."
He put his hand on my arm again.
"Listen, Durward," he said, "I'll tell you a little story. I'm a doctor
you know, and many curious things occur within my province. Well, some
years ago I knew a man who was very miserable and very proud. His pride
resented that he should be miserable, and he was always suspecting that
people saw his weakness, and as he despised human nature, and thought
his companions fools and deserving of all that they got, and more, he
couldn't bear the thought that they should perceive that he allowed
himself to be unhappy. He coveted death. If it meant extinction he could
imagine nothing pleasanter than so restful an aloofness, quiet and apart
and alone, whilst others hurried and scrambled and pursued the
future....
"And if death did not mean extinction then he thought that he might
snatch and secure for himself something which in life had eluded him. So
he coveted death. But he was too proud to reach it by suicide. That
seemed to him a contemptible and cowardly evasion, and such an easy
solution would have denied the purpose of all his life. So he looked
about him and discovered amongst his friends a man whose character he
knew well, a man idealistic and foolish and romantic, like yourself,
Ivan Andreievitch, only caring more for ideas, more impulsive and more
reckless. He found this man and made him his friend. He played with him
as a cat does with a mouse. He enjoyed life for about a year and then he
was murdered...."
"Murdered!" I exclaimed.
"Yes--shot by his idealistic friend. I envy him that year. He must have
experienced many breathless sensations. When the murderer was tried his
only explanation was that he had been irritated and disappointed.
"'Disappointed of what?' asked the judge.
"'Of everything in which he believed....' said the man.
"It seemed a poor excuse for a murder; he is still, I have no doubt, in
Siberia.
"But I envy my friend. That was a delightful death to die....
Good-night, Ivan Andreievitch."
He waved his hand at me and was gone. I was quite alone in the long
black street, engulfed by the high, overhanging flats.
XXI
Late on the afternoon of Nina's birthday, when I was on the point of
setting out for the English Prospect, the Rat appeared. I had not seen
him for several weeks; but there he was, stepping suddenly out of the
shadows of my room, dirty and disreputable and cheerful. He had been, I
perceived, drinking furniture polish.
"Good-evening, Barin."
"Good-evening," I said sternly. "I told you not to come here when you
were drunk."
"I'm not drunk," he said, offended, "only a little. It's not much that
you can get these days. I want some money, Barin."
"I've none for you," I answered.
"It's only a little--God knows that I wouldn't ask you for much, but I'm
going to be very busy these next days, and it's work that won't bring
pay quickly. There'll be pay later, and then I will return it to you."
"There's nothing for you to-night," I said.
He laughed. "You're a fine man, Barin. A foreigner is fine--that's
where the poor Russian is unhappy. I love you, Barin, and I will look
after you, and if, as you say, there isn't any money here, one must
pray to God and he will show one the way."
"What's this work you're going to do?" I asked him.
"There's going to be trouble the other side of the river in a day or
two," he answered, "and I'm going to help."
"Help what?" I asked.
"Help the trouble," he answered, smiling.
"Behave like a blackguard, in fact."
"Ah, blackguard, Barin!" he protested, using a Russian word that is
worse than blackguard. "Why these names?... I'm not a good man, God have
mercy on my soul, but then I pretend nothing. I am what you see.... If
there's going to be trouble in the town I may as well be there. Why not
I as well as another? And it is to your advantage, Barin, that I should
be."
"Why to my advantage?" I asked him.
"Because I am your friend, and we'll protect you," he answered.
"I wouldn't trust you a yard," I told him.
"Well, perhaps you're right," he said. "We are as God made us--I am no
better than the rest."
"No, indeed you're not," I answered him. "Why do you think there'll be
trouble?"
"I know.... Perhaps a lot of trouble, perhaps only a little. But it
will be a fine time for those of us who have nothing to lose.... So you
have no money for me?"
"Nothing."
"A mere rouble or so?"
"Nothing."
"Well, I must be off.... I am your friend. Don't forget," and he was
gone.
It had been arranged that Nina and Vera, Lawrence and Bohun and I should
meet outside the Giniselli at five minutes to eight. I left my little
silver box at the flat, paid some other calls, and just as eight o'clock
was striking arrived outside the Giniselli. This is Petrograd's apology
for a music-hall--in other words, it is nothing but the good
old-fashioned circus.
Then, again, it is not quite the circus of one's English youth, because
it has a very distinct Russian atmosphere of its own. The point really
is the enthusiasm of the audience, because it is an enthusiasm that in
these sophisticated, twentieth-century days is simply not to be found in
any other country in Europe. I am an old-fashioned man and, quite
frankly, I adore a circus; and when I can find one with the right
sawdust smell, the right clown, and the right enthusiasm, I am happy.
The smart night is a Saturday, and then, if you go, you will see, in the
little horse-boxes close to the arena, beautiful women in jewellery and
powder, and young officers, and fat merchants in priceless Shubas. But
to-night was not a Saturday, and therefore the audience was very
democratic, screaming cat-calls from the misty distances of the gallery,
and showering sunflower seeds upon the heads of the bourgeoisie, who
were, for the most part, of the smaller shopkeeper kind.
Nina, to-night, was looking very pretty and excited. She was wearing a
white silk dress with blue bows, and all her hair was piled on the top
of her head in imitation of Vera--but this only had the effect of making
her seem incredibly young and naïve, as though she had put her hair up
just for the evening because there was to be a party. It was explained
that Markovitch was working but would be present at supper. Vera was
quiet, but looked happier, I thought, than I had seen her for a long
time. Bohun was looking after her, and Lawrence was with Nina. I sat
behind the four of them, in the back of the little box, like a presiding
Benevolence.
Mostly I thought of how lovely Vera was to-night, and why it was, too,
that more people did not care for her. I knew that she was not popular,
that she was considered proud and reserved and cold. As she sat there
now, motionless, her hands on her lap, her whole being seemed to me to
radiate goodness and gentleness and a loving heart. I knew that she
could be impatient with stupid people, and irritated by sentimentality,
and infuriated by meanness and cruelty, but the whole size and grandeur
of her nobility seemed to me to shine all about her and set her apart
from the rest of human beings. She was not a woman whom I ever could
have loved--she had not the weaknesses and naïveties and appealing
helplessness that drew love from one's heart. Nor could I have ever
dared to face the depth and splendour of the passion that there was in
her--I was not built on that heroic scale. God forgive me if, as I
watched them, I felt a sudden glow of almost eager triumph at the
thought of Lawrence as her lover! I checked it. My heart was suddenly
heavy.
Such a development could only mean tragedy, and I knew it. I had even
sworn to Semyonov that I would prevent it. I looked at them and felt my
helpless weakness. Who was I to prevent anything? And who was there now,
in the whole world, who would be guided by my opinion? They might have
me as a confidant because they trusted me, but after that... no, I had
no illusions. I was pushed off the edge of the world, hanging on still
with one quivering hand--soon my grip would loosen--and, God help me, I
did not want to go.
Nina turned back to me and, with a little excited clap of her hands,
drew my attention to the gallant Madame Gineselli, who, although by no
means a chicken, arrayed in silver tights and a large black picture-hat,
stood on one foot on the back of her white horse and bowed to the
already hysterical gallery. Mr. Gineselli cracked his whip, and the
white horse ambled along and the sawdust flew up into our eyes, and
Madame bent her knees first in and then out, and the bourgeoisie clapped
their hands and the gallery shouted "Brava." Gineselli cracked his whip
and there was the clown "Jackomeno, beloved of his Russian public," as
it was put on the programme; and indeed so he seemed to be, for he was
greeted with roars of applause. There was nothing very especially
Russian about him, however, and when he had taken his coat off and
brushed a place on which to put it and then flung it on the ground and
stamped on it, I felt quite at home with him and ready for anything.
He called up one of the attendants and asked him whether he had ever
played the guitar. I don't know what it was that the attendant answered,
because something else suddenly transfixed my attention--the vision of
Nina's little white-gloved hand resting on Lawrence's broad knee. I saw
at once, as though she had told me, that she had committed herself to a
most desperate venture. I could fancy the resolution that she had
summoned to take the step, the way that now her heart would be furiously
beating, and the excited chatter with which she would try to cover up
her action. Vera and Bohun could not, from where they were sitting, see
what she had done; Lawrence did not move, his back was set like a rock;
he stared steadfastly at the arena. Nina never ceased talking, her
ribbons fluttering and her other hand gesticulating.
I could not take my eyes from that little white hand. I should have
been, I suppose, ashamed of her, indignant for her, but I could only
feel that she was, poor child, in for the most desperate rebuff. I could
see from where I sat her cheek, hot and crimson, and her shrill voice
never stopped.
The interval arrived, to my intense relief, and we all went out into the
dark passage that smelt of sawdust and horses. Almost at once Nina
detached me from the others and walked off with me towards the lighted
hall.
"You saw," she said.
"Saw what?" I asked.
"Saw what I was doing."
I felt that she was quivering all over, and she looked so ridiculously
young, with her trembling lip and blue hat on one side and burning
cheeks, that I felt that I wanted to take her into my arms and kiss and
pet her.
"I saw that you had your hand on his knee," I said. "That was silly of
you, Nina."
"Why shouldn't I?" she answered furiously. "Why shouldn't I enjoy life
like every one else? Why should Vera, have everything?"
"Vera!" I cried. "What has it to do with Vera?"
She didn't answer my question. She put her hand on my arm, pressing
close up to me as though she wanted my protection.
"Durdles, I want him for my friend. I do--I do. When I look at him and
think of Boris and the others I don't want to speak to any one of them
again. I only want him for my friend. I'm getting old now, and they
can't treat me as a child any longer. I'll show them. I know what I'll
do if I can't have the friends I want and if Vera is always managing
me--I'll go off to Boris."
"My dear Nina," I said, "you mustn't do that. You don't care for him."
"No, I know I don't--but I will go if everybody thinks me a baby. And
Durdles--Durdles, please--make him like me--your Mr. Lawrence."
She said his name with the funniest little accent.
"Nina, dear," I said, "will you take a little piece of advice from me?"
"What is it?" she asked doubtfully.
"Well, this.... Don't you make any move yourself. Just wait and you'll
see he'll like you. You'll make him shy if you--"
But she interrupted me furiously in one of her famous tempers.
"Oh, you Englishmen with your shyness and your waiting and your
coldness! I hate you all, and I wish we were fighting with the Germans
against you. Yes, I do--and I hope the Germans win. You never have any
blood. You're all cold as ice.... And what do you mean spying on me?
Yes, you were--sitting behind and spying! You're always finding out what
we're doing, and putting it all down in a book. I hate you, and I won't
ever ask your advice again."
She rushed off, and I was following her when the bell rang for the
beginning of the second part. We all went in, Nina chattering and
laughing with Bohun just as though she had never been in a temper in her
life.
Then a dreadful thing happened. We arrived at the box, and Vera, Bohun,
and Nina sat in the seats they had occupied before. I waited for
Lawrence to sit down, but he turned round to me.
"I say, Durward--you sit next to Nina Michailovna this time. She'll be
bored having me all the while."
"No, no!" I began to protest, but Nina, her voice shaking, cried:
"Yes, Durdles, you sit down next to me--please."
I don't think that Lawrence perceived anything. He said very cheerfully,
"That's right--and I'll sit behind and see that you all behave."
I sat down and the second part began. The second part was wrestling. The
bell rang, the curtains parted, and instead of the splendid horses and
dogs there appeared a procession of some of the most obese and monstrous
types of humanity. Almost naked, they wandered round the arena,
mountains of flesh glistening in the electric light. A little man, all
puffed up like a poulter pigeon, then advanced into the middle of the
arena, and was greeted with wild applause from the gallery. To this he
bowed and then announced in a terrific voice, "Gentlemen, you are about
to see some of the most magnificent wrestling in the world. Allow me to
introduce to you the combatants." He then shouted out the names: "Ivan
Strogoff of Kiev--Paul Rosing of Odessa--Jacob Smyerioff of
Petrograd--John Meriss from Africa (this the most hideous of
negroes)--Karl Tubiloff of Helsingfors...." and so on. The gentlemen
named smirked and bowed. They all marched off, and then, in a moment,
one couple returned, shook hands, and, under the breathless attention
of the whole house, began to wrestle.
They did not, however, command my attention. I could think of nothing
but the little crushed figure next to me. I stole a look at her and saw
that a large tear was hanging on one eyelash ready to fall. I looked
hurriedly away. Poor child! And her birthday! I cursed Lawrence for his
clumsiness. What did it matter if she had put her hand on his knee? He
ought to have taken it and patted it. But it was more than likely, as I
knew very well, that he had never even noticed her action. He was
marvellously unaware of all kinds of things, and it was only too
possible that Nina scarcely existed for him. I longed to comfort her,
and I did then a foolish thing. I put out my hand and let it rest for a
moment on her dress.
Instantly she moved away with a sharp little gesture.
Five minutes later I heard a little whisper: "Durdles, it's so hot
here--and I hate these naked men. Shall we go? Ask Vera--"
The first bout had just come to an end. The little man with the swelling
chest was alone, strutting up and down, and answering questions hurled
at him from the gallery.
"Uncle Vanya, where's Michael of Odessa?"
"Ah, he's a soldier in the army now."
"Uncle Vanya... Uncle Vanya... Uncle Vanya..."
"Well, well, what is it?"
"Why isn't _Chornaya Maska_, wrestling to-night?"
"Ah, he's busy."
"What's he busy with?"
"Never mind, he's busy."
"What's he busy with?... Uncle Vanya... Uncle Vanya..."
"_Shto?_"
"Isn't it true that Michael's dead now?"
"So they say."
"Is it true?"
"Uncle Vanya... Uncle Vanya...."
The message had passed along that Nina was tired and wanted to go. We
all moved out through the passage and into the cold fresh air.
"It was quite time," said Vera. "I was going to suggest it myself."
"I hope you liked it," said Lawrence politely to Nina.
"No, I hated it," she answered furiously, and turned her back on him.
It could not be said that the birthday party was promising very well.
XXII
And yet for the first half-hour it really seemed that it would "go" very
well indeed. It had been agreed that it was to be absolutely a "family"
party, and Uncle Ivan, Semyonov, and Boris Grogoff were the only
additions to our number. Markovitch was there of course, and I saw at
once that he was eager to be agreeable and to be the best possible host.
As I had often noticed before, there was something pathetic about
Markovitch when he wished to be agreeable. He had neither the figure nor
the presence with which to be fascinating, and he did not know in the
least how to bring out his best points.
Especially when he tried, as he was sometimes ill-advised enough to do,
to flirt with young girls, he was a dismal failure. He was intended, by
nature, to be mysterious and malevolent, and had he only had a
malevolent spirit there would have been no tragedy--but in the confused
welter that he called his soul, malevolence was the least of the
elements, and other things--love, sympathy, twisted self-pity, ambition,
courage, and cowardice--drowned it. He was on his best behaviour
to-night, and over the points of his high white collar his peaked, ugly,
anxious face peered, appealing to the Fates for generosity.
But the Fates despise those who appeal.
I very soon saw that he was on excellent terms with Semyonov, and this
could only be, I was sure, because Semyonov had been flattering him.
Very soon I learnt the truth. I was standing near the table, watching
the company, when I found Markovitch at my side.
"Very glad you've come, Ivan Andreievitch," he said. "I've been meaning
to come and see you, only I've been too busy."
"How's the ink getting along?" I asked him.
"Oh, the ink!" He brushed my words scornfully aside. "No, that's
nothing. We must postpone that to a more propitious time.
Meanwhile--meanwhile, Ivan Andreievitch, I've hit it at last!"
"What is it this time?" I asked.
He could hardly speak for his excitement. "It's wood--the bark--the bark
of the tree, you know--a new kind of fibre for cloth. If I hadn't got to
look after these people here, I'd take you and show you now. You're a
clever fellow--you'd understand at once. I've been showing it to Alexei"
(he nodded in the direction of Semyonov), "and he entirely agrees with
me that there's every kind of possibility in it. The thing will be to
get the labour--that's the trouble nowadays--but I'll find somebody--one
of these timber men...."
So that was it, was it? I looked across at Semyonov, who was now seated
on Vera's right hand just opposite Boris Grogoff. He was very quiet,
very still, looking about him, his square pale beard a kind of symbol of
the secret immobility of his soul. I fancied that I detected behind his
placidity an almost relieved self-satisfaction, as though things were
going very much better than he had expected.
"So Alexei Petrovitch thinks well of it, does he?" I asked.
"Most enthusiastic," answered Markovitch eagerly. "He's gone into the
thing thoroughly with me, and has made some admirable suggestions....
Ivan Andreievitch, I think I should tell you--I misjudged him. I wasn't
fair on what I said to you the other day about him. Or perhaps it is
that being at the Front has changed him, softened him a bit. His love
affair there, you know, made him more sympathetic and kindly. I believe
he means well to us all. Vera won't agree with me. She's more cynical
than she used to be. I don't like that in her. She never had a
suspicious nature before, but now she doesn't trust one."
"You don't tell her enough," I interrupted.
"Tell her?" he looked at me doubtfully. "What is there I should tell
her?"
"Everything!" I answered.
"Everything?" His eyes suddenly narrowed, his face was sharp and
suspicious. "Does she tell me everything? Answer me that, Ivan
Andreievitch. There was a time once--but now--I give my confidences
where I'm trusted. If she treated me fairly--"
There was no chance to say more; they called us to the table. I took my
place between Nina and Ivan.
As I have said, the supper began very merrily. Boris Grogoff was, I
think, a little drunk when he arrived; at any rate he was noisy from the
very beginning. I have wondered often since whether he had any private
knowledge that night which elated and excited him, and was responsible
in part, perhaps, for what presently occurred. It may well have been
so, although at the time, of course, nothing of the kind occurred to me.
Nina appeared to have recovered her spirits. She was sitting next to
Lawrence, and chattered and laughed with him in her ordinary fashion.
And now, stupidly enough, when I try to recall exactly the steps that
led up to the catastrophe, I find it difficult to see things clearly. I
remember that very quickly I was conscious that there was danger in the
air. I was conscious of it first in the eyes of Semyonov, those steady,
watching, relentless eyes so aloof as to be inhuman. He was on the other
side of the table, and suddenly I said to myself, "He's expecting
something to happen." Then, directly after that I caught Vera's eye, and
I saw that she too was anxious. She looked pale and tired and sad.
I caught myself in the next instant saying to myself, "Well, she's got
Lawrence to look after her now"--so readily does the spirit that is
beyond one's grasp act above and outside one's poor human will.
I saw then that the trouble was once again, as it had often been before,
Grogoff. He was drinking heavily the rather poor claret which Markovitch
had managed to secure from somewhere. He addressed the world in general.
"I tell you that we're going to stop this filthy war," he cried. "And if
our government won't do it, we'll take things into our own hands...."
"Well," said Semyonov, smiling, "that's a thing that no Russian has ever
said before, for certain."
Every one laughed, and Grogoff flushed. "Oh, it's easy to sneer!" he
said. "Just because there've been miserable cowards in Russian history,
you think it will always be so. I tell you it is not so. The time is
coming when tyranny will topple from its throne, and we'll show Europe
the way to liberty."
"By which you mean," said Semyonov, "that you'll involve Russia in at
least three more wars in addition to the one she's at present so
magnificently losing."
"I tell you," screamed Grogoff, now so excited that he was standing on
his feet and waving his glass in the air, "that this time you have not
cowards to deal with. This will not be as it was in 1905; I know of what
I'm speaking."
Semyonov leant over the table and whispered something in Markovitch's
ear. I had seen that Markovitch had already been longing to speak. He
jumped up on to his feet, fiercely excited, his eyes flaming.
"It's nonsense that you are talking, sheer nonsense!" he cried.
"Russia's lost the war, and all we who believed in her have our hearts
broken. Russia won't be mended by a few vapouring idiots who talk and
talk without taking action."
"What do you call me?" screamed Grogoff.
"I mention no names," said Markovitch, his little eyes dancing with
anger. "Take it or no as you please. But I say that we have had enough
of all this vapouring talk, all this pretence of courage. Let us admit
that freedom has failed in Russia, that she must now submit herself to
the yoke."
"Coward! Coward!" screamed Grogoff.
"It's you who are the coward!" cried Markovitch.
"Call me that and I'll show you!"
"I do call you it!"
There was an instant's pause, during which we all of us had, I suppose,
some idea of trying to intervene.
But it was too late. Grogoff raised his hand and, with all his force,
flung his glass at Markovitch. Markovitch ducked his head, and the glass
smashed with a shattering tinkle on the wall behind him.
We all cried out, but the only thing of which I was conscious was that
Lawrence had sprung from his seat, had crossed to where Vera was
standing, and had put his hand on her arm. She glanced up at him. That
look which they exchanged, a look of revelation, of happiness, of sudden
marvellous security, was so significant that I could have cried out to
them both, "Look out! Look out!"
But if I had cried they would not have heard me.
My next instinct was to turn to Markovitch. He was frowning, coughing a
little, and feeling the top of his collar. His face was turned towards
Grogoff and he was speaking--could catch some words: "No right... in my
own house... Boris... I apologise... please don't think of it." But
his eyes were not looking at Boris at all; they were turned towards
Vera, staring at her, begging her, beseeching her.... What had he seen?
How much had he understood? And Nina? And Semyonov?
But at once, in a way most truly Russian, the atmosphere had changed. It
was Nina who controlled the situation. "Boris," she cried, "come here!"
We all waited in silence. He looked at her, a little sulkily, his head
hanging, but his eyes glancing up at her.
He seemed nothing then but a boy caught in some misdemeanour, obstinate,
sulky, but ready to make peace if a chance were offered him.
"Boris, come here!"
He moved across to her, looking her full in the face, his mouth sulky,
but his eyes rebelliously smiling.
"Well... well...."
She stood away from the table, drawn to her full height, her eyes
commanding him: "How dare you! Boris, how dare you! My
birthday--_mine_--and you've spoilt it, spoilt it all. Come here--up
close!"
He came to her until his hands were almost on her body; he hung his
head, standing over her.
She stood back as though she were going to strike him, then suddenly
with a laugh she sprang upon the chair beside her, flung her arms round
his neck and kissed him; then, still standing on the chair, turned and
faced us all.
"Now, that's enough--all of you. Michael, Uncle Ivan, Uncle Alexei,
Durdles--how dare you, all of you? You're all as bad--every one of you.
I'll punish all of you if we have any more politics. Beastly politics!
What do they matter? It's my birthday. My _birthday_, I tell you. It
_shan't_ be spoilt."
She seemed to me so excited as not to know what she was saying. What had
she seen? What did she know?... Meanwhile Grogoff was elated, wildly
pleased like a boy who, contrary to all his expectations, had won a
prize.
He went up to Markovitch with his hand out:
"Nicholas--forgive me--_Prasteete_--I forgot myself. I'm ashamed--my
abominable temper. We are friends. You were right, too. We talk here in
Russia too much, far too much, and when the moment comes for action we
shrink back. We see too far perhaps. Who knows? But you were right and I
am a fool. You've taught me a lesson by your nobility. Thank you,
Nicholas. And all of you--I apologise to all of you."
We moved away from the table. Vera came over to us, and then sat on the
sofa with her arm around Nina's neck. Nina was very quiet now, sitting
there, her cheeks flushed, smiling, but as though she were thinking of
something quite different.
Some one proposed that we should play "Petits Cheveaux." We gathered
around the table, and soon every one was laughing and gambling.
Only once I looked up and saw that Markovitch was gazing at Vera; and
once again I looked at Vera and saw that she was staring before her,
seeing nothing, lost in some vision--but it was not of Markovitch that
she was thinking....
I was the first to leave--I said good-night to every one. I could hear
their laughter as I waited at the bottom of the stairs for the Dvornik
to let me out.
But when I was in the street the world was breathlessly still. I walked
up the Prospect--no soul was in sight, only the scattered lamps, the
pale snow, and the houses. At the end of the Canal I stopped. The
silence was intense.
It seemed to me then that in the very centre of the Canal the ice
suddenly cracked, slowly pulled apart, leaving a still pool of black
water. The water slowly stirred, rippled, then a long, horned, and scaly
head pushed up. I could see the shining scales on its thick side and the
ribbed horn on the back of the neck. Beneath it the water stirred and
heaved. With dead glazed eyes it stared upon the world, then slowly, as
though it were drawn from below, it sank. The water rippled in narrowing
circles--then all was still....
The moon came out from behind filmy shadow. The world was intensely
light, and I saw that the ice of the canal had never been broken, and
that no pool of black water caught the moon's rays.
It was fiercely cold and I hurried home, pulling my Shuba more closely
about me.