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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12349 ***
+
+BY HUGH WALPOLE
+
+_STUDIES IN PLACE_
+  THE SECRET CITY
+  THE DARK FOREST
+  THE GOLDEN SCARECROW
+  THE WOODEN HORSE
+  MARADICK AT FORTY
+  THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN
+
+_TWO PROLOGUES_
+  THE PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE
+  FORTITUDE
+
+_THE RISING CITY_
+  1. THE DUCHESS OF WREXE
+  2. THE GREEN MIRROR
+
+
+
+THE SECRET CITY
+
+A NOVEL IN THREE PARTS
+
+BY
+
+HUGH WALPOLE
+
+AUTHOR OF "FORTITUDE," "THE DARK FOREST," "THE DUCHESS OF WREXE," ETC.
+
+NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MAJOR JAMES ANNAND (15TH BATTALION 48TH HIGHLANDERS, C.E.F.)
+
+IN RETURN FOR THE GIFT OF HIS FRIENDSHIP
+
+
+
+
+In the eastern quarter dawn breaks, the stars flicker pale.
+The morning cock at Ju-nan mounts the wall and crows.
+The songs are over, the clock run down, but still the feast is set.
+The Moon grows dim and the stars are few; morning has come to the world.
+At a thousand gates and ten thousand doors the fish-shaped keys turn;
+Round the Palace and up by the Castle, the crows and magpies are flying.
+
+_Cock-Crow Song_. Anon. (1st Century B.C.).
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I Vera And Nina
+
+
+PART II Lawrence
+
+
+PART III Markovitch And Semyonov
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+VERA AND NINA
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRET CITY
+
+VERA AND NINA
+
+
+I
+
+There are certain things that I feel, as I look through this bundle of
+manuscript, that I must say. The first is that of course no writer ever
+has fulfilled his intention and no writer ever will; secondly, that
+there was, when I began, another intention than that of dealing with my
+subject adequately, namely that of keeping myself outside the whole of
+it; I was to be, in the most abstract and immaterial sense of the word,
+a voice, and that simply because this business of seeing Russian
+psychology through English eyes has no excuse except that it _is_
+English. That is its only interest, its only atmosphere, its only
+motive, and if you are going to tell me that any aspect of Russia
+psychological, mystical, practical, or commercial seen through an
+English medium is either Russia as she really is or Russia as Russians
+see her, I say to you, without hesitation, that you don't know of what
+you are talking.
+
+Of Russia and the Russians I know nothing, but of the effect upon myself
+and my ideas of life that Russia and the Russians have made during these
+last three years I know something. You are perfectly free to say that
+neither myself nor my ideas of life are of the slightest importance to
+any one. To that I would say that any one's ideas about life are of
+importance and that any one's ideas about Russian life are of
+interest... and beyond that, I have simply been compelled to write. I
+have not been able to help myself, and all the faults and any virtues in
+this story come from that. The facts are true, the inferences absolutely
+my own, so that you may reject them at any moment and substitute others.
+It is true that I have known Vera Michailovna, Nina, Alexei Petrovitch,
+Henry, Jerry, and the rest--some of them intimately--and many of the
+conversations here recorded I have myself heard. Nevertheless the
+inferences are my own, and I think there is no Russian who, were he to
+read this book, would not say that those inferences were wrong. In an
+earlier record, to which this is in some ways a sequel,[1] my inferences
+were, almost without exception, wrong, and there is no Russian alive for
+whom this book can have any kind of value except as a happy example of
+the mistakes that the Englishman can make about the Russian.
+
+But it is over those very mistakes that the two souls, Russian and
+English, so different, so similar, so friendly, so hostile, may meet....
+And in any case the thing has been too strong for me. I have no other
+defence. For one's interest in life is stronger, God knows how much
+stronger, than one's discretion, and one's love of life than one's
+wisdom, and one's curiosity in life than one's ability to record it. At
+least, as I have said, I have endeavoured to keep my own history, my own
+desires, my own temperament out of this, as much as is humanly
+possible....
+
+And the facts are true.
+
+[Footnote 1: _The Dark Forest_.]
+
+
+
+II
+
+They had been travelling for a week, and had quite definitely decided
+that they had nothing whatever in common. As they stood there, lost and
+desolate on the grimy platform of the Finland station, this same thought
+must have been paramount in their minds: "Thank God we shan't have to
+talk to one another any longer. Whatever else may happen in this
+strange place that at least we're spared." They were probably quite
+unconscious of the contrast they presented, unconscious because, at this
+time, young Bohun never, I should imagine, visualised himself as
+anything more definite than absolutely "right," and Lawrence simply
+never thought about himself at all. But they were perfectly aware of
+their mutual dissatisfaction, although they were of course absolutely
+polite. I heard of it afterwards from both sides, and I will say quite
+frankly that my sympathy was all with Lawrence. Young Bohun can have
+been no fun as a travelling companion at that time. If you had looked at
+him there standing on the Finland station platform and staring haughtily
+about for porters you must have thought him the most self-satisfied of
+mortals. "That fellow wants kicking," you would have said. Good-looking,
+thin, tall, large black eyes, black eyelashes, clean and neat and
+"right" at the end of his journey as he had been at the beginning of it,
+just foreign-looking enough with his black hair and pallor to make him
+interesting--he was certainly arresting. But it was the
+self-satisfaction that would have struck any one. And he had reason; he
+was at that very moment experiencing the most triumphant moment of his
+life.
+
+He was only twenty-three, and was already as it seemed to the youthfully
+limited circle of his vision, famous. Before the war he had been, as he
+quite frankly admitted to myself and all his friends, nothing but
+ambitious. "Of course I edited the _Granta_ for a year," he would say,
+"and I don't think I did it badly.... But that wasn't very much."
+
+No, it really wasn't a great deal, and we couldn't tell him that it was.
+He had always intended, however, to be a great man; the _Granta_ was
+simply a stepping-stone. He was already, during his second year at
+Cambridge, casting about as to the best way to penetrate, swiftly and
+securely, the fastnesses of London journalism. Then the war came, and he
+had an impulse of perfectly honest and selfless patriotism..., not
+quite selfless perhaps, because he certainly saw himself as a mighty
+hero, winning V.C.'s and saving forlorn hopes, finally received by his
+native village under an archway of flags and mottoes (the local
+postmaster, who had never treated him very properly, would make the
+speech of welcome). The reality did him some good, but not very much,
+because when he had been in France only a fortnight he was gassed and
+sent home with a weak heart. His heart remained weak, which made him
+interesting to women and allowed time for his poetry. He was given an
+easy post in the Foreign Office and, in the autumn of 1916 he published
+_Discipline: Sonnets and Poems_. This appeared at a very fortunate
+moment, when the more serious of British idealists were searching for
+signs of a general improvement, through the stress of war, of poor
+humanity.... "Thank God, there are our young poets," they said.
+
+The little book had excellent notices in the papers, and one poem in
+especial "How God spoke to Jones at Breakfast-time" was selected for
+especial praise because of its admirable realism and force. One paper
+said that the British breakfast-table lived in that poem "in all its
+tiniest most insignificant details," as no breakfast-table, save
+possibly that of Major Pendennis at the beginning of _Pendennis_ has
+lived before. One paper said, "Mr. Bohun merits that much-abused word
+'genius.'"
+
+The young author carried these notices about with him and I have seen
+them all. But there was more than this. Bohun had been for the last four
+years cultivating Russian. He had been led into this through a real,
+genuine interest. He read the novelists and set himself to learn the
+Russian language. That, as any one who has tried it will know is no easy
+business, but Henry Bohun was no fool, and the Russian refugee who
+taught him was no fool. After Henry's return from France he continued
+his lessons, and by the spring of 1916 he could read easily, write
+fairly, and speak atrociously. He then adopted Russia, an easy thing to
+do, because his supposed mastery of the language gave him a tremendous
+advantage over his friends. "I assure you that's not so," he would say.
+"You can't judge Tchehov till you've read him in the original. Wait till
+you can read him in Russian." "No, I don't think the Russian characters
+are like that," he would declare. "It's a queer thing, but you'd almost
+think I had some Russian blood in me... I sympathise so." He followed
+closely the books that emphasised the more sentimental side of the
+Russian character, being of course grossly sentimental himself at heart.
+He saw Russia glittering with fire and colour, and Russians, large,
+warm, and simple, willing to be patronised, eagerly confessing their
+sins, rushing forward to make him happy, entertaining him for ever and
+ever with a free and glorious hospitality.
+
+"I really think I do understand Russia," he would say modestly. He said
+it to me when he had been in Russia two days.
+
+Then, in addition to the success of his poems and the general interest
+that he himself aroused the final ambition of his young heart was
+realised. The Foreign Office decided to send him to Petrograd to help in
+the great work of British propaganda.
+
+He sailed from Newcastle on December 2, 1916....
+
+
+
+III
+
+At this point I am inevitably reminded of that other Englishman who, two
+years earlier than Bohun, had arrived in Russia with his own pack of
+dreams and expectations.
+
+But John Trenchard, of whose life and death I have tried elsewhere to
+say something, was young Bohun's opposite, and I do not think that the
+strange unexpectedness of Russia can he exemplified more strongly than
+by the similarity of appeal that she could make to two so various
+characters. John was shy, self-doubting, humble, brave, and a
+gentleman,--Bohun was brave and a gentleman, but the rest had yet to be
+added to him. How he would have patronised Trenchard if he had known
+him! And yet at heart they were not perhaps so dissimilar. At the end of
+my story it will be apparent, I think, that they were not.
+
+That journey from Newcastle to Bergen, from Bergen to Torneo, from
+Torneo to Petrograd is a tiresome business. There is much waiting at
+Custom-houses, disarrangement of trains and horses and meals, long
+wearisome hours of stuffy carriages and grimy window-panes. Bohun I
+suspect suffered, too, from that sudden sharp precipitance into a world
+that knew not _Discipline_ and recked nothing of the _Granta_. Obviously
+none of the passengers on the boat from Newcastle had ever heard of
+_Discipline_. They clutched in their hands the works of Mr. Oppenheim,
+Mr. Compton Mackenzie, and Mr. O'Henry and looked at Bohun, I imagine,
+with indifferent superiority. He had been told at the Foreign Office
+that his especial travelling companion was to be Jerry Lawrence. If he
+had hoped for anything from this direction one glance at Jerry's
+brick-red face and stalwart figure must have undeceived him. Jerry,
+although he was now thirty-two years of age, looked still very much the
+undergraduate. My slight acquaintance with him had been in those earlier
+Cambridge days, through a queer mutual friend, Dune, who at that time
+seemed to promise so magnificently, who afterwards disappeared so
+mysteriously. You would never have supposed that Lawrence, Captain of
+the University Rugger during his last two years, Captain of the English
+team through all the Internationals of the season 1913-14, could have
+had anything in common, except football, with Dune, artist and poet if
+ever there was one. But on the few occasions when I saw them together it
+struck me that football was the very least part of their common ground.
+And that was the first occasion on which I suspected that Jerry Lawrence
+was not quite what he seemed....
+
+I can imagine Lawrence standing straddleways on the deck of the
+_Jupiter_, his short thick legs wide apart, his broad back indifferent
+to everything and everybody, his rather plump, ugly, good-natured face
+staring out to sea as though he saw nothing at all. He always gave the
+impression of being half asleep, he had a way of suddenly lurching on
+his legs as though in another moment his desire for slumber would be too
+strong for him, and would send him crashing to the ground. He would be
+smoking an ancient briar, and his thick red hands would be clasped
+behind his back....
+
+No encouraging figure for Bohun's aestheticism.
+
+I can see as though I had been present Bohun's approach to him, his
+patronising introduction, his kindly suggestion that they should eat
+their meals together, Jerry's smiling, lazy acquiescence. I can imagine
+how Bohun decided to himself that "he must make the best of this chap.
+After all, it was a long tiresome journey, and anything was better than
+having no one to talk to...." But Jerry, unfortunately, was in a bad
+temper at the start. He did not want to go out to Russia at all. His
+father, old Stephen Lawrence, had been for many years the manager of
+some works in Petrograd, and the first fifteen years of Jerry's life had
+been spent in Russia. I did not, at the time when I made Jerry's
+acquaintance at Cambridge, know this; had I realised it I would have
+understood many things about him which puzzled me. He never alluded to
+Russia, never apparently thought of it, never read a Russian book, had,
+it seemed, no connection of any kind with any living soul in that
+country.
+
+Old Lawrence retired, and took a fine large ugly palace in Clapham to
+end his days in....
+
+Suddenly, after Lawrence had been in France for two years, had won the
+Military Cross there and, as he put it, "was just settling inside his
+skin," the authorities realised his Russian knowledge, and decided to
+transfer him to the British Military Mission in Petrograd. His anger
+when he was sent back to London and informed of this was extreme. He
+hadn't the least desire to return to Russia, he was very happy where he
+was, he had forgotten all his Russian; I can see him, saying very
+little, looking like a sulky child and kicking his heel up and down
+across the carpet.
+
+"Just the man we want out there, Lawrence," he told me somebody said to
+him; "keep them in order."
+
+"Keep them in order!" That tickled his sense of humour. He was to laugh
+frequently, afterwards, when he thought of it. He always chewed a joke
+as a cow chews the cud.
+
+So that he was in no pleasant temper when he met Bohun on the decks of
+the _Jupiter_. That journey must have had its humours for any observer
+who knew the two men. During the first half of it I imagine that Bohun
+talked and Lawrence slumbered. Bohun patronised, was kind and indulgent,
+and showed very plainly that he thought his companion the dullest and
+heaviest of mortals. Then he told Lawrence about Russia; he explained
+everything to him, the morals, psychology, fighting qualities,
+strengths, and weaknesses. The climax arrived when he announced: "But
+it's the mysticism of the Russian peasant which will save the world.
+That adoration of God...."
+
+"Rot!" interrupted Lawrence.
+
+Bohun was indignant. "Of course if you know better--" he said.
+
+"I do," said Lawrence, "I lived there for fifteen years. Ask my old
+governor about the mysticism of the Russian peasant. He'll tell you."
+
+Bohun felt that he was justified in his annoyance. As he said to me
+afterwards: "The fellow had simply been laughing at me. He might have
+told me about his having been there." At that time, to Bohun, the most
+terrible thing in the world was to be laughed at.
+
+After that Bohun asked Jerry questions. But Jerry refused to give
+himself away. "I don't know," he said, "I've forgotten it all. I don't
+suppose I ever did know much about it."
+
+At Haparanda, most unfortunately, Bohun was insulted. The Swedish
+Customs Officer there, tired at the constant appearance of
+self-satisfied gentlemen with Red Passports, decided that Bohun was
+carrying medicine in his private bags. Bohun refused to open his
+portmanteau, simply because he "was a Courier and wasn't going to be
+insulted by a dirty foreigner." Nevertheless "the dirty foreigner" had
+his way and Bohun looked rather a fool. Jerry had not sympathised
+sufficiently with Bohun in this affair.... "He only grinned," Bohun told
+me indignantly afterwards. "No sense of patriotism at all. After all,
+Englishmen ought to stick together."
+
+Finally, Bohun tested Jerry's literary knowledge. Jerry seemed to have
+none. He liked Fielding, and a man called Farnol and Jack London.
+
+He never read poetry. But, a strange thing, he was interested in Greek.
+He had bought the works of Euripides and Aeschylus in the Loeb Library,
+and he thought them "thundering good." He had never read a word of any
+Russian author. "Never _Anna_? Never _War and Peace_? Never _Karamazov_?
+Never Tchehov?"
+
+No, never.
+
+Bohun gave him up.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+It should be obvious enough then that they hailed their approaching
+separation with relief. Bohun had been promised by one of the
+secretaries at the Embassy that rooms would be found for him. Jerry
+intended to "hang out" at one of the hotels. The "Astoria" was, he
+believed, the right place.
+
+"I shall go to the 'France' for to-night," Bohun declared, having lived,
+it would seem, in Petrograd all his days. "Look me up, old man, won't
+you?"
+
+Jerry smiled his slow smile. "I will," he said. "So long."
+
+We will now follow the adventures of Henry. He had in him, I know, a
+tiny, tiny creature with sharp ironical eyes and pointed springing feet
+who watched his poses, his sentimentalities and heroics with
+affectionate scorn. This same creature watched him now as he waited to
+collect his bags, and then stood on the gleaming steps of the station
+whilst the porters fetched an Isvostchick, and the rain fell in long
+thundering lines of steel upon the bare and desolate streets.
+
+"You're very miserable and lonely," the Creature said; "you didn't
+expect this."
+
+No, Henry had not expected this, and he also had not expected that the
+Isvostchick would demand eight roubles for his fare to the "France."
+Henry knew that this was the barest extortion, and he had sworn to
+himself long ago that he would allow nobody to "do" him. He looked at
+the rain and submitted. "After all, it's war time," he whispered to the
+Creature.
+
+He huddled himself into the cab, his baggage piled all about him, and
+tried by pulling at the hood to protect himself from the elements. He
+has told me that he felt that the rain was laughing at him; the cab was
+so slow that he seemed to be sitting in the middle of pools and melting
+snow; he was dirty, tired, hungry, and really not far from tears. Poor
+Henry was very, very young....
+
+He scarcely looked at the Neva as he crossed the bridge; all the length
+of the Quay he saw only the hunched, heavy back of the old cabman and
+the spurting, jumping rain, the vast stone grave-like buildings and the
+high grey sky. He drove through the Red Square that swung in the rain.
+He was thinking about the eight roubles.... He pulled up with a jerk
+outside the "France" hotel. Here he tried, I am sure, to recover his
+dignity, but he was met by a large, stout, eastern-looking gentleman
+with peacock feathers in his round cap who smiled gently when he heard
+about the eight roubles, and ushered Henry into the dark hall with a
+kindly patronage that admitted of no reply.
+
+The "France" is a good hotel, and its host is one of the kindest of
+mortals, but it is in many ways Russian rather than Continental in its
+atmosphere. That ought to have pleased and excited so sympathetic a soul
+as Henry. I am afraid that this moment of his arrival was the first
+realisation in his life of that stern truth that that which seems
+romantic in retrospect is only too often unpleasantly realistic in its
+actual experience.
+
+He stepped into the dark hall, damp like a well, with a whirring
+snarling clock on the wall and a heavy glass door pulled by a rope
+swinging and shifting, the walls and door and rack with the letters
+shifting too. In this rocking world there seemed to be no stable thing.
+He was dirty and tired and humiliated. He explained to his host, who
+smiled but seemed to be thinking of other things, that he wanted a bath
+and a room and a meal. He was promised these things, but there was no
+conviction abroad that the "France" had gone up in the world since Henry
+Bohun had crossed its threshold. An old man with a grey beard and the
+fixed and glittering eye of the "Ancient Mariner" told him to follow
+him. How well I know those strange, cold, winding passages of the
+"France," creeping in and out across boards that shiver and shake, with
+walls pressing in upon you so thin and rocky that the wind whistles and
+screams and the paper makes ghostly shadows and signs as though unseen
+fingers moved it. There is that smell, too, which a Russian hotel alone,
+of all the hostelries in the world, can produce, a smell of damp and
+cabbage soup, of sunflower seeds and cigarette-ends, of drainage and
+patchouli, of, in some odd way, the sea and fish and wet pavements. It
+is a smell that will, until I die, be presented to me by those dark
+half-hidden passages, warrens of intricate fumbling ways with boards
+suddenly rising like little mountains in the path; behind the wainscot
+one hears the scuttling of innumerable rats.
+
+The Ancient Mariner showed Henry to his room and left him. Henry was
+depressed at what he saw. His room was a slip cut out of other rooms,
+and its one window was faced by a high black wall down whose surface
+gleaming water trickled. The bare boards showed large and gaping cracks;
+there was a washstand, a bed, a chest of drawers, and a faded padded
+arm-chair with a hole in it. In the corner near the window was an Ikon
+of tinsel and wood; a little round marble-topped table offered a dusty
+carafe of water. A heavy red-plush bell-rope tapped the wall.
+
+He sat down in the faded arm-chair and instantly fell asleep. Was the
+room hypnotic? Why not? There are stranger things than that in
+Petrograd.... I myself am aware of what walls and streets and rivers,
+engaged on their own secret life in that most secret of towns, can do to
+the mere mortals who interfere with their stealthy concerns. Henry
+dreamt; he was never afterwards able to tell me of what he had dreamt,
+but it had been a long heavy cobwebby affair, in which the walls of the
+hotel seemed to open and to close, black little figures moving like ants
+up and down across the winding ways. He saw innumerable carafes and
+basins and beds, the wall-paper whistling, the rats scuttling, and lines
+of cigarette-ends, black and yellow, moving in trails like worms across
+the boards. All men like worms, like ants, like rats and the gleaming
+water trickling interminably down the high black wall. Of course he was
+tired after his long journey, hungry too, and depressed.... He awoke to
+find the Ancient Mariner watching him. He screamed. The Mariner
+reassured him with a toothless smile, gripped him by the arm and showed
+him the bathroom.
+
+"_Pajaluista!_" said the Mariner.
+
+Although Henry had learnt Russian, so unexpected was the pronunciation
+of this familiar word that it was as though the old man had said "Open
+Sesame!"....
+
+
+
+V
+
+He felt happy and consoled after a bath, a shave, and breakfast. Always
+I should think he reacted very quickly to his own physical sensations,
+and he was, as yet, too young to know that you cannot lay ghosts by the
+simple brushing of your hair and sponging your face. After his breakfast
+he lay down on the bed and again fell asleep, but this time not to
+dream; he slept like a Briton, dreamless, healthy and clean. He awoke as
+sure of himself as ever.... The first incantation had not, you see, been
+enough....
+
+He plunged into the city. It was raining with that thick dark rain that
+seems to have mud in it before it has fallen. The town was veiled in
+thin mist, figures appearing and disappearing, tram-bells ringing, and
+those strange wild cries in the Russian tongue that seem at one's first
+hearing so romantic and startling, rising sharply and yet lazily into
+the air. He plunged along and found himself in the Nevski Prospect--he
+could not mistake its breadth and assurance, dull though it seemed in
+the mud and rain.
+
+But he was above all things a romantic and sentimental youth, and he was
+determined to see this country as he had expected to see it; so he
+plodded on, his coat-collar up, British obstinacy in his eyes and a
+little excited flutter in his heart whenever a bright colour, an Eastern
+face, a street pedlar, a bunched-up, high-backed coachman, anything or
+any one unusual presented itself.
+
+He saw on his right a great church; it stood back from the street,
+having in front of it a desolate little arrangement of bushes and public
+seats and winding paths. The church itself was approached by flights of
+steps that disappeared under the shadow of a high dome supported by vast
+stone pillars. Letters in gold flamed across the building above the
+pillars.
+
+Henry passed the intervening ground and climbed the steps. Under the
+pillars before the heavy, swinging doors were two rows of beggars; they
+were dirtier, more touzled and tangled, fiercer and more ironically
+falsely submissive than any beggars that, he had ever seen. He described
+one fellow to me, a fierce brigand with a high black hat of feathers, a
+soiled Cossack coat and tall dirty red leather boots; his eyes were
+fires, Henry said. At any rate that is what Henry liked to think they
+were. There was a woman with no legs and a man with neither nose nor
+ears. I am sure that they watched Henry with supplicating hostility. He
+entered the church and was instantly swallowed up by a vast multitude.
+
+He described to me afterwards that it was as though he had been pushed
+(by the evil, eager fingers of the beggars no doubt) into deep water. He
+rose with a gasp, and was first conscious of a strange smell of dirt and
+tallow and something that he did not know, but was afterwards to
+recognise as the scent of sunflower seed. He was pushed upon, pressed
+and pulled, fingered and crushed. He did not mind--he was glad--this was
+what he wanted. He looked about him and found that he and all the people
+round him were swimming in a hazy golden mist flung into the air from
+the thousands of lighted candles that danced in the breeze blowing
+through the building. The whole vast shining floor was covered with
+peasants, pressed, packed together. Peasants, men and women--he did not
+see a single member of the middle-class. In front of him under the altar
+there was a blaze of light, and figures moved in the blaze uncertainly,
+indistinctly. Now and then a sudden quiver passed across the throng, as
+wind blows through the corn. Here and there men and women knelt, but for
+the most part they stood steadfast, motionless, staring in front of
+them. He looked at them and discovered that they had the faces of
+children--simple, trustful, unintelligent, unhumorous children,--and
+eyes, always kindlier than any he had ever seen in other human beings.
+They stood there gravely, with no signs of religious fervour, with no
+marks of impatience or weariness and also with no evidence of any
+especial interest in what was occurring. It might have been a vast
+concourse of sleep-walkers.
+
+He saw that three soldiers near to him were holding hands....
+
+From the lighted altars came the echoing whisper of a monotonous chant.
+The sound rose and fell, scarcely a voice, scarcely an appeal, something
+rising from the place itself and sinking back into it again without
+human agency.
+
+After a time he saw a strange movement that at first he could not
+understand. Then watching, he found that unlit candles were being passed
+from line to line, one man leaning forward and tapping the man in front
+of him with the candle, the man in front passing it, in his turn,
+forward, and so on until at last it reached the altar where it was
+lighted and fastened into its sconce. This tapping with the candles
+happened incessantly throughout the vast crowd. Henry himself was
+tapped, and felt suddenly as though he had been admitted a member of
+some secret society. He felt the tap again and again, and soon he seemed
+to be hypnotised by the low chant at the altar and the motionless silent
+crowd and the dim golden mist. He stood, not thinking, not living, away,
+away, questioning nothing, wanting nothing....
+
+He must of course finish with his romantic notion. People pushed around
+him, struggling to get out. He turned to go and was faced, he told me,
+with a remarkable figure. His description, romantic and sentimental
+though he tried to make it, resolved itself into nothing more than the
+sketch of an ordinary peasant, tall, broad, black-bearded, neatly clad
+in blue shirt, black trousers, and high boots. This fellow stood
+apparently away from the crowd, apart, and watched it all, as you so
+often may see the Russian peasant doing, with indifferent gaze. In his
+mild blue eyes Bohun fancied that he saw all kinds of things--power,
+wisdom, prophecy--a figure apart and symbolic. But how easy in Russia it
+is to see symbols and how often those symbols fail to justify
+themselves! Well, I let Bohun have his fancies. "I should know that man
+anywhere again," he declared. "It was as though he knew what was going
+to happen and was ready for it." Then I suppose he saw my smile, for he
+broke off and said no more.
+
+And here for a moment I leave him and his adventures.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+I must speak, for a moment, of myself. Throughout the autumn and winter
+of 1914 and the spring and summer of 1915 I was with the Russian Red
+Cross on the Polish and Galician fronts. During the summer and early
+autumn of 1915 I shared with the Ninth Army the retreat through Galicia.
+Never very strong physically, owing to a lameness of the left hip from
+which I have suffered from birth, the difficulties of the retreat and
+the loss of my two greatest friends gave opportunities to my arch-enemy
+Sciatica to do what he wished with me, and in October 1915 I was forced
+to leave the Front and return to Petrograd. I was an invalid throughout
+the whole of that winter, and only gradually during the spring of 1916
+was able to pull myself back to an old shadow of my former vigour and
+energy. I saw that I would never be good for the Front again, but I
+minded that the less now in that the events of the summer of 1915 had
+left me without heart or desire, the merest spectator of life, passive
+and, I cynically believed, indifferent. I was nothing to any one, nor
+was any one anything to me. The desire of my heart had slipped like a
+laughing ghost away from my ken--men of my slow warmth and cautious
+suspicion do not easily admit a new guest....
+
+Moreover during this spring of 1916 Petrograd, against my knowledge,
+wove webs about my feet. I had never shared the common belief that
+Moscow was the only town in Russia. I had always known that Petrograd
+had its own grace and beauty, but it was not until, sore and sick at
+heart, lonely and bitter against fate, haunted always by the face and
+laughter of one whom I would never see again, I wandered about the
+canals and quays and deserted byways of the city that I began to
+understand its spirit. I took, to the derision of my few friends, two
+tumbledown rooms on Pilot's Island, at the far end of Ekateringofsky
+Prospect. Here amongst tangled grass, old, deserted boats, stranded,
+ruined cottages and abraided piers, I hung above the sea. Not indeed the
+sea of my Glebeshire memories; this was a sluggish, tideless sea, but in
+the winter one sheet of ice, stretching far beyond the barrier of the
+eye, catching into its frosted heart every colour of the sky and air,
+the lights of the town, the lamps of imprisoned barges, the moon, the
+sun, the stars, the purple sunsets, and the strange, mysterious lights
+that flash from the shadows of the hovering snow-clouds. My rooms were
+desolate perhaps, bare boards with holes, an old cracked mirror, a
+stove, a bookcase, a photograph, and a sketch of Rafiel Cove. My friends
+looked and shivered; I, staring from my window on to the entrance into
+the waterways of the city, felt that any magic might come out of that
+strange desolation and silence. A shadow like the sweeping of the wing
+of a great bird would hover above the ice; a bell from some boat would
+ring, then the church bells of the city would answer it; the shadow
+would pass and the moon would rise, deep gold, and lie hard and sharp
+against the thick, impending air; the shadow would pass and the stars
+come out, breaking with an almost audible crackle through the stuff of
+the sky... and only five minutes away the shop-lights were glittering,
+the Isvostchicks crying to clear the road, the tram-bells clanging, the
+boys shouting the news. Around and about me marvellous silence....
+
+In the early autumn of 1916 I met at a dinner-party Nicolai Leontievitch
+Markovitch. In the course of a conversation I informed him that I had
+been for a year with the Ninth Army in Galicia, and he then asked me
+whether I had met his wife's uncle Alexei Petrovitch Semyonov, who was
+also with the Ninth Army. It happened that I had known Alexei Petrovitch
+very well and the sound of his name brought back to me so vividly events
+and persons with whom we had both been connected that I had difficulty
+in controlling my sudden emotion. Markovitch invited me to his house. He
+lived, he told me, with his wife in a flat in the Anglisky Prospect; his
+sister-in-law and another of his wife's uncles, a brother of Alexei
+Petrovitch, also lived with them. I said that I would be very glad to
+come.
+
+It is impossible to describe how deeply, in the days that followed, I
+struggled against the attraction that this invitation presented to me. I
+had succeeded during all these months in avoiding any contact with the
+incidents or characters of the preceding year. I had written no letters
+and had received none; I had resolutely avoided meeting any members of
+my old Atriad when they came to the town.
+
+But now I succumbed. Perhaps something of my old vitality and curiosity
+was already creeping back into my bones, perhaps time was already
+dimming my memories--at any rate, on an evening early in October I paid
+my call. Alexei Petrovitch was not present; he was on the Galician
+front, in Tarnople. I found Markovitch, his wife Vera Michailovna, his
+sister-in-law Nina Michailovna, his wife's uncle Ivan Petrovitch and a
+young man Boris Nicolaievitch Grogoff. Markovitch himself was a thin,
+loose, untidy man with pale yellow hair thinning on top, a ragged, pale
+beard, a nose with a tendency to redden at any sudden insult or unkind
+word and an expression perpetually anxious.
+
+Vera Michailovna on the other hand was a fine young woman and it must
+have been the first thought of all who met them as to why she had
+married him. She gave an impression of great strength; her figure tall
+and her bosom full, her dark eyes large and clear. She had black hair, a
+vast quantity of it, piled upon her head. Her face was finely moulded,
+her lips strong, red, sharply marked. She looked like a woman who had
+already made up her mind upon all things in life and could face them
+all. Her expression was often stern and almost insolently scornful, but
+also she could be tender, and her heart would shine from her eyes. She
+moved slowly and gracefully, and quite without self-consciousness.
+
+A strange contrast was her sister, Nina Michailovna, a girl still, it
+seemed, in childhood, pretty, with brown hair, laughing eyes, and a
+trembling mouth that seemed ever on the edge of laughter. Her body was
+soft and plump; she had lovely hands, of which she was obviously very
+proud. Vera dressed sternly, often in black, with a soft white collar,
+almost like a nurse or nun. Nina was always in gay colours; she wore
+clothes, as it seemed to me, in very bad taste, colours clashing,
+strange bows and ribbons and lace that had nothing to do with the dress
+to which they were attached. She was always eating sweets, laughed a
+great deal, had a shrill piercing voice, and was never still. Ivan
+Petrovitch, the uncle, was very different from my Semyonov. He was
+short, fat, and dressed with great neatness and taste. He had a short
+black moustache, a head nearly bald, and a round chubby face with small
+smiling eyes. He was a Chinovnik, and held his position in some
+Government office with great pride and solemnity. It was his chief aim,
+I found, to be considered cosmopolitan, and when he discovered the
+feeble quality of my French he insisted in speaking always to me in his
+strange confused English, a language quite of his own, with sudden
+startling phrases which he had "snatched" as he expressed it from
+Shakespeare and the Bible. He was the kindest soul alive, and all he
+asked was that he should be left alone and that no one should quarrel
+with him. He confided to me that he hated quarrels, and that it was an
+eternal sorrow to him that the Russian people should enjoy so greatly
+that pastime. I discovered that he was terrified of his brother, Alexei,
+and at that I was not surprised. His weakness was that he was
+inpenetrably stupid, and it was quite impossible to make him understand
+anything that was not immediately in line with his own
+experiences--unusual obtuseness in a Russian. He was vain about his
+clothes, especially about his shoes, which he had always made in London;
+he was sentimental and very easily hurt.
+
+Very different again was the young man Boris Nicolaievitch Grogoff. No
+relation of the family, he seemed to spend most of his time in the
+Markovitch flat. A handsome young man, strongly built, with a head of
+untidy curly yellow hair, blue eyes, high cheek bones, long hands with
+which he was for ever gesticulating. Grogoff was an internationalist
+Socialist and expressed his opinions at the top of his voice whenever he
+could find an occasion. He would sit for hours staring moodily at the
+floor, or glaring fiercely upon the company. Then suddenly he would
+burst out, walking about, flinging up his arms, shouting. I saw at once
+that Markovitch did not like him and that he despised Markovitch. He did
+not seem to me a very wise young man, but I liked his energy, his
+kindness, sudden generosities, and honesty. I could not see his reason
+for being so much in this company.
+
+During the autumn of 1916 I spent more and more time with the
+Markovitches. I cannot tell you what was exactly the reason. Vera
+Michailovna perhaps, although let no one imagine that I fell in love
+with her or ever thought of doing so. No, my time for that was over. But
+I felt from the first that she was a fine, understanding creature, that
+she sympathised with me without pitying me, that she would be a good and
+loyal friend, and that I, on my side could give her comprehension and
+fidelity. They made me feel at home with them; there had been as yet no
+house in Petrograd whither I could go easily and without ceremony, which
+I could leave at any moment that I wished. Soon they did not notice
+whether I were there or no; they continued their ordinary lives and
+Nina, to whom I was old, plain, and feeble, treated me with a friendly
+indifference that did not hurt as it might have done in England. Boris
+Grogoff patronised and laughed at me, but would give me anything in the
+way of help, property, or opinions, did I need it. I was in fact by
+Christmas time a member of the family. They nicknamed me "Durdles,"
+after many jokes about my surname and reminiscences of "Edwin Drood" (my
+Russian name was Ivan Andreievitch). We had merry times in spite of the
+troubles and distresses now crowding upon Russia.
+
+And now I come to the first of the links in my story. It was with this
+family that Henry Bohun was to lodge.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Some three years before, when Ivan Petrovitch had gone to live with the
+Markovitches, it had occurred to them that they had two empty rooms and
+that these would accommodate one or two paying guests. It seemed to them
+still more attractive that these guests should be English, and I expect
+that it was Ivan Petrovitch who emphasised this. The British Consulate
+was asked to assist them, and after a few inconspicuous clerks and young
+business men they entertained for a whole six months the Hon. Charles
+Trafford, one of the junior secretaries at the Embassy. At the end of
+those six months the Hon. Charles, burdened with debt, and weakened by
+little sleep and much liquor, was removed to a less exciting atmosphere.
+With all his faults, he left faithful friends in the Markovitch flat,
+and he, on his side, gave so enthusiastic an account of Mme.
+Markovitch's attempts to restrain and modify his impetuosities that the
+Embassy recommended her care and guidance to other young secretaries.
+The war came and Vera Michailovna declared that she could have lodgers
+no longer, and a terrible blow this was to Ivan Petrovitch. Then
+suddenly, towards the end of 1916, she changed her mind and announced to
+the Embassy that she was ready for any one whom they could send her.
+Henry Bohun was offered, accepted, and prepared for. Ivan Petrovitch was
+a happy man once more.
+
+I never discovered that Markovitch was much consulted in these affairs.
+Vera Michailovna "ran" the flat financially, industrially, and
+spiritually. Markovitch meanwhile was busy with his inventions. I have,
+as yet, said nothing about Nicolai Leontievitch's inventions. I
+hesitate, indeed, to speak of them, although they are so essential, and
+indeed important a part of my story. I hesitate simply because I do not
+wish this narrative to be at all fantastic, but that it should stick
+quite honestly and obviously to the truth. It is certain moreover that
+what is naked truth to one man seems the falsest fancy to another, and
+after all I have, from beginning to end, only my own conscience to
+satisfy. The history of the human soul and its relation to divinity
+which is, I think, the only history worth any man's pursuit must push
+its way, again and again, through this same tangled territory which
+infests the region lying between truth and fantasy; one passes suddenly
+into a world that seems pure falsehood, so askew, so obscure, so twisted
+and coloured is it. One is through, one looks back and it lies behind
+one as the clearest truth. Such an experience makes one tender to other
+men's fancies and less impatient of the vague and half-defined
+travellers' tales that other men tell. Childe Roland is not the only
+traveller who has challenged the Dark Tower.
+
+In the Middle Ages Nicolai Leontievitch Markovitch would have been
+called, I suppose, a Magician--a very half-hearted and unsatisfactory
+one he would always have been--and he would have been most certainly
+burnt at the stake before he had accomplished any magic worthy of the
+name. His inventions, so far as I saw anything of them, were innocent
+and simple enough. It was the man himself rather than his inventions
+that arrested the attention. About the time of Bohun's arrival upon the
+scene it was a new kind of ink that he had discovered, and for many
+weeks the Markovitch flat dripped ink from every pore. He had no
+laboratory, no scientific materials, nor, I think, any profound
+knowledge. The room where he worked was a small box-like place off the
+living-room, a cheerless enough abode with a little high barred window
+in it as in a prison-cell, cardboard-boxes piled high with feminine
+garments, a sewing-machine, old dusty books, and a broken-down
+perambulator occupying most of the space. I never could understand why
+the perambulator was there, as the Markovitches had no children. Nicolai
+Leontievitch sat at a table under the little window, and his favourite
+position was to sit with the chair perched on one leg and so, rocking in
+this insecure position, he brooded over his bottles and glasses and
+trays. This room was so dark even in the middle of the day that he was
+often compelled to use a lamp. There he hovered, with his ragged beard,
+his ink-stained fingers and his red-rimmed eyes, making strange noises
+to himself and envolving from his materials continual little explosions
+that caused him infinite satisfaction. He did not mind interruptions,
+nor did he ever complain of the noise in the other room, terrific though
+it often was. He would be absorbed, in a trance, lost in another world,
+and surely amiable and harmless enough. And yet not entirely amiable.
+His eyes would close to little spots of dull, lifeless colour--the only
+thing alive about him seemed to be his hands that moved and stirred as
+though they did not belong to his body at all, but had an independent
+existence of their own--and his heels protruding from under his chair
+were like horrid little animals waiting, malevolently, on guard.
+
+His inventions were, of course, never successful, and he contributed,
+therefore, nothing to the maintenance of his household. Vera Michailovna
+had means of her own, and there were also the paying guests. But he
+suffered from no sense of distress at his impecuniosity. I discovered
+very quickly that Vera Michailovna kept the family purse, and one of
+the earliest sources of family trouble was, I fancy, his constant
+demands for money. Before the war he had, I believe, been drunk whenever
+it was possible. Because drink was difficult to obtain, and in a flood
+of patriotism roused by the enthusiasm of the early days of the war, he
+declared himself a teetotaller, and marvellously he kept his vows. This
+abstinence was now one of his greatest prides, and he liked to tell you
+about it. Nevertheless he needed money as badly as ever, and he borrowed
+whenever he could. One of the first things that Vera Michailovna told me
+was that I was on no account to open my purse to him. I was not always
+able to keep my promise.
+
+On this particular evening of Bohun's arrival I came, by invitation, to
+supper. They had told me about their Englishman, and had asked me indeed
+to help the first awkward half-hour over the stile. It may seem strange
+that the British Embassy should have chosen so uncouth a host as Nicolai
+Leontievitch for their innocent secretaries, but it was only the more
+enterprising of the young men who preferred to live in a Russian family;
+most of them inhabited elegant flats of their own, ornamented with
+coloured stuffs and gaily decorated cups and bright trays from the Jews'
+Market, together with English comforts and luxuries dragged all the way
+from London. Moreover, Markovitch figured very slightly in the
+consciousness of his guests, and the rest of the flat was roomy and
+clean and light. It was, like most of the homes of the Russian
+Intelligentzia over-burdened with family history. Amazing the things
+that Russians will gather together and keep, one must suppose, only
+because they are too lethargic to do away with them. On the walls of the
+Markovitch dining-room all kinds of pictures were hung--old family
+photographs yellow and dusty, old calendars, prints of ships at sea, and
+young men hanging over stiles, and old ladies having tea, photographs of
+the Kremlin and the Lavra at Kieff, copies of Ivan and his murdered son
+and Serov's portrait of Chaliapine as Boris Godounov. Bookcases there
+were with tattered editions of Pushkin and Lermontov. The middle of the
+living-room was occupied with an enormous table covered by a dark red
+cloth, and this table was the centre of the life of the family. A large
+clock wheezed and groaned against the wall, and various chairs of
+different shapes and sizes filled up most of the remaining space.
+Nevertheless, although everything in the room looked old except the
+white and gleaming stove, Vera Michailovna spread over the place the
+impress of her strong and active personality. It was not a sluggish
+room, nor was it untidy as so many Russian rooms are. Around the table
+everybody sat. It seemed that at all hours of the day and night some
+kind of meal was in progress there; and it was almost certain that from
+half-past two in the afternoon until half-past two on the following
+morning the samovar would be found there, presiding with sleepy dignity
+over the whole family and caring nothing for anybody. I can smell now
+that especial smell of tea and radishes and salted fish, and can hear
+the wheeze of the clock, the hum of the samovar, Nina's shrill laugh and
+Boris's deep voice.... I owe that room a great deal. It was there that I
+was taken out of myself and memories that fared no better for their
+perpetual resurrection. That room called me back to life.
+
+On this evening there was to be, in honour of young Bohun, an especially
+fine dinner. A message had come from him that he would appear with his
+boxes at half-past seven. When I arrived Vera was busy in the kitchen,
+and Nina adding in her bedroom extra ribbons and laces to her costume;
+Boris Nicolaievitch was not present; Nicolai Leontievitch was working in
+his den.
+
+I went through to him. He did not look up as I came in. The room was
+darker than usual; the green shade over the lamp was tilted wickedly as
+though it were cocking its eye at Markovitch's vain hopes, and there was
+the man himself, one cheek a ghastly green, his hair on end and his
+chair precariously balanced.
+
+I heard him say as though he repeated an incantation--"_Nu Vot... Nu
+Vot... Nu Vot_."
+
+"_Zdras te_, Nicolai Leontievitch," I said. Then I did not disturb him
+but sat down on a rickety chair and waited. Ink dripped from his table
+on to the floor. One bottle lay on its side, the ink oozing out, other
+bottles stood, some filled, some half-filled, some empty.
+
+"Ah, ha!" he cried, and there was a little explosion; a cork spurted out
+and struck the ceiling; there was smoke and the crackling of glass. He
+turned round and faced me, a smudge of ink on one of his cheeks, and
+that customary nervous unhappy smile on his lips.
+
+"Well, how goes it?" I asked.
+
+"Well enough." He touched his cheek then sucked his fingers. "I must
+wash. We have a guest to-night. And the news, what's the latest?"
+
+He always asked me this question, having apparently the firm conviction
+that an Englishman must know more about the war than a man of any other
+nationality. But he didn't pause for an answer--"News--but of course
+there is none. What can you expect from this Russia of ours?--and the
+rest--it's all too far away for any of us to know anything about
+it--only Germany's close at hand. Yes. Remember that. You forget it
+sometimes in England. She's very near indeed.... We've got a guest
+coming--from the English Embassy. His name's Boon and a funny name too.
+You don't know him, do you?"
+
+No, I didn't know him. I laughed. Why should he think that I always knew
+everybody, I who kept to myself so?
+
+"The English always stick together. That's more than can be said for us
+Russians. We're a rotten lot. Well, I must go and wash."
+
+Then, whether by a sudden chance of light and shade, or if you like to
+have it, by a sudden revelation on the part of a beneficent Providence,
+he really did look malevolent, standing in the middle of the dirty
+little room, malevolent and pathetic too, like a cross, sick bird.
+
+"Vera's got a good dinner ready. That's one thing, Ivan Andreievitch,"
+he said; "and vodka--a little bottle. We got it from a friend. But I
+don't drink now, you know."
+
+He went off and I, going into the other room, found Vera Michailovna
+giving last touches to the table. I sat and watched with pleasure her
+calm assured movements. She really was splendid, I thought, with the
+fine carriage of her head, her large mild eyes, her firm strong hands.
+
+"All ready for the guest, Vera Michailovna?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," she answered, smiling at me, "I hope so. He won't be very
+particular, will he, because we aren't princes?"
+
+"I can't answer for him," I replied, smiling back at her. "But he can't
+be more particular than the Hon. Charles--and he was a great success."
+
+The Hon. Charles was a standing legend in the family, and we always
+laughed when we mentioned him.
+
+"I don't know"--she stopped her work at the table and stood, her hand up
+to her brow as though she would shade her eyes from the light--"I wish
+he wasn't coming--the new Englishman, I mean. Better perhaps as we
+were--Nicholas--" she stopped short. "Oh, I don't know! They're
+difficult times, Ivan Andreievitch."
+
+The door opened and old Uncle Ivan came in. He was dressed very smartly
+with a clean white shirt and a black bow tie and black patent leather
+shoes, and his round face shone as the sun.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Durward," he said, trotting forward. "Good health to you! What
+excellent weather we're sharing."
+
+"So we are, M. Semyonov," I answered him. "Although it did rain most of
+yesterday you know. But weather of the soul perhaps you mean? In that
+case I'm very glad to hear that you are well."
+
+"Ah--of the soul?" He always spoke his words very carefully, clipping
+and completing them, and then standing back to look at them as though
+they were china ornaments arranged on a shining table. "No--my soul
+to-day is not of the first rank, I'm afraid."
+
+It was obvious that he was in a state of the very greatest excitement;
+he could not keep still, but walked up and down beside the long table,
+fingering the knives and forks.
+
+Then Nina burst in upon us in one of her frantic rages. Her tempers were
+famous both for their ferocity and the swiftness of their passing. In
+the course of them she was like some impassioned bird of brilliant
+plumages, tossing her feathers, fluttering behind the bars of her cage
+at some impertinent, teasing passer-by. She stood there now in the
+doorway, gesticulating with her hands.
+
+"_Nu, Tznaiesh schto?_ Michael Alexandrovitch has put me off--says he is
+busy all night at the office. He busy all night! Don't I know the
+business he's after? And it's the third time--I won't see him again--no,
+I won't. He--"
+
+"Good-evening, Nina Michailovna," I said, smiling. She turned to me.
+
+"Durdles--Mr. Durdles--only listen. It was all arranged for
+to-night--the _Parisian_, and then we were to come straight back--"
+
+"But your guest--" I began.
+
+However the torrent continued. The door opened and Boris Grogoff came
+in. Instantly she turned upon him.
+
+"There's your fine friend!" she cried; "Michael Alexandrovitch isn't
+coming. Put me off at the last moment, and it's the third time. And I
+might have gone to Musikalnaya Drama. I was asked by--"
+
+"Well, why not?" Grogoff interrupted calmly. "If he had something better
+to do--"
+
+Then she turned upon him, screaming, and in a moment they were at it,
+tooth and nail, heaping up old scores, producing fact after fact to
+prove, the one to the other, false friendship, lying manners, deceitful
+promises, perjured records. Vera tried to interrupt, Markovitch said
+something, I began a remonstrance--in a moment we were all at it, and
+the room was a whirl of noise. In the tempest it was only I who heard
+the door open. I turned and saw Henry Bohun standing there.
+
+I smile now when I think of that moment of his arrival, go fitting to
+the characters of the place, so appropriate a symbol of what was to
+come. Bohun was beautifully dressed, spotlessly neat, in a bowler hat a
+little to one side, a light-blue silk scarf, a dark-blue overcoat. His
+face wore an expression of dignified self-appreciation. It was as though
+he stood there breathing blessings on the house that he had sanctified
+by his arrival. He looked, too, with it all, such a boy that my heart
+was touched. And there was something good and honest about his eyes.
+
+He may have spoken, but certainly no one heard him in the confusion.
+
+I just caught Nina's shrill voice: "Listen all of you! There you are!
+You hear what he says! That I told him it was to be Tuesday when,
+everybody knows--Verotchka! Ah--Verotchka! He says--" Then she paused; I
+caught her amazed glance at the door, her gasp, a scream of stifled
+laughter, and behold she was gone!
+
+Then they all saw. There was instant silence, a terrible pause, and then
+Bohun's polite gentle voice: "Is this where Mr. Markovitch lives? I beg
+your pardon--"
+
+Great awkwardness followed. It is quite an illusion to suppose that
+Russians are easy, affable hosts. I know of no people in the world who
+are so unable to put you at your ease if there is something unfortunate
+in the air. They have few easy social graces, and they are inclined to
+abandon at once a situation if it is made difficult for them. If it
+needs an effort to make a guest happy they leave him alone and trust to
+a providence in whose powers, however, they entirely disbelieve. Bohun
+was led to his room, his bags being carried by old Sacha, the
+Markovitch's servant, and the Dvornik.
+
+His bags, I remember, were very splendid, and I saw the eyes of Uncle
+Ivan grow large as he watched their progress. Then with a sigh he drew a
+chair up to the table and began eating zakuska, putting salt-fish and
+radishes and sausage on to his place and eating them with a fork.
+
+"Dyadya, Ivan!" Vera said reproachfully. "Not yet--we haven't begun.
+Ivan Andreievitch, what do you think? Will he want hot water?"
+
+She hurried after him.
+
+The evening thus unfortunately begun was not happily continued. There
+was a blight upon us all. I did my best, but I was in considerable pain
+and very tired. Moreover, I was not favourably impressed with my first
+sight of young Bohun. He seemed to me foolish and conceited. Uncle Ivan
+was afraid of him. He made only one attack.
+
+"It was a very fruitful journey that you had, sir, I hope?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Bohun.
+
+"A very fruitful journey--nothing burdensome nor extravagant?"
+
+"Oh, all right, thanks," Bohun answered, trying unsuccessfully to show
+that he was not surprised at my friend's choice of words. But Uncle Ivan
+saw that he had not been successful and his lip trembled. Markovitch was
+silent and Boris Nicolaievitch sulked. Only once towards the end of the
+meal Bohun interested me.
+
+"I wonder," he asked me, "whether you know a fellow called Lawrence? He
+travelled from England with me. A man who's played a lot of football."
+
+"Not Jerry Lawrence, the international!" I said. "Surely he can't have
+come out here?" Of course it was the same. I was interested and
+strangely pleased. The thought of Lawrence's square back and cheery
+smile was extremely agreeable just then.
+
+"Oh! I'm very glad," I answered. "I must get him to come and see me. I
+knew him pretty well at one time. Where's he to be found?"
+
+Bohun, with an air of rather gentle surprise, as though he could not
+help thinking it strange that any one should take an interest in
+Lawrence's movements, told me where he was lodging.
+
+"And I hope you also will find your way to me sometime,"
+
+I added. "It's an out-of-place grimy spot, I'm afraid. You might bring
+Lawrence round one evening."
+
+Soon after that, feeling that I could do no more towards retrieving an
+evening definitely lost, I departed. At the last I caught Markovitch's
+eye. He seemed to be watching for something. A new invention perhaps. He
+was certainly an unhappy man.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+I was to meet Jerry Lawrence sooner than I had expected. And it was in
+this way.
+
+Two days after the evening that I have just described I was driven to go
+and see Vera Michailovna. I was driven, partly by my curiosity, partly
+by my depression, and partly by my loneliness. This same loneliness was,
+I believe, at this time beginning to affect us all. I should be
+considered perhaps to be speaking with exaggeration if I were to borrow
+the title of one of Mrs. Oliphant's old-fashioned and charming novels
+and to speak of Petrograd as already "A Beleaguered City"--beleaguered,
+moreover, in very much the same sense as that other old city was. From
+the very beginning of the war Petrograd was isolated--isolated not by
+the facts of the war, its geographical position or any of the obvious
+causes, but simply by the contempt and hatred with which it was
+regarded. From very old days it was spoken of as a German town. "If you
+want to know Russia don't go to Petrograd." "Simply a cosmopolitan town
+like any other." "A smaller Berlin"--and so on, and so on. This sense of
+outside contempt influenced its own attitude to the world. It was
+always at war with Moscow. It showed you when you first arrived its
+Nevski, its ordered squares, its official buildings as though it would
+say: "I suppose you will take the same view as the rest. If you don't
+wish to look any deeper here you are. I'm not going to help you."
+
+As the war developed it lost whatever gaiety and humour it had. After
+the fall of Warsaw the attitude of the Russian people in general became
+fatalistic. Much nonsense was talked in the foreign press about "Russia
+coming back again and again." "Russia, the harder she was pressed the
+harder she resisted," and the ghost of Napoleon retreating from Moscow
+was presented to every home in Europe; but the plain truth was that,
+after Warsaw, the temper of the people changed. Things were going wrong
+once more as they had always gone wrong in Russian history, and as they
+always would go wrong. Then followed bewilderment. What to do? Whose
+fault was it all? Shall we blame our blood or our rulers? Our rulers,
+certainly, as we always, with justice, have blamed them--our blood, too,
+perhaps. From the fall of Warsaw, in spite of momentary flashes of
+splendour and courage, the Russians were a blindfolded, naked people,
+fighting a nation fully armed. Now, Europe was vast continents away, and
+only Germany, that old Germany whose soul was hateful, whose practical
+spirit was terribly admirable, was close at hand. The Russian people
+turned hither and thither, first to its Czar, then to its generals, then
+to its democratic spirit, then to its idealism--and there was no hope
+anywhere. They appealed for Liberty. In the autumn of 1916 a great
+prayer from the whole country went up that the bandage might be taken
+from its eyes, and soon, lest when the light did at last come the eyes
+should be so unused to it that they should see nothing. Nicholas had his
+opportunity--the greatest opportunity perhaps ever offered to man. He
+refused it. From that moment the easiest way was closed, and only a most
+perilous rocky path remained.
+
+With every week of that winter of 1916, Petrograd stepped deeper and
+deeper into the darkness. Its strangeness grew and grew upon me as the
+days filed through. I wondered whether my illness and the troubles of
+the preceding year made me see everything at an impossible angle--or it
+was perhaps my isolated lodging, my crumbling rooms, with the grey
+expanse of sea and sky in front of them that was responsible. Whatever
+it was, Petrograd soon came to be to me a place with a most terrible
+secret life of its own.
+
+There is an old poem of Pushkin's that Alexandre Benois has most
+marvellously illustrated, which has for its theme the rising of the
+river Neva in November 1824. On that occasion the splendid animal
+devoured the town, and in Pushkin's poem you feel the devastating power
+of the beast, and in Benois' pictures you can see it licking its lips as
+it swallowed down pillars and bridges and streets and squares with poor
+little fragments of humanity clutching and crying and fruitlessly
+appealing.
+
+This poem only emphasised for me the suspicion that I had originally
+had, that the great river and the marshy swamp around it despised
+contemptuously the buildings that man had raised beside and upon it, and
+that even the buildings in their turn despised the human beings who
+thronged them. It could only be some sense of this kind that could make
+one so repeatedly conscious that one's feet were treading ancient
+ground.
+
+The town, raised all of a piece by Peter the Great, could claim no
+ancient history at all; but through every stick and stone that had been
+laid there stirred the spirit and soul of the ground, so that out of one
+of the sluggish canals one might expect at any moment to see the horrid
+and scaly head of some palaeolithic monster with dead and greedy eyes
+slowly push its way up that it might gaze at the little black hurrying
+atoms as they crossed and recrossed the grey bridge. There are many
+places in Petrograd where life is utterly dead; where some building,
+half-completed, has fallen into red and green decay; where the water
+lies still under iridescent scum and thick clotted reeds seem to stand
+at bay, concealing in their depths some terrible monster.
+
+At such a spot I have often fancied that the eyes of countless
+inhabitants of that earlier world are watching me, and that not far away
+the waters of Neva are gathering, gathering, gathering their mighty
+momentum for some instant, when, with a great heave and swell, they will
+toss the whole fabric of brick and mortar from their shoulders, flood
+the streets and squares, and then sink tranquilly back into great sheets
+of unruffled waters marked only with reeds and the sharp cry of some
+travelling bird.
+
+All this may be fantastic enough, I only know that it was sufficiently
+real to me during that winter of 1916 to be ever at the back of my mind;
+and I believe that some sense of that kind had in all sober reality
+something to do with that strange weight of uneasy anticipation that we
+all of us, yes, the most unimaginative amongst us, felt at this time.
+
+Upon this afternoon when I went to pay my call on Vera Michailovna, the
+real snow began to fall. We had had the false preliminary attempt a
+fortnight before; now in the quiet persistent determination, the solid
+soft resilience beneath one's feet, and the patient aquiescence of roofs
+and bridges and cobbles one knew that the real winter had come. Already,
+although it was only four o'clock in the afternoon, there was darkness,
+with the strange almost metallic glow as of the light from an inverted
+looking-glass that snow makes upon the air. I had not far to go, but the
+long stretch of the Ekateringofsky Canal was black and gloomy and
+desolate, repeating here and there the pale yellow reflection of some
+lamp, but for the most part dim and dead, with the hulks of barges lying
+like sleeping monsters on its surface. As I turned into Anglisky
+Prospect I found stretched like a black dado, far down the street,
+against the wall, a queue of waiting women. They would be there until
+the early morning, many of them, and it was possible that then the
+bread would not be sufficient. And this not from any real lack, but
+simply from the mistakes of a bungling, peculating Government. No wonder
+that one's heart was heavy.
+
+I found Vera Michailovna to my relief alone. When Sacha brought me into
+the room she was doing what I think I had never seen her do before,
+sitting unoccupied, her eyes staring in front of her, her hands folded
+on her lap.
+
+"I don't believe that I've ever caught you idle before, Vera
+Michailovna," I said.
+
+"Oh, I'm glad you've come!" She caught my hand with an eagerness very
+different from her usual calm, quiet greeting. "Sit down. It's an
+extraordinary thing. At that very moment I was wishing for you."
+
+"What is it I can do for you?" I asked. "You know that I would do
+anything for you."
+
+"Yes, I know that you would. But--well. You can't help me because I
+don't know what's the matter with me."
+
+"That's very unlike you," I said.
+
+"Yes, I know it is--and perhaps that's why I am frightened. It's so
+vague; and you know I long ago determined that if I couldn't define a
+trouble and have it there in front of me, so that I could strangle
+it--why I wouldn't bother about it. But those things are so easy to
+say."
+
+She got up and began to walk up and down the room. That again was
+utterly unlike her, and altogether I seemed to be seeing, this
+afternoon, some quite new Vera Michailovna, some one more intimate, more
+personal, more appealing. I realised suddenly that she had never before,
+at any period of our friendship, asked for my help--not even for my
+sympathy. She was so strong and reliant and independent, cared so little
+for the opinion of others, and shut down so closely upon herself her
+private life, that I could not have imagined her asking help from any
+one. And of the two of us, she was the man, the strong determined soul,
+the brave and self-reliant character. It seemed to me ludicrous that
+she should ask for my help. Nevertheless I was greatly touched.
+
+"I would do anything for you," I said.
+
+She turned to me, a splendid figure, her head, with its crown of black
+hair, lifted, her hands on her hips, her eyes gravely regarding me.
+
+"There are three things," she said, "perhaps all of them nothing.... And
+yet all of them disturbing. First my husband. He's beginning to drink
+again."
+
+"Drink?" I said; "where can he get it from?"
+
+"I don't know. I must discover. But it isn't the actual drinking. Every
+one in our country drinks if he can. Only what has made my husband break
+his resolve? He was so proud of it. You know how proud he was. And he
+lies about it. He says he is not drinking. He never used to lie about
+anything. That was not one of his faults."
+
+"Perhaps his inventions," I suggested.
+
+"Pouf! His inventions! You know better than that, Ivan Andreievitch. No,
+no. It is something.... He's not himself. Well, then, secondly, there's
+Nina. The other night did you notice anything?"
+
+"Only that she lost her temper. But she's always doing that."
+
+"No, it's more than that. She's unhappy, and I don't like the life she's
+leading. Always out at cinematographs and theatres and restaurants, and
+with a lot of boys who mean no harm, I know--but they're idiotic,
+they're no good.... Now, when the war's like this and the suffering....
+To be always at the cinematograph! But I've lost my authority over her,
+Ivan Andreievitch. She doesn't care any longer what I say to her. Once,
+and not so long ago, I meant so much to her. She's changed, she's
+harder, more careless, more selfish. You know, Ivan Andreievitch, that
+Nina's simply everything to me. I don't talk about myself, do I? but at
+least I can say that since--oh, many, many years, she's been the whole
+world and more than the whole world to me. Our mother and father were
+killed in a railway accident coming up from Odessa when Nina was very
+small, and since then Nina's been mine--all mine!"
+
+She said that word with sudden passion, flinging it at me with a fierce
+gesture of her hands. "Do you know what it is to want that something
+should belong to you, belong entirely to you, and to no one else? I've
+been too proud to say, but I've wanted that terribly all my life. I
+haven't had children, although I prayed for them, and perhaps now it is
+as well. But Nina! She's known she was mine, and, until now, she's loved
+to know it. But now she's escaping from me, and she knows that too, and
+is ashamed. I think I could bear anything but that sense that she
+herself has that she's being wrong--I hate her to be ashamed."
+
+"Perhaps," I suggested, "it's time that she went out into the world now
+and worked. There are a thousand things that a woman can do."
+
+"No--not Nina. I've spoilt her, perhaps; I don't know. I always liked to
+feel that she needed my help. I didn't want to make her too
+self-reliant. That was wrong of me, and I shall be punished for it."
+
+"Speak to her," I said. "She loves you so much that one word from you to
+her will be enough."
+
+"No," Vera Michailovna said slowly. "It won't be enough now. A year ago,
+yes. But now she's escaping as fast as she can."
+
+"Perhaps she's in love with some one," I suggested.
+
+"No. I should have seen at once if it had been that. I would rather it
+were that. I think she would come back to me then. No, I suppose that
+this had to happen. I was foolish to think that it would not. But it
+leaves one alone--it--"
+
+She pulled herself up at that, regarding me with sudden shyness, as
+though she would forbid me to hint that she had shown the slightest
+emotion, or made in any way an appeal for pity.
+
+I was silent, then I said:
+
+"And the third thing, Vera Michailovna?"
+
+"Uncle Alexei is coming back." That startled me. I felt my heart give
+one frantic leap.
+
+"Alexei Petrovitch!" I cried. "When? How soon?"
+
+"I don't know. I've had a letter." She felt in her dress, found the
+letter and read it through. "Soon, perhaps. He's leaving the Front for
+good. He's disgusted with it all, he says. He's going to take up his
+Petrograd practice again."
+
+"Will he live with you?"
+
+"No. God forbid!"
+
+She felt then, perhaps, that her cry had revealed more than she
+intended, because she smiled and, trying to speak lightly, said:
+
+"No. We're old enemies, my uncle and I. We don't get on. He thinks me
+sentimental, I think him--but never mind what I think him. He has a bad
+effect on my husband."
+
+"A bad effect?" I repeated.
+
+"Yes. He irritates him. He laughs at his inventions, you know."
+
+I nodded my head. Yes, with my earlier experience of him I could
+understand that he would do that.
+
+"He's a cynical, embittered man," I said. "He believes in nothing and in
+nobody. And yet he has his fine side--"
+
+"No, he has no fine side," she interrupted me fiercely. "None. He is a
+bad man. I've known him all my life, and I'm not to be deceived."
+
+Then in a softer, quieter tone she continued:
+
+"But tell me, Ivan Andreievitch. I've wanted before to ask you. You were
+with him on the Front last year. We have heard that he had a great love
+affair there, and that the Sister whom he loved was killed. Is that
+true?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "that is true."
+
+"Was he very much in love with her?"
+
+"I believe terribly."
+
+"And it hurt him deeply when she was killed?"
+
+"Desperately deeply."
+
+"But what kind of woman was she? What type? It's so strange to me. Uncle
+Alexei... with his love affairs!"
+
+I looked up, smiling. "She was your very opposite, Vera Michailovna, in
+everything. Like a child--with no knowledge, no experience, no
+self-reliance--nothing. She was wonderful in her ignorance and bravery.
+We all thought her wonderful."
+
+"And she loved _him?_"
+
+"Yes--she loved him."
+
+"How strange! Perhaps there is some good in him somewhere. But to us at
+any rate he always brings trouble. This affair may have changed him.
+They say he is very different. Worse perhaps--"
+
+She broke out then into a cry:
+
+"I want to get away, Ivan Andreievitch! To get away, to escape, to leave
+Russia and everything in it behind me! To escape!"
+
+It was just then that Sacha knocked on the door. She came in to say that
+there was an Englishman in the hall inquiring for the other Englishman
+who had come yesterday, that he wanted to know when he would be back.
+
+"Perhaps I can help," I said. I went out into the hall and there I found
+Jerry Lawrence.
+
+He stood there in the dusk of the little hall looking as resolute and
+unconcerned as an Englishman, in a strange and uncertain world, is
+expected to look. Not that he ever considered the attitudes fitting to
+adopt on certain occasions. He would tell you, if you inquired, that "he
+couldn't stand those fellows who looked into every glass they passed."
+His brow wore now a simple and innocent frown like that of a healthy
+baby presented for the first time with a strange and alarming rattle. It
+was only later that I was to arrive at some faint conception of
+Lawrence's marvellous acceptance of anything that might happen to turn
+up. Vice, cruelty, unsuspected beauty, terror, remorse, hatred, and
+ignorance--he accepted them all once they were there in front of him. He
+sometimes, as I shall on a later occasion, show, allowed himself a free
+expression of his views in the company of those whom he could trust, but
+they were never the views of a suspicious or a disappointed man. It was
+not that he had great faith in human nature. He had, I think, very
+little. Nor was he without curiosity--far from it. But once a thing was
+really there he wasted no time over exclamations as to the horror or
+beauty or abomination of its actual presence. There was as he once
+explained to me, "precious little time to waste." Those who thought him
+a dull, silent fellow--and they were many--made of course an almost
+ludicrous mistake, but most people in life are, I take it, too deeply
+occupied with their own personal history to do more than estimate at its
+surface value the appearance of others... but after all such a
+dispensation makes, in all probability for the general happiness....
+
+On this present occasion Jerry Lawrence stood there exactly as I had
+seen him stand many times on the football field waiting for the
+referee's whistle, his thick short body held together, his mouth shut
+and his eyes on guard. He did not at first recognise me.
+
+"You've forgotten me," I said.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he answered in his husky good-natured voice, like
+the rumble of an amiable bull-dog.
+
+"My name is Durward," I said, holding out my hand. "And years ago we had
+a mutual friend in Olva Dune."
+
+That pleased him. He gripped my hand very heartily and smiled a big ugly
+smile. "Why, yes," he said. "Of course. How are you? Feeling fit? Damned
+long ago all that, isn't it? Hope you're really fit?"
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," I answered. "I was never a Hercules, you know. I
+heard that you were here from Bohun. I was going to write to you. But
+it's excellent that we should meet like this."
+
+"I was after young Bohun," he explained. "But it's pleasant to find
+there's another fellow in the town one knows. I've been a bit at sea
+these two days. To tell you the truth I never wanted to come." I heard a
+rumble in his throat that sounded like "silly blighters."
+
+"Come in," I said. "You must meet Madame Markovitch with whom Bohun is
+staying--and then wait a bit. He won't be long, I expect."
+
+The idea of this seemed to fill Jerry with alarm. He turned back toward
+the door. "Oh! I don't think... she won't want... better another time..."
+his mouth was filled with indistinct rumblings.
+
+"Nonsense." I caught his arm. "She is delightful. You must make yourself
+at home here. They'll be only too glad."
+
+"Does she speak English?" he asked.
+
+"No," I answered. "But that's all right."
+
+He backed again towards the door.
+
+"My Russian's so slow," he said. "Never been here since I was a kid. I'd
+rather not, really--"
+
+However, I dragged him in and introduced him. I had quite a fatherly
+desire, as I watched him, that "he should make good." But I'm afraid
+that that first interview was not a great success. Vera Michailovna was
+strange that afternoon, excited and disturbed as I had never known her,
+and I could see that it was only with the greatest difficulty that she
+could bring herself to think about Jerry at all.
+
+And Jerry himself was so unresponsive that I could have beaten him.
+"Why, you're duller than you used to be," I thought to myself, and
+wondered how I could have suspected, in those days, subtle depths and
+mysterious comprehensions. Vera Michailovna asked him questions about
+France and London but, quite obviously, did not listen to his answers.
+
+After ten minutes he pulled himself up slowly from his chair:
+
+"Well, I must be going," he said. "Tell young Bohun I shall be waiting
+for him to-night--7.30--Astoria--" He turned to Vera Michailovna to say
+good-bye, and then, suddenly, as she rose and their eyes met, they
+seemed to strike some unexpected chord of sympathy. It took both of
+them, I think, by surprise; for quite a moment they stared at one
+another.
+
+"Please come whenever you want to see your friend," she said, "we shall
+be delighted."
+
+"Thank you," he answered simply, and went.
+
+When he had gone she said to me:
+
+"I like that man. One could trust him."
+
+"Yes, one could," I answered her.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+I must return now to young Henry Bohun. I would like to arouse your
+sympathy for him, but sympathy's a dangerous medicine for the young, who
+are only too ready, so far as their self-confidence goes, to take a mile
+if you give them an inch. But with Bohun it was simply a case of
+re-delivering, piece by piece, the mile that he had had no possible
+right to imagine in his possession, and at the end of his relinquishment
+he was as naked and impoverished a soul as any life with youth and
+health on its side can manage to sustain. He was very miserable during
+these first weeks, and then it must be remembered that Petrograd was, at
+this time, no very happy place for anybody. Bohun was not a coward--he
+would have stood the worst things in France without flinching--but he
+was neither old enough nor young enough to face without a tremor the
+queer world of nerves and unfulfilled expectation in which he found
+himself. In the first place, Petrograd was so very different from
+anything that he had expected. Its size and space, its power of reducing
+the human figure to a sudden speck of insignificance, its strange lights
+and shadows, its waste spaces and cold, empty, moonlit squares, its
+jumble of modern and mediaeval civilisation, above all, its supreme
+indifference to all and sundry--these things cowed and humiliated him.
+He was sharp enough to realise that here he was nobody at all. Then he
+had not expected to be so absolutely cut off from all that he had known.
+The Western world simply did not seem to exist. The papers came so
+slowly that on their arrival they were not worth reading. He had not
+told his friends in England to send his letters through the Embassy bag,
+with the result that they would not, he was informed, reach him for
+months.
+
+Of his work I do not intend here to speak,--it does not come into this
+story,--but he found that it was most complicated and difficult, and
+kicks rather than halfpence would be the certain reward. And Bohun hated
+kicks....
+
+Finally, he could not be said to be happy in the Markovitch flat. He
+had, poor boy, heard so much about Russian hospitality, and had formed,
+from the reading of the books of Mr. Stephen Graham and others,
+delightful pictures of the warmest hearts in the world holding out the
+warmest hands before the warmest samovars. In its spirit that was true
+enough, but it was not true in the way that Bohun expected it.
+
+The Markovitches, during those first weeks, left him to look after
+himself because they quite honestly believed that that was the thing
+that he would prefer. Uncle Ivan tried to entertain him, but Bohun found
+him a bore, and with the ruthless intolerance of the very young, showed
+him so. The family did not put itself out to please him in any way. He
+had his room and his latchkey. There was always coffee in the morning,
+dinner at half-past six, and the samovar from half-past nine onwards.
+But the Markovitch family life was not turned from its normal course.
+Why should it be?
+
+And then he was laughed at. Nina laughed at him. Everything about him
+seemed to Nina ridiculous--his cold bath in the morning, his
+trouser-press, the little silver-topped bottles on his table, the crease
+in his trousers, his shining neat hair, the pearl pin in his black tie,
+his precise and careful speech, the way that he said "_Nu tak...
+Spasebo... gavoreet... gariachy_..." She was never tired of imitating
+him; and very soon he caught her strutting about the dining-room with a
+man's cap on her head, twisting a cane and bargaining with an
+Isvostchick--this last because, only the evening before, he had told
+them with great pride of his cleverness in that especial direction. The
+fun was good-natured enough, but it was, as Russian chaff generally is,
+quite regardless of sensitive feelings. Nina chaffed everybody and
+nobody minded, but Bohun did not know this, and minded very much indeed.
+He showed during dinner that evening that he was hurt, and sat over his
+cabbage soup very dignified and silent. This made every one
+uncomfortable, although Vera told me afterwards that she found it
+difficult not to laugh. The family did not make themselves especially
+pleasant, as Henry felt they ought to have done--they continued the even
+tenor of their way. He was met by one of those sudden cold horrible
+waves of isolated terror with which it pleases Russia sometimes to
+overwhelm one. The snow was falling; the town was settling into a
+suspicious ominous quiet. There was no light in the sky, and horrible
+winds blew round the corners of abandoned streets. Henry was desperately
+homesick. He would have cut and run, had there been any possible means
+of doing it. He did not remember the wild joy with which he had heard,
+only a few weeks before, that he was to come to Petrograd. He had
+forgotten even the splendours of _Discipline_. He only knew that he was
+lonely and frightened and home-sick. He seemed to be without a friend in
+the world.
+
+But he was proud. He confided in nobody. He went about with his head up,
+and every one thought him the most conceited young puppy who had ever
+trotted the Petrograd streets. And, although he never owned it even to
+himself, Jerry Lawrence seemed to him now the one friendly soul in all
+the world. You could be sure that Lawrence would be always the same; he
+would not laugh at you behind your back, if he disliked something he
+would say so. You knew where you were with him, and in the uncertain
+world in which poor Bohun found himself that simply was everything.
+Bohun would have denied it vehemently if you told him that he had once
+looked down on Lawrence, or despised him for his inartistic mind.
+Lawrence was "a fine fellow"; he might seem a little slow at first, "but
+you wait and you will see what kind of a chap he is." Nevertheless Bohun
+was not able to be for ever in his company; work separated them, and
+then Lawrence lodged with Baron Wilderling on the Admiralty Quay, a long
+way from Anglisky Prospect. Therefore, at the end of three weeks, Henry
+Bohun discovered himself to be profoundly wretched. There seemed to be
+no hope anywhere. Even the artist in him was disappointed. He went to
+the Ballet and saw Tchaikowsky's "Swan Lake"; but bearing Diagilev's
+splendours in front of him, and knowing nothing about the technique of
+ballet-dancing he was bored and cross and contemptuous. He went to
+"Eugen Onyegin" and enjoyed it, because there was still a great deal of
+the schoolgirl in him; but after that he was flung on to Glinka's
+"Russlan and Ludmilla," and this seemed to him quite interminable and to
+have nothing to do with the gentleman and lady mentioned in the title.
+He tried a play at the Alexander Theatre; it was, he saw, by Andréeff,
+whose art he had told many people in England he admired, but now he
+mixed him up in his mind with Kuprin, and the play was all about a
+circus--very confused and gloomy. As for literature, he purchased some
+new poems by Balmont, some essays by Merejkowsky, and André Biely's _St.
+Petersburg,_ but the first of these he found pretentious, the second
+dull, and the third quite impossibly obscure. He did not confess to
+himself that it might perhaps be his ignorance of the Russian language
+that was at fault. He went to the Hermitage and the Alexander Galleries,
+and purchased coloured post-cards of the works of Somov, Benois,
+Douboginsky, Lançeray, and Ostroymova--all the quite obvious people. He
+wrote home to his mother "that from what he could see of Russian Art it
+seemed to him to have a real future in front of it"--and he bought
+little painted wooden animals and figures at the Peasants' Workshops and
+stuck them up on the front of his stove.
+
+"I like them because they are so essentially Russian," he said to me,
+pointing out a red spotted cow and a green giraffe. "No other country
+could have been responsible for them."
+
+Poor boy, I had not the heart to tell him that they had been made in
+Germany.
+
+However, as I have said, in spite of his painted toys and his operas he
+was, at the end of three weeks, a miserable man. Anybody could see that
+he was miserable, and Vera Michailovna saw it. She took him in hand, and
+at once his life was changed. I was present at the beginning of the
+change.
+
+It was the evening of Rasputin's murder. The town of course talked of
+nothing else--it had been talking, without cessation, since two o'clock
+that afternoon. The dirty, sinister figure of the monk with his magnetic
+eyes, his greasy beard, his robe, his girdle, and all his other
+properties, brooded gigantic over all of us. He was brought into
+immediate personal relationship with the humblest, most insignificant
+creature in the city, and with him incredible shadows and shapes, from
+Dostoeffsky, from Gogol, from Lermontov, from Nekrasov--from whom you
+please--all the shadows of whom one is eternally subconsciously aware
+in Russia--faced us and reminded us that they were not shadows but
+realities.
+
+The details of his murder were not accurately known--it was only sure
+that, at last, after so many false rumours of attempted assassination,
+he was truly gone, and this world would be bothered by his evil presence
+no longer.
+
+Pictures formed in one's mind as one listened. The day was fiercely
+cold, and this seemed to add to the horror of it all--to the
+Hoffmannesque fantasy of the party, the lights, the supper, and the
+women, the murder with its mixture of religion and superstition and
+melodrama, the body flung out at last so easily and swiftly, on to the
+frozen river. How many souls must have asked themselves that day--"Why,
+if this is so easy, do we not proceed further? A man dies more simply
+than you thought--only resolution... only resolution."
+
+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.
+
+"When I married Nicholas," she said, "I thought of Nina more than any
+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.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+LAWRENCE
+
+
+
+
+LAWRENCE
+
+
+I
+
+Of some of the events that I am now about to relate it is obvious that I
+could not have been an eye-witness--and yet, looking back from the
+strange isolation that is now my world I find it incredibly difficult to
+realise what I saw and what I did not. Was I with Nina and Vera on that
+Tuesday night when they stood face to face with one another for the
+first time? Was I with Markovitch during his walk through that
+marvellous new world that he seemed himself to have created? I know that
+I shared none of these things..., and yet it seems to me that I was at
+the heart of them all. I may have been told many things by the actors in
+those events--I may not. I cannot now in retrospect see any of it save
+as my own personal experience, and as my own personal experience I must
+relate it; but, as I have already said at the beginning of this book, no
+one is compelled to believe either my tale or my interpretation. Every
+man would, I suppose, like to tell his story in the manner of some other
+man. I can conceive the events of this part of my narration being
+interpreted in the spirit of the wildest farce, of the genteelest
+comedy, of the most humorous satire--"Other men, Other gifts." I am a
+dull and pompous fellow, as Semyonov often tells me; and I hope that I
+never allowed him to see how deeply I felt the truth of his words.
+
+Meanwhile I will begin with a small adventure of Henry Bohun's.
+Apparently, one evening soon after Nina's party, he found himself about
+half-past ten in the evening, lonely and unhappy, walking down the
+Nevski. Gay and happy crowds wandered by him, brushing him aside,
+refusing to look at him, showing in fact no kind of interest in his
+existence. He was suddenly frightened, the distances seemed terrific and
+the Nevski was so hard and bright and shining--that it had no use at all
+for any lonely young man. He decided suddenly that he would go and see
+me. He found an Isvostchick, but when they reached the Ekaterinsgofsky
+Canal the surly coachman refused to drive further, saying that his horse
+had gone lame, and that this was as far as he had bargained to go.
+
+Henry was forced to leave the cab, and then found himself outside the
+little people's cinema, where he had once been with Vera and myself.
+
+He knew that my rooms were not far away, and he started off beside the
+white and silent canal, wondering why he had come, and wishing he were
+back in bed.
+
+There was still a great deal of the baby in Henry, and ghosts and giants
+and scaly-headed monsters were not incredibilities to his young
+imagination. As he left the main thoroughfare and turned down past the
+widening docks, he suddenly knew that he was terrified. There had been
+stories of wild attacks on rich strangers, sand-bagging and the rest,
+often enough, but it was not of that kind of thing that he was afraid.
+He told me afterwards that he expected to see "long thick crawling
+creatures" creeping towards him over the ice. He continually turned
+round to see whether some one were following him. When he crossed the
+tumbledown bridge that led to my island it seemed that he was absolutely
+alone in the whole world. The masts of the ships dim through the cold
+mist were like tangled spiders' webs. A strange hard red moon peered
+over the towers and chimneys of the distant dockyard. The ice was
+limitless, and of a dirty grey pallor, with black shadows streaking it.
+My island must have looked desolate enough, with its dirty snow-heaps,
+old boards and scrap-iron and tumbledown cottages.
+
+Again, as on his first arrival in Petrograd, Henry was faced by the
+solemn fact that events are so often romantic in retrospect, but grimly
+realistic in experience. He reached my lodging and found the door open.
+He climbed the dark rickety stairs and entered my sitting-room. The
+blinds were not drawn, and the red moon peered through on to the grey
+shadows that the ice beyond always flung. The stove was not burning, the
+room was cold and deserted. Henry called my name and there was no
+answer. He went into my bedroom and there was no one there. He came back
+and stood there listening.
+
+He could hear the creaking of some bar beyond the window and the
+melancholy whistle of a distant train.
+
+He was held there, as though spellbound. Suddenly he thought that he
+heard some one climbing the stairs. He gave a cry, and that was answered
+by a movement so close to him that it was almost at his elbow.
+
+"Who's there?" he cried. He saw a shadow pass between the moon and
+himself. In a panic of terror he cried out, and at the same time struck
+a match. Some one came towards him, and he saw that it was Markovitch.
+
+He was so relieved to find that it was a friend that he did not stop to
+wonder what Markovitch should be doing hiding in my room. It afterwards
+struck him that Markovitch looked odd. "Like a kind of conspirator, in
+old shabby Shuba with the collar turned up. He looked jolly ill and
+dirty, as though he hadn't slept or washed. He didn't seem a bit
+surprised at seeing me there, and I think he scarcely realised that it
+_was_ me. He was thinking of something else so hard that he couldn't
+take me in."
+
+"Oh, Bohun!" he said in a confused way.
+
+"Hullo, Nicolai Leontievitch," Bohun said, trying to be unconcerned.
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Came to see Ivan Andreievitch," he said. "Wasn't here; I was going to
+write to him."
+
+Bohun then lit a candle and discovered that the place was in a very
+considerable mess. Some one had been sifting my desk, and papers and
+letters were lying about the floor. The drawers of my table were open,
+and one chair was over-turned. Markovitch stood back near the window,
+looking at Bohun suspiciously. They must have been a curious couple for
+such a position. There was an awkward pause, and then Bohun, trying to
+speak easily, said:
+
+"Well, it seems that Durward isn't coming. He's out dining somewhere I
+expect."
+
+"Probably," said Markovitch drily.
+
+There was another pause, then Markovitch broke out with: "I suppose you
+think I've been here trying to steal something."
+
+"Oh no--oh no--no--" stammered Bohun.
+
+"But I have," said Markovitch. "You can look round and see. There it is
+on every side of you. I've been trying to find a letter."
+
+"Oh yes," said Bohun nervously.
+
+"Well, that seems to you terrible," went on Markovitch, growing ever
+fiercer. "Of course it seems to you perfect Englishmen a dreadful thing.
+But why heed it?... You all do things just as bad, only you are
+hypocrites."
+
+"Oh yes, certainly," said Bohun.
+
+"And now," said Markovitch with a snarl. "I'm sure you will not think me
+a proper person for you to lodge with any longer--and you will be right.
+I am not a proper person. I have no sense of decency, thank God, and no
+Russian has any sense of decency, and that is why we are beaten and
+despised by the whole world, and yet are finer than them all--so you'd
+better not lodge with us any more."
+
+"But of course," said Bohun, disliking more and more this uncomfortable
+scene--"of course I shall continue to stay with you. You are my friends,
+and one doesn't mind what one's friends do. One's friends are one's
+friends."
+
+Suddenly, then, Markovitch jerked himself forward, "just as though,"
+Bohun afterwards described it to me, "he had shot himself out of a
+catapault."
+
+"Tell me," he said, "is your English friend in love with my wife?"
+
+What Bohun wanted to do then was to run out of the room, down the dark
+stairs, and away as fast as his legs would carry him. He had not been in
+Russia so long that he had lost his English dislike of scenes, and he
+was seriously afraid that Markovitch was, as he put it, "bang off his
+head."
+
+But at this critical moment, he remembered, it seems, my injunction to
+him, "to be kind to Markovitch--to make a friend of him." That had
+always seemed to him before impossible enough, but now, at the very
+moment when Markovitch was at his queerest, he was also at his most
+pathetic, looking there in the mist and shadows too untidy and dirty and
+miserable to be really alarming. Henry then took courage. "That's all
+nonsense, Markovitch," he said. "I suppose by 'your English friend' you
+mean Lawrence. He thinks the world of your wife, of course, as we all
+do, but he's not the fellow to be in love. I don't suppose he's ever
+been really in love with a woman in his life. He's a kindly good-hearted
+chap, Lawrence, and he wouldn't do harm to a fly."
+
+Markovitch peered into Bohun's face. "What did you come here for, any of
+you?" he asked. "What's Russia over-run with foreigners for? We'll clear
+the lot of you out, all of you...." Then he broke off, with a pathetic
+little gesture, his hand up to his head. "But I don't know what I'm
+saying--I don't mean it, really. Only things are so difficult, and they
+slip away from one so.
+
+"I love Russia and I love my wife, Mr. Bohun--and they've both left me.
+But you aren't interested in that. Why should you be? Only remember when
+you're inclined to laugh at me that I'm like a man in a cockle-shell
+boat--and it isn't my fault. I was put in it."
+
+"But I'm never inclined to laugh," said Bohun eagerly. "I may be young
+and only an Englishman--but I shouldn't wonder if I don't understand
+better than you think. You try and see.... And I'll tell you another
+thing, Nicolai Leontievitch, I loved your wife myself--loved her
+madly--and she was so good to me and so far above me, that I saw that it
+was like loving one of the angels. That's what we all feel, Nicolai
+Leontievitch, so that you needn't have any fear--she's too far above all
+of us. And I only want to be your friend and hers, and to help you in
+any way I can."
+
+(I can see Bohun saying this, very sincere, his cheeks flushed, eager.)
+
+Markovitch held out both his hands.
+
+"You're right," he cried. "She's above us all. It's true that she's an
+angel, and we are all her servants. You have helped me by saying what
+you have, and I won't forget it. You are right; I am wasting my time
+with ridiculous suspicions when I ought to be working. Concentration,
+that's what I want, and perhaps you will give it me."
+
+He suddenly came forward and kissed Bohun on both cheeks. He smelt,
+Bohun thought, of vodka. Bohun didn't like the embrace, of course, but
+he accepted it gracefully.
+
+"Now we'll go away," said Markovitch.
+
+"We ought to put things straight," said Bohun.
+
+"No; I shall leave things as they are," said Markovitch, "so that he
+shall see exactly what I've done. I'll write a note."
+
+He scribbled a note to me in pencil. I have it still. It ran:
+
+Dear Ivan Andreievitch--I looked for a letter from my wife to you. In
+doing so I was I suppose contemptible. But no matter. At least you see
+me as I am. I clasp your hand, N. Markovitch.
+
+They went away together.
+
+
+
+II
+
+I was greatly surprised to receive, a few days later, an invitation from
+Baron Wilderling; he asked me to go with him on one of the first
+evenings in March to a performance of Lermontov's "Masquerade" at the
+Alexandra Theatre. I say Lermontov, but heaven knows that that great
+Russian poet was not supposed to be going to have much to say in the
+affair. This performance had been in preparation for at least ten years,
+and when such delights as Gordon Craig's setting of "Hamlet," or Benois'
+dresses for "La Locandiera" were discussed, the Wise Ones said:
+
+"Ah,--all very well--just wait until you see 'Masquerade.'"
+
+These manifestations of the artistic spirit had not been very numerous
+of late in Petrograd. At the beginning of the war there had been many
+cabarets--"The Cow," "The Calf," "The Dog," "The Striped Cat"--and these
+had been underground cellars, lighted by Chinese lanterns, and the halls
+decorated with Futurist paintings by Yakkolyeff or some other still more
+advanced spirit. It seemed strange to me as I dressed that evening. I do
+not know how long it was since I had put on a dinner-jacket. With the
+exception of that one other visit to Baron Wilderling this seemed to be
+my one link with the old world, and it was curious to feel its
+fascination, its air of comfort and order and cleanliness, its courtesy
+and discipline. "I think I'll leave these rooms," I thought as I looked
+about me, "and take a decent flat somewhere."
+
+It is a strange fact, behind which there lies, I believe, some odd sort
+of moral significance, that I cannot now recall the events of that
+evening in any kind of clear detail. I remember that it was bitterly
+cold, with a sky that was flooded with stars. The snow had a queer
+metallic sheen upon it as though it were coloured ice, and I can see now
+the Nevski like a slab of some fiercely painted metal rising out of the
+very smack of our horses' hoofs as my sleigh sped along--as though,
+silkworm-like, I spun it out of the entrails of the sledge. It was all
+light and fire and colour that night, with towers of gold and frosted
+green, and even the black crowds that thronged the Nevski pavements shot
+with colour.
+
+Somewhere in one of Shorthouse's stories--in _The Little Schoolmaster
+Mark_, I think--he gives a curious impression of a whirling fantastic
+crowd of revellers who evoke by their movements some evil pattern in the
+air around them, and the boy who is standing in their midst sees this
+dark twisted sinister picture forming against the gorgeous walls and the
+coloured figures until it blots out the whole scene and plunges him into
+darkness. I will not pretend that on this evening I discerned anything
+sinister or ominous in the gay scene that the Alexandra Theatre offered
+me, but I was nevertheless weighed down by some quite unaccountable
+depression that would not let me alone. For this I can see now that
+Lawrence was very largely responsible. When I met him and the
+Wilderlings in the foyer of the theatre I saw at once that he was
+greatly changed.
+
+The clear open expression of his eyes was gone; his mind was far away
+from his company--and it was as though I could see into his brain and
+watch the repetition of the old argument occurring again and again and
+again with always the same questions and answers, the same reproaches,
+the same defiances, the same obstinacies. He was caught by what was
+perhaps the first crisis of his life. He had never been a man for much
+contact with his fellow-beings, he had been aloof and reserved, generous
+in his judgements of others, severe and narrow in his judgement of
+himself. Above all, he had been proud of his strength....
+
+Now he was threatened by something stronger than himself. He could have
+managed it so long as he was aware only of his love for Vera.... Now,
+when, since Nina's party, he knew that also Vera loved him, he had to
+meet the tussle of his life.
+
+That, at any rate, is the kind of figure that I give to his mood that
+evening. He has told me much of what happened to him afterwards, but
+nothing of that particular night, except once. "Do you remember that
+'Masquerade' evening?... I was in hell that night...." which, for
+Lawrence, was expressive enough.
+
+Both the Baron and his wife were in great spirits. The Baron was more
+than ever the evocation of the genius of elegance and order; he seemed
+carved out of some coloured ivory, behind whose white perfection burnt a
+shining resolute flame.
+
+His clothes were so perfect that they would have expressed the whole of
+him even though his body had not been there. He was happy. His eyes
+danced appreciatively; he waved his white gloves at the scene as though
+blessing it.
+
+"Of course, Mr. Durward," he said to me, "this is nothing compared with
+what we could do before the war--nevertheless here you see, for a
+moment, a fragment of the old Petersburg--Petersburg as it shall be,
+please God, again one day...."
+
+I do not in the least remember who was present that evening, but it was,
+I believe, a very distinguished company. The lights blazed, the jewels
+flashed, and the chatter was tremendous. The horseshoe-shaped seats
+behind the stalls clustered in knots and bunches of colour under the
+great glitter of electricity about the Royal Box. Artists--Somoff and
+Benois and Dobujinsky; novelists like Sologub and Merejkowsky; dancers
+like Karsavina--actors from all over Petrograd--they were there, I
+expect, to add criticism and argument to the adulation of friends and of
+the carelessly observant rich Jews and merchants who had come simply to
+display their jewellery. Petrograd, like every other city in the world,
+is artistic only by the persistence of its minority.
+
+I'm sure that there were Princesses and Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses
+for any one who needed them, and it was only in the gallery where the
+students and their girl-friends were gathered that the name of Lermontov
+was mentioned. The name of the evening was "Meyerhold," the gentleman
+responsible for the production. At last the Event that had been brewing
+ceaselessly for the last ten years--ever since the last Revolution in
+fact--was to reach creation. The moment of M. Meyerhold's life had
+arrived--the moment, had we known it, of many other lives also; but we
+did not know it. We buzzed and we hummed, we gasped and we gaped, we
+yawned and we applauded; and the rustle of gold tissue, the scent of
+gold leaf, the thick sticky substance of gold paint, filled the air,
+flooded the arena, washed past us into the street outside. Meanwhile M.
+Meyerhold, white, perspiring, in his shirt-sleeves with his collar
+loosened and his hair damp, is in labour behind the gold tissue to
+produce the child of his life... and Behold, the Child is produced!
+
+And such a child! It was not I am sure so fantastic an affair in reality
+as in my rememberance of it. I have, since then, read Lermontov's play,
+and I must confess that it does not seem, in cold truth, to be one of
+his finest works. It is long and old-fashioned, melodramatic and
+clumsy--but then it was not on this occasion Lermontov's play that was
+the thing. But it was a masquerade, and that in a sense far from the
+author's intention. As I watched I remember that I forgot the bad acting
+(the hero was quite atrocious), forgot the lapses of taste in the colour
+and arrangement of the play, forgot the artifices and elaborate
+originalities and false sincerities; there were, I have no doubt, many
+things in it all that were bad and meretricious--I was dreaming. I saw,
+against my will and outside my own agency, mingled with the gold
+screens, the purple curtains, the fantasies and extravagances of the
+costumes, the sudden flashes of unexpected colour through light or dress
+or backcloth--pictures from those Galician days that had been, until
+Semyonov's return, as I fancied, forgotten.
+
+A crowd of revellers ran down the stage, and a shimmering cloud of gold
+shot with red and purple was flung from one end of the hall to the
+other, and behind it, through it, between it, I saw the chill light of
+the early morning, and Nikitin and I sitting on the bench outside the
+stinking but that we had used as an operating theatre, watching the
+first rays of the sun warm, the cold mountain's rim. I could hear
+voices, and the murmurs of the sleeping men and the groans of the
+wounded. The scene closed. There was space and light, and a gorgeous
+figure, stiff with the splendour of his robes, talked in a dark garden
+with his lady. Their voices murmured, a lute was played, some one sang,
+and through the thread of it all I saw that moment when, packed together
+on our cart, we hung for an instant on the top of the hill and looked
+back to a country that had suddenly crackled into flame. There was that
+terrific crash as of the smashing of a world of china, the fierce
+crackle of the machine-guns, and then the boom of the cannon from under
+our very feet... the garden was filled with revellers, laughing,
+dancing, singing, the air was filled again with the air of gold paint,
+the tenor's voice rose higher and higher, the golden screens closed--the
+act was ended.
+
+It was as though I had received, in some dim, bewildered fashion, a
+warning. When the lights went up, it was some moments before I realised
+that the Baron was speaking to me, that a babel of chatter, like a
+sudden rain storm on a glass roof, had burst on every side of us, and
+that a huge Jewess, all bare back and sham pearls, was trying to pass me
+on her way to the corridor. The Baron talked away: "Very amusing, don't
+you think? After Reinhardt, of course, although they say now that
+Reinhardt got all his ideas from your man Craig. I'm sure I don't know
+whether that's so.... I hope you're more reassured to-night, Mr.
+Durward. You were full of alarms the other evening. Look around you and
+you'll see the true Russia...."
+
+"I can't believe this to be the true Russia," I said. "Petrograd is not
+the true Russia. I don't believe that there _is_ a true Russia."
+
+"Well, there you are," he continued eagerly. "No true Russia! Quite so.
+Very observant. But we have to pretend there is, and that's what you
+foreigners are always forgetting. The Russian is an individualist--give
+him freedom and he'll lose all sense of his companions. He will pursue
+his own idea. Myself and my party are here to prevent him from pursuing
+his own idea, for the good of himself and his country. He may be
+discontented, he may grumble, but he doesn't realise his luck. Give him
+his freedom, and in six months you'll see Russia back in the Middle
+Ages."
+
+"And another six months?" I asked.
+
+"The Stone Age."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Ah," he said, smiling, "you ask me too much, Mr. Durward. We are
+speaking of our own generation."
+
+The curtain was up again and I was back in my other world. I cannot tell
+you anything of the rest of the play--I remember nothing. Only I know
+that I was actually living over again those awful days in the
+forest--the heat, the flies, the smells, the glassy sheen of the trees,
+the perpetual rumble of the guns, the desolate whine of the shells--and
+then Marie's death, Trenchard's sorrow, Trenchard's death, that last
+view of Semyonov... and I felt that I was being made to remember it all
+for a purpose, as though my old friend, rich now with his wiser
+knowledge, was whispering to me, "All life is bound up. You cannot leave
+anything behind you; the past, the present, the future are one. You had
+pushed us away from you, but we are with you always for ever. I am your
+friend for ever, and Marie is your friend, and now, once more, you have
+to take your part in a battle, and we have come to you to share it with
+you. Do not be confused by history or public events or class struggle or
+any big names; it is the individual and the soul of the individual alone
+that matters. I and Marie and Vera and Nina and Markovitch--our love for
+you, your love for us, our courage, our self-sacrifice, our weakness,
+our defeat, our progress--these are the things for which life exists;
+it exists as a training-ground for the immortal soul...."
+
+With a sweep of colour the stage broke into a mist of movement. Masked
+and hooded figures in purple and gold and blue and red danced madly off
+into a forest of stinking, sodden leaves and trees as thin as
+tissue-paper burnt by the sun. "Oh--aye! oh--aye! oh--aye!" came from
+the wounded, and the dancers answered, "Tra-la-la-la! Tra-la-la-la,'"
+The golden screens were drawn forward, the lights were up again, and the
+whole theatre was stirring like a coloured paper ant heap.
+
+Outside in the foyer I found Lawrence at my elbow.
+
+"Go and see her," he whispered to me, "as soon as possible! Tell
+her--tell her--no, tell her nothing. But see that she's all right and
+let me know. See her to-morrow--early!"
+
+I could say nothing to him, for the Baron had joined us.
+
+"Good-night! Good-night! A most delightful evening!... Most amusing!...
+No, thank you, I shall walk!"
+
+"Come and see us," said the Baroness, smiling.
+
+"Very soon," I answered. I little knew that I should never see either of
+them again.
+
+
+
+III
+
+I awoke that night with a sudden panic that I must instantly see Vera.
+I, even in the way that one does when, one is only half awake, struggled
+out of bed and felt for my clothes. Then I remembered and climbed back
+again, but sleep would not return to me. The self-criticism and
+self-distrust that were always attacking me and paralysing my action
+sprang upon me now and gripped me. What was I to do? How was I to act? I
+saw Vera and Nina and Lawrence and, behind them, smiling at me,
+Semyonov. They were asking for my help, but they were, in some strange,
+intangible way, most desperately remote. When I read now in our papers
+shrill criticisms on our officials, our Cabinet, our generals, our
+propagandists, our merchants, for their failure to deal adequately with
+Russia, I say: Deal adequately? First you must catch your bird... and
+no Western snare has ever caught the Russian bird of paradise, and I
+dare prophesy that no Western snare ever will. Had I not broken my
+heart in the pursuit, and was I not as far as ever from attainment? The
+secret of the mystery of life is the isolation that separates every man
+from his fellow--the secret of dissatisfaction too; and the only purpose
+in life is to realise that isolation, and to love one's fellow-man
+because of it, and to show one's own courage, like a flag to which the
+other travellers may wave their answer; but we Westerners have at least
+the waiting comfort of our discipline, of our materialism, of our
+indifference to ideas. The Russian, I believe, lives in a world of
+loneliness peopled only by ideas. His impulses towards self-confession,
+towards brotherhood, towards vice, towards cynicism, towards his belief
+in God and his scorn of Him, come out of this world; and beyond it he
+sees his fellow-men as trees walking, and the Mountain of God as a
+distant peak, placed there only to emphasise his irony.
+
+I had wanted to be friends with Nina and Vera--I had even longed for
+it--and now at the crisis when I must rise and act they were so far away
+from me that I could only see them, like coloured ghosts, vanishing into
+mist.
+
+I would go at once and see Vera and there do what I could. Lawrence must
+return to England--then all would be well. Markovitch must be
+persuaded.... Nina must be told.... I slept and tumbled into a
+nightmare of a pursuit, down endless streets, of flying figures.
+
+Next day I went to Vera. I found her, to my joy, alone. I realised at
+once that our talk would be difficult. She was grave and severe, sitting
+back in her chair, her head up, not looking at me at all, but beyond
+through the window to the tops of the trees feathery with snow against
+the sky of egg-shell blue. I am always beaten by a hostile atmosphere.
+To-day I was at my worst, and soon we were talking like a couple of the
+merest strangers.
+
+She asked me whether I had heard that there were very serious
+disturbances on the other side of the river.
+
+"I was on the Nevski early this afternoon," I said, "and I saw about
+twenty Cossacks go galloping down towards the Neva. I asked somebody and
+was told that some women had broken into the bakers' shops on Vassily
+Ostrov...."
+
+"It will end as they always end," said Vera. "Some arrests and a few
+people beaten, and a policeman will get a medal."
+
+There was a long pause. "I went to 'Masquerade' the other night," I
+said.
+
+"I hear it's very good...."
+
+"Pretentious and rather vulgar--but amusing all the same."
+
+"Every one's talking about it and trying to get seats...."
+
+"Yes. Meyerhold must be pleased."
+
+"They discuss it much more than they do the war, or even politics. Every
+one's tired of the war."
+
+I said nothing. She continued:
+
+"So I suppose we shall just go on for years and years.... And then the
+Empress herself will be tired one day and it will suddenly stop." She
+showed a flash of interest, turning to me and looking at me for the
+first time since I had come in.
+
+"Ivan Andreievitch, what do you stay in Russia for? Why don't you go
+back to England?"
+
+I was taken by surprise. I stammered, "Why do I stay? Why,
+because--because I like it."
+
+"You can't like it. There's _nothing_ to like in Russia."
+
+"There's _everything_!" I answered. "And I have friends here," I added.
+But she didn't answer that, and continued to sit staring out at the
+trees. We talked a little more about nothing at all, and then there was
+another long pause. At last I could endure it no longer, I jumped to my
+feet.
+
+"Vera Michailovna," I cried, "what have I done?"
+
+"Done?" she asked me with a look of self-conscious surprise. "What do
+you mean?"
+
+"You know what I mean well enough," I answered. I tried to speak firmly,
+but my voice trembled a little. "You told me I was your friend. When I
+was ill the other day you came to me and said that you needed help and
+that you wanted me to help you. I said that I would--"
+
+I paused.
+
+"Well?" she said, in a hard, unrelenting voice.
+
+"Well--" I hesitated and stammered, cursing myself for my miserable
+cowardice. "You are in trouble now, Vera--great trouble--I came here
+because I am ready to do anything for you--anything--and you treat me
+like a stranger, almost like an enemy."
+
+I saw her lip tremble--only for an instant. She said nothing.
+
+"If you've got anything against me since you saw me last," I went on,
+"tell me and I'll go away. But I had to see you and also Lawrence--"
+
+At the mention of his name her whole body quivered, but again only for
+an instant.
+
+"Lawrence asked me to come and see you."
+
+She looked up at me then gravely and coldly, and without the sign of any
+emotion either in her face or voice.
+
+"Thank you, Ivan Andreievitch, but I want no help--I am in no trouble.
+It was very kind of Mr. Lawrence, but really--"
+
+Then I could endure it no longer. I broke out:
+
+"Vera, what's the matter. You know all this isn't true.... I don't know
+what idea you have now in your head, but you must let me speak to you.
+I've got to tell you this--that Lawrence must go back to England, and as
+soon as possible--and I will see that he does--"
+
+That did its work. In an instant she was upon me like a wild beast,
+springing from her chair, standing close to me, her head flung back, her
+eyes furious.
+
+"You wouldn't dare!" she cried. "It's none of your business, Ivan
+Andreievitch. You say you're my friend. You're not. You're my enemy--my
+enemy. I don't care for him, not in the very least--he is nothing to
+me--nothing to me at all. But he mustn't go back to England. It will
+ruin his career. You will ruin him for life, Ivan Andreievitch. What
+business is it of yours? You imagine--because of what you fancied you
+saw at Nina's party. There was nothing at Nina's party--nothing. I love
+my husband, Ivan Andreievitch, and you are my enemy if you say anything
+else. And you pretend to be his friend, but you are his enemy if you try
+to have him sent back to England.... He must not go. For the matter of
+that, I will never see him again--never--if that is what you want. See,
+I promise you never--never--" She suddenly broke down--she, Vera
+Michailovna, the proudest woman I had ever known, turning from me, her
+head in her hands, sobbing, her shoulders bent.
+
+I was most deeply moved. I could say nothing at first, then, when the
+sound of her sobbing became unbearable to me, I murmured,
+
+"Vera, please. I have no power. I can't make him go. I will only do what
+you wish. Vera, please, please--"
+
+Then, with her back still turned to me, I heard her say,
+
+"Please, go. I didn't mean--I didn't... but go now... and come
+back--later."
+
+I waited a minute, and then, miserable, terrified of the future, I went.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Next night (it was Friday evening) Semyonov paid me a visit. I was just
+dropping to sleep in my chair. I had been reading that story of De la
+Mare's _The Return_--one of the most beautiful books in our language,
+whether for its spirit, its prose, or its poetry--and something of the
+moon-lit colour of its pages had crept into my soul, so that the
+material world was spun into threads of the finest silk behind which
+other worlds were more and more plainly visible. I had not drawn my
+blind, and a wonderful moon shone clear on to the bare boards of my
+room, bringing with its rays the mother-of-pearl reflections of the
+limitless ice, and these floated on my wall in trembling waves of opaque
+light. In the middle of this splendour I dropped slowly into slumber,
+the book falling from my hands, and I, on my part, seeming to float
+lazily backwards and forwards, as though, truly, one were at the bottom
+of some crystal sea, idly and happily drowned.
+
+From all of this I was roused by a sharp knock on my door, and I started
+up, still bewildered and bemused, but saying to myself aloud, "There's
+some one there! there's some one there!..." I stood for quite a while,
+listening, on the middle of my shining floor, then the knock was almost
+fiercely repeated. I opened the door and, to my surprise, found Semyonov
+standing there. He came in, smiling, very polite of course.
+
+"You'll forgive me, Ivan Andreievitch," he said. "This is terribly
+unceremonious. But I had an urgent desire to see you, and you wouldn't
+wish me, in the circumstances, to have waited."
+
+"Please," I said. I went to the window and drew the blinds. I lit the
+lamp. He took off his Shuba and we sat down. The room was very dim now,
+and I could only see his mouth and square beard behind the lamp.
+
+"I've no Samovar, I'm afraid," I said. "If I'd known you were coming I'd
+have told her to have it ready. But it's too late now. She's gone to
+bed."
+
+"Nonsense," he said brusquely. "You know that I don't care about that.
+Now we'll waste no time. Let us come straight to the point at once. I've
+come to give you some advice, Ivan Andreievitch--very simple advice. Go
+home to England." Before he had finished the sentence I had felt the
+hostility in his voice; I knew that it was to be a fight between us, and
+strangely, at once the self-distrust and cowardice from which I had been
+suffering all those weeks left me. I felt warm and happy. I felt that
+with Semyonov I knew how to deal. I was afraid of Vera and Nina,
+perhaps, because I loved them, but of Semyonov, thank God, I was not
+afraid.
+
+"Well, now, that's very kind of you," I said, "to take so much interest
+in my movements. I didn't know that it mattered to you so much where I
+was. Why must I go?"
+
+"Because you are doing no good here. You are interfering in things of
+which you have no knowledge. When we met before you interfered, and you
+must honestly admit that you did not improve things. Now it is even more
+serious. I must ask you to leave my family alone, Ivan Andreievitch."
+
+"Your family!" I retorted, laughing. "Upon my word, you do them great
+honour. I wonder whether they'd be very proud and pleased if they knew
+of your adoption of them. I haven't noticed on their side any very great
+signs of devotion."
+
+He laughed. "No, you haven't noticed, Ivan Andreievitch. But there, you
+don't really notice very much. You think you see the devil of a lot and
+are a mighty clever fellow; but we're Russians, you know, and it takes
+more than sentimental mysticism to understand us. But even if you did
+understand us--which you don't--the real point is that we don't want
+you, any of you, patronising, patting us on the shoulder, explaining us
+to ourselves, talking about our souls, our unpunctuality, and our
+capacity for drink. However, that's merely in a general way. In a
+personal, direct, and individual way, I beg you not to visit my family
+again. Stick to your own countrymen."
+
+Although he spoke obstinately, and with a show of assurance, I realised,
+behind his words, his own uncertainty.
+
+"See here, Semyonov," I said. "It's just my own Englishmen that I am
+going to stick to. What about Lawrence? And what about Bohun? Will you
+prevent me from continuing my friendship with them?"
+
+"Lawrence... Lawrence," he said slowly, in a voice quite other than his
+earlier one, and as though he were talking aloud to himself. "Now,
+that's strange... there's a funny thing. A heavy, dull, silent
+Englishman, as ugly as only an Englishman can be, and the two of them
+are mad about him--nothing in him--nothing--and yet there it is. It's
+the fidelity in the man, that's what it is, Durward...." He suddenly
+called out the word aloud, as though he'd made a discovery. "Fidelity...
+fidelity... that's what we Russians admire, and there's a man with
+not enough imagination to make him unfaithful. Fidelity!--lack of
+imagination, lack of freedom--that's all fidelity is.... But I'm
+faithful.... God knows I'm faithful--always! always!"
+
+He stared past me. I swear that he did not see me, that I had vanished
+utterly from his vision. I waited. He was leaning forward, pressing both
+his thick white hands on the table. His gaze must have pierced the ice
+beyond the walls, and the worlds beyond the ice.
+
+Then quite suddenly he came back to me and said very quietly,
+
+"Well, there it is, Ivan Andreievitch.... You must leave Vera and Nina
+alone. It isn't your affair."
+
+We continued the discussion then in a strange and friendly way. "I
+believe it to be my affair," I answered quietly, "simply because they
+care for me and have asked me to help them if they were in trouble. I
+still deny that Vera cares for Lawrence.... Nina has had some girl's
+romantic idea perhaps... but that is the extent of the trouble. You are
+trying to make things worse, Alexei Petrovitch, for your own
+purposes--and God only knows what they are."
+
+He now spoke so quietly that I could scarcely hear his words. He was
+leaning forward on the table, resting his head on his hands and looking
+gravely at me.
+
+"What I can't understand, Ivan Andreievitch," he said, "is why you're
+always getting in my way. You did so in Galicia, and now here you are
+again. It is not as though you were strong or wise--no, it is because
+you are persistent. I admire you in a way, you know, but now, this time,
+I assure you that you are making a great mistake in remaining. You will
+be able to influence neither Vera Michailovna nor your bullock of an
+Englishman when the moment comes. At the crisis they will never think of
+you at all, and the end of it simply will be that all parties concerned
+will hate you. I don't wish you any harm, and I assure you that you will
+suffer terribly if you stay.... By the way, Ivan Andreievitch," his
+voice suddenly dropped, "you haven't ever had--by chance--just by
+chance--any photograph of Marie Ivanovna with you, have you? Just by
+chance, you know...."
+
+"No," I said shortly, "I never had one."
+
+"No--of course--not. I only thought.... But of course you
+wouldn't--no--no.... Well, as I was saying, you'd better leave us all to
+our fate. You can't prevent things--you can't indeed." I looked at him
+without speaking. He returned my gaze.
+
+"Tell me one thing," I said, "before I answer you. What are you doing to
+Markovitch, Alexei Petrovitch?"
+
+"Markovitch!" He repeated the name with an air of surprise as though he
+had never heard it before. "What do you mean?"
+
+"You have some plan with regard to him," I said. "What is it?"
+
+He laughed then. "I a plan! My dear Durward, how romantic you always
+insist on being! I a plan! Your plunges into Russian psychology are as
+naïve as the girl who pays her ten kopecks to see the Fat Woman at the
+Fair! Markovitch and I understand one another. We trust one another. He
+is a simple fellow, but I trust him."
+
+"Do you remember," I said, "that the other day at the Jews' Market you
+told me the story of the man who tortured his friend, until the man shot
+him--simply because he was tired of life and too proud to commit
+suicide. Why did you tell me that story?"
+
+"Did I tell it you?" he asked indifferently. "I had forgotten. But it is
+of no importance. You know, Ivan Andreievitch, that what I told you
+before is true.... We don't want you here any more. I tell you in a
+perfectly friendly way. I bear you no malice. But we're tired of your
+sentimentality. I'm not speaking only for myself--I'm not indeed. We
+feel that you avoid life to a ridiculous extent, and that you have no
+right to talk to us Russians on such a subject. What, for instance, do
+you know about women? For years I slept with a different woman every
+night of the week--old and young, beautiful and ugly, some women like
+men, some like God, some like the gutter. That teaches you something
+about women--but only something. Afterwards I found that there was only
+one woman--I left all the others like dirty washing--I was supremely
+faithful... so I learnt the rest. Now you have never been faithful nor
+unfaithful--I'm sure that you have not. Then about God? When have you
+ever thought about Him? Why, you are ashamed to mention His name. If an
+Englishman speaks of God when other men are present every one
+laughs--and yet why? It is a very serious and interesting question. God
+exists undoubtedly, and so we must make up our minds about Him. We must
+establish some relationship--what it is does not matter--that is our
+individual 'case'--but only the English establish no relationship and
+then call it a religion.... And so in this affair of my family. What
+does it matter what they do? That is the only thing of which you think,
+that they should die or disgrace their name or be unhappy or quarrel....
+Pooh! What are all those things compared with the idea behind them? If
+they wish to sacrifice happiness for an idea, that is their good luck,
+and no Russian would think of preventing them. But you come in with your
+English morality and sentiment, and scream and cry.... No, Ivan
+Andreievitch, go home! go home!"
+
+I waited to be quite sure that he had finished, and then I said,
+
+"That's all as it may be, Alexei Petrovitch. It may be as you say. The
+point is, that I remain here."
+
+He got up from his chair. "You are determined on that?"
+
+"I am determined," I answered.
+
+"Nothing will change you?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Then it is a battle between us?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+"So be it."
+
+I helped him on with his Shuba. He said, in an ordinary conversational
+tone,
+
+"There may be trouble to-morrow. There's been shooting by the Nicholas
+Station this afternoon, I hear. I should avoid the Nevski to-morrow."
+
+I laughed. "I'm not afraid of that kind of death, Alexei Petrovitch," I
+said.
+
+"No," he said, looking at me. "I will do you justice. You are not."
+
+He pulled his Shuba close about him.
+
+"Good-night, Ivan Andreievitch," he said. "It's been a very pleasant
+talk."
+
+"Very," I answered. "Good-night,"
+
+After he had gone I drew back the blinds and let the moonlight flood the
+room.
+
+
+
+V
+
+I feel conscious, as I approach the centre of my story, that there is an
+appearance of uncertainty in the way that I pass from one character to
+another. I do not defend that uncertainty.
+
+What I think I really feel now, on looking back, is that each of
+us--myself, Semyonov, Vera, Nina, Lawrence, Bohun, Grogoff, yes, and the
+Rat himself--was a part of a mysterious figure who was beyond us,
+outside us, and above us all. The heart, the lungs, the mouth, the
+eyes... used against our own human agency, and yet free within that
+domination for the exercise of our own free will. Have you never felt
+when you have been swept into the interaction of some group of persons
+that you were being employed as a part of a figure that without you
+would be incomplete? The figure is formed.... For an instant it remains,
+gigantic, splendid, towering above mankind, as a symbol, a warning, a
+judgement, an ideal, a threat. Dimly you recognise that you have played
+some part in the creation of that figure, and that living for a moment,
+as you have done, in some force outside your individuality, you have yet
+expressed that same individuality more nobly than any poor assertion of
+your own small lonely figure could afford. You have been used and now
+you are alone again.... You were caught up and united to your fellowmen.
+God appeared to you--not, as you had expected, in a vision cut off from
+the rest of the world, but in a revelation that you shared and that was
+only revealed because you were uniting with others. And yet your
+individuality was still there, strengthened, heightened, purified.
+
+And the vision of the figure remains....
+
+When I woke on Saturday morning, after my evening with Semyonov, I was
+conscious that I was relieved as though I had finally settled some
+affair whose uncertainty had worried me. I lay in bed chuckling as
+though I had won a triumph over Semyonov, as though I said to myself,
+"Well, I needn't be afraid of him any longer." It was a most beautiful
+day, crystal clear, with a stainless blue sky and the snow like a carpet
+of jewels, and I thought I would go and see how the world was behaving.
+I walked down the Morskaia, finding it quiet enough, although I fancied
+that the faces of the passers-by were anxious and nervous. Nevertheless,
+the brilliant sunshine and the clear peaceful beauty of the snow
+reassured me--the world was too beautiful and well-ordered a place to
+allow disturbance. Then at the corner of the English shop where the
+Morskaia joins the Nevski Prospect, I realised that something had
+occurred. It was as though the world that I had known so long, and with
+whom I felt upon such intimate terms, had suddenly screwed round its
+face and showed me a new grin.
+
+The broad space of the Nevski was swallowed up by a vast crowd, very
+quiet, very amiable, moving easily, almost slothfully, in a slowly
+stirring stream.
+
+As I looked up the Nevski I realised what it was that had given me the
+first positive shock of an altered world. The trams had stopped. I had
+never seen the Nevski without its trams; I had always been forced to
+stand on the brink, waiting whilst the stream of Isvostchicks galloped
+past and the heavy, lumbering, coloured elephants tottered along,
+amiable and slow and good-natured like everything else in that country.
+Now the elephants were gone; the Isvostchicks were gone. So far as my
+eye could see, the black stream flooded the shining way.
+
+I mingled with the crowd and found myself slowly propelled in an
+amiable, aimless manner up the street.
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked a cheerful, fat little "Chinovnik," who
+seemed to be tethered to me by some outside invincible force.
+
+"I don't know...." he said. "They're saying there's been some shooting
+up by the Nicholas Station--but that was last night. Some women had a
+procession about food.... _Tak oni gavoryat_--so they say.... But I
+don't know. People have just come out to see what they can see...."
+
+And so they had--women, boys, old men, little children. I could see no
+signs of ill-temper anywhere, only a rather open-mouthed wonder and
+sense of expectation.
+
+A large woman near me, with a shawl over her head and carrying a large
+basket, laughed a great deal. "No, I wouldn't go," she said. "You go and
+get it for yourself--I'm not coming. Not I, I was too clever for that."
+Then she would turn, shrilly calling for some child who was apparently
+lost in the crowd. "Sacha!... Ah! Sacha!" she cried--and turning again,
+"Eh! look at the Cossack!... There's a fine Cossack!"
+
+It was then that I noticed the Cossacks. They were lined up along the
+side of the pavement, and sometimes they would suddenly wheel and
+clatter along the pavement itself, to the great confusion of the crowd
+who would scatter in every direction.
+
+They were fine-looking men, and their faces expressed childish and
+rather worried amiability. The crowd obviously feared them not at all,
+and I saw a woman standing with her hand on the neck of one of the
+horses, talking in a very friendly fashion to the soldier who rode it.
+"That's strange," I thought to myself; "there's something queer here."
+It was then, just at the entrance of the "Malaia Koniushennaia," that a
+strange little incident occurred. Some fellow--I could just see his
+shaggy head, his pale face, and black beard--had been shouting
+something, and suddenly a little group of Cossacks moved towards him and
+he was surrounded. They turned off with him towards a yard close at
+hand. I could hear his voice shrilly protesting; the crowd also moved
+behind, murmuring. Suddenly a Cossack, laughing, said something. I could
+not hear his words, but every one near me laughed. The little Chinovnik
+at my side said to me, "That's right. They're not going to shoot,
+whatever happens--not on their brothers, they say. They'll let the
+fellow go in a moment. It's only just for discipline's sake. That's
+right. That's the spirit!"
+
+"But what about the police?" I asked.
+
+"Ah, the police!" His cheery, good-natured face was suddenly dark and
+scowling. "Let them try, that's all. It's Protopopoff who's our
+enemy--not the Cossacks."
+
+And a woman near him repeated.
+
+"Yes, yes, it's Protopopoff. Hurrah for the Cossacks!"
+
+I was squeezed now into a corner, and the crowd swirled and eddied about
+me in a tangled stream, slow, smiling, confused, and excited. I pushed
+my way along, and at last tumbled down the dark stone steps into the
+"Cave de la Grave," a little restaurant patronised by the foreigners and
+certain middle-class Russians. It was full, and every one was eating his
+or her meal very comfortably as though nothing at all were the matter. I
+sat down with a young American, an acquaintance of mine attached to the
+American Embassy.
+
+"There's a tremendous crowd in the Nevski," I said.
+
+"Guess I'm too hungry to trouble about it," he answered.
+
+"Do you think there's going to be any trouble?" I asked.
+
+"Course not. These folks are always wandering round. M. Protopopoff has
+it in hand all right."
+
+"Yes, I suppose he has," I answered with a sigh.
+
+"You seem to want trouble," he said, suddenly looking up at me.
+
+"No, I don't want trouble," I answered. "But I'm sick of this mess, this
+mismanagement, thievery, lying--one's tempted to think that anything
+would be better--"
+
+"Don't you believe it," he said brusquely. "Excuse me, Durward, I've
+been in this country five years. A revolution would mean God's own
+upset, and you've got a war on, haven't you?"
+
+"They might fight better than ever," I argued.
+
+"Fight!" he laughed. "They're dam sick of it all, that's what they are.
+And a revolution would leave 'em like a lot of silly sheep wandering on
+to a precipice. But there won't be no revolution. Take my word."
+
+It was at that moment that I saw Boris Grogoff come in. He stood in the
+doorway looking about him, and he had the strangest air of a man walking
+in his sleep, so bewildered, so rapt, so removed was he. He stared about
+him, looked straight at me, but did not recognise me; finally, when a
+waiter showed him a table, he sat down still gazing in front of him. The
+waiter had to speak to him twice before he ordered his meal, and then he
+spoke so strangely that the fellow looked at him in astonishment. "Guess
+that chap's seen the Millennium," remarked my American. "Or he's drunk,
+maybe."
+
+This appearance had the oddest effect on me. It was as though I had been
+given a sudden conviction that after all there was something behind this
+disturbance. I saw, during the whole of the rest of that day, Grogoff's
+strange face with the exalted, bewildered eyes, the excited mouth, the
+body tense and strained as though waiting for a blow. And now, always
+when I look back I see Boris Grogoff standing in the doorway of the
+"Cave de la Grave" like a ghost from another world warning me.
+
+In the afternoon I had a piece of business that took me across the
+river. I did my business and turned homewards. It was almost dark, and
+the ice of the Neva was coloured a faint green under the grey sky; the
+buildings rose out of it like black bubbles poised over a swamp. I was
+in that strange quarter of Petrograd where the river seems, like some
+sluggish octopus, to possess a thousand coils. Always you are turning
+upon a new bend of the ice, secretly stretching into darkness; strange
+bridges suddenly meet you, and then, where you had expected to find a
+solid mass of hideous flats, there will be a cluster of masts and the
+smell of tar, and little fierce red lights like the eyes of waiting
+beasts.
+
+I seemed to stand with ice on every side of me, and so frail was my
+trembling wooden bridge that it seemed an easy thing for the ice, that
+appeared to press with tremendous weight against its banks, to grind the
+supports to fragments. There was complete silence on every side of me.
+The street to my left was utterly deserted. I heard no cries nor
+calls--only the ice seemed once and again to quiver as though some
+submerged creature was moving beneath it. That vast crowd on the Nevski
+seemed to be a dream. I was in a world that had fallen into decay and
+desolation, and I could smell rotting wood, and could fancy that frozen
+blades of grass were pressing up through the very pavement stones.
+Suddenly an Isvostchick stumbled along past me, down the empty street,
+and the bumping rattle of the sledge on the snow woke me from my
+laziness. I started off homewards. When I had gone a little way and was
+approaching the bridge over the Neva some man passed me, looked back,
+stopped and waited for me. When I came up to him I saw to my surprise
+that it was the Rat. He had his coat-collar turned over his ears and his
+dirty fur cap pulled down over his forehead. His nose was very red, and
+his thin hollow cheeks a dirty yellow colour.
+
+"Good-evening, Barin," he said, grinning.
+
+"Good-evening," I said. "Where are you slipping off to so secretly?"
+
+"Slipping off?" He did not seem to understand my word. I repeated it.
+
+"Oh, I'm not slipping off," he said almost indignantly. "No, indeed. I'm
+just out for a walk like your Honour, to see the town."
+
+"What have they been doing this afternoon?" I asked. "There's been a
+fine fuss on the Nevski."
+
+"Yes, there has...." he said, chuckling. "But it's nothing to the fuss
+there will be."
+
+"Nonsense," I said. "The police have got it all in control already.
+You'll see to-morrow...."
+
+"And the soldiers, Barin?"
+
+"Oh, the soldiers won't do anything. Talk's one thing--action's
+another."
+
+He laughed to himself and seemed greatly amused. This irritated me.
+
+"Well, what do you know?" I asked.
+
+"I know nothing," he chuckled. "But remember, Barin, in a week's time,
+if you want me I'm your friend. Who knows? In a week I may be a rich
+man."
+
+"Some one else's riches," I answered.
+
+"Certainly," he said. "And why not? Why should he have things? Is he a
+better man than I? Possibly--but then it is easy for a rich man to keep
+within the law. And then Russia's meant for the poor man. However," he
+continued, with great contempt in his voice, "that's politics--dull
+stuff. While the others talk I act."
+
+"And what about the Germans?" I asked him. "Does it occur to you that
+when you've collected your spoils the Germans will come in and take
+them?"
+
+"Ah, you don't understand us, Barin," he said, laughing. "You're a good
+man and a kind man, but you don't understand us. What can the Germans
+do? They can't take the whole of Russia. Russia's a big country.... No,
+if the Germans come there'll be more for us to take."
+
+We stood for a moment under a lamp-post. He put his hand on my arm and
+looked up at me with his queer ugly face, his sentimental dreary eyes,
+his red nose, and his hard, cruel little mouth.
+
+"But no one shall touch you--unless it's myself if I'm very drunk. But
+you, knowing me, will understand afterwards that I was at least not
+malicious--"
+
+I laughed. "And this mysticism that they tell us about in England. Are
+you mystical, Rat? Have you a beautiful soul?"
+
+He sniffed and blew his nose with his hand.
+
+"I don't know what you're talking about, Barin--I suppose you haven't a
+rouble or two on you?"
+
+"No, I haven't," I answered. He looked up and down the bridge as though
+he were wondering whether an attack on me was worth while. He saw a
+policeman and decided that it wasn't.
+
+"Well, good-night, Barin," he said cheerfully. He shuffled off. I looked
+at the vast Neva, pale green and dim grey, so silent under the bridges.
+The policeman, enormous under his high coat, the sure and confident
+guardian of that silent world, came slowly towards me, and I turned away
+home.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+The next day, Sunday, I have always called in my mind Nina's day, and so
+I propose to deal with it here, describing it as far as possible from
+her point of view and placing her in the centre of the picture.
+
+The great fact about Nina, at the end, when everything has been said,
+must always be her youth. That Russian youthfulness is something that no
+Western people can ever know, because no Western people are accustomed,
+from their very babyhood, to bathe in an atmosphere that deals only with
+ideas.
+
+In no Russian family is the attempt to prevent children from knowing
+what life really is maintained for long; the spontaneous impetuosity of
+the parents breaks it down. Nevertheless the Russian boy and girl, when
+they come to the awkward age, have not the least idea of what life
+really is. Dear me, no! They possess simply a bundle of incoherent
+ideas, untested, ill-digested, but a wonderful basis for incessant
+conversation. Experience comes, of course, and for the most part it is
+unhappy experience.
+
+Life is a tragedy to every Russian simply because the daily round is
+forgotten by him in his pursuit of an ultimate meaning. We in the West
+have learnt to despise ultimate meanings as unpractical and rather
+priggish things.
+
+Nina had thought so much and tested so little. She loved so vehemently
+that her betrayal was the more inevitable. For instance, she did not
+love Boris Grogoff in the least, but he was in some way connected with
+the idea of freedom. She was, I am afraid, beginning to love Lawrence
+desperately--the first love of her life--and he too was connected with
+the idea of freedom because he was English. We English do not understand
+sufficiently how the Russians love us for our easy victory over tyranny,
+and despise us for the small use we have made of our victory--and then,
+after all, there is something to be said for tyranny too....
+
+But Nina did not see why she should not capture Lawrence. She felt her
+vitality, her health, her dominant will beat so strongly within her that
+it seemed to her that nothing could stop her. She loved him for his
+strength, his silence, his good-nature, yes, and his stupidity. This
+last gave her a sense of power over him, and of motherly tenderness too.
+She loved his stiff and halting Russian--it was as though he were but
+ten years old.
+
+I am convinced, too, that she did not consider that she was doing any
+wrong to Vera. In the first place she was not as yet really sure that
+Vera cared for him. Vera, who had been to her always a mother rather
+than a sister, seemed an infinite age. It was ridiculous that Vera
+should fall in love--Vera so stately and stern and removed from passion.
+Those days were over for Vera, and, with her strong sense of duty and
+the fitness of things, she would realise that. Moreover Nina could not
+believe that Lawrence cared for Vera. Vera was not the figure to be
+loved in that way. Vera's romance had been with Markovitch years and
+years ago, and now, whenever Nina looked at Markovitch, it made it at
+once impossible to imagine Vera in any new romantic situation.
+
+Then had come the night of the birthday party, and suspicion had at once
+flamed up again. She was torn that night and for days afterwards with a
+raging jealousy.
+
+She hated Vera, she hated Lawrence, she hated herself. Then again her
+mood had changed. It was, after all, natural that he should have gone to
+protect Vera; she was his hostess; he was English, and did not know how
+trivial a Russian scene of temper was. He had meant nothing, and poor
+Vera, touched that at her matronly age any one should show her
+attention, had looked at him gratefully.
+
+That was all. She loved Vera; she would not hurt her with such
+ridiculous suspicions, and, on that Friday evening when Semyonov had
+come to see me, she had been her old self again, behaving to Vera with
+all the tenderness and charm and affection that were her most delightful
+gifts.
+
+On this Sunday morning she was reassured; she was gay and happy and
+pleased with the whole world. The excitement of the disturbances of the
+last two days provided an emotional background, not too thrilling to be
+painful, because, after all, these riots would, as usual, come to
+nothing, but it was pleasant to feel that the world was buzzing, and
+that without paying a penny one might see a real cinematograph show
+simply by walking down the Nevski.
+
+I do not know, of course, what exactly happened that morning until
+Semyonov came in, but I can see the Markovitch family, like ten thousand
+other Petrograd families, assembling somewhere about eleven o'clock
+round the Samovar, all in various stages of undress, all sleepy and
+pale-faced, and a little befogged, as all good Russians are when,
+through the exigencies of sleep, they've been compelled to allow their
+ideas to escape from them for a considerable period. They discussed, of
+course, the disturbances, and I can imagine Markovitch portentously
+announcing that "It was all over, he had the best of reasons-for
+knowing...."
+
+As he once explained to me, he was at his worst on Sunday, because he
+was then so inevitably reminded of his lost youth.
+
+"It's a gloomy day, Ivan Andreievitch, for all those who have not quite
+done what they expected. The bells ring, and you feel that they ought to
+mean something to you, but of course one's gone past all that.... But
+it's a pity...."
+
+Nina's only thought that morning was that Lawrence was coming in the
+afternoon to take her for a walk. She had arranged it all. After a very
+evident hint from her he had suggested it. Vera had refused, because
+some aunts were coming to call, and finally it had been arranged that
+after the walk Lawrence should bring Nina home, stay to half-past six
+dinner, and that then they should all go to the French theatre. I also
+was asked to dinner and the theatre. Nina was sure that something must
+happen that afternoon. It would be a crisis.... She felt within her such
+vitality, such power, such domination, that she believed that to-day she
+could command anything.... She was, poor child, supremely confident, and
+that not through conceit or vanity, but simply because she was a
+fatalist and believed that destiny had brought Lawrence to her feet....
+
+It was the final proof of her youth that she saw the whole universe
+working to fulfil her desire.
+
+The other proof of her youth was that she began, for the first time, to
+suffer desperately. The most casual mention of Lawrence's name would
+make her heart beat furiously, suffocating her, her throat dry, her
+cheeks hot, her hands cold. Then, as the minute of his arrival
+approached, she would sit as though she were the centre of a leaping
+fire that gradually inch by inch was approaching nearer to her, the
+flames staring like little eyes on the watch, the heat advancing and
+receding in waves like hands. She hoped that no one would notice her
+agitation. She talked nonsense to whomsoever was near to her with little
+nervous laughs; she seemed to herself to be terribly unreal, with a
+fierce hostile creature inside her who took her heart in his hot hands
+and pressed it, laughing at her.
+
+And then the misery! That little episode at the circus of which I had
+been a witness was only the first of many dreadful ventures. She
+confessed to me afterwards that she did not herself know what she was
+doing. And the final result of these adventures was to encourage her
+because he had not repelled her. He _must_ have noticed, she thought,
+the times when her hand had touched his, when his mouth had been, so
+close to hers that their very thoughts had mingled, when she had felt
+the stuff of his coat, and even for an instant stroked it. He _must_
+have noticed these things, and still he had never rebuffed her. He was
+always so kind to her; she fancied that his voice had a special note of
+tenderness in it when he spoke to her, and when she looked at his ugly,
+quiet, solid face, she could not believe that they were not meant for
+one another. He _must_ want her, her gaiety, happiness, youth--it would
+be wrong for him _not_ to! There could be no girls in that stupid,
+practical, far-away England who would be the wife to him that she would
+be.
+
+Then the cursed misery of that waiting! They could hear in their
+sitting-room the steps coming up the stone stairs outside their flat,
+and every step seemed to be his. Ah, he had come earlier than he had
+fixed. Vera had stupidly forgotten, perhaps, or he had found waiting any
+longer impossible. Yes, surely that was his footfall; she knew it so
+well. There, now he was turning towards the door; there was a pause;
+soon there would be the tinkle of the bell!...
+
+No, he had mounted higher; it was not Lawrence--only some stupid,
+ridiculous creature who was impertinently daring to put her into this
+misery of disappointment. And then she would wonder suddenly whether she
+had been looking too fixedly at the door, whether they had noticed her,
+and she would start and look about her self-consciously, blushing a
+little, her eyes hot and suspicious.
+
+I can see her in all these moods; it was her babyhood that was leaving
+her at last. She was never to be quite so spontaneously gay again,
+never quite so careless, so audacious, so casual, so happy. In Russia
+the awkward age is very short, very dramatic, often enough very tragic.
+Nina was as helpless as the rest of the world.
+
+At any rate, upon this Sunday, she was sure of her afternoon. Her eyes
+were wild with excitement. Any one who looked at her closely must have
+noticed her strangeness, but they were all discussing the events of the
+last two days; there were a thousand stories, nearly all of them false
+and a few; true facts.
+
+No one in reality knew anything except that there had been some
+demonstrations, a little shooting, and a number of excited speeches. The
+town on that lovely winter morning seemed absolutely quiet.
+
+Somewhere about mid-day Semyonov came in, and without thinking about it
+Nina suddenly found herself sitting in the window talking to him. This
+conversation, which was in its results to have an important influence on
+her whole life, continued the development which that eventful Sunday was
+to effect in her. Its importance lay very largely in the fact that her
+uncle had never spoken to her seriously like a grown-up woman before.
+Semyonov was, of course, quite clever enough to realise the change which
+was transforming her, and he seized it, at once, for his own advantage.
+She, on her side, had always, ever since she could remember, been
+intrigued by him. She told me once that almost her earliest memory was
+being lifted into the air by her uncle and feeling the thick solid
+strength of his grasp, so that she was like a feather in the air, poised
+on one of his stubborn fingers; when he kissed her each hair of his
+beard seemed like a pale, taut wire, so stiff and resolute was it. Her
+Uncle Ivan was a flabby, effeminate creature in comparison. Then, as she
+had grown older, she had realised that he was a dangerous man, dangerous
+to women, who loved and feared and hated him. Vera said that he had
+great power over them and made them miserable, and that he was,
+therefore, a bad, wicked man. But this only served to make him, in
+Nina's eyes, the more a romantic figure.
+
+However, he had never treated her in the least seriously, had tossed her
+in the air spiritually just as he had done physically when she was a
+baby, had given her chocolates, taken her once or twice to the cinema,
+laughed at her, and, she felt, deeply despised her. Then came the war
+and he had gone to the Front, and she had almost forgotten him. Then
+came the romantic story of his being deeply in love with a nurse who had
+been killed, that he was heartbroken and inconsolable and a changed man.
+Was it wonderful that on his return to Petrograd she should feel again
+that old Byronic (every Russian is still brought up on Byron) romance?
+She did not like him, but--well--Vera was a staid old-fashioned
+thing.... Perhaps they all misjudged him; perhaps he really needed
+comfort and consolation. He certainly seemed kinder than he used to be.
+But, until to-day, he had never talked to her seriously.
+
+How her heart leapt into her throat when he began, at once, in his quiet
+soft voice,
+
+"Well, Nina dear, tell me all about it. I know, so you needn't be
+frightened. I know and I understand."
+
+She flung a terrified glance around her, but Uncle Ivan was reading the
+paper at the other end of the room, her brother-in-law was cutting up
+little pieces of wood in his workshop, and Vera was in the kitchen.
+
+"What do you mean?" she said in a whisper. "I don't understand."
+
+"Yes, you do," he answered, smiling at her. "You know, Nina, you're in
+love with the Englishman, and have been for a long time. Well, why not?
+Don't be so frightened about it. It is quite time that you should be in
+love with some one, and he's a fine strong young man--not over-blessed
+with brains, but you can supply that part of it. No, I think it's a very
+good match. I like it. Believe me, I'm your friend, Nina." He put his
+hand on hers.
+
+He looked so kind, she told me afterwards, that she felt as though she
+had never known him before; her eyes were filled with tears, so
+overwhelming a relief was it to find some one at last who sympathised
+and understood and wanted her to succeed. I remember that she was
+wearing that day a thin black velvet necklet with a very small diamond
+in front of it. She had been given it by Uncle Ivan on her last
+birthday, and instead of making her look grown-up it gave her a
+ridiculously childish appearance as though she had stolen into Vera's
+bedroom and dressed up in her things. Then, with her fair tousled hair
+and large blue eyes, open as a rule with a startled expression as though
+she had only just awakened into an astonishingly exciting world, she was
+altogether as unprotected and as guileless and as honest as any human
+being alive. I don't know whether Semyonov felt her innocence and
+youth--I expect he considered very little beside the plans that he had
+then in view.... and innocence had never been very interesting to him.
+He spoke to her just as a kind, wise, thoughtful uncle ought to speak to
+a niece caught up into her first love-affair. From the moment of that
+half-hour's conversation in the window Nina adored him, and believed
+every word that came from his mouth.
+
+"You see, Nina dear," he went on, "I've not spoken to you before because
+you neither liked me nor trusted me. Quite rightly you listened to what
+others said about me--"
+
+"Oh no," interrupted Nina. "I never listen to anybody."
+
+"Well then," said Semyonov, "we'll say that you were very naturally
+influenced by them. And quite right--perfectly right. You were only a
+girl then--you are a woman now. I had nothing to say to you then--now I
+can help you, give you a little advice perhaps--"
+
+I don't know what Nina replied. She was breathlessly pleased and
+excited.
+
+"What I want," he went on, "is the happiness of you all. I was sorry
+when I came back to find that Nicholas and Vera weren't such friends as
+they used to be. I don't mean that there's anything wrong at all, but
+they must be brought closer together--and that's what you and I, who
+know them and love them, can do--"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Nina eagerly. Semyonov then explained that the thing
+that really was, it seemed to him, keeping them apart were Nicholas's
+inventions. Of course Vera had long ago seen that these inventions were
+never going to come to anything, that they were simply wasting
+Nicholas's time when he might, by taking an honest clerkship or
+something of the kind, be maintaining the whole household, and the very
+thought of him sitting in his workshop irritated her. The thing to do,
+Semyonov explained, was to laugh Nicholas out of his inventions, to show
+him that it was selfish nonsense his pursuing them, to persuade him to
+make an honest living.
+
+"But I thought," said Nina, "you approved of them. I heard you only the
+other day telling him that it was a good idea, and that he must go on--"
+
+"Ah!" said Semyonov. "That was my weakness, I'm afraid. I couldn't bear
+to disappoint him. But it was wrong of me--and I knew it at the time."
+
+Now Nina had always rather admired her brother-in-law's inventions. She
+had thought it very clever of him to think of such things, and she had
+wondered why other people did not applaud him more.
+
+Now suddenly she saw that it was very selfish of him to go on with these
+things when they never brought in a penny, and Vera had to do all the
+drudgery. She was suddenly indignant with him. In how clear a light her
+uncle placed things!
+
+"One thing to do," said Semyonov, "is to laugh at him about them. Not
+very much, not unkindly, but enough to make him see the folly of it."
+
+"I think he does see that already, poor Nicholas," said Nina with wisdom
+beyond her years.
+
+"To bring Nicholas and Vera together," said Semyonov, "that's what we
+have to do, you and I. And believe me, dear Nina, I on my side will do
+all I can to help you. We are friends, aren't we?--not only uncle and
+niece."
+
+"Yes," said Nina breathlessly. That was all that there was to the
+conversation, but it was quite enough to make Nina feel as though she
+had already won her heart's desire. If any one as clever as her uncle
+believed in this, then it _must_ be true. It had not been only her own
+silly imagination--Lawrence cared for her. Her uncle had seen it,
+otherwise he would never have encouraged her--Lawrence cared for her....
+
+Suddenly, in the happy spontaneity of the moment she did what she very
+seldom did, bent forward and kissed him.
+
+She told me afterwards that that kiss seemed to displease him.
+
+He got up and walked away.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+I do not know exactly what occurred during that afternoon. Neither
+Lawrence nor Nina spoke about it to me. I only know that Nina returned
+subdued and restrained. I can imagine them going out into that quiet
+town and walking along the deserted quay; the quiet that afternoon was,
+I remember, marvellous. The whole world was holding its breath. Great
+events were occurring, but we were removed from them all. The ice
+quivered under the sun and the snowclouds rose higher and higher into
+the blue, and once and again a bell chimed and jangled.... There was an
+amazing peace. Through this peaceful world Nina and Lawrence walked. His
+mind must, I know, have been very far away from Nina, probably he saw
+nothing of her little attempts at friendship; her gasping sentences
+that seemed to her so daring and significant he scarcely heard. His only
+concern was to endure the walk as politely as possible and return to
+Vera.
+
+Perhaps if she had not had that conversation with her uncle she would
+have realised more clearly how slight a response was made to her, but
+she thought only that this was his English shyness and gaucherie--she
+must go slowly and carefully. He was not like a Russian. She must not
+frighten him. Ah, how she loved him as she walked beside him, seeing and
+not seeing the lovely frozen colours of the winter day, the quickly
+flooding saffron sky! The first bright star, the great pearl-grey cloud
+of the Neva as it was swept into the dark. In the dark she put, I am
+sure, her hand on his arm, and felt his strength and took her small
+hurried steps beside his long ones. He did not, I expect, feel her hand
+on his sleeve at all. It was Vera whom he saw through the dusk. Vera
+watching the door for his return, knowing that his eyes would rush to
+hers, that every beat of his heart was for her....
+
+I found them all seated at dinner when I entered. I brought them the
+news of the shooting up at the Nicholas Station.
+
+"Perhaps, we had better not go to the theatre," I said. "A number of
+people were killed this afternoon, and all the trams are stopped."
+
+Still it was all remote from us. They laughed at the idea of not going
+to the theatre. The tickets had been bought two weeks ago, and the walk
+would be pleasant. Of course we would go. It would be fun, too, to see
+whether anything were happening.
+
+With how strange a clarity I remember the events of that evening. It is
+detached and hangs by itself among the other events of that amazing
+time, as though it had been framed and separated for some especial
+purpose. My impression of the colour of it now is of a scene intensely
+quiet.
+
+I saw at once on my arrival that Vera was not yet prepared to receive me
+back into her friendship. And I saw, too, that she included Lawrence in
+this ostracism. She sat there, stiff and cold, smiling and talking
+simply because she was compelled, for politeness sake, to do so. She
+would scarcely speak to me at all, and when I saw this I turned and
+devoted myself to Uncle Ivan, who was always delighted to make me a
+testing-ground for his English.
+
+But poor Jerry! Had I not been so anxious lest a scene should burst upon
+us all I could have laughed at the humour of it. Vera's attitude was a
+complete surprise to him. He had not seen her during the preceding week,
+and that absence from her had heightened his desire until it burnt his
+very throat with its flame. One glance from her, when he came in, would
+have contented him. He could have rested then, happily, quietly; but
+instead of that glance she had avoided his eye, her hand was cold and
+touched his only for an instant. She had not spoken to him again after
+the first greeting. I am sure that he had never known a time when his
+feelings threatened to be too much for him. His hold on himself and his
+emotions had been complete. "These fellers," he once said to me about
+some Russians, "are always letting their feelings overwhelm them--like
+women. And they like it. Funny thing!" Well, funny or no, he realised it
+now; his true education, like Nina's, like Vera's, like Bohun's, like
+Markovitch's, perhaps like my own, was only now beginning. Funny and
+pathetic, too, to watch his broad, red, genial face struggling to
+express a polite interest in the conversation, to show nothing but
+friendliness and courtesy. His eyes were as restless as minnows; they
+darted for an instant towards Vera, then darted off again, then flashed
+back. His hand moved for a plate, and I saw that it was shaking. Poor
+Jerry! He had learnt what suffering was during those last weeks. But the
+most silent of us all that evening was Markovitch. He sat huddled over
+his food and never said a word. If he looked up at all he glowered, and
+so soon as he had finished eating he returned to his workshop, closing
+the door behind him. I caught Semyonov looking at him with a pleasant,
+speculative smile....
+
+At last Vera, Nina, Lawrence, and I started for the theatre. I can't say
+that I was expecting a very pleasant evening, but the deathlike
+stillness, both of ourselves and the town did, I confess, startle me.
+Scarcely a word was exchanged by us between the English Prospect and
+Saint Isaac's Square. The square looked lovely in the bright moonlight,
+and I said something about it. It was indeed very fine, the cathedral
+like a hovering purple cloud, the old sentry in his high peaked hat, the
+black statue, and the blue shadows over the snow. It was then that
+Lawrence, with an air of determined strength, detached Vera from us and
+walked ahead with her. I saw that he was talking eagerly to her.
+
+Nina said, with a little shudder, "Isn't it quiet, Durdles? As though
+there were ghosts round every corner."
+
+"Hope you enjoyed your walk this afternoon," I said.
+
+"No, it was quiet then. But not like it is now. Let's walk faster and
+catch the others up. Do you believe in ghosts, Durdles?"
+
+"Yes, I think I do."
+
+"So do I. Was it true, do you think, about the people being shot at the
+Nicholas Station to-day?"
+
+"I daresay."
+
+"Perhaps all the dead people are crowding round here now. Why isn't any
+one out walking?"
+
+"I suppose they are all frightened by what they've heard, and think it
+better to stay at home."
+
+We were walking down the Morskaia, and our feet gave out a ringing echo.
+
+"Let's keep up with them," Nina said. When we had joined the others I
+found that they were both silent--Lawrence very red, Vera pale. We were
+all feeling rather weary. A woman met us. "You aren't allowed to cross
+the Nevski," she said; "the Cossacks are stopping everybody." I can see
+her now, a stout, red-faced woman, a shawl over her head, and carrying a
+basket. Another woman, a prostitute I should think, came up and joined
+us.
+
+"What is it?" she asked us.
+
+The stout woman repeated in a trembling, agitated voice, "You aren't
+allowed to cross the Nevski. The Cossacks are stopping everybody."
+
+The prostitute shook her head in her alarm, and little flakes of powder
+detached themselves from her nose. "_Bozhe moi_--_bozhe moi_!" she
+said, "and I promised not to be late."
+
+Vera then, very calmly and quietly, took command of the situation.
+"We'll go and see," she said, "what is really the truth."
+
+We turned up the side street to the Moika Canal, which lay like powdered
+crystal under the moon. Not a soul was in sight.
+
+There arrived then one of the most wonderful moments of my life. The
+Nevski Prospect, that broad and mighty thoroughfare, stretched before us
+like a great silver river. It was utterly triumphantly bare and naked.
+Under the moon it flowed, with proud tranquillity, so far as the eye
+could see between its high black banks of silent houses.
+
+At intervals of about a hundred yards the Cossack pickets, like ebony
+statues on their horses, guarded the way. Down the whole silver expanse
+not one figure was to be seen; so beautiful was it under the high moon,
+so still, so quiet, so proud, that it was revealing now for the first
+time its real splendour. At no time of the night or day is the Nevski
+deserted. How happy it must have been that night!...
+
+For us, it was as though we hesitated on the banks of a river. I felt a
+strange superstition, as though something said to me, "You cross that
+and you are plunged irrevocably into a new order of events. Go home, and
+you will avoid danger." Nina must have had something of the same
+feeling, because she said:
+
+"Let's go home. They won't let us cross. I don't want to cross. Let's go
+home."
+
+But Vera said firmly, "Nonsense! We've gone so far. We've got the
+tickets. I'm going on."
+
+I felt the note in her voice, superstitiously, as a kind of desperate
+challenge, as though she had said:
+
+"Well, you see nothing worse can happen to me than has happened."
+
+Lawrence said roughly, "Of course, we're going on."
+
+The prostitute began, in a trembling voice, as though we must all of
+necessity understand her case:
+
+"I don't want to be late this time, because I've been late so often
+before.... It always is that way with me... always unfortunate...."
+
+We started across, and when we stepped into the shining silver surface
+we all stopped for an instant, as though held by an invisible force.
+
+"That's it," said Vera, speaking it seemed to herself. "So it always is
+with us. All revolutions in Russia end this way--"
+
+An unmounted Cossack came forward to us.
+
+"No hanging about there," he said. "Cross quickly. No one is to delay."
+
+We moved to the other side of the Moika bridge. I thought of the
+Cossacks yesterday who had assured the people that they would not
+fire--well, that impulse had passed. Protopopoff and his men had
+triumphed.
+
+We were all now in the shallows on the other bank of the canal. The
+prostitute, who was still at our side, hesitated for a moment, as though
+she were going to speak. I think she wanted to ask whether she might
+walk with us a little way. Suddenly she vanished without sound, into the
+black shadows.
+
+"Come along," said Vera. "We shall be dreadfully late." She seemed to be
+mastered by an overpowering desire not to be left alone with Lawrence.
+She hurried forward with Nina, and Lawrence and I came more slowly
+behind. We were now in a labyrinth of little streets and black
+overhanging flats. Not a soul anywhere--only the moonlight in great
+broad flashes of light--once or twice a woman hurried by keeping in the
+shadow. Sometimes, at the far end of the street, we saw the shining,
+naked Nevski.
+
+Lawrence was silent, then, just as we were turning into the square where
+the Michailovsky Theatre was he began:
+
+"What's the matter?... What's the matter with her, Durward? What have I
+done?"
+
+"I don't know that you've done anything," I answered.
+
+"But don't you see?" he went on. "She won't speak to me. She won't look
+at me. I won't stand this long. I tell you I won't stand it long. I'll
+make her come off with me in spite of them all. I'll have her to myself.
+I'll make her happy, Durward, as she's never been in all her life. But I
+must have her.... I can't live close to her like this, and yet never be
+with her. Never alone, never alone. Why is she behaving like this to
+me?"
+
+He spoke really like a man in agony. The words coming from him in little
+tortured sentences as though they were squeezed from him desperately,
+with pain at every breath that he drew.
+
+"She's afraid of herself, I expect, not of you." I put my hand on his
+sleeve. "Lawrence," I said, "go home. Go back to England. This is
+becoming too much for both of you. Nothing can come of it, but
+unhappiness for everybody."
+
+"No!" he said. "It's too late for any of your Platonic advice, Durward.
+I'm going to have her, even though the earth turns upside down."
+
+We went up the steps and into the theatre. There was, of course,
+scarcely any one there. The Michailovsky is not a large theatre, but the
+stalls looked extraordinarily desolate, every seat watching one with a
+kind of insolent wink as though, like the Nevski ten minutes before it
+said, "Well, now you humans are getting frightened, you're all stopping
+away. We're coming back to our own!"
+
+There was some such malicious air about the whole theatre. Above, in the
+circle, the little empty boxes were dim and shadowy, and one fancied
+figures moved there, and then saw that there was no one. Someone up in
+the gallery laughed, and the laugh went echoing up and down the empty
+spaces. A few people came in and sat nervously about, and no one spoke
+except in a low whisper, because voices sounded so loud and impertinent.
+
+Then again the man in the gallery laughed, and every one looked up
+frowning. The play began. It was, I think, _Les Idées de Françoise_, but
+of that I cannot be sure. It was a farce of the regular French type,
+with a bedroom off, and marionettes who continually separated into
+couples and giggled together. The giggling to-night was of a sadly
+hollow sort. I pitied and admired the actors, spontaneous as a rule, but
+now bravely stuffing any kind of sawdust into the figures in their
+hands, but the leakage was terrible, and the sawdust lay scattered all
+about the stage. The four of us sat as solemn as statues--I don't think
+one of us smiled. It was during the second Act that I suddenly laughed.
+I don't know that anything very comic was happening on the stage, but I
+was aware, with a kind of ironic subconsciousness, that some of the
+superior spirits in their superior Heaven must be deriving a great deal
+of fun from our situation. There was Vera thinking, I suppose, of
+nothing but Lawrence, and Lawrence thinking of nothing but Vera, and
+Nina thinking of nothing but Lawrence, and the audience thinking of
+their safety, and the players thinking of their salaries, and
+Protopopoff at home thinking of his victory, and the Czar in Tsarskoe
+thinking of his Godsent autocracy, and Europe thinking of its ideals,
+and Germany thinking of its militarism--all self-justified, all
+mistaken, and all fulfilling some deeper plan at whose purpose they
+could not begin to guess. And how intermingled we all were! Vera and
+Nina, M. Robert and Mdlle. Flori on the other side of the footlights,
+Trenchard and Marie killed in Galicia, the Kaiser and Hindenburg, the
+Archbishop of Canterbury and the postmaster of my village in Glebeshire.
+
+The curtain is coming down, the fat husband is deceived once again, the
+lovers are in the bedroom listening behind the door, the comic waiter is
+winking at the chamber-maid....
+
+The lights are up and we are alone again in the deserted theatre.
+
+Towards the end of the last interval I went out into the passage behind
+the stalls to escape from the chastened whispering that went trembling
+up and down like the hissing of terrified snakes. I leaned against the
+wall in the deserted passage and watched the melancholy figure of the
+cloak-room attendant huddled up on a chair, his head between his hands.
+
+Suddenly I saw Vera. She came up to me as though she were going to walk
+past me, and then she stopped and spoke. She talked fast, not looking at
+me, but beyond, down the passage.
+
+"I'm sorry, Ivan Andreievitch," she said. "I was cross the other day. I
+hurt you. I oughtn't to have done that."
+
+"You know," I said, "that I never thought of it for a minute."
+
+"No, I was wrong. But I've been terribly worried during these last
+weeks. I've thought it all out to-day and I've decided--" there was a
+catch in her breath and she paused; she went on--"decided that there
+mustn't be any more weakness. I'm much weaker than I thought. I would be
+ashamed if I didn't think that shame was a silly thing to have. But now
+I am quite clear; I must make Nicholas and Nina happy. Whatever else
+comes I must do that. It has been terrible, these last weeks. We've all
+been angry and miserable, and now I must put it right. I can if I try.
+I've been forgetting that I chose my own life myself, and now I mustn't
+be cowardly because it's difficult. I will make it right myself...."
+
+She paused again, then she said, looking me straight in the face,
+
+"Ivan Andreievitch, does Nina care for Mr. Lawrence?"
+
+She was looking at me, with large black eyes so simply, with such trust
+in me, that I could only tell her the truth.
+
+"Yes," I said, "she does."
+
+Her eyes fell, then she looked up at me again.
+
+"I thought so," she said. "And does he care for her?"
+
+"No," I said, "he does not."
+
+"He must," she said. "It would be a very happy thing for them to marry."
+
+She spoke very low, so that I could scarcely hear her words.
+
+"Wait, Vera," I said. "Let it alone. Nina's very young. The mood will
+pass. Lawrence, perhaps, will go back to England."
+
+She drew in her breath and I saw her hand tremble, but she still looked
+at me, only now her eyes were not so clear. Then she laughed. "I'm
+getting an old woman, Ivan Andreievitch. It's ridiculous...." She broke
+off. Then held out her hand.
+
+"But we'll always be friends now, won't we? I'll never be cross with you
+again."
+
+I took her hand. "I'm getting old too," I said. "And I'm useless at
+everything. I only make a bungle of everything I try. But I'll be your
+true friend to the end of my time--"
+
+The bell rang and we went back into the theatre.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+And yet, strangely enough, when I lay awake that night in my room on my
+deserted island, it was of Markovitch that I was thinking. Of all the
+memories of the preceding evening that of Markovitch huddled over his
+food, sullen and glowering, with Semyonov watching him, was
+predominant.
+
+Markovitch was, so to speak, the dark horse of them all, and he was also
+when one came to look at it all the way round the centre of the story.
+And yet it was Markovitch with his inconsistencies, his mysteries, his
+impulses, and purposes, whom I understood least of them all. He makes,
+indeed, a very good symbol of my present difficulties.
+
+In that earlier experience of Marie in the forests of Galicia the matter
+had been comparatively easy. I had then been concerned with the outward
+manifestation of war--cannon, cholera, shell, and the green glittering
+trees of the forest itself. But the war had made progress since then. It
+had advanced out of material things into the very souls of men. It was
+no longer the forest of bark and tinder with which the chiefs of this
+world had to deal, but, to adapt the Russian proverb itself, "with the
+dark forest of the hearts of men."
+
+How much more baffling and intangible this new forest, and how deeply
+serious a business now for those who were still thoughtlessly and
+selfishly juggling with human affairs.
+
+"There is no ammunition," I remember crying desperately in Galicia. We
+had moved further than the question of ammunition now.
+
+I had a strange dream that night. I saw my old forest of two years
+before--the very woods of Buchatch with the hot painted leaves, the
+purple slanting sunlight, the smell, the cries, the whirr of the shell.
+But in my dream the only inhabitant of that forest was Markovitch. He
+was pursued by some animal. What beast it was I could not see, always
+the actual vision was denied to me, but I could hear it plunging through
+the thickets, and once I caught a glimpse of a dark crouching body like
+a shadow against the light.
+
+But Markovitch I saw all the time, sweating with heat and terror, his
+clothes torn, his eyes inflamed, his breath coming in desperate pants,
+turning once and again as though he would stop and offer defiance, then
+hasting on, his face and hands scratched and bleeding. I wanted to offer
+him help and assistance, but something prevented me; I could not get to
+him. Finally he vanished from my sight and I was left alone in the
+painted forest....
+
+All the next morning I sat and wondered what I had better do, and at
+last I decided that I would go and see Henry Bohun.
+
+I had not seen Bohun for several weeks. I myself had been, of late, less
+to the flat in the English Prospect, but I knew that he had taken my
+advice that he should be kind to Nicholas Markovitch with due British
+seriousness, and that he had been trying to bring some kind of
+relationship about. He had even asked Markovitch to dine alone with him,
+and Markovitch, although he declined the invitation was, I believe,
+greatly touched.
+
+So, about half-past one, I started off for Bohun's office on the
+Fontanka. I've said somewhere before, I think, that Bohun's work was in
+connection with the noble but uphill task of enlightening the Russian
+public as to the righteousness of the war, the British character, and
+the Anglo-Russian alliance. I say "uphill," because only a few of the
+_real_ population of Russia showed the slightest desire to know anything
+whatever about any country outside their own. Their interest is in ideas
+not in boundaries--and what I mean by "real" will be made patent by the
+events of this very day. However, Bohun did his best, and it was not his
+fault that the British Government could only spare enough men and money
+to cover about one inch of the whole of Russia--and, I hasten to add,
+that if that same British Government had plastered the whole vast
+country from Archangel to Vladivostock with pamphlets, orators, and
+photographs it would not have altered, in the slightest degree, after
+events.
+
+To make any effect in Russia England needed not only men and money but a
+hundred years' experience of the country. That same experience was
+possessed by the Germans alone of all the Western peoples--and they have
+not neglected to use it.
+
+I went by tram to the Fontanka, and the streets seemed absolutely
+quiet. That strange shining Nevski of the night before was a dream. Some
+one in the tram said something about rifle-shots in the Summer Garden,
+but no one listened. As Vera had said last night we had, none of us,
+much faith in Russian revolutions.
+
+I went up in the lift to the Propaganda office and found it a very nice
+airy place, clean and smart, with coloured advertisements by Shepperson
+and others on the walls, pictures of Hampstead and St. Albans and Kew
+Gardens that looked strangely satisfactory and homely to me, and rather
+touching and innocent. There were several young women clicking away at
+typewriters, and maps of the Western front, and a colossal toy map of
+the London Tube, and a nice English library with all the best books from
+Chaucer to D.H. Lawrence and from the _Religio Medici_ to E.V. Lucas'
+_London_.
+
+Everything seemed clean and simple and a little deserted, as though the
+heart of the Russian public had not, as yet, quite found its way there.
+I think "guileless" was the adjective that came to my mind, and
+certainly Burrows, the head of the place--a large, red-faced, smiling
+man with glasses--seemed to me altogether too cheerful and pleased with
+life to penetrate the wicked recesses of Russian pessimism.
+
+I went into Bohun's room and found him very hard at work in a serious,
+emphatic way which only made me feel that he was playing at it. He had a
+little bookcase over his table, and I noticed the _Georgian Book of
+Verse_, Conrad's _Nostromo_, and a translation of Ropshin's _Pale
+Horse_.
+
+"Altogether too pretty and literary," I said to him; "you ought to be
+getting at the peasant with a pitchfork and a hammer--not admiring the
+Intelligentzia."
+
+"I daresay you're right," he said, blushing. "But whatever we do we're
+wrong. We have fellows in here cursing us all day. If we're simple we're
+told we're not clever enough; if we're clever we're told we're too
+complicated. If we're militant we're told we ought to be
+tender-hearted, and if we're tender-hearted we're told we're
+sentimental--and at the end of it all the Russians don't care a damn."
+
+"Well, I daresay you're doing some good somewhere," I said indulgently.
+
+"Come and look at my view," he said, "and see whether it isn't
+splendid."
+
+He spoke no more than the truth. We looked across the Canal over the
+roofs of the city--domes and towers and turrets, grey and white and
+blue, with the dark red walls of many of the older houses stretched like
+an Arabian carpet beneath white bubbles of clouds that here and there
+marked the blue sky. It was a scene of intense peace, the smoke rising
+from the chimneys, Isvostchicks stumbling along on the farther banks of
+the Canal, and the people sauntering in their usual lazy fashion up and
+down the Nevski. Immediately below our window was a skating-rink that
+stretched straight across the Canal. There were some figures, like
+little dolls, skating up and down, and they looked rather desolate
+beside the deserted band-stands and the empty seats. On the road outside
+our door a cart loaded with wood slowly moved along, the high hoop over
+the horse's back gleaming with red and blue.
+
+"Yes, it _is_ a view!" I said. "Splendid!--and all as quiet as though
+there'd been no disturbances at all. Have you heard any news?"
+
+"No," said Bohun. "To tell the truth I've been so busy that I haven't
+had time to ring up the Embassy. And we've had no one in this morning.
+Monday morning, you know," he added; "always very few people on Monday
+morning"--as though he didn't wish me to think that the office was
+always deserted.
+
+I watched the little doll-like men circling placidly round and round
+the rink. One bubble cloud rose and slowly swallowed up the sun.
+Suddenly I heard a sharp crack like the breaking of a twig. "What's
+that?" I said, stepping forward on to the balcony. "It sounded like a
+shot."
+
+"I didn't hear anything," said Bohun. "You get funny echoes up here
+sometimes." We stepped back into Bohun's room and, if I had had any
+anxieties, they would at once, I think, have been reassured by the
+unemotional figure of Bohun's typist, a gay young woman with peroxide
+hair, who was typing away as though for her very life.
+
+"Look here, Bohun, can I talk to you alone for a minute?" I asked.
+
+The peroxide lady left us.
+
+"It's just about Markovitch I wanted to ask you," I went on. "I'm
+infernally worried, and I want your help. It may seem ridiculous of me
+to interfere in another family like this, with people with whom I have,
+after all, nothing to do. But there are two reasons why it isn't
+ridiculous. One is the deep affection I have for Nina and Vera. I
+promised them my friendship, and now I've got to back that promise. And
+the other is that you and I are really responsible for bringing Lawrence
+into the family. They never would have known him if it hadn't been for
+us. There's danger and trouble of every sort brewing, and Semyonov, as
+you know, is helping it on wherever he can. Well, now, what I want to
+know is, how much have you seen of Markovitch lately, and has he talked
+to you?"
+
+Bohun considered. "I've seen very little of him," he said at last. "I
+think he avoids me now. He's such a weird bird that it's impossible to
+tell of what he's really thinking. I know he was pleased when I asked
+him to dine with me at the Bear the other night. He looked _most
+awfully_ pleased. But he wouldn't come. It was as though he suspected
+that I was laying a trap for him."
+
+"But what have you noticed about him otherwise?"
+
+"Well, I've seen very little of him. He's sulky just now. He suspected
+Lawrence, of course--always after that night of Nina's party. But I
+think that he's reassured again. And of course it's all so ridiculous,
+because there's nothing to suspect, absolutely nothing--is there?"
+
+"Absolutely nothing," I answered firmly.
+
+He sighed with relief. "Oh, you don't know how glad I am to hear that,"
+he said. "Because, although I've _known_ that it was all right, Vera's
+been so odd lately that I've wondered--you know how I care about Vera
+and--"
+
+"How do you mean--odd?" I sharply interrupted.
+
+"Well--for instance--of course I've told nobody--and you won't tell any
+one either--but the other night I found her crying in the flat, sitting
+up near the table, sobbing her heart out. She thought every one was
+out--I'd been in my room and she hadn't known. But Vera, Durward--Vera
+of all people! I didn't let her see me--she doesn't know now that I
+heard her. But when you care for any one as I care for Vera, it's awful
+to think that she can suffer like that and one can do nothing. Oh,
+Durward, I wish to God I wasn't so helpless! You know before I came out
+to Russia I felt so old; I thought there was nothing I couldn't do, that
+I was good enough for anybody. And now I'm the most awful ass. Fancy,
+Durward! Those poems of mine--I thought they were wonderful. I
+thought--"
+
+He was interrupted by a sudden sharp crackle like a fire bursting into a
+blaze quite close at hand. We both sprang to the windows, threw them
+open (they were not sealed, for some unknown reason), and rushed out on
+to the balcony. The scene in front of us was just what it had been
+before--the bubble clouds were still sailing lazily before the blue, the
+skaters were still hovering on the ice, the cart of wood that I had
+noticed was vanishing slowly into the distance. But from the
+Liteiny--just over the bridge--came a confused jumble of shouts, cries,
+and then the sharp, unmistakable rattle of a machine-gun. It was funny
+to see the casual life in front of one suddenly pause at that sound. The
+doll-like skaters seemed to spin for a moment and then freeze; one
+figure began to run across the ice. A small boy came racing down our
+street shouting. Several men ran out from doorways and stood looking up
+into the sky, as though they thought the noise had come from there. The
+sun was just setting; the bubble clouds were pink, and windows flashed
+fire. The rattle of the machine-gun suddenly stopped, and there was a
+moment's silence when the only sound in the whole world was the clatter
+of the wood-cart turning the corner. I could see to the right of me the
+crowds in the Nevski, that had looked like the continual unwinding of a
+ragged skein of black silk, break their regular movement and split up
+like flies falling away from an opening door.
+
+We were all on the balcony by now--the stout Burrows, Peroxide, and
+another lady typist, Watson, the thin and most admirable secretary (he
+held the place together by his diligence and order), two Russian clerks,
+Henry, and I.
+
+We all leaned over the railings and looked down into the street beneath
+us. To our left the Fontanka Bridge was quite deserted--then, suddenly,
+an extraordinary procession poured across it. At that same moment (at
+any rate it seems so now to me on looking back) the sun disappeared,
+leaving a world of pale grey mist shot with gold and purple. The stars
+were, many of them, already out, piercing with their sharp cold
+brilliance the winter sky.
+
+We could not at first see of what exactly the crowd now pouring over the
+bridge was composed. Then, as it turned and came down our street, it
+revealed itself as something so theatrical and melodramatic as to be
+incredible. Incredible, I say, because the rest of the world was not
+theatrical with it. That was always to be the amazing feature of the new
+scene into which, without knowing it, I was at that moment stepping. In
+Galicia the stage had been set--ruined villages, plague-stricken
+peasants, shell-holes, trenches, roads cut to pieces, huge trees
+levelled to the ground, historic châteaux pillaged and robbed. But here
+the world was still the good old jog-trot world that one had always
+known; the shops and hotels and theatres remained as they had always
+been. There would remain, I believe, for ever those dull Jaeger
+undergarments in the windows of the bazaar, and the bound edition of
+Tchekov in the book-shop just above the Moika, and the turtle and the
+gold-fish in the aquarium near Elisseieff; and whilst those things were
+there I could not believe in melodrama.
+
+And we did not believe. We dug our feet into the snow, and leaned over
+the balcony railings absorbed with amused interest. The procession
+consisted of a number of motor lorries, and on these lorries soldiers
+were heaped. I can use no other word because, indeed, they seemed to be
+all piled upon one another, some kneeling forward, some standing, some
+sitting, and all with their rifles pointing outwards until the lorries
+looked like hedgehogs. Many of the rifles had pieces of red cloth
+attached to them, and one lorry displayed proudly a huge red flag that
+waved high in air with a sort of flaunting arrogance of its own. On
+either side of the lorries, filling the street, was the strangest mob of
+men, women, and children. There seemed to be little sign of order or
+discipline amongst them as they were all shouting different cries: "Down
+the Fontanka!" "No, the Duma!" "To the Nevski!" "No, no, _Tovaristchi_
+(comrades), to the Nicholas Station!"
+
+Such a rabble was it that I remember that my first thought was of
+pitying indulgence. So this was the grand outcome of Boris Grogoff's
+eloquence, and the Rat's plots for plunder!--a fitting climax to such
+vain dreams. I saw the Cossack, that ebony figure of Sunday night. Ten
+such men, and this rabble was dispersed for ever! I felt inclined to
+lean over and whisper to them, "Quick! quick! Go home!... They'll be
+here in a moment and catch you!"
+
+And yet, after all, there seemed to be some show of discipline. I
+noticed that, as the crowd moved forward, men dropped out and remained
+picketing the doorways of the street. Women seemed to be playing a large
+part in the affair, peasants with shawls over their heads, many of them
+leading by the hand small children.
+
+Burrows treated it all as a huge joke. "By Jove," he cried, speaking
+across to me, "Durward, it's like that play Martin Harvey used to
+do--what was it?--about the French Revolution, you know."
+
+"'The Only Way,'" said Peroxide, in a prim strangled voice.
+
+"That's it--'The Only Way'--with their red flags and all. Don't they
+look ruffians, some of them?"
+
+There was a great discussion going on under our windows. All the lorries
+had drawn up together, and the screaming, chattering, and shouting was
+like the noise of a parrots' aviary. The cold blue light had climbed now
+into the sky, which was thick with stars; the snow on the myriad roofs
+stretched like a filmy cloud as far as the eye could see. The moving,
+shouting crowd grew with every moment mistier.
+
+"Oh, dear! Mr. Burrows," said the little typist, who was not Peroxide.
+"Do you think I shall ever be able to get home? We're on the other side
+of the river, you know. Do you think the bridges will be up? My mother
+will be so terribly anxious."
+
+"Oh, you'll get home all right," answered Burrows cheerfully. "Just wait
+until this crowd has gone by. I don't expect there's any fuss down by
+the river..."
+
+His words were cut short by some order from one of the fellows below.
+Others shouted in response, and the lorries again began to move forward.
+
+"I believe he was shouting to us," said Bohun. "It sounded like 'Get
+off' or 'Get away.'"
+
+"Not he!" said Burrows; "they're too busy with their own affairs."
+
+Then things happened quickly. There was a sudden strange silence below;
+I saw a quick flame from some fire that had apparently been lit on the
+Fontanka Bridge; I heard the same voice call out once more sharply, and
+a second later I felt rather than heard a whizz like the swift flight of
+a bee past my ear; I was conscious that a bullet had struck the brick
+behind me. That bullet swung me into the Revolution....
+
+
+
+IX
+
+...We were all gathered together in the office. I heard one of the
+Russians say in an agitated whisper, "Don't turn on the light!... Don't
+turn on the light! They can see!"
+
+We were all in half-darkness, our faces mistily white. I could hear
+Peroxide breathing in a tremulous manner, as though in a moment she
+would break into hysteria.
+
+"We'll go into the inside room. We can turn the light on there," said
+Burrows. We all passed into the reception-room of the office, a nice
+airy place with the library along one wall and bright coloured maps on
+the other. We stood together and considered the matter.
+
+"It's real!" said Burrows, his red, cheery face perplexed and strained.
+"Who'd have thought it?"
+
+"Of course it's real!" cried Bohun impatiently (Burrows' optimism had
+been often difficult to bear with indulgence).
+
+"Now you see! What about your beautiful Russian mystic now?"
+
+"Oh dear!" cried the little Russian typist. "And my mother!... What ever
+shall I do? She'll hear reports and think that I'm being murdered. I
+shall never get across."
+
+"You'd better stay with me to-night, Miss Peredonov," said Peroxide
+firmly. "My flat's quite close here in Gagarinsky. We shall be delighted
+to have you."
+
+"You can telephone to your mother, Miss Peredonov," said Burrows. "No
+difficulty at all."
+
+It was then that Bohun took me aside.
+
+"Look here!" he said. "I'm worried. Vera and Nina were going to the
+Astoria to have tea with Semyonov this afternoon. I should think the
+Astoria might be rather a hot spot if this spreads. And I wouldn't trust
+Semyonov. Will you come down with me there now?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "of course I'll come."
+
+We said a word to Burrows, put on our Shubas and goloshes, and started
+down the stairs. At every door there were anxious faces. Out of one flat
+came a very fat Jew.
+
+"Gentlemen, what is this all about?"
+
+"Riots," said Bohun.
+
+"Is there shooting?"
+
+"Yes," said Bohun.
+
+"_Bozhe moi! Bozhe moi!_ And I live over on Vassily Ostrov! What do you
+advise, _Gaspoda_? Will the bridges be up?"
+
+"Very likely," I answered. "I should stay here."
+
+"And they are shooting?" he asked again.
+
+"They are," I answered.
+
+"Gentlemen, gentlemen--stay for a moment. Perhaps together we could
+think.... I am all alone here except for a lady... most
+unfortunate...."
+
+But we could not stay.
+
+The world into which we stepped was wonderful. The background of snow
+under the star-blazing sky made it even more fantastic than it naturally
+was. We slipped into the crowd and, becoming part of it, were at once,
+as one so often is, sympathetic with it. It seemed such a childish,
+helpless, and good-natured throng. No one seemed to know anything of
+arms or directions. There were, as I have already said, many women and
+little children, and some of the civilians who had rifles looked quite
+helpless. I saw one boy holding his gun upside down. No one paid any
+attention to us. There was as yet no class note in the demonstration,
+and the only hostile cries I heard were against Protopopoff and the
+police. We moved back into the street behind the Fontanka, and here I
+saw a wonderful sight. Some one had lighted a large bonfire in the
+middle of the street and the flames tossed higher and higher into the
+air, bringing down the stars in flights of gold, flinging up the snow
+until it seemed to radiate in lines and circles of white light high over
+the very roofs of the houses. In front of the fire a soldier, mounted on
+a horse, addressed a small crowd of women and boys. On the end of his
+rifle was a ragged red cloth.
+
+I could not see his face. I saw his arms wave, and the fire behind him
+exaggerated his figure and then dropped it into a straggling silhouette
+against the snow. The street seemed deserted except for this group,
+although now I could hear distant shouting on every side of me, and the
+monotonous clap-clap-clap-clap of a machine-gun.
+
+I heard him say, "_Tovaristchi!_ now is your time! Don't hesitate in the
+sacred cause of freedom! As our brethren did in the famous days of the
+French Revolution, so must we do now. All the Army is coming over to our
+side. The Preobrojenski have come over to us and have arrested their
+officers and taken their arms. We must finish with Protopopoff and our
+other tyrants, and see that we have a just rule. _Tovaristchi_! there
+will never be such a chance again, and you will repent for ever if you
+have not played your part in the great fight for freedom!"
+
+So it went on. It did not seem that his audience was greatly impressed.
+It was bewildered and dazed. But the fire leapt up behind him giving him
+a legendary splendour, and the whole picture was romantic and unreal
+like a gaudy painting on a coloured screen.
+
+We hurried through into the Nevski, and this we found nearly deserted.
+The trams of course had stopped, a few figures hurried along, and once
+an Isvostchick went racing down towards the river.
+
+"Well, now, we seem to be out of it," said Bohun, with a sigh of relief.
+"I must say I'm not sorry. I don't mind France, where you can tell which
+is the front and which the back, but this kind of thing does get on
+one's nerves. I daresay it's only local. We shall find them all as easy
+as anything at the Astoria, and wondering what we're making a fuss
+about."
+
+At that moment we were joined by an English merchant whom we both knew,
+a stout elderly man who had lived all his life in Russia. I was
+surprised to find him in a state of extreme terror. I had always known
+him as a calm, conceited, stupid fellow, with a great liking for Russian
+ladies. This pastime he was able as a bachelor to enjoy to the full.
+Now, however, instead of the ruddy, coarse, self-confident merchant
+there was a pallid, trembling jelly-fish.
+
+"I say, you fellows," he asked, catching my arm. "Where are you off to?"
+
+"We're off to the Astoria," I answered.
+
+"Let me come with you. I'm not frightened, not at all--all the same I
+don't want to be left alone. I was in the 1905 affair. That was enough
+for me. Where are they firing--do you know?"
+
+"All over the place," said Bohun, enjoying himself. "They'll be down
+here in a minute."
+
+"Good God! Do you really think so? It's terrible--these fellows--once
+they get loose they stick at nothing.... I remember in 1905.... Good
+heavens! Where had we better go? It's very exposed here, isn't it?"
+
+"It's very exposed everywhere," said Bohun. "I doubt whether any of us
+are alive in the morning."
+
+"Good heavens! You don't say so! Why should they interfere with us?"
+
+"Oh, rich, you know, and that kind of thing. And then we're Englishmen.
+They'll clear out all the English."
+
+"Oh, I'm not really English. My mother was Russian. I could show them my
+papers...."
+
+Bohun laughed. "I'm only kidding you, Watchett," he said. "We're safe
+enough. Look, there's not a soul about!" We were at the corner of the
+Moika now; all was absolutely quiet. Two women and a man were standing
+on the bridge talking together. A few stars clustered above the bend of
+the Canal seemed to shift and waver ever so slightly through a gathering
+mist, like the smoke of blowing candles.
+
+"It seems all right," said the merchant, sniffing the air suspiciously
+as though he expected to smell blood. We turned towards the Morskaia.
+One of the women detached herself from the group and came to us.
+
+"Don't go down the Morskaia," she said, whispering, as though some
+hostile figure were leaning over her shoulder. "They're firing round the
+Telephone Exchange." Even as she spoke I heard the sharp clatter of the
+machine-gun break out again, but now very close, and with an intimate
+note as though it were the same gun that I had heard before, which had
+been tracking me down round the town.
+
+"Do you hear that?" said the merchant.
+
+"Come on," said Bohun. "We'll go down the Moika. That seems safe
+enough!"
+
+How strangely in the flick of a bullet the town had changed! Yesterday
+every street had been friendly, obvious, and open; they were now no
+longer streets, but secret blind avenues with strange trees, fantastic
+doors, shuttered windows, a grinning moon, malicious stars, and snow
+that lay there simply to prevent every sound. It was a town truly
+beleaguered as towns are in dreams. The uncanny awe with which I moved
+across the bridge was increased when the man with the women turned
+towards me, and I saw that he was--or seemed to be--that same grave
+bearded peasant whom I had seen by the river, whom Henry had seen in the
+Cathedral, who remained with one, as passing strangers sometimes do,
+like a symbol or a message or a threat.
+
+He stood, with the Nevski behind him, calm and grave, and even it seemed
+a little amused, watching me as I crossed. I said to Bohun, "Did you
+ever see that fellow before?"
+
+Bohun turned and looked.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"Don't you remember? The man that first day in the Kazan?"
+
+"They're all alike," Bohun said. "One can't tell...."
+
+"Oh, come on," said the merchant. "Let's get to the Astoria."
+
+We started down the Moika, past that faded picture-shop where there are
+always large moth-eaten canvases of cornfields under the moon and
+Russian weddings and Italian lakes. We had got very nearly to the little
+street with the wooden hoardings when the merchant gripped my arm.
+
+"What's that?" he gulped. The silence now was intense. We could not hear
+the machine-gun nor any shouting. The world was like a picture smoking
+under a moon now red and hard. Against the wall of the street two women
+were huddled, one on her knees, her head pressed against the thighs of
+the other, who stood stretched as though crucified, her arms out,
+staring on to the Canal. Beside a little kiosk, on the space exactly in
+front of the side street, lay a man on his face. His bowler-hat had
+rolled towards the kiosk; his arms were stretched out so that he looked
+oddly like the shadow of the woman against the wall.
+
+Instead of one hand there was a pool of blood. The other hand with all
+the fingers stretched was yellow against the snow.
+
+As we came up a bullet from the Morskaia struck the kiosk.
+
+The woman, not moving from the wall, said, "They've shot my husband...
+he did nothing."
+
+The other woman, on her knees, only cried without ceasing.
+
+The merchant said, "I'm going back--to the Europe," and he turned and
+ran.
+
+"What's down that street?" I said to the woman, as though I expected her
+to say "Hobgoblins." Bohun said, "This is rather beastly.... We ought to
+move that fellow out of that. He may be alive still."
+
+And how silly such a sentence when only yesterday, just here, there was
+the beggar who sold boot-laces, and just there, where the man lay, an
+old muddled Isvostchick asleep on his box!
+
+We moved forward, and instantly it was as though I were in the middle of
+a vast desert quite alone with all the hosts of heaven aiming at me
+malicious darts. As I bent down my back was so broad that it stretched
+across Petrograd, and my feet were tiny like frogs.
+
+We pulled at the man. His head rolled and his face turned over, and the
+mouth was full of snow. It was so still that I whispered, whether to
+Bohun or myself, "God, I wish somebody would shout!" Then I heard the
+wood of the kiosk crack, ever so slightly, like an opening door, and
+panic flooded me as I had never known it do during all my time at the
+Front.
+
+"I've no strength," I said to Bohun.
+
+"Pull for God's sake!" he answered. We dragged the body a little way; my
+hand clutched the thigh, which was hard and cold under the stuff of his
+clothing. His head rolled round, and his eyes now were covered with
+snow. We dragged him, and he bumped grotesquely. We had him under the
+wall, near the two women, and the blood welled out and dripped in a
+spreading pool at the women's feet.
+
+"Now," said Bohun, "we've got to run for it."
+
+"Do you know," said I, as though I were making a sudden discovery, "I
+don't think I can." I leaned back against the wall and looked at the
+pool of blood near the kiosk where the man had been.
+
+"Oh, but you've got to," said Bohun, who seemed to feel no fear. "We
+can't stay here all night."
+
+"No, I know," I answered. "But the trouble is--I'm not myself." And I
+was not. That _was_ the trouble. I was not John Durward at all. Some
+stranger was here with a new heart, poor shrivelled limbs, an enormous
+nose, a hot mouth with no eyes at all. This stranger had usurped my
+clothes and he refused to move. He was tied to the wall and he would not
+obey me.
+
+Bohun looked at me. "I say, Durward, come on, it's only a step. We must
+get to the Astoria."
+
+But the picture of the Astoria did not stir me. I should have seen Nina
+and Vera waiting there, and that should have at once determined me. So
+it would have been had I been myself. This other man was there.... Nina
+and Vera meant nothing to him at all. But I could not explain that to
+Bohun. "I can't go..." I saw Bohun's eyes--I was dreadfully ashamed.
+"You go on..." I muttered. I wanted to tell him that I did not think
+that I could endure to feel again that awful expansion of my back and
+the turning my feet into toads.
+
+"Of course I can't leave you," he said.
+
+And suddenly I sprang back into my own clothes again. I flung the
+charlatan out and he flumped off into air.
+
+"Come on," I said, and I ran. No bullets whizzed past us. I was ashamed
+of running, and we walked quite quietly over the rest of the open space.
+
+"Funny thing," I said, "I was damned frightened for a moment."
+
+"It's the silence and the houses," said Bohun.
+
+Strangely enough I remember nothing between that moment and our arrival
+at the Astoria. We must have skirted the Canal, keeping in the shadow of
+the wall, then crossed the Saint Isaac's Square. The next thing I can
+recall is our standing, rather breathless, in the hall of the Astoria,
+and the first persons I saw there were Vera and Nina, together at the
+bottom of the staircase, saying nothing, waiting.
+
+In front of them was a motley crowd of Russian officers all talking and
+gesticulating together. I came nearer to Vera and at once I said to
+myself, "Lawrence is here somewhere." She was standing, her head up,
+watching the doors, her eyes glowed with anticipation, her lips were a
+little parted. She never moved at all, but was so vital that the rest of
+the people seemed dolls beside her. As we came towards them Nina turned
+round and spoke to some one, and I saw that it was Semyonov who stood at
+the bottom of the staircase, his thick legs apart, stroking his beard
+with his hand.
+
+We came forward and Nina began at once--
+
+"Durdles--tell us! What's happened?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered. The lights after the dark and the snow
+bewildered me, and the noise and excitement of the Russian officers were
+deafening.
+
+Nina went on, her face lit. "Can't you tell us anything? We haven't
+heard a word. We came just in an ordinary way about four o'clock. There
+wasn't a sound, and then, just as we were sitting down to tea, they all
+came bursting in, saying that all the officers were being murdered, and
+that Protopopoff was killed, and that--"
+
+"That's true anyway," said a young Russian officer, turning round to us
+excitedly. "I had it from a friend of mine who was passing just as they
+stuck him in the stomach. He saw it all; they dragged him out of his
+house and stuck him in the stomach--"
+
+"They say the Czar's been shot," said another officer, a fat, red-faced
+man with very bright red trousers, "and that Rodziancko's formed a
+government..."
+
+I heard on every side such words as "People--Rodziancko
+--Protopopoff--Freedom," and the officer telling his tale again. "And
+they stuck him in the stomach just as he was passing his house..."
+
+Through all this tale Vera never moved. I saw, to my surprise, that
+Lawrence was there now, standing near her but never speaking. Semyonov
+stood on the stairs watching.
+
+Suddenly I saw that she wanted me.
+
+"Ivan Andreievitch," she said, "will you do something for me?" She spoke
+very low, and her eyes did not look at me, but beyond us all out to the
+door.
+
+"Certainly," I said.
+
+"Will you keep Alexei Petrovitch here? Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Bohun can
+see us home. I don't want him to come with us. Will you ask him to wait
+and speak to you?"
+
+I went up to him. "Semyonov," I said, "I want a word with you, if I
+may--"
+
+"Certainly," he said, with that irritating smile of his, as though he
+knew exactly of what I was thinking.
+
+We moved up the dark stairs. As we went I heard Vera's clear, calm
+voice:
+
+"Will you see us home, Mr. Lawrence?... I think it's quite safe to go
+now."
+
+We stopped on the first floor under the electric light. There were two
+easy-chairs there, with a dusty palm behind them. We sat down.
+
+"You haven't really got anything to say to me," he began.
+
+"Oh yes, I have," I said.
+
+"No... You simply suggested conversation because Vera asked you to do
+so."
+
+"I suggested a conversation," I answered, "because I had something of
+some seriousness to tell you."
+
+"Well, she needn't have been afraid," he went on. "I wasn't going home
+with them. I want to stop and watch these ridiculous people a little
+longer.... What had you got to say, my philosophical, optimistic
+friend?"
+
+He looked quite his old self, sitting stockily in the chair, his strong
+thighs pressing against the cane as though they'd burst it, his thick
+square beard more wiry than ever, and his lips red and shining. He
+seemed to have regained his old self-possession and confidence.
+
+"What I wanted to say," I began, "is that I'm going to tell you once
+more to leave Markovitch alone. I know the other day--that alone--"
+
+"Oh _that_!" he brushed it aside impatiently. "There are bigger things
+than that just now, Durward. You lack, as I have always said, two very
+essential things, a sense of humour and a sense of proportion. And you
+pretend to know Russia whilst you are without those two admirable
+gifts!
+
+"However, let us forget personalities.... There are better things here!"
+
+As he spoke two young Russian officers came tumbling up the stairs. They
+were talking excitedly, not listening to one another, red in the face
+and tripping over their swords. They went up to the next floor, their
+voices very shrill.
+
+"So much for your sentimental Russia," said Semyonov. He spoke very
+quietly. "How I shall love to see these fools all toppled over, and then
+the fools who toppled them toppled in their turn.
+
+"Durward, you're a fool too, but you're English, and at least you've got
+a conscience. I tell you, you'll see in these next months such
+cowardice, such selfishness, such meanness, such ignorance as the world
+has never known--and all in the name of Freedom! Why, they're chattering
+about freedom already downstairs as hard as they can go!"
+
+"As usual, Semyonov," I answered hotly, "you believe in the good of no
+one. If there's really a Revolution coming, which I still doubt, it may
+lead to the noblest liberation."
+
+"Oh, you're an ass!" he interrupted quietly. "Nobility and the human
+race! I tell you, Ivan Andreievitch of the noble character, that the
+human race is rotten; that it is composed of selfishness, vice, and
+meanness; that it is hypocritical beyond the bounds of hypocrisy, and
+that of all mean cowardly nations on this earth the Russian nation is
+the meanest and most cowardly!... That fine talk of ours that you
+English slobber over!--a mere excuse for idleness, and you'll know it
+before another year is through. I despise mankind with a contempt that
+every day's fresh experience only the more justifies. Only once have I
+found some one who had a great soul, and she, too, if I had secured
+her, might have disappointed me.... No, my time is coming. I shall see
+at last my fellowmen in their true colours, and I shall even perhaps
+help them to display them. My worthy Markovitch, for example--"
+
+"What about Markovitch?" I asked sharply.
+
+He got up, smiling. He put his hand on my shoulder.
+
+"He shall be driven by ghosts," he answered, and turned off to the
+stairs.
+
+He looked back for a moment. "The funny thing is, I like you, Durward,"
+he said.
+
+
+
+X
+
+I remember very little of my return to my island that night. The world
+was horribly dark and cold, the red moon had gone, and a machine-gun
+pursued me all the way home like a barking dog. I crossed the bridge
+frankly with nerves so harassed, with so many private anxieties and so
+much public apprehension, with so overpowering a suspicion that every
+shadow held a rifle that my heart leapt in my breast, and I was suddenly
+sick with fear when some one stepped across the road and put his hand on
+my arm. You see I have nothing much to boast about myself. My relief was
+only slightly modified when I saw that it was the Rat. The Rat had
+changed! He stood, as though on purpose under the very faint grey light
+of the lamp at the end of the bridge, and seen thus, he did in truth
+seem like an apparition. He was excited of course, but there was more in
+his face than that. The real truth about him was, that he was filled
+with some determination, some purpose. He was like a child who is
+playing at being a burglar, his face had exactly that absorption, that
+obsessing pre-occupation.
+
+"I've been waiting for you, Barin," he said in his hoarse musical voice.
+
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"This is where I live," he said, and he showed me a very dirty piece of
+paper. "I think you ought to know."
+
+"Why?" I asked him.
+
+"_Kto snaiet_? (who knows?) The Czar's gone and we are all free men...."
+
+I felt oddly that suddenly now he knew himself my master. That was now
+in his voice.
+
+"What are you going to do with your freedom?" I asked.
+
+He sighed.
+
+"I shall have my duties now," he said. "I'm not a free man at all. I
+obey orders for the first time. The people are going to rule. I am the
+people."
+
+He paused. Then he went on very seriously. "That is why, Barin, I give
+you that paper. I have friendly feelings towards you. I don't know what
+it is, but I am your brother. They may come and want to rob your house.
+Show them that paper."
+
+"Thank you very much," I said. "But I'm not afraid. There's nothing I
+mind them stealing. All the same I'm very grateful."
+
+He went on very seriously.
+
+"There'll be no Czar now and no police. We will stop the war and all be
+rich." He sighed. "But I don't know that it will bring happiness." He
+suddenly seemed to me forlorn and desolate and lonely, like a lost dog.
+I knew quite well that very soon, perhaps directly he had left me, he
+would plunder and murder and rob again.
+
+But that night, the two of us alone on the island and everything so
+still, waiting for great events, I felt close to him and protective.
+
+"Don't get knocked on the head, Rat," I said, "during one of your raids.
+Death is easily come by just now. Look after yourself."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "_Shto boodet, boodet_ (what will be, will
+be). _Neechevo_ (it's of no importance)." He had vanished into the
+shadows.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+I realise that the moment has come in my tale when the whole interest of
+my narrative centres in Markovitch. Markovitch is really the point of
+all my story as I have, throughout, subconsciously, recognised. The
+events of that wonderful Tuesday when for a brief instant the sun of
+freedom really did seem to all of us to break through the clouds, that
+one day in all our lives when hopes, dreams, Utopias, fairy tales seemed
+to be sober and realistic fact, those events might be seen through the
+eyes of any of us. Vera, Nina, Grogoff, Semyonov, Lawrence, Bohun and I,
+all shared in them and all had our sensations and experiences. But my
+own were drab and ordinary enough, and from the others I had no account
+so full and personal and true as from Markovitch. He told me all about
+that great day afterwards, only a short time before that catastrophe
+that overwhelmed us all, and in his account there was all the growing
+suspicion and horror of disillusion that after-events fostered in him.
+But as he told me, sitting through the purple hours of the night,
+watching the light break in ripples and circles of colour over the sea,
+he regained some of the splendours of that great day, and before he had
+finished his tale he was right back in that fantastic world that had
+burst at the touch like bubbles in the sun. I will give his account, as
+accurately as possible in his own words. I seldom interrupted him, and I
+think he soon forgot that I was there. He had come to me that night in a
+panic, for reasons which will he given later and I, in trying to
+reassure him, had reminded him of that day, when the world was suddenly
+Utopia.
+
+
+"That _did_ exist, that world," I said. "And once having existed it
+cannot now be dead. Believe, believe that it will come back."
+
+"Come back!" He shook his head. "Even if it is still there I cannot go
+back to it. I will tell you, Ivan Andreievitch, what that day was...
+and why now I am so bitterly punished for having believed in it. Listen,
+what happened to me. It occurred, all of it, exactly as I tell you. You
+know that, just at that time, I had been worrying very much about Vera.
+The Revolution had come I suppose very suddenly to every one; but truly
+to myself, because I had been thinking of Vera, it was like a
+thunder-clap. It's always been my trouble, Ivan Andreievitch, that I
+can't think of more than one thing at once, and the worry of it has been
+that in my life there has been almost invariably more than one thing
+that I ought to think of.... I would think of my invention, you know,
+that I ought to get on with it a little faster. Because really--it was
+making a sort of cloth out of bark that I was working at; as every day
+passed, I could see more and more clearly that there was a great deal in
+this particular invention, and that it only needed real application to
+bring it properly forward. Only application as you know is my trouble.
+If I could only shut my brain up...."
+
+He told me then, I remember, a lot about his early childhood, and then
+the struggle that he had had to see one thing at once, and not two or
+three things that got in the way and hindered him from doing anything.
+He went on about Vera.
+
+"You know that one night I had crept up into your room, and looked to
+see whether there were possibly a letter there. That was a disgraceful
+thing to do, wasn't it? But I felt then that I had to satisfy myself. I
+wonder whether I can make you understand. It wasn't jealousy exactly,
+because I had never felt that I had had any very strong right over Vera,
+considering the way that she had married me; but I don't think I ever
+loved her more than I did during those weeks, and she was unattainable.
+I was lonely, Ivan Andreievitch, that's the truth. Everything seemed to
+be slipping away from me, and in some way Alexei Petrovitch Semyonov
+seemed to accentuate that. He was always reminding me of one day or
+another when I had been happy with Vera long ago--some silly little
+expedition we had taken--or he was doubtful about my experiments being
+any good, or he would recall what I had felt about Russia at the
+beginning of the war.... All in a very kindly way, mind you. He was more
+friendly than he had ever been, and seemed to be altogether
+softer-hearted. But he made me think a great deal about Vera. He talked
+often so much. He thought that I ought to look after her more, and I
+explained that that wasn't my right.
+
+"The truth is that ever since Nina's birthday-party I had been anxious.
+I knew really that everything was right. Vera is of course the soul of
+honour--but something had occurred then which made me....
+
+"Well, well, that doesn't matter now. The only point is that I was
+thinking of Vera a great deal, and wondering how I could make her happy.
+She wasn't happy. I don't know how it was, but during those weeks just
+before the Revolution we were none of us happy. We were all uneasy as
+though we expected something were going to happen--and we were all
+suspicious....
+
+"I only tell you this because then you will see why it was that the
+Revolution broke upon me with such surprise. I had been right inside
+myself, talking to nobody, wanting nobody to talk to me. I get like that
+sometimes, when words seem to mean so much that it seems dangerous to
+throw them about.... And perhaps it is. But silence is dangerous too.
+Everything is dangerous if you are unlucky by nature....
+
+"I had been indoors all that Monday working at my invention, and
+thinking about Vera, wondering whether I'd speak to her, then afraid of
+my temper (I have a bad temper), wanting to know what was the truth,
+thinking at one moment that if she cared for some one else that I'd go
+away...and then suddenly angry and jealous, wishing to challenge him,
+but I am a ludicrous figure to challenge any one, as I very well know.
+Semyonov had been to see me that morning, and he had just sat there
+without saying anything. I couldn't endure that very long, so I asked
+him what he came for and he said, 'Oh, nothing.' I felt as though he
+were spying and I became uneasy. Why should he come so often now? And I
+was beginning to think of him when he wasn't there. It was as though he
+thought he had a right over all of us, and that irritated me.... Well,
+that was Monday. They all came late in the afternoon and told me all the
+news. They had been at the Astoria. The whole town seemed to be in
+revolt, so they said.
+
+"But even then I didn't realise it. I was thinking of Vera just the
+same. I looked at her all the evening just as Semyonov had looked at me.
+And didn't say anything.... I never wanted her so badly before. I made
+her sleep with me all that night. She hadn't done that for a long time,
+and I woke up early in the morning to hear her crying softly to herself.
+She never used to cry. She was so proud. I put my arms round her, and
+she stopped crying and lay quite still. It wasn't fair what I did, but I
+felt as though Alexei Petrovitch had challenged me to do it. He always
+hated Vera I knew. I got up very early and went to my wood. You can
+imagine I wasn't very happy....
+
+"Then suddenly I thought I'd go out into the streets, and see what was
+happening. I couldn't believe really that there had been any change. So
+I went out.
+
+"Do you know of recent years I've walked out very seldom? What was it? A
+kind of shyness. I knew when I was in my own house, and I knew whom I
+was with. Then I was never a man who cared greatly about exercise, and
+there was no one outside whom I wanted very much to see. So when I went
+out that morning it was as though I didn't know Petrograd at all, and
+had only just arrived there. I went over the Ekateringofsky Bridge,
+through the Square, and to the left down the Sadovaya.
+
+"Of course the first thing that I noticed was that there were no trams,
+and that there were multitudes of people walking along and that they
+were all poor people and all happy.' And I _was_ glad when I saw that.
+Of course I'm a fool, and life can't be as I want it, but that's always
+what I had thought life ought to be--all the streets filled with poor
+people, all free and happy. And here they were!... with the snow crisp
+under their feet, and the sun shining, and the air quite still, so that
+all the talk came up, and up into the sky like a song. But of course
+they were bewildered as well as happy. They didn't know where to go,
+they didn't know what to do--like birds let out suddenly from their
+cages. I didn't know myself. That's what sudden freedom does--takes your
+breath away so that you go staggering along, and get caught again if
+you're not careful. No trams, no policemen, no carriages filled with
+proud people cursing you.... Oh, Ivan Andreievitch, I'd be proud myself
+if I had money, and servants to put on my clothes, and new women every
+night, and different food every day.... I don't blame them--but suddenly
+proud people were gone, and I was crying without knowing it--simply
+because that great crowd of poor people went pushing along, all talking
+under the sunny sky as freely as they pleased.
+
+"I began to look about me. I saw that there were papers posted on the
+walls. They were those proclamations, you know, of Rodziancko's new
+government, saying that while everything was unsettled, Milyukoff,
+Rodziancko, and the others would take charge in order to keep order and
+discipline. It seemed to me that there was little need to talk about
+discipline. Had beggars appeared there in the road I believed that the
+crowd would have stripped off their clothes and given them, rather than
+that they should want.
+
+"I stood by one proclamation and read it out to the little crowd. They
+repeated the names to themselves, but they did not seem to care much.
+'The Czar's wicked they tell me,' said one man to me. 'And all our
+troubles come from him.'
+
+"'It doesn't matter,' said another. 'There'll be plenty of bread now.'
+
+"And indeed what did names matter now? I couldn't believe my eyes or my
+ears, Ivan Andreievitch. It looked too much like Paradise and I'd been
+deceived so often. So I determined to be very cautious. 'You've been
+taken in, Nicolai Leontievitch, many many times. Don't you believe
+this?' But I couldn't help feeling that if only this world would
+continue, if only the people could always be free and happy and the sun
+could shine, perhaps the rest of the world would see its folly and the
+war would stop and never begin again. This thought would grow in my mind
+as I walked, although I refused to encourage it.
+
+"Motor lorries covered with soldiers came dashing down the street. The
+soldiers had their guns pointed, but the crowd cheered and cheered,
+waving hands and shouting. I shouted too. The tears were streaming down
+my face. I couldn't help myself. I wanted to hold the sun and the snow
+and the people all in my arms fixed so that it should never change, and
+the world should see how good and innocent life could be.
+
+"On every side people had asked what had really happened, and of course
+no one knew. But it did not matter. Every one was so simple. A soldier,
+standing beside one of the placards was shouting: '_Tovaristchi!_ What
+we must have is a splendid Republic and a good Czar to look after it.'
+
+"And they all cheered him and laughed and sang. I turned up one of the
+side streets on to the Fontanka, and here I saw them emptying the rooms
+of one of the police. That was amusing! I laugh still when I think of
+it. Sending everything out of the windows,--underclothes, ladies'
+bonnets, chairs, books, flower-pots, pictures, and then all the records,
+white and yellow and pink paper, all fluttering in the sun like so many
+butterflies. The crowd was perfectly peaceful, in an excellent temper.
+Isn't that wonderful when you think that for months those people had
+been starved and driven, waiting all night in the street for a piece of
+bread, and that now all discipline was removed, no more policemen except
+those hiding for their lives in houses, and yet they did nothing, they
+touched no one's property, did no man any harm. People say now that it
+was their apathy, that they were taken by surprise, that they were like
+animals who did not know where to go, but I tell you, Ivan Andreievitch,
+that it was not so. I tell you that it was because just for an hour the
+soul could come up from its dark waters and breathe the sun and the
+light and see that all was good. Oh, why cannot that day return? Why
+cannot that day return?..."
+
+He broke off and looked at me like a distracted child, his brows
+puckered, his hands beating the air. I did not say anything. I wanted
+him to forget that I was there.
+
+He went on: "... I could not be there all day, I thought that I would go
+on to the Duma. I flowed on with the crowd. We were a great river
+swinging without knowing why, in one direction and only interrupted,
+once and again, by the motor lorries that rattled along, the soldiers
+shouting to us and waving their rifles, and we replying with cheers. I
+heard no firing that morning at all. They said, in the crowd, that many
+thousands had been killed last night. It seemed that on the roof of
+nearly every house in Petrograd there was a policeman with a
+machine-gun. But we marched along, without fear, singing. And all the
+time the joy in my heart was rising, rising, and I was checking it,
+telling myself that in a moment I would be disappointed, that I would
+soon be tricked as I had been so often tricked before. But I couldn't
+help my joy, which was stronger than myself....
+
+"It must have been early afternoon, so long had I been on the road, when
+I came at last to the Duma. You saw yourself, Ivan Andreievitch, that
+all that week the crowd outside the Duma was truly a sea of people with
+the motor lorries that bristled with rifles for sea-monsters and the
+gun-carriages for ships. And such a babel! Every one talking at once and
+nobody listening to any one.
+
+"I don't know now how I pushed through into the Court, but at last I was
+inside and found myself crushed up against the doors of the Palace by a
+mob of soldiers and students. Here there was a kind of hush.
+
+"When the door of the Palace opened there was a little sigh of interest.
+At intervals armed guards marched up with some wretched pale dirty
+Gorodovoi whom they had taken prisoner--"
+
+Nicholas Markovitch paused again and again. He had been looking out to
+the sea over whose purple shadows the sky pale green and studded with
+silver stars seemed to wave magic shuttles of light, to and fro,
+backwards and forwards.
+
+"You don't mind all these details, Ivan Andreievitch? I am trying to
+discover, for my own sake, all the details that led me to my final
+experience. I want to trace the chain link by link...nothing is
+unimportant..."
+
+I assured him that I was absorbed by his story. And indeed I was. That
+little, uncouth, lost, and desolate man was the most genuine human being
+whom I had ever known. That quality, above all others, stood forth in
+him. He had his secret as all men have their secret, the key to their
+pursuit of their own immortality....But Markovitch's secret was a real
+one, something that he faced with real bravery, real pride, and real
+dignity, and when he saw what the issue of his conduct must be he would,
+I knew, face it without flinching.
+
+He went on, but looking at me now rather than the sea--looking at me
+with his grave, melancholy, angry eyes. "...After one of these convoys
+of prisoners the door remained for a moment open, and I seeing my chance
+slipped in after the guards. Here I was then in the very heart of the
+Revolution; but still, you know, Ivan Andreievitch, I couldn't properly
+seize the fact, I couldn't grasp the truth that all this was really
+occurring and that it wasn't just a play, a pretence, or a dream...
+yes, a dream... especially a dream... perhaps, after all, that was
+what it was. The Circular Hall was piled high with machine-guns, bags of
+flour, and provisions of all kinds. There were some armed soldiers of
+course and women, and beside the machine guns the floor was strewn with
+cigarette ends and empty tins and papers and bags and cardboard boxes
+and even broken bottles. Dirt and Desolation! I remember that it was
+then when I looked at that floor that the first little suspicion stole
+into my heart--not a suspicion so much as an uneasiness. I wanted at
+once myself to set to work to clean up all the mess with my own hands.
+
+"I didn't like to see it there, and no one caring whether it were there
+or no.
+
+"In the Catherine Hall into which I peered there was a vast mob, and
+this huge mass of men stirred and coiled and uncoiled like some huge
+ant-heap. Many of them, as I watched, suddenly turned into the outer
+hall. Men jumped on to chairs and boxes and balustrades, and soon, all
+over the place there were speakers, some shouting, some shrieking, some
+with tears rolling down their cheeks, some swearing, some whispering as
+though to themselves... and all the regiments came pouring in from the
+station, tumbling in like puppies or babies with pieces of red cloth
+tied to their rifles, some singing, some laughing, some dumb with
+amazement... thicker and thicker and thicker... standing round the
+speakers with their mouths open and their eyes wide, pushing and
+jostling, but good-naturedly, like young dogs.
+
+"Everywhere, you know, men were forming committees, committees for
+social right, for a just Peace, for Women's Suffrage, for Finnish
+Independence, for literature and the arts, for the better treatment of
+prostitutes, for education, for the just division of the land. I had
+crept into my corner, and soon as the soldiers came thicker and thicker,
+the noise grew more and more deafening, the dust floated in hazy clouds.
+The men had their kettles and they boiled tea, squatting down there,
+sometimes little processions pushed their way through, soldiers shouting
+and laughing with some white-faced policeman in their midst. Once I saw
+an old man, his Shuba about his ears, stumbling with his eyes wide open,
+and staring as though he were sleep-walking. That was Stürmer being
+brought to judgement. Once I saw a man so terrified that he couldn't
+move, but must be prodded along by the rifles of the soldiers. That was
+Pitirim....
+
+"And the shouting and screaming rose and rose like a flood. Once
+Rodziancko came in and began shouting, '_Tovaristchi! Tovaristchi!_...'
+but his voice soon gave away, and he went back into the Salle Catherine
+again. The Socialists had it their way. There were so many, and their
+voices were so fresh and the soldiers liked to listen to them. 'Land for
+everybody!' they shouted. 'And Bread and Peace! Hurrah! Hurrah!' cried
+the soldiers.
+
+"'That's all very well,' said a huge man near me. 'But Nicholas is
+coming, and to-morrow he will eat us all up!'
+
+"But no one seemed to care. They were all mad, and I was mad too. It was
+the drunkenness of dust. It got in our heads and our brains. We all
+shouted. I began to shout too, although I didn't know what it was that I
+was shouting.
+
+"A grimy soldier caught me round the neck and kissed me. 'Land for
+everybody!' he cried. 'Have some tea, _Tovaristch_!' and I shared his
+tea with him.
+
+"Then through the dust and noise I suddenly saw Boris Grogoff! That was
+an astonishing thing. You see I had dissociated all this from my private
+life. I had even, during these last hours, forgotten Vera, perhaps for
+the very first moment since I met her. She had seemed to have no share
+in this,--and then suddenly the figure of Boris showed me that one's
+private life is always with one, that it is a secret city in which one
+must always live, and whose gates one will never pass through, whatever
+may be going on in the world outside. But Grogoff! What a change! You
+know, I had always patronised him, Ivan Andreievitch. It had seemed to
+me that he was only a boy with a boy's crude ideas. You know his fresh
+face with the way that he used to push back his hair from his forehead,
+and shout his ideas. He never considered any one's feelings. He was a
+complete egoist, and a man, it seemed to me, of no importance. But now!
+He stood on a bench and had around him a large crowd of soldiers. He was
+shouting in just his old way that he used in the English Prospect, but
+he seemed to have grown in the meantime, into a man. He did not seem
+afraid any more. I saw that he had power over the men to whom he was
+speaking.... I couldn't hear what he said, but through the dust and heat
+he seemed to grow and grow until it was only him whom I saw there.
+
+"'He will carry off Nina' was my next thought--ludicrous there at such a
+time, in such a crowd, but it is exactly like that that life shifts and
+shifts until it has formed a pattern. I was frightened by Grogoff. I
+could not believe that the new freedom, the new Russia, the new world
+would be made by such men. He waved his arms, he pushed back his hair,
+the men shouted. Grogoff was triumphant: 'The New World... _Novaya
+Jezn, Novaya Jezn_!' (New Life!) I heard him shout.
+
+"The sun before it set flooded the hall with light. What a scene through
+the dust! The red flags, the women and the soldiers and the shouting!
+
+"I was suddenly dismayed. 'How can order come out of this?' I thought.
+'They are all mad.... Terrible things are going to happen.' I was dirty
+and tired and exhausted. I fought my way through the mob, found the
+door. For a moment I looked back, to that sea of men lit by the last
+light of the sun. Then I pushed out, was thrown, it seemed to me, from
+man to man, and was at last in the air.... Quiet, fires burning in the
+courtyard, a sky of the palest blue, a few stars, and the people singing
+the 'Marseillaise.'
+
+"It was like drinking great draughts of cold water after an intolerable
+thirst....
+
+"...Hasn't Tchekov said somewhere that Russians have nostalgia but no
+patriotism? That was never true of me--can't remember how young I was
+when I remember my father talking to me about the idea of Russia. I've
+told you that he was by any kind of standard a bad man. He had, I think,
+no redeeming points at all--but he had, all the same, that sense of
+Russia. I don't suppose that he put it to any practical use, or that he
+even tried to teach it to his pupils, but it would suddenly seize him
+and he would let himself go, and for an hour he would be a fine
+master--of words. And what Russian is ever more than that at the end?
+
+"He spoke to me and gave me a picture of a world inside a world, and
+this inside world was complete in itself. It had everything in
+it--beauty, wealth, force, power; it could be anything, it could do
+anything. But it was held by an evil enchantment as though a wicked
+magician had it in thrall, and everything slept as in Tchaikowsky's
+Ballet. But one day, he told me, the Prince would come and kill the
+Enchanter, and this great world would come into its own. I remember that
+I was so excited that I couldn't bear to wait, but prayed that I might
+be allowed to go out and find the Enchanter... but my father laughed
+and said that there were no Enchanter now, and then I cried. All the
+same I never lost my hope. I talked to people about Russia, but it was
+never Russia itself they seemed to care for--it was women or drink or
+perhaps freedom and socialism, or perhaps some part of Russia, Siberia,
+or the Caucasus--but my world they none of them believed in. It didn't
+exist they said. It was simply my imagination that had painted it, and
+they laughed at me and said it was held together by the lashes of the
+knout, and when those went Russia would go too. As I grew up some of
+them thought that I was revolutionary, and they tried to make me join
+their clubs and societies. But those were no use to me. They couldn't
+give me what I wanted. They wanted to destroy, to assassinate some one,
+or to blow up a building. They had no thought beyond destruction, and
+that to me seemed only the first step. And they never think of Russia,
+our revolutionaries. You will have noticed that yourself, Ivan
+Andreievitch. Nothing so small and trivial as Russia! It must be the
+whole world or nothing at all. Democracy... Freedom... the Brotherhood
+of Man! Oh, the terrible harm that words have done to Russia! Had the
+Russians of the last fifty years been born without the gift of speech we
+would be now the greatest people on the earth!
+
+"But I loved Russia from end to end. The farthest villages in Siberia,
+the remotest hut beyond Archangel, from the shops in the Sadovaya to the
+Lavra at Kieff, from the little villages on the bank of the Volga to the
+woods round Tarnopol--all, all one country, one people, one world within
+a world. The old man to whom I was secretary discovered this secret hope
+of mine. I talked one night when I was drunk and told him everything. I
+mentioned even the Enchanter and the Sleeping Beauty! How he laughed at
+me! He would never leave me alone. 'Nicolai Leontievitch believes in
+Holy Russia!' he would say. 'Not so much Holy, you understand, as
+Bewitched. A Fairy Garden, ladies, with a sleeping beauty in the middle
+of it. Dear me, Nicolai Leontievitch, no wonder you are heart-free!'
+
+"How I hated him and his yellow face and his ugly stomach! I would have
+stamped on it with delight. But that made me shy. I was afraid to speak
+of it to any one, and I kept to myself. Then Vera came and she didn't
+laugh at me. The two ideas grew together in my head. Vera and Russia!
+The two things in my life by which I stood--because man must have
+something in life round which he may nestle as a cat curls up by the
+fire.
+
+"But even Vera did not seem to care for Russia as Russia. 'What can
+Siberia be to me?' she would say. 'Why, Nicholas, it is no more than
+China.'
+
+"But it was more than China; when I looked at it on the map I recognised
+it as though it were my own country. Then the war came and I thought the
+desire of my heart was fulfilled. At last men talked about Russia as
+though she truly existed. For a moment all Russia was united, all
+classes, rich and poor, high and low. Men were patriotic together as
+though one heart beat through all the land. But only for a moment.
+Divisions came, and quickly things were worse than before. There came
+Tannenburg and afterwards Warsaw.
+
+"All was lost.... Russia was betrayed, and I was a sentimental fool. You
+know yourself how cynical even the most sentimental Russians are--that
+is because if you stick to facts you know where you are, but ideas are
+always betraying you. Life simply isn't long enough to test them, that's
+all, and man is certainly not a patient animal.
+
+"At first I watched the war going from bad to worse, and then I shut
+myself in and refused to look any longer. I thought only of Vera and my
+work. I would make a great discovery and be rich, and then Vera at last
+would love me. Idiot! As though I had not known that Vera would not love
+for that kind of reason.... I determined that I would think no more of
+Russia, that I would be a man of no country. Then during those last
+weeks before the Revolution I began to be suspicious of Vera and to
+watch her. I did things of which I was ashamed, and then I despised
+myself for being ashamed.
+
+"I am a man, I can do what I wish. Even though I am imprisoned I am
+free.... I am my own master. But all the same, to be a spy is a mean
+thing, Ivan Andreievitch. You Englishmen, although you are stupid, you
+are not mean. It was that day when your young friend, Bohun, found me
+looking in your room for letters, that in spite of myself I was ashamed.
+
+"He looked at me in a sort of way as though, down to his very soul he
+was astonished at what I had done. Well, why should I mind that he
+should be astonished? He was very young and all wrong in his ideas of
+life. Nevertheless that look of his influenced me. I thought about it
+afterwards. Then came Alexei Petrovitch. I've told you already. He was
+always hinting at something. He was always there as though he were
+waiting for something to happen. He hinted things about Vera. It's
+strange, Ivan Andreievitch, but there was a day just a week before the
+Revolution, when I was very nearly jumping up and striking him. Just to
+get rid of him so that he shouldn't be watching me....Why even when I
+wasn't there he....
+
+"But what's that got to do with my walk? Nothing perhaps. All the same,
+it was all these little things that made me, when I walked out of the
+Duma that evening so queer. You see I'd been getting desperate. All that
+I had left was being taken from me, and then suddenly this Revolution
+had come and given me back Russia again. I forgot Alexei Petrovitch and
+your Englishman Lawrence and the failure of my work--I remembered, once
+again, just as I had those first days of the war, Vera and Russia.
+
+"There, in the clear evening air, I forgot all the talk there had been
+inside the Duma, the mess and the noise and the dust. I was suddenly
+happy again, and excited, and hopeful.... The Enchanter had come after
+all, and Russia was to awake.
+
+"Ah, what a wonderful evening that was! You know that there have been
+times--very, very rare occasions in one's life--when places that one
+knows well, streets and houses so common and customary as to be like
+one's very skin--are suddenly for a wonderful half-hour places of magic,
+the trees are gold, the houses silver, the bricks jewelled, the pavement
+of amber. Or simply perhaps they are different, a new country of new
+colour and mystery... when one is just in love or has won some prize,
+or finished at last some difficult work. Petrograd was like that to me
+that night; I swear to you, Ivan Andreievitch, I did not know where I
+was. I seem now on looking back to have been in places that night,
+magical places, that by the morning had flown away. I could not tell you
+where I went. I know that I must have walked for miles. I walked with a
+great many people who were all my brothers. I had drunk nothing, not
+even water, and yet the effect on me was exactly as though I were drunk,
+drunk with happiness, Ivan Andreievitch, and with the possibility of all
+the things that might now be.
+
+"We, many of us, marched along, singing the 'Marseillaise' I suppose.
+There was firing I think in some of the streets, because I can remember
+now on looking back that once or twice I heard a machine-gun quite close
+to me and didn't care at all, and even laughed.... Not that I've ever
+cared for that. Bullets aren't the sort of things that frighten me.
+There are other terrors....All the same it was curious that we should
+all march along as though there were no danger and the peace of the
+world had come. There were women with us--quite a number of them I
+think--and, I believe, some children. I remember that some of the way I
+carried a child, fast asleep in my arms. How ludicrous it would be now
+if I, of all men in the world, carried a baby down the Nevski! But it
+was quite natural that night. The town seemed to me blazing with light.
+Of course that it cannot have been; there can have only been the stars
+and some bonfires. And perhaps we stopped at the police-courts which
+were crackling away. I don't remember that, but I know that somewhere
+there were clouds of golden sparks opening into the sky and mingling
+with the stars--a wonderful sight, flocks of golden birds and behind
+them a roar of sound like a torrent of water... I know that, most of
+the night, I had one man especially for my companion. I can see him
+quite clearly now, although, whether it is all my imagination or not I
+can't say. Certainly I've never seen him since and never will again. He
+was a peasant, a bigly made man, very neatly and decently dressed in a
+workman's blouse and black trousers. He had a long black beard and was
+grave and serious, speaking very little but watching everything. Kindly,
+our best type of peasant--perhaps the type that will one day give Russia
+her real freedom... one day... a thousand years from now....
+
+"I don't know why it is that I can still see him so clearly, because I
+can remember no one else of that night, and even this fellow may have
+been my imagination. But I think that, as we walked along, I talked to
+him about Russia and how the whole land now from Archangel to
+Vladivostock might be free and be one great country of peace and plenty,
+first in all the world.
+
+"It seemed to me that every one was singing, men and women and
+children....
+
+"We must, at last, have parted from most of the company. I had come with
+my friend into the quieter streets of the city. Then it was that I
+suddenly smelt the sea. You must have noticed how Petrograd is mixed up
+with the sea, how suddenly, where you never would expect it, you see the
+masts of ships all clustered together against the sky. I smelt the sea,
+the wind blew fresh and strong and there we were on the banks of the
+Neva. Everywhere there was perfect silence. The Neva lay, tranquil,
+bound under its ice. The black hulks of the ships lay against the white
+shadows like sleeping animals. The curve of the sky, with its multitude
+of stars, was infinite.
+
+"My friend embraced me and left me and I stayed alone, so happy, so sure
+of the peace of the world that I did what I had not done for years, sent
+up a prayer of gratitude to God. Then with my head on my hands, looking
+down at the masts of the ships, feeling Petrograd behind me with its
+lights as though it were the City of God, I burst into tears--tears of
+happiness and joy and humble gratitude.... I have no memory of anything
+further."
+
+
+
+XII
+
+So much for the way that one Russian saw it. There were others. For
+instance Vera....
+
+I suppose that the motive of Vera's life was her pride. Quite early, I
+should imagine, she had adopted that as the sort of talisman that would
+save her from every kind of ill. She told me once that when she was a
+little girl, the story of the witch who lured two children into the wood
+and then roasted them in her oven had terrified her beyond all control,
+and she would lie awake and shiver for hours because of it. It became a
+symbol of life to her--the Forest was there and the Oven and the
+Witch--and so clever and subtle was the Witch that the only way to
+outwit her was by pride. Then there was also her maternal tenderness; it
+was through that that Markovitch won her. She had not of course loved
+him--she had never pretended to herself that she had--but she had seen
+that he wanted caring for, and then, having taken the decisive step, her
+pride had come to her aid, had shown her a glimpse of the Witch waiting
+in the Forest darkness, and had proved to her that here was her great
+opportunity. She had then, with the easy superiority of a young girl,
+ignorant of life, dismissed love as of something that others might care
+for but that would, in no case, concern herself. Did Love for a moment
+smile at her or beckon to her Pride came to her and showed her Nina and
+Nicholas, and that was enough.
+
+But Love knows its power. He suddenly put forth his strength and Vera
+was utterly helpless--far more helpless than a Western girl with her
+conventional code and traditional training would have been. Vera had no
+convention and no tradition. She had only her pride and her maternal
+instinct and these, for a time, fought a battle for her... then they
+suddenly deserted her.
+
+I imagine that they really deserted her on the night of Nina's
+birthday-party, but she would not admit defeat so readily, and fought on
+for a little. On this eventful week when the world, as we knew it, was
+tumbling about our ears, she had told herself that the only thing to
+which she must give a thought was her fixed loyalty to Nina and
+Nicholas. She would not think of Lawrence....She would not think of him.
+And so resolving, thought of him all the more.
+
+By Wednesday morning her nerves were exhausted. The excitements of this
+week came as a climax to many months of strain. With the exception of
+her visit to the Astoria she had been out scarcely at all and, although
+the view from her flat was peaceful enough she could imagine every kind
+of horror beyond the boundaries of the Prospect--and in every horror
+Lawrence figured.
+
+There occurred that morning a strange little conversation between Vera,
+Semyonov, Nicholas Markovitch, and myself. I arrived about ten o'clock
+to see how they were and to hear the news. I found Vera sitting quietly
+at the table sewing. Markovitch stood near to her, his anxious eyes and
+trembling mouth perched on the top of his sharp peaky collar and his
+hands rubbing nervously one within another. He was obviously in a state
+of very great excitement. Semyonov sat opposite Vera, leaning his thick
+body on his arms, his eyes watching his niece and every once and again
+his firm pale hand stroking his beard.
+
+When I joined them he said to me:
+
+"Well, Ivan Andreievitch, what's the latest news of your splendid
+Revolution?"
+
+"Why my Revolution?" I asked. I felt an especial dislike this morning of
+his sneering eyes and his thick pale honey-coloured beard. "Whose ever
+it was he should be proud of it. To see thousands of people who've been
+hungry for months wandering about as I've seen them this morning and
+none of them touching a thing--it's stupendous!"
+
+Semyonov smiled but said nothing. His smile irritated me. "Oh, of course
+you sneer at the whole thing, Alexei Petrovitch!" I said. "Anything fine
+in human nature excites your contempt as I know of old."
+
+I think that that was the first time that Vera had heard me speak to him
+in that way, and she looked up at me with sudden surprise and I think
+gratitude.
+
+Semyonov treated me with complete contempt. He answered me slowly: "No,
+Ivan Andreievitch, I don't wish to deprive you of any kind of happiness.
+I wouldn't for worlds. But do you know our people, that's the question?
+You haven't been here very long; you came loaded up with romantic
+notions, some of which you've discarded but only that you may pick up
+others....I don't want to insult you at all, but you simply don't know
+that the Christian virtues that you are admiring just now so
+extravagantly are simply cowardice and apathy....Wait a little! Wait a
+little! and then tell me whether I've not been right."
+
+There was a moment's pause like the hush before the storm, and then
+Markovitch broke in upon us. I can see and hear him now, standing there
+behind Vera with his ridiculous collar and his anxious eyes. The words
+simply pouring from him in a torrent, his voice now rising into a shrill
+scream, now sinking into a funny broken bass like the growl of a young
+baby tiger. And yet he was never ridiculous. I've known other mortals,
+and myself one of the foremost, who, under the impulse of some sudden
+anger, enthusiasm, or regret, have been simply figures of fun....
+Markovitch was never that. He was like a dying man fighting for
+possession of the last plank. I can't at this distance of time remember
+all that he said. He talked a great deal about Russia; while he spoke I
+noticed that he avoided Semyonov's eyes, which never for a single
+instant left his face.
+
+"Oh, don't you see, don't you see?" he cried. "Russia's chance has come
+back to her? We can fight now a holy, patriotic war. We can fight, not
+because we are told to by our masters, but because we, of our own free
+will, wish to defend the soil of our sacred country. _Our_ country! No
+one has thought of Russia for the last two years--we have thought only
+of ourselves, our privations, our losses--but now--now. O God! the world
+may be set free again because Russia is at last free!"
+
+"Yes," said Semyonov quietly (his eyes covered Markovitch's face as a
+searchlight finds out the running figure of a man). "And who has spoken
+of Russia during the last few days? Russia! Why, I haven't heard the
+word mentioned once. I may have been unlucky, I don't know. I've been
+out and about the streets a good deal... I've listened to a great many
+conversations.... Democracy, yes, and Brotherhood and Equality and
+Fraternity and Bread and Land and Peace and Idleness--but Russia! Not a
+sound...."
+
+"It will come! It will come!" Markovitch urged. "It _must_ come! You
+didn't walk, Alexei, as I did last night, through the streets, and see
+the people and hear their voices and see their faces.... Oh! I believe
+that at last that good has come to the world, and happiness and peace;
+and it is Russia who will lead the way.... Thank God! Thank God!" Even
+as he spoke some instinct in me urged me to try and prevent him. I felt
+that Semyonov would not forget a word of this, and would make his own
+use of it in the time to come. I could see the purpose in Semyonov's
+eyes. I almost called out to Nicholas, "Look out! Look out!" just as
+though a man were standing behind him with a raised weapon....
+
+"You really mean this?" asked Semyonov.
+
+"Of course I mean it!" cried Markovitch. "Do I not sound as though I
+did?"
+
+"I will remind you of it one day," said Semyonov.
+
+I saw that Markovitch was trembling with excitement from head to foot.
+He sat down at the table near Vera and put one hand on the tablecloth to
+steady himself. Vera suddenly covered his hand with hers as though she
+were protecting him. His excitement seemed to stream away from him, as
+though Semyonov were drawing it out of him.
+
+He suddenly said:
+
+"You'd like to take my happiness away from me if you could, Alexei. You
+don't want me to be happy."
+
+"What nonsense!" Semyonov said, laughing. "Only I like the truth--I
+simply don't see the thing as you do. I have my view of us Russians. I
+have watched since the beginning of the war. I think our people lazy and
+selfish--think you must drive them with a whip to make them do anything.
+I think they would be ideal under German rule, which is what they'll get
+if their Revolution lasts long enough... that's all."
+
+I saw that Markovitch wanted to reply, but he was trembling so that he
+could not.
+
+He said at last: "You leave me alone, Alexei; let me go my own way."
+
+"I have never tried to prevent you," said Semyonov.
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+Then, in quite another tone, he remarked to me: "By the way, Ivan
+Andreievitch, what about your friend Mr. Lawrence? He's in a position of
+very considerable danger where he is with Wilderling. They tell me
+Wilderling may be murdered at any moment."
+
+Some force stronger than my will drove me to look at Vera. I saw that
+Nicolai Leontievitch also was looking at her. She raised her eyes for an
+instant, her lips moved as though she were going to speak, then she
+looked down again at her sewing.
+
+Semyonov watched us all. "Oh, he'll be all right," I answered. "If any
+one in the world can look after himself it's Lawrence."
+
+"That's all very well," said Semyonov, still looking at Markovitch. "But
+to be in Wilderling's company this week is a very unhealthy thing for
+any one. And that type of Englishman is not noted for cowardice."
+
+"I tell you that Lawrence can look after himself," I insisted angrily.
+
+Semyonov knew and Markovitch knew that I was speaking to Vera. No one
+then said a word. There was a long pause. At last Semyonov saw fit to
+go.
+
+"I'm off to the Duma," he said. "There's a split, I believe. And I want
+to hear whether it's true that the Czar's abdicated."
+
+"I believe you'd rather he hadn't, Alexei Petrovitch," Markovitch broke
+in fiercely.
+
+He laughed at us all and said, "Whose interests am I studying? My
+own?... Holy Russia's?... Yours?... When will you learn, Nicholas my
+friend, that I am a spectator, not a participator?"
+
+Vera was alone during most of that day; and even now, after the time
+that has passed, I cannot bear to think of what she suffered. She
+realised quite definitely and now, with no chance whatever of
+self-deception, that she loved Lawrence with a force that no denial or
+sacrifice on her part could alter. She told me afterwards that she
+walked up and down that room for hours, telling herself again and again
+that she must not go and see whether he were safe. She did not dare even
+to leave the room. She felt that if she entered her bedroom the sight
+of her hat and coat there would break down her resolution, that if she
+went to the head of the stairs and listened she must then go farther and
+then farther again. She knew quite well that to go to him now would mean
+complete surrender. She had no illusions about that. The whole of her
+body was quivering with desire for his embrace, for the warm strength of
+his body, for the kindness in his eyes, and the compelling mastery of
+his hands.
+
+She had never loved a man before; but it seemed to her now that she had
+known all these sensations always, and that she was now, at last, her
+real self, and that the earlier Vera had been a ghost. And what ghosts
+were Nina and Markovitch!
+
+She told me afterwards that, on looking back, this seemed to her the
+most horrible part of the horrible afternoon. These two, who had been
+for so many years the very centre of her life, whom she had forced to
+hold up, as it were, the whole foundation of her existence, now simply
+were not real at all. She might call to them, and their voices were like
+far echoes or the wind. She gazed at them, and the colours of the room
+and the street seemed to shine through them.... She fought for their
+reality. She forced herself to recall all the many things that they had
+done together, Nina's little ways, the quarrels with Nicholas, the
+reconciliations, the times when he had been ill, the times when they had
+gone to the country, to the theatre... and through it all she heard
+Semyonov's voice, "By the way, what about your friend Lawrence?... He's
+in a position of very considerable danger... considerable danger...
+considerable danger..."
+
+By the evening she was almost frantic. Nina had been with a girl friend
+in the Vassily Ostrov all day. She would perhaps stay there all night
+if there were any signs of trouble. No one returned. Only the clock
+ticked on. Old Sacha asked whether she might go out for an hour. Vera
+nodded her head. She was then quite alone in the flat.
+
+Suddenly, about seven o'clock, Nina came in. She was tired, nervous, and
+unhappy. The Revolution had not come to _her_ as anything but a sudden
+crumbling of all the life that she had known and believed in. She had
+had, that afternoon, to run down a side street to avoid a machine-gun,
+and afterwards on the Morskaia she had come upon a dead man huddled up
+in the snow like a piece of offal. These things terrified her and she
+did not care about the larger issues. Her life had been always intensely
+personal--not selfish so much as vividly egoistic through her vitality.
+And now she was miserable, not because she was afraid for her own
+safety, but because she was face to face, for the first time, with the
+unknown and the uncertain.
+
+She came in, sat down at the table, put her head into her arms and burst
+into tears. She must have looked a very pathetic figure with her little
+fur hat askew, her hair tumbled--like a child whose doll is suddenly
+broken.
+
+Vera was at her side in a moment. She put her arms around her.
+
+"Nina, dear, what is it?... Has somebody hurt you? Has something
+happened? Is anybody--killed?"
+
+"No!" Nina sobbed. "Nobody--nothing--only--I'm frightened. It all looks
+so strange. The streets are so funny, and--there was--a dead man on the
+Morskaia."
+
+"You shouldn't have gone out, dear. I oughtn't to have let you. But now
+we can just be cosy together. Sacha's gone out. There's no one here but
+ourselves. We'll have supper and make ourselves comfortable."
+
+Nina looked up, staring about her. "Has Sacha gone out? Oh, I wish she
+hadn't!... Supposing somebody came."
+
+"No one will come. Who could? No one wants to hurt _us!_ I've been here
+all the afternoon, and no one's come near the flat. If anybody did come
+we've only got to telephone to Nicholas. He's with Rozanov all the
+afternoon."
+
+"Nicholas!" Nina repeated scornfully. "As though he could help anybody."
+She looked up. Vera told me afterwards that it was at that moment, when
+Nina looked such a baby with her tumbled hair and her flushed cheeks
+stained with tears, that she realised her love for her with a fierceness
+that for a moment seemed to drown even her love for Lawrence. She caught
+her to her and hugged her, kissing her again and again.
+
+But Nina was suspicious. There were many things that had to be settled
+between Vera and herself. She did not respond, and Vera let her go. She
+went into her room, to take off her things.
+
+Afterwards they lit the samovar and boiled some eggs and put the caviare
+and sausage and salt fish and jam on the table. At first they were
+silent, and then Nina began to recover a little.
+
+"You know, Vera, I've had an extraordinary day. There were no trams
+running, of course, and I had to walk all the distance. When I got there
+I found Katerina Ivanovna in a terrible way because their Masha--whom
+they've had for years, you know--went to a Revolutionary meeting last
+evening, and was out all night, and she came in this morning and said
+she wasn't going to work for them any more, that every one was equal
+now, and that they must do things for themselves. Just fancy! When she's
+been with them for years and they've been so good to her. It upset
+Katerina Ivanovna terribly, because of course they couldn't get any one
+else, and there was no food in the house."
+
+"Perhaps Sacha won't come back again."
+
+"Oh, she must! _She's_ not like that... and we've been so good to her.
+_Nu... Patom_, some soldiers came early in the afternoon and they said
+that some policeman had been firing from Katya's windows and they must
+search the flat. They were very polite--quite a young student was in
+charge of them, he was rather like Boris--and they went all over
+everything. They were very polite, but it wasn't nice seeing them stand
+there with their rifles in the middle of the dining-room. Katya offered
+them some wine. But they wouldn't touch it. They said they had been told
+not to, and they looked quite angry with her for offering it. They
+couldn't find the policeman anywhere of course, but they told Katya they
+might have to burn the house down if they didn't find him. I think they
+just said it to amuse themselves. But Katya believed it, and was in a
+terrible way and began collecting all her china in the middle of the
+floor, and then Ivan came in and told her not to be silly."
+
+"Weren't you frightened to come home?" asked Vera.
+
+"Ivan wanted to come with me but I wouldn't let him. I felt quite brave
+in the flat, as though I'd face anybody. And then every step I took
+outside I got more and more frightened. It was so strange, so quiet with
+the trams not running and the shops all shut. The streets are quite
+deserted except that in the distance you see crowds, and sometimes there
+were shots and people running.... Then suddenly I began to run. I felt
+as though there were animals in the canals and things crawling about on
+the ships. And then, just as I thought I was getting home, I saw a man,
+dead on the snow.... I'm not going out alone again until it's over. I'm
+so glad I'm back, Vera darling. We'll have a lovely evening."
+
+They both discovered then how hungry they were, and they had an enormous
+meal. It was very cosy with the curtains drawn and the wood crackling in
+the stove and the samovar chuckling. There was a plateful of chocolates,
+and Nina ate them all. She was quite happy now, and sang and danced
+about as they cleared away most of the supper, leaving the samovar and
+the bread and the jam and the sausage for Nicholas and Bohun when they
+came in.
+
+At last Vera sat down in the old red arm-chair that had the holes and
+the places where it suddenly went flat, and Nina piled up some cushions
+and sat at her feet. For a time they were happy, saying very little,
+Vera softly stroking Nina's hair. Then, as Vera afterwards described it
+to me, "Some fright or sudden dread of loneliness came into the room. It
+was exactly as though the door had opened and some one had joined us...
+and, do you know, I looked up and expected to see Uncle Alexei."
+
+However, of course, there was no one there; but Nina moved away a
+little, and then Vera, wanting to comfort her, tried to draw her closer,
+and then of course, Nina (because she was like that) with a little
+peevish shrug of the shoulders drew even farther away. There was, after
+that, silence between them, an awkward ugly silence, piling up and up
+with discomfort until the whole room seemed to be eloquent with it.
+
+Both their minds were, of course, occupied in the same direction, and
+suddenly Nina, who moved always on impulse and had no restraint, burst
+out:
+
+"I must know how Andrey Stepanovitch (their name for Lawrence, because
+Jeremy had no Russian equivalent) is--I'm going to telephone."
+
+"You can't," Vera said quietly. "It isn't working--I tried an hour ago
+to get on to Nicholas."
+
+"Well then, I shall go off and find out," said Nina, knowing very well
+that she would not.
+
+"Oh, Nina, of course you mustn't.... You know you can't. Perhaps when
+Nicholas comes in he will have some news for us."
+
+"Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"You know why not. What would he think? Besides, you're not going out
+into the town again to-night."
+
+"Oh, aren't I? And who's going to stop me?"
+
+"I am," said Vera.
+
+Nina sprang to her feet. In her later account to me of this quarrel she
+said, "You know, Durdles, I don't believe I ever loved Vera more than I
+did just then. In spite of her gravity she looked so helpless and as
+though she wanted loving so terribly. I could just have flung my arms
+round her and hugged her to death at the very moment that I was
+screaming at her. Why are we like that?"
+
+At any rate Nina stood up there and stamped her foot, her hair hanging
+all about her face and her body quivering. "Oh, you're going to keep me,
+are you? What right have you got over me? Can't I go and leave the flat
+at any moment if I wish, or am I to consider myself your prisoner?...
+_Tzuineeto, pajalueesta_... I didn't know. I can only eat my meals with
+your permission, I suppose. I have to ask your leave before going to see
+my friends.... Thank you, I know now. But I'm not going to stand it. I
+shall do just as I please. I'm grown up. No one can stop me...."
+
+Vera, her eyes full of distress looked helplessly about her. She never
+could deal with Nina when she was in these storms of rage, and to-day
+she felt especially helpless.
+
+"Nina, dear... don't.... You know that it isn't so. You can go where
+you please, do what you please."
+
+"Thank you," said Nina, tossing her head. "I'm glad to hear it."
+
+"I know I'm tiresome very often. I'm slow and stupid. If I try you
+sometimes you must forgive me and be patient.... Sit down again and
+let's be happy. You know how I love you. Nina, darling... come again."
+
+But Nina stood there pouting. She was loving Vera so intensely that it
+was all that she could do to hold herself back, but her very love made
+her want to hurt.... "It's all very well to say you love me, but you
+don't act as though you do. You're always trying to keep me in. I want
+to be free. And Andrey Stepanovitch...."
+
+They both paused at Lawrence's name. They knew that that was at the root
+of the matter between them, that it had been so for a long time, and
+that any other pretence would be false.
+
+"You know I love him--" said Nina, "and I'm going to marry him."
+
+I can see then Vera taking a tremendous pull upon herself as though she
+suddenly saw in front of her a gulf into whose depths, in another
+moment, she would fall. But my vision of the story, from this point, is
+Nina's.
+
+Vera told me no more until she came to the final adventure of the
+evening. This part of the scene then is witnessed with Nina's eyes, and
+I can only fill in details which, from my knowledge of them both, I
+believe to have occurred. Nina, knew, of course, what the effect of her
+announcement would be upon Vera, but she had not expected the sudden
+thin pallor which stole like a film over her sister's face, the
+withdrawal, the silence. She was frightened, so she went on recklessly.
+"Oh, I know that he doesn't care for me yet.... I can see that of
+course. But he will. He must. He's seen nothing of me yet. But I am
+stronger than he, I can make him do as I wish. I _will_ make him. You
+don't want me to marry him and I know why."
+
+She flung that out as a challenge, tossing her head scornfully, but
+nevertheless watching with frightened eyes her sister's face. Suddenly
+Vera spoke, and it was in a voice so stern that it was to Nina a new
+voice, as though she had suddenly to deal with some new figure whom she
+had never seen before.
+
+"I can't discuss that with you, Nina. You can't marry because, as you
+say, he doesn't care for you--in that way. Also if he did it would be a
+very unhappy marriage. You would soon despise him. He is not clever in
+the way that you want a man to be clever. You'd think him slow and dull
+after a month with him.... And then he ought to beat you and he
+wouldn't. He'd be kind to you and then you'd be ruined. I can see now
+that I've always been too kind to you--indeed, every one has--and the
+result is, that you're spoilt and know nothing about life at all--or
+men. You are right. I've treated you as a child too long. I will do so
+no longer."
+
+Nina turned like a little fury, standing back from Vera as though she
+were going to spring upon her. "That's it, is it?" she cried. "And all
+because you want to keep him for yourself. I understand. I have eyes.
+You love him. You are hoping for an intrigue with him.... You love him!
+You love him! You love him!... and he doesn't love you and you are so
+miserable...."
+
+Vera looked at Nina, then suddenly turned and burying her head in her
+hands sobbed, crouching in her chair. Then slipping from the chair,
+knelt catching Nina's knees, her head against her dress.
+
+Nina was aghast, terrified--then in a moment overwhelmed by a surging
+flood of love so that she caught Vera to her, caressing her hair,
+calling her by her little name, kissing her again and again and again.
+
+"Verotchka--Verotchka--I didn't mean anything. I didn't indeed. I love
+you. I love you. You know that I do. I was only angry and wicked. Oh,
+I'll never forgive myself. Verotchka--get up--don't kneel to me like
+that...!"
+
+She was interrupted by a knock on the outer hall door. To both of them
+that sound must have been terribly alarming. Vera said afterwards, that
+"at once we realised that it was the knock of some one more frightened
+than we were."
+
+In the first place, no one ever knocked, they always rang the rather
+rickety electric bell--and then the sound was furtive and hurried, and
+even frantic; "as though," said Vera, "some one on the other side of the
+door was breathless."
+
+The sisters stood, close together, for quite a long time without moving.
+The knocking ceased and the room was doubly silent. Then suddenly it
+began again, very rapid and eager, but muffled, almost as though some
+one were knocking with a gloved hand.
+
+Vera went then. She paused for a moment in the little hall, for again
+there was silence and she fancied that perhaps the intruder had given up
+the matter in despair. But, no--there it was again--and this third time
+seemed to her, perhaps because she was so close to it, the most urgent
+and eager of all. She went to the door and opened it. There was no light
+in the passage save the dim reflection from the lamp on the lower floor,
+and in the shadow she saw a figure cowering back into the corner behind
+the door.
+
+"Who is it?" she asked. The figure pushed past her, slipping into their
+own little hall.
+
+"But you can't come in like that," she said, turning round on him.
+
+"Shut the door!" he whispered. "_Bozhe moi! Bozhe moi_.... Shut the
+door."
+
+She recognised him then. He was the policeman from the corner of their
+street, a man whom they knew well. He had always been a pompous little
+man, stout and short of figure, kindly so far as they knew, although
+they had heard of him as cruel in the pursuit of his official duties.
+They had once talked to him a little and he explained: "I wouldn't hurt
+a fly, God knows," he had said, "of myself, but a man likes to do his
+work efficiently--and there are so many lazy fellows about here."
+
+He prided himself, they saw, on a punctilious attention to duty. When he
+had to come there for some paper or other he was always extremely
+polite, and if they were going away he helped them about their
+passports. He told them on another occasion that "he was pleased with
+life--although one never knew of course when it might come down upon
+one--"
+
+Well, it had come down on him now. A more pitiful object Vera had never
+seen. He was dressed in a dirty black suit and wore a shabby fur cap,
+his padded overcoat was torn.
+
+But the overwhelming effect of him was terror. Vera had never before
+seen such terror, and at once, as though the thing were an infectious
+disease, her own heart began to beat furiously. He was shaking so that
+the fur cap, which was too large for his head, waggled up and down over
+his eye in a ludicrous manner.
+
+His face was dirty as though he had been crying, and a horrid pallid
+grey in colour.
+
+His collar was torn, showing his neck between the folds of his overcoat.
+
+Vera looked out down the stairs as though she expected to see something.
+The flat was perfectly still. There was not a sound anywhere. She turned
+back to the man again, he was crouching against the wall.
+
+"You can't come in here," she repeated. "My sister and I are alone. What
+do you want?... What's the matter?"
+
+"Shut the door!... Shut the door!... Shut the door!..." he repeated.
+
+She closed it. "Now what is it?" she asked, and then, hearing a sound,
+turned to find that Nina was standing with wide eyes, watching.
+
+"What is it?" Nina asked in a whisper.
+
+"I don't know," said Vera, also whispering. "He won't tell me."
+
+He pushed past them then into the dining-room, looked about him for a
+moment, then sank into a chair as though his legs would no longer
+support him, holding on to the cloth with both hands.
+
+The sisters followed him into the dining-room.
+
+"Don't shiver like that!" said Vera, "tell us why you've come in
+here?"...
+
+His eyes looked past them, never still, wandering from wall to wall,
+from door to door.
+
+"They're after me..." he said. "That's it--I was hiding in our cupboard
+all last night and this morning. They were round there all the time
+breaking up our things.... I heard them shouting. They were going to
+kill me. I've done nothing--O God! what's that?"
+
+"There's no one here," said Vera, "except ourselves."
+
+"I saw a chance to get away and I crept out. But I couldn't get far....
+I knew you would be good-hearted... good-hearted. Hide me
+somewhere--anywhere!... and they won't come in here. Only until the
+evening. I've done no one any harm.... Only my duty...."
+
+He began to snivel, taking out from his coat a very dirty
+pocket-handkerchief and dabbing his face with it.
+
+The odd thing that they felt, as they looked at him, was the incredible
+intermingling of public and private affairs. Five minutes before they
+had been passing through a tremendous crisis in their personal
+relationship. The whole history of their lives together, flowing through
+how many years, through how many phases, how many quarrels, and
+happiness and adventures had reached here a climax whose issue was so
+important that life between them could never be the same again.
+
+So urgent had been the affair that during that hour they had forgotten
+the Revolution, Russia, the war. Moreover, always in the past, they had
+assumed that public life was no affair of theirs. The Russo-Japanese
+War, even the spasmodic revolt in 1905, had not touched them except as a
+wind of ideas which blew so swiftly through their private lives that
+they were scarcely affected by it.
+
+Now in the person of that trembling, shaking figure at their table, the
+Revolution had come to them, and not only the Revolution, but the
+strange new secret city that Petrograd was... the whole ground was
+quaking beneath them.
+
+And in the eyes of the fugitive they saw what terror of death really
+was. It was no tale read in a story-book, no recounting of an adventure
+by some romantic traveller, it was _here_ with them in the flat and at
+any moment....
+
+It was then that Vera realised that there was no time to lose--something
+must be done at once.
+
+"Who's pursuing you?" she asked, quickly. "Where are they?"
+
+He got up and was moving about the room as though he was looking for a
+hiding-place.
+
+"All the people.... Everybody!" He turned round upon them, suddenly
+striking, what seemed to them, a ludicrously grand attitude.
+"Abominable! That's what it is. I heard them shouting that I had a
+machine-gun on the roof and was killing people. I had no machine-gun. Of
+course not. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I had one. But there
+they were. That's what they were shouting! And I've always done my duty.
+What's one to do? Obey one's superior officer? Of course, what he says
+one does. What's life for?... and then naturally one expects a reward.
+Things were going well with me, very well indeed--and then this comes.
+It's a degrading thing for a man to hide for a day and a night in a
+cupboard." His teeth began to chatter then so that he could scarcely
+speak. He seemed to be shaking with ague.
+
+He caught Vera's hand. "Save me--save me!" he said. "Put me
+somewhere.... I've done nothing disgraceful. They'll shoot me like a
+dog--"
+
+The sisters consulted.
+
+"What are we to do?" asked Nina. "We can't let him go out to be killed."
+
+"No. But if we keep him here and they come in and find him, we shall all
+be involved.... It isn't fair to Nicholas or Uncle Ivan...."
+
+"We can't let him go out."
+
+"No, we can't," Vera replied. She saw at once how impossible that was.
+Were he caught outside and shot they would feel that they had his death
+for ever on their souls.
+
+"There's the linen cupboard," she said.
+
+She turned round to Nina. "I'm afraid," she said, "if you hide here,
+you'll have to go into another cupboard. And it can only be for an hour
+or two. We couldn't keep you here all night."
+
+He said nothing except "Quick. Take me." Vera led him into her bedroom
+and showed him the place. Without another word he pressed in amongst the
+clothes. It was a deep cupboard, and, although he was a fat man, the
+door closed quite evenly.
+
+It was suddenly as though he had never been, Vera went back to Nina.
+
+They stood close to one another in the middle of the room, and talked in
+whispers.
+
+"What are we going to do?"
+
+"We can only wait!"
+
+"They'll never dare to search your room, Vera."
+
+"One doesn't know now... everything's so different."
+
+"Vera, you _are_ brave. Forgive me what I said just now.... I'll help
+you if you want--"
+
+"Hush, Nina dear. Not that now. We've got to think--what's best...."
+
+They kissed very quietly, and then they sat down by the table and
+waited. There was simply nothing else to do.
+
+Vera said that, during that pause, she could see the little policeman
+everywhere. In every part of the room she found him, with his fat legs
+and dirty, streaky face and open collar. The flat was heavy, portentous
+with his presence, as though it stood with a self-important finger on
+its lips saying, "I've got a secret in here. _Such_ a secret. You don't
+know what _I've_ got...."
+
+They discussed in whispers as to who would come in first. Nicholas or
+Uncle Ivan or Bohun or Sacha? And supposing one of them came in while
+the soldiers were there? Who would be the most dangerous? Sacha? She
+would scream and give everything away. Suppose they had seen him enter
+and were simply waiting, on the cat-and-mouse plan, to catch him? That
+was an intolerable thought.
+
+"I think," said Nina, "I must go and see whether there's any one
+outside."
+
+But there was no need for her to do that. Even as she spoke they heard
+the steps on the stairs; and instantly afterwards there came the loud
+knocking on their door. Vera pressed Nina's hand and went into the hall.
+
+"_Kto tam_... Who's there?" she asked.
+
+"Open the door!... The Workmen and Soldiers' Committee demand entrance
+in the name of the Revolution."
+
+She opened the door at once. During those first days of the Revolution
+they cherished certain melodramatic displays.
+
+Whether consciously or no they built on all the old French Revolution
+traditions, or perhaps it is that every Revolution produces of necessity
+the same clothing with which to cover its nakedness. A strange mixture
+of farce and terror were those detachments of so-called justice. At
+their head there was, as a rule, a student, often smiling and
+bespectacled. The soldiers themselves, from one of the Petrograd
+regiments, were frankly out for a good time and enjoyed themselves
+thoroughly, but, as is the Slavonic way, playfulness could pass with
+surprising suddenness to dead earnest--with, indeed, so dramatic a
+precipitance that the actors themselves were afterwards amazed. Of these
+"little, regrettable mistakes" there had already, during the week, been
+several examples. To Vera, with the knowledge of the contents of her
+linen-cupboard, the men seemed terrifying enough. Their leader was a fat
+and beaming student--quite a boy. He was very polite, saying
+"_Zdrastvuite,"_ and taking off his cap. The men behind him--hulking men
+from one of the Guards regiments--pushed about in the little hall like a
+lot of puppies, joking with one another, holding their rifles upside
+down, and making sudden efforts at a seriousness that they could not
+possibly sustain.
+
+Only one of them, an older man with a thick black beard, was intensely
+grave, and looked at Vera with beseeching eyes, as though he longed to
+tell her the secret of his life.
+
+"What can I do for you?" she asked the student.
+
+"_Prosteete_... Forgive us." He smiled and blinked at her, then put on
+his cap, clicked his heels, gave a salute, and took his cap off again.
+"We wish to be in no way an inconvenience to you. We are simply obeying
+orders. We have instructions that a policeman is hiding in one of these
+flats.... We know, of course, that he cannot possibly be here.
+Nevertheless we are compelled... _Prosteete_.... What nice pictures you
+have!" he ended suddenly. It was then that Vera discovered that they
+were by this time in the dining-room, crowded together near the door and
+gazing at Nina with interested eyes.
+
+"There's no one here, of course," said Vera, very quietly. "No one at
+all."
+
+"_Tak Tochno_ (quite so)," said the black-bearded soldier, for no
+particular reason, suddenly.
+
+"You will allow me to sit down?" said the student, very politely. "I
+must, I am afraid, ask a few questions."
+
+"Certainly," said Vera quietly. "Anything you like."
+
+She had moved over to Nina, and they stood side by side. But she could
+not think of Nina, she could not think even of the policeman in the
+cupboard.... She could think only of that other house on the Quay where,
+perhaps even now, this same scene was being enacted. They had found
+Wilderling.... They had dragged him out.... Lawrence was beside him....
+They were condemned together.... Oh! love had come to her at last in a
+wild, surging flood! Of all the steps she had been led until at last,
+only half an hour before in that scene with Nina, the curtains had been
+flung aside and the whole view revealed to her. She felt such a
+strength, such a pride, such a defiance, as she had not known belonged
+to human power. She had, for many weeks, been hesitating before the
+gates. Now, suddenly, she had swept through. His death now was not the
+terror that it had been only an hour before. Nina's accusation had shown
+her, as a flash of lightning flings the mountains into view, that now
+she could never lose him, were he with her or no, and that beside that
+truth nothing mattered.
+
+Something of her bravery and grandeur and beauty must have been felt by
+them all at that moment. Nina realised it.... She told me that her own
+fear left her altogether when she saw how Vera was facing them. She was
+suddenly calm and quiet and very amused.
+
+The student officer seemed now to be quite at home. He had taken a great
+many notes down in a little book, and looked very important as he did
+so. His chubby face expressed great self-satisfaction. He talked half to
+himself and half to Vera. "Yes... Yes... quite so. Exactly. And your
+husband is not yet at home, Madame Markovitch.... _Nu da...._ Of course
+these are very troublesome times, and as you say things have to move in
+a hurry.
+
+"You've heard perhaps that Nicholas Romanoff has abdicated entirely--and
+refused to allow his son to succeed. Makes things simpler.... Yes....
+Very pleasant pictures you have--and Ostroffsky--six volumes. Very
+agreeable. I have myself acted in Ostroffsky at different times. I find
+his plays very enjoyable. I am sure you will forgive us, Madame, if we
+walk through your charming flat."
+
+But indeed by this time the soldiers themselves had begun to roam about
+on their own account. Nina remembers one soldier in especial--a large
+dirty fellow with ragged moustache--who quite frankly terrified her. He
+seemed to regard her with particular satisfaction, staring at her, and,
+as it were, licking his lips over her. He wandered about the room
+fingering things, and seemed to be immensely interested in Nicholas's
+little den, peering through the glass window that there was in the door
+and rubbing the glass with his finger. He presently pushed the door open
+and soon they were all in there.
+
+Then a characteristic thing occurred. Apparently Nicholas's
+inventions--his little pieces of wood and bark and cloth, his glass
+bottles, and tubes--seemed to them highly suspicious. There was laughter
+at first, and then sudden silence. Nina could see part of the room
+through the open door and she watched them as they gathered round the
+little table, talking together in excited whispers. The tall,
+rough-looking fellow who had frightened her before picked up one of the
+tubes, and then, whether by accident or intention, let it fall, and the
+tinkling smash of the glass frightened them all so precipitately that
+they came tumbling out into the larger room. The big fellow whispered
+something to the student, who at once became more self-important than
+ever, and said very seriously to Vera:
+
+"That is your husband's room, Madame, I understand?"
+
+"Yes," said Vera quietly, "he does his work in there."
+
+"What kind of work?"
+
+"He is an inventor."
+
+"An inventor of what?"
+
+"Various things.... He is working at present on something to do with the
+making of cloth."
+
+Unfortunately this serious view of Nicholas's inventions suddenly seemed
+to Nina so ridiculous that she tittered. She could have done nothing
+more regrettable. The student obviously felt that his dignity was
+threatened. He looked at her very severely:
+
+"This is no laughing matter," he said. He himself then got up and went
+into the inner room. He was there for some time, and they could hear him
+fingering the tubes and treading on the broken glass. He came out again
+at last.
+
+He was seriously offended.
+
+"You should have told us your husband was an inventor."
+
+"I didn't think it was of importance," said Vera.
+
+"Everything is of importance," he answered. The atmosphere was now
+entirely changed. The soldiers were angry--they had, it seemed, been
+deceived and treated like children. The melancholy fellow with the black
+beard looked at Vera with eyes of deep reproach.
+
+"When will your husband return?" asked the student.
+
+"I am afraid I don't know," said Vera. She realised that the situation
+was now serious, but she could not keep her mind upon it. In that house
+on the Quay what was happening? What had, perhaps, already happened?...
+
+"Where has he gone?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Why didn't he tell you where he was going?"
+
+"He often does not tell me."
+
+"Ah, that is wrong. In these days one should always say where one is
+going."
+
+He stood up very stiff and straight. "Search the house," he said to his
+men.
+
+Suddenly then Vera's mind concentrated. It was as though, she told me "I
+came back into the room and saw for the first time what was happening."
+
+"There is no one in the rest of the flat," she said, "and nothing that
+can interest you."
+
+"That is for me to judge," said the little officer grimly.
+
+"But I assure you there is nothing," she went on eagerly. "There is only
+the kitchen and the bath-room and the five bedrooms."
+
+"Whose bedrooms?" said the officer.
+
+"My husband's, my own, my sister's, my uncle's, and an Englishman's,"
+she answered, colouring a little.
+
+"Nevertheless we must do our duty.... Search the house," he repeated.
+
+"But you must not go into our bedrooms," she said, her voice rising.
+"There is nothing for you there. I am sure you will respect our
+privacy."
+
+"Our orders must be obeyed," he answered angrily.
+
+"But--" she cried.
+
+"Silence, Madame," he said, furiously, staring at her as though she were
+his personal, deadly enemy.
+
+"Very well," said Vera proudly. "Please do as you wish."
+
+The officer walked past her with his head up, and the soldiers followed
+him, their eyes malicious and inquisitive and excited. The sisters stood
+together waiting. Of course the end had come. They simply stood there
+fastening their resolution to the extreme moment.
+
+"I must go with them," said Vera. She followed them into her bedroom. It
+was a very little place and they filled it, they looked rather sheepish
+now, whispering to one another.
+
+"What's in there?" said the officer, tapping the cupboard.
+
+"Only some clothes," said Vera.
+
+"Open it!" he ordered.
+
+Then the world did indeed stand still. The clock ceased to tick, the
+little rumble in the stove was silenced, the shuffling feet of one of
+the soldiers stayed, the movement of some rustle in the wall paper was
+held. The world was frozen.
+
+"Now I suppose we shall all be shot," was Vera's thought, repeated over
+and over again with a ludicrous monotony. Then she could see nothing but
+the little policeman, tumbling out of the cupboard, dishevelled and
+terrified. Terrified! what that look in his eyes would be! That at any
+rate she could not face and she turned her head away from them, looking
+out through the door into the dark little passage.
+
+She heard as though from an infinite distance the words:
+
+"Well, there's nobody there."
+
+She did not believe him of course. He said that whoever he was, to test
+her, to tempt her to give herself away. But she was too clever for them.
+She turned back and faced them, and then saw, to the accompaniment of an
+amazement that seemed like thunder in her ears, that the cupboard was
+indeed empty.
+
+"There is nobody," said the black-bearded soldier.
+
+The student looked rather ashamed of himself. The white clothes, the
+skirts, and the blouses in the cupboard reproached him.
+
+"You will of course understand, Madame," he said stiffly, "that the
+search was inevitable. Regrettable but necessary. I'm sure you will see
+that for your own satisfaction...."
+
+"You are assured now that there is no one here?" Vera interrupted him
+coldly.
+
+"Assured," he answered.
+
+But where was the man? She felt as though she were in some fantastic
+nightmare in which nothing was as it seemed. The cupboard was not a
+cupboard, the policeman not a policeman....
+
+"There is the kitchen," she said.
+
+In the kitchen of course they found nothing. There was a large cupboard
+in one corner but they did not look there. They had had enough. They
+returned into the dining-room and there, looking very surprised, his
+head very high above his collar was Markovitch.
+
+"What does this mean?" he asked.
+
+"I regret extremely," said the officer pompously. "I have been compelled
+to make a search. Duty only... I regret. But no one is here. Your flat
+is at liberty. I wish you good-afternoon."
+
+Before Markovitch could ask further questions the room was emptied of
+them all. They tramped out, laughing and joking, children again, the
+hall door closed behind them.
+
+Nina clutched Vera's arm.
+
+"Vera.... Vera, where is he?"
+
+"I don't know," said Vera.
+
+"What's all this?" asked Nicholas.
+
+They explained to him but he scarcely seemed to hear. He was
+radiant--smiling in a kind of ecstasy.
+
+"They have gone? I am safe?"
+
+In the doorway was the little policeman, black with grime and dust, so
+comical a figure that in reaction from the crisis of ten minutes before,
+they laughed hysterically.
+
+"Oh look! look!..." cried Nina. "How dirty he is!"
+
+"Where have you been?" asked Vera. "Why weren't you in the cupboard?"
+
+The little man's teeth were chattering, so that he could scarcely
+speak....
+
+"I heard them in the other room. I knew that the cupboard would be the
+first place. I slipped into the kitchen and hid in the fireplace."
+
+"You're not angry, Nicholas?" Vera asked. "We couldn't send him out to
+be shot."
+
+"What does that matter?" he almost impatiently brushed it aside. "There
+are other things more important." He looked at the trembling dirty
+figure. "Only you'd better go back and hide again until it's dark. They
+might come back...."
+
+He caught Vera by the arm. His eyes were flames. He drew her with him
+back into her little room. He closed the door.
+
+"The Revolution has come--it has really come," he cried.
+
+"Yes," she answered, "it has come into this very house. The world has
+changed."
+
+"The Czar has abdicated.... The old world has gone, the old wicked
+world! Russia is born again!"
+
+His eyes were the eyes of a fanatic.
+
+Her eyes, too, were alight. She gazed past him.
+
+"I know--I know," she whispered as though to herself.
+
+"Russia--Russia," he went on coming closer and closer, "Russia and you.
+We will build a new world. We will forget our old troubles. Oh, Vera, my
+darling, my darling, we're going to be happy now! I love you so. And now
+I can hope again. All our love will be clean in this new world. We're
+going to be happy at last!"
+
+But she did not hear him. She saw into space. A great exultation ran
+through her body. All lost for love! At last she was awakened, at last
+she lived, at last, at last, she knew what love was.
+
+"I love him! I love him... him," her soul whispered. "And nothing now
+in this world or the next can separate us."
+
+"Vera--Vera," Nicholas cried, "we are together at last--as we have never
+been. And now we'll work together again--for Russia."
+
+She looked at the man whom she had never loved, with a great compassion
+and pity. She put her arms around him and kissed him, her whole maternal
+spirit suddenly aware of him and seeking to comfort him.
+
+At the touch of her lips his body trembled with happiness. But he did
+not know that it was a kiss of farewell....
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+I have no idea at all what Lawrence did during the early days of that
+week. He has never told me, and I have never asked him. He never, with
+the single exception of the afternoon at the Astoria, came near the
+Markovitches, and I know that was because he had now reached a stage
+where he did not dare trust himself to see Vera--just as she at that
+time did not trust herself to see him....
+
+I do not know what he thought of those first days of the Revolution. I
+can imagine that he took it all very quietly, doing his duty and making
+no comment. He had of course his own interest in it, but it would be, I
+am sure, an entirely original interest, unlike any one else's. I
+remember Dune once, in the long-dead days, saying to me, "It's never any
+use guessing what Lawrence is thinking. When you think it's football
+it's Euripides, and when you think it's Euripides it's Marie Corelli."
+Of all the actors in this affair he remains to me to the last as the
+most mysterious. I know that he loved Vera with the endurance of the
+rock, the heat of the flame, the ruthlessness of a torrent, but behind
+that love there sat the man himself, invisible, silent, patient,
+watching.
+
+He may have had Semyonov's contempt for the Revolutionary idealist, he
+may have had Wilderling's belief in the Czar's autocracy, he may have
+had Boris Grogoff's enthusiasm for freedom and a general holiday. I
+don't know. I know nothing at all about it. I don't think that he saw
+much of the Wilderlings during the earlier part of the week. He himself
+was a great deal with the English Military Mission, and Wilderling was
+with _his_ party whatever that might be. He could see of course that
+Wilderling was disturbed, or perhaps indignant is the right word. "As
+though you know," he said, "some dirty little boy had been pullin'
+snooks at him." Nevertheless the Baroness was the human link. Lawrence
+would see from the first--that is, from the morning of the Sunday--that
+she was in an agony of horror. She confided in nobody, but went about as
+though she was watching for something, and at dinner her eyes never left
+her husband's face for a moment. Those evening meals must have been
+awful. I can imagine the dignity, the solemn heavy room with all the
+silver, the ceremonious old man-servant and Wilderling himself behaving
+as though nothing at all were the matter. To do him all justice he was
+as brave as a lion, and as proud as a gladiator, and as conceited as a
+Prussian. On the Wednesday evening he did not return home. He telephoned
+that he was kept on important business.
+
+The Baroness and Lawrence had the long slow meal together. It was almost
+more than Jerry could stand having, of course, his own private tortures
+to face. "It was as though the old lady felt that she had been deputed
+to support the honour of the family during her husband's absence. She
+must have been wild with anxiety, but she showed no sign except that her
+hand trembled when she raised her glass."
+
+"What did you talk about?" I asked him.
+
+"Oh, about anything! Theatres and her home, when she was a girl and
+England.... Awful, every minute of it!"
+
+There was a moment towards the end of the meal, when the good lady
+nearly broke down. The bell in the hall rang and there was a step; she
+thought it was her husband and half rose. It was, however, the Dvornik
+with a message of no importance. She gave a little sigh. "Oh, I do wish
+he would come!... I do wish he would come!" she murmured to herself.
+
+"Oh, he'll come," Lawrence reassured her, but she seemed indignant with
+him for having overheard her. Afterwards, sitting together desolately in
+the magnificent drawing-room, she became affectionately maternal. I have
+always wondered why Lawrence confided to me the details of their very
+intimate conversation. It was exactly the kind of thing he was most
+reticent about.
+
+She asked him about his home, his people, his ambitions. She had asked
+him about these things before, but to-night there was an appeal in her
+questions, as though she said:
+
+"Take my mind off that other thing. Help me to forget, if it's only for
+a moment."
+
+"Have you ever been in love?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. Once," he said.
+
+"Was he in love now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"With some one in Russia?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She hoped that he would be happy. He told her that he didn't think
+happiness was quite the point in this particular case. There were other
+things more important--and, anyway, it was inevitable.
+
+"He had fallen in love at first sight?"
+
+"Yes. The very first moment."
+
+She sighed. So had she. It was, she thought, the only real way. She
+asked him whether it might not, after all, turn out better than he
+expected.
+
+No, he did not think that it could. But he didn't mind how it turned
+out--at least he couldn't look that far. The point was that he was in
+it, up to the neck, and he was never going to be out of it again.
+
+There was something boyish about that that pleased her. She put her
+plump hand on his knee and told him how she had first met the Baron,
+down in the South, at Kieff, how grand he had looked; how, seeing her
+across a room full of people, he had smiled at her before he had ever
+spoken to her or knew her name. "I was quite pretty then," she added. "I
+have never regretted our marriage for a single moment," she said. "Nor,
+I know, has he."
+
+"We hoped there would he children...." She gave a pathetic little
+gesture. "We will get away down to the South again as soon as the
+troubles are over," she ended.
+
+I don't suppose he was thinking much of her--his mind was on Vera all
+the time--but after he had left her and lay in bed, sleepless, his mind
+dwelt on her affectionately, and he thought that he would like to help
+her. He realised, quite clearly, that Wilderling was in a very dangerous
+position, but I don't think that it ever occurred to him for a moment
+that it would be wise for him to move to another flat.
+
+On the next day, Thursday, Lawrence did not return until the middle of
+the afternoon. The town was, by now, comparatively quiet again. Numbers
+of the police had been caught and imprisoned, some had been shot and
+others were in hiding; most of the machine-guns shooting from the roofs
+had ceased. The abdication of the Czar had already produced the second
+phase of the Revolution--the beginning of the struggle between the
+Provisional Government and the Council of Workmen and Soldiers'
+Deputies, and this was proceeding, for the moment, inside the walls of
+the Duma rather than in the streets and squares of the town. Lawrence
+returned, therefore, that afternoon with a strange sense of quiet and
+security.
+
+"It was almost, you know, as though this tommy-rot about a White
+Revolution might be true after all--with this jolly old Duma and their
+jolly old Kerensky runnin' the show. Of course I'd seen the nonsense
+about their not salutin' the officers and all that, but I didn't think
+any fellers alive would be such dam fools.... I might have known
+better."
+
+He let himself into the flat and found there a death-like stillness--no
+one about and no sound except the tickings of the large clock in the
+drawing-room.
+
+He wandered into that horribly impressive place and suddenly sat down on
+the sofa with a realisation of extreme physical fatigue. He didn't know
+why he was so tired, he had felt quite "bobbish" all the week; suddenly
+now his limbs were like water, he had a bad ache down his spine and his
+legs were as heavy as lead. He sat in a kind of trance on that sofa, he
+was not asleep, but he was also, quite certainly, not awake. He wondered
+why the place was so "beastly still" after all the noise there had been
+all the week. There was no one left alive--every one dead--except
+himself and Vera... Vera... Vera.
+
+Then he was conscious that some one was looking at him through the
+double-doors. At first he didn't realise who it was, the face was so
+white and the figure so quiet, then, pulling himself together, he saw
+that it was the old servant.
+
+"What is it, Andre?" he asked, sitting up.
+
+The old man didn't answer, but came into the room, carefully closing the
+door behind him. Lawrence saw that he was trembling with fright, but was
+still endeavouring to behave with dignity.
+
+"Barin! Barin!" he whispered, as though Lawrence were a long way from
+him. "Paul Konstantinovitch! (that was Wilderling). He's mad.... He
+doesn't know what he's doing. Oh, sir, stop him, stop him, or we shall
+all be murdered!"
+
+"What is he doing?" asked Lawrence, standing up.
+
+"In the little hack room," Andre whispered, as though now he were
+confiding a terrible secret. "Come quickly...!"
+
+Lawrence followed him; when he had gone a few steps down the passage he
+heard suddenly a sharp, muffled report.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Andre came close to him, his old, seamed face white like plaster.
+
+"He has a rifle in there..." he said. "He's shooting at them!" Then as
+Lawrence stepped up to the door of the little room that was Wilderling's
+dressing-room, Andre caught his arm--.
+
+"Be careful, Barin.... He doesn't know what he's about. He may not
+recognise you."
+
+"Oh, that's all right!" said Lawrence. He pushed the door open and
+walked in. To give for a moment his own account of it: "You know that
+room was the rummiest thing. I'd never been into it before. I knew the
+old fellow was a bit of a dandy, but I never expected to see all the
+pots and jars and glasses there were. You'd have thought one wouldn't
+have noticed a thing at such a time, but you couldn't escape them,--his
+dressing-table simply covered,--white round jars with pink tops,
+bottles of hair-oil with ribbons round the neck, manicure things, heaps
+of silver things, and boxes with Chinese patterns on them, and one
+thing, open, with what was mighty like rouge in it. And clothes all over
+the place--red silk dressing-gown with golden tassels, and red leather
+slippers!
+
+"I don't remember noticing any of this at the moment, but it all comes
+back to me as soon as I begin to think of it--and the room stank of
+scent!"
+
+But of course it was the old man in the corner who mattered. It was, I
+think, very significant of Lawrence's character and his
+unEnglish-English tradition that the first thing that he felt was the
+pathos of it. No other Englishman in Petrograd would have seen that at
+all.
+
+Wilderling was crouched in the corner against a piece of gold Japanese
+embroidery. He was in the shadow, away from the window, which was pushed
+open sufficiently to allow the muzzle of the rifle to slip between the
+woodwork and the pane. The old man, his white hair disordered, his
+clothes dusty, and his hands grimy, crept forward just as Lawrence
+entered, fired down into the side-street, then moved swiftly back into
+his corner again. He muttered to himself without ceasing in French,
+"Chiens! Chiens!... Chiens!" He was very hot, and he stopped for a
+moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead, then he saw Lawrence.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked, as though he didn't recognize him.
+
+Lawrence moved down the side of the room, avoiding the window. He
+touched the little man's arm.
+
+"I say, you know," he said, "this won't do."
+
+Wilderling smelt of gunpowder, and he was breathing hard as though he
+had been running desperately. He quivered when Lawrence touched him.
+
+"Go away!" he said, "you mustn't come here.... I'll get them yet--I tell
+you I'll get them yet--I tell you I'll get them--Let them dare...
+Chiens... Chiens..." He jerked his rifle away from the window and
+began, with trembling fingers, to load it again.
+
+Lawrence gripped his arm. "When I did that," he said, "it felt as though
+there wasn't an arm there at all, but just a bone which I could break if
+I pressed a bit harder."
+
+"Come away!" he said. "You damn fool--don't you see that it's hopeless?"
+
+"And I'd always been so respectful to him...." he added in parenthesis.
+
+Wilderling hissed at him, saying no words, just drawing in his breath.
+
+"I've got two of them," he whispered suddenly. "I'll get them all."
+
+Then a bullet crashed through the window, burying itself in the opposite
+wall.
+
+After that things happened so quickly that it was impossible to say in
+what order they occurred. There was suddenly a tremendous noise in the
+flat.
+
+"It was just as though the whole place was going to tumble about our
+ears. All the pots and bottles began to jump about, and then another
+bullet came through, landed on the dressing-table, and smashed
+everything. The looking-glass crashed, and the hair-oil was all over the
+place. I rushed out to see what was happening in the hall...."
+
+What "was happening" was that the soldiers had broken the hall door in.
+Lawrence saw then a horrible thing. One of the men rushed forward and
+stuck Andre, who was standing, paralysed, by the drawing-room door, in
+the stomach. The old man cried out "just like a shot rabbit," and stood
+there "for what seemed ages," with the blood pouring out of his middle.
+
+That finished Lawrence. He rushed forward, and they would certainly have
+"stuck" him too if someone hadn't cried out, "Look out, he's an
+Englishman--an _Anglichanin_--I know him."
+
+After that, for a time, he was uncertain of anything. He struggled; he
+was held. He heard noises around him--shouts or murmurs or sighs--that
+didn't seem to him to be connected with anything human. He could not
+have said where he was nor what he was doing. Then, quite suddenly,
+everything cleared. He came to himself with a consciousness of that
+utter weariness that he had felt before. He was able to visualise the
+scene, to take it all in, but as a distant spectator. "It was like
+nothing so much as watching a cinematograph," he told me. He could do
+nothing; he was held by three soldiers, who apparently wished him to be
+a witness of the whole affair. Andre's body lay there, huddled up in a
+pool of drying blood, that glistened under the electric light. One of
+his legs was bent crookedly under him, and Lawrence had a strange mad
+impulse to thrust his way forward and put it straight.
+
+It was then, with a horrible sickly feeling, exactly like a blow in the
+stomach, that he realised that the Baroness was there. She was standing,
+quite alone, at the entrance of the hall, looking at the soldiers, who
+were about eight in number.
+
+He heard her say, "What's happened? Who are you?..." and then in a
+sharper, more urgent voice, "Where's my husband?"
+
+Then she saw Andre.... She gave a sharp little cry, moved forward
+towards him, and stopped.
+
+"I don't know what she did then," said Lawrence. "I think she suddenly
+began to run down the passage. I know she was crying, 'Paul! Paul!
+Paul!'... I never saw her again."
+
+The officer--an elderly kindly-looking man like a doctor or a lawyer (I
+am trying to give every possible detail, because I think it
+important)--then came up to Lawrence and asked him some questions:
+
+"What was his name?"
+
+"Jeremy Ralph Lawrence."
+
+"He was an Englishman."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Working at the British Embassy?"
+
+"No, at the British Military Mission."
+
+"He was officer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In the British Army?"
+
+"Yes. He had fought for two years in France."
+
+"He had been lodging with Baron Wilderling?"
+
+"Yes. Ever since he came to Russia."
+
+The officer nodded his head. They knew about him, had full information.
+A friend of his, a Mr. Boris Grogoff, had spoken of him.
+
+The officer was then very polite, told him that they regretted extremely
+the inconvenience and discomfort to which he might be put, but that they
+must detain him until this affair was concluded--"which will be very
+soon" added the officer. He also added that he wished Lawrence to be a
+witness of what occurred so that he should see that, under the new
+regime in Russia, everything was just and straightforward.
+
+"I tried to tell him," said Lawrence to me, "that Wilderling was off his
+head. I hadn't the least hope, of course.... It was all quite clear,
+and, at such a time, quite just. Wilderling had been shooting them out
+of his window.... The officer listened very politely, but when I had
+finished he only shook his head. That was their affair he said.
+
+"It was then that I realised Wilderling. He was standing quite close to
+me. He had obviously been struggling a bit, because his shirt was all
+torn, and you could see his chest. He kept moving his hand and trying to
+pull his shirt over; it was his only movement. He was as straight as a
+dart, and except for the motion of his hand as still as a statue,
+standing between the soldiers, looking directly in front of him. He had
+been mad in that other room, quite dotty.
+
+"He was as sane as anything now, grave and serious and rather ironical,
+just as he always looked. Well it was at that moment, when I saw him
+there, that I thought of Vera. I had been thinking of her all the time
+of course. I had been thinking of nothing else for weeks. But that
+minute, there in the hall, settled me. Callous, wasn't it? I ought to
+have been thinking only of Wilderling and his poor old wife. After all,
+they'd been awfully good to me. She'd been almost like a mother all the
+time.... But there it was. It came over me like a storm. I'd been
+fighting for nights and days and days and nights not to go to
+her--fighting like hell, trying to play the game the sentimentalists
+would call it. I suppose seeing the old man there and knowing what they
+were going to do to him settled it. It was a sudden conviction, like a
+blow, that all this thing was real, that they weren't playing at it,
+that any one in the town was as near death as winking.... And so there
+it was! Vera! I'd got to get to her--at once--and never leave her again
+until she was safe. I'd got to get to her! I'd got to get to her! I'd
+got to get to her!... Nothing else mattered. Not Wilderling's death nor
+mine either, except that if I was dead I'd be out of it and wouldn't be
+able to help her. They talk about men with one idea. From that moment I
+had only one idea in all the world--I don't know that I've had any
+other one since. They talk about scruples, moralities, traditions.
+They're all right, but there just are moments in life when they simply
+don't count at all.... Vera was in danger--Well, that was all that
+mattered.
+
+"The officer said something to Wilderling. I heard Wilderling answer:
+"You're rebels against His Majesty.... I wish I'd shot more of you!"
+Fine old boy, you know, whatever way you look at it.
+
+"They moved him forward then. He went quite willingly, without any kind
+of resistance. They motioned to me to follow. We walked out of the flat
+down the stairs, no one saying a word. We went out on to the Quay. There
+was no one there. They stood him up against the wall, facing the river.
+It was dark, and when he was against the wall he seemed to vanish,--only
+I got one kind of gesture, a sort of farewell, you know, his grey hair
+waving in the breeze from the river.
+
+"There was a report, and it was as though a piece of the wall slowly
+unsettled itself and fell forward. No sound except the report. Oh, he
+was a fine old boy!
+
+"The officer came up to me and said very politely:
+
+"'You are free now, sir,' and something about regretting incivility, and
+something, I think, about them perhaps wanting me again to give some
+sort of evidence. Very polite he was.
+
+"I was mad, I suppose, I don't know. I believe I said something to him
+about Vera, which of course he didn't understand.
+
+"I know I wanted to run like hell to Vera to see that she was safe.
+
+"But I didn't. I walked off as slowly as anything. It was awful. They'd
+been so good to me, and yet I wasn't thinking of Wilderling at all...."
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+Markovitch on that same afternoon came back to the flat early. He also,
+like Lawrence, felt the strange peace and tranquillity of the town, and
+it seemed inevitably like the confirmation of all his dearest hopes. The
+Czar was gone, the Old Regime was gone, the people, smiling and
+friendly, were maintaining their own discipline--above all, Vera had
+kissed him.
+
+He did not go deeper into his heart and see how strained all their
+recent relations must have been for this now to give him such joy. He
+left that--it simply was that at last he and Vera understood one
+another, she had found that she cared for him after all, and that he was
+necessary to her happiness. What that must mean for their future life
+together he simply dared not think.... It would change the world for
+him. He felt like the man in the story from whom the curse is suddenly
+lifted....
+
+He walked home through the quiet town, humming to himself. He fancied
+that there was a warmth in the air, a strange kindly omen of spring,
+although the snow was still thick on the ground, and the Neva a grey
+carpet of ice.
+
+He came into the flat and found it empty. He went into his little room
+and started on his inventions. He was so happy that he hummed to himself
+as he worked and cut slices off his pieces of wood, and soaked flannel
+in bottles, and wrote funny little sentences in his abominable
+handwriting in a red notebook.
+
+One need not grudge it him, poor Markovitch. It was the last happy
+half-hour of his life.
+
+He did not turn on his green-shaded lamp, but sat there in the gathering
+dusk, chipping up the wood and sometimes stopping, idly lost in happy
+thoughts.
+
+Some one came in. He peered through his little glass window and saw that
+it was Nina. She passed quickly through the dining-room, beyond, towards
+her bedroom, without stopping to switch on the light.
+
+Nina had broken the spell. He went back to his table, but he couldn't
+work now, and he felt vaguely uneasy and cold. He was just going to
+leave his work and find the _Retch_ and settle down to a comfortable
+read, when he heard the hall door close. He stood behind his little
+glass window and watched; it was Vera, perhaps... it must be... his
+heart began eagerly to beat.
+
+It _was_ Vera. At once he saw that she was strangely agitated. Before
+she had switched on the light he realised it. With a click the light was
+on. Markovitch had intended to open his door and go out to her, smiling.
+He saw at once that she was waiting for some one.... He stood,
+trembling, on tiptoe, his face pressed against the glass of the pane.
+
+Lawrence came in. He had the face, Markovitch told me many weeks
+afterwards, "of a triumphant man."
+
+They had obviously met outside, because Vera said, as though continuing
+a conversation:
+
+"And it's only just happened?"
+
+"I've come straight from there," Lawrence answered.
+
+Then he went up to her. She let herself at once go to him and he half
+carried her to a chair near the table and exactly opposite Markovitch's
+window.
+
+They kissed "like people who had been starving all their lives."
+Markovitch was trembling so that he was afraid lest he should tumble or
+make some noise. The two figures in the chair were like statues in their
+immobile, relentless, unswerving embrace.
+
+Suddenly he saw that Nina was standing in the opposite doorway "like a
+ghost." She was there for so brief a moment that he could not be sure
+that she had been there at all. Only her white, frightened face remained
+with him.
+
+One of his thoughts was:
+
+"This is the end of my life."
+
+Another was:
+
+"How could they be so careless, with the light on, and perhaps people in
+the flat!"
+
+And after that:
+
+"They need it so much that they don't care who sees--Starved people...."
+
+And after that:
+
+"I'm starved too."
+
+He was so cold that his teeth were chattering, and he crept back from
+his window, crept into the farthest farthest corner of his little room,
+and crouched there on the floor, staring and staring, but seeing nothing
+at all.
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+MARKOVITCH AND SEMYONOV
+
+
+
+
+MARKOVITCH AND SEMYONOV.
+
+
+I
+
+On the evening of that very afternoon, Thursday, I again collapsed. I
+was coming home in the dusk through a whispering world. All over the
+streets, everywhere on the broad shining snow, under a blaze of stars so
+sharp and piercing that the sky seemed strangely close and intimate, the
+talk went on. Groups everywhere and groups irrespective of all class
+distinction--a well-to-do woman in rich furs, a peasant woman with a
+shawl over her head, a wild, bearded soldier, a stout, important
+officer, a maid-servant, a cab-driver, a shopman--talking, talking,
+talking, talking.... The eagerness, the ignorance, the odd fairy-tale
+world spun about those groups, so that the coloured domes of the
+churches, the silver network of the stars, the wooden booths, the mist
+of candles before the Ikons, the rough painted pictures on the shops
+advertising the goods sold within--all these things shared in that crude
+idealistic, cynical ignorance, in that fairy-tale of brutality,
+goodness, cowardice, and bravery, malice and generosity, superstition
+and devotion that was so shortly to be offered to a materialistic,
+hard-fighting, brave and unthinking Europe!...
+
+That, however, was not now my immediate business--enough of that
+presently. My immediate business, as I very quickly discovered, was to
+pluck up enough strength to drag my wretched body home. The events of
+the week had, I suppose, carried me along. I was to suffer now the
+inevitable reaction. I felt exactly as though I had been shot from a gun
+and landed, suddenly, without breath, without any strength in any of my
+limbs in a new and strange world. I was standing, when I first realised
+my weakness, beside the wooden booths in the Sadovaya. They were all
+closed of course, but along the pavement women and old men had baskets
+containing sweets and notepaper and red paper tulips offered in memory
+of the glorious Revolution. Right across the Square the groups of people
+scattered in little dusky pools against the snow, until they touched the
+very doors of the church.... I saw all this, was conscious that the
+stars and the church candles mingled... then suddenly I had to clutch
+the side of the booth behind me to prevent myself from falling. My head
+swam, my limbs were as water, and my old so well-remembered friend
+struck me in the middle of the spine as though he had cut me in two with
+his knife. How was I ever to get home? No one noticed me--indeed they
+seemed to my sick eyes to have ceased to be human. Ghosts in a ghostly
+world, the snow gleaming through them so that they only moved like a
+thin diaphanous veil against the wall of the sky... I clutched my
+booth. In a moment I should be down. The pain in my back was agony, my
+legs had ceased to exist, and I was falling into a dark, dark pool of
+clear jet-black water, at the bottom of which lay a star....
+
+The strange thing is that I do not know who it was who rescued me. I
+know that some one came. I know that to my own dim surprise an
+Isvostchick was there and that very feebly I got into it. Some one was
+with me. Was it my black-bearded peasant? I fancy now that it was. I can
+even, on looking back, see him sitting up, very large and still, one
+thick arm holding me. I fancy that I can still smell the stuff of his
+clothes. I fancy that he talked to me, very quietly, reassuring me about
+something. But, upon my word, I don't know. One can so easily imagine
+what one wants to be true, and now I want, more than I would then ever
+have believed to be possible, to have had actual contact with him. It is
+the only conversation between us that can ever have existed: never,
+before or after, was there another opportunity. And in any case there
+can scarcely have been a conversation, because I certainly said nothing,
+and I cannot remember anything that he said, if indeed he said anything
+at all. At any rate I was there in the Sadovaya, I was in a cab, I was
+in my bed. The truth of the rest of it any one may decide for
+himself....
+
+
+
+II
+
+That Thursday was March 15. I was conscious of my existence again on
+Sunday, April 1st. I opened my eyes and saw that there was a thaw. That
+was the first thing of which I was aware--that water was apparently
+dripping on every side of me. It is a strange sensation to lie on your
+bed very weak, and very indifferent, and to feel the world turning to
+moisture all about you.... My ramshackle habitation had never been a
+very strong defence against the outside world. It seemed now to have
+definitely decided to abandon the struggle. The water streamed down the
+panes of my window opposite my bed. One patch of my ceiling (just above
+my only bookcase, confound it!) was coloured a mouldy grey, and from
+this huge drops like elephant's tears, splashed monotonously. (Already
+_The Spirit of Man_ was disfigured by a long grey streak, and the green
+back of Galleon's _Roads_ was splotched with stains.) Some one had
+placed a bucket near the door to catch a perpetual stream flowing from
+the corner of the room. Down into the bucket it pattered with a hasty,
+giggling, hysterical jiggle. I rather liked the companionship of it. I
+didn't mind it at all. I really minded nothing whatever.... I sighed my
+appreciation of my return to life. My sigh brought some one from the
+corner of my room and that some one was, of course, the inevitable Eat.
+He came up to my bed in his stealthy, furtive fashion, and looked at me
+reproachfully. I asked him, my voice sounding to myself strange and very
+far away, what he was doing there. He answered that if it had not been
+for him I should be dead. He had come early one morning and found me
+lying in my bed and no one in the place at all. No one--because the old
+woman had vanished. Yes, the neighbours had told him. Apparently on that
+very Thursday she had decided that the Revolution had given her her
+freedom, and that she was never going to work for anybody ever again.
+She had told a woman-neighbour that she heard that the land now was
+going to be given back to everybody, and she was returning therefore to
+her village somewhere in the Moscow Province. She had not been back
+there for twenty years. And first, to celebrate her liberty, she would
+get magnificently drunk on furniture polish.
+
+"I did not see her of course," said the Rat. "No. When I came, early in
+the morning, no one was here. I thought that you were dead, Barin, and I
+began collecting your property, so that no one else should take it. Then
+you made a movement, and I saw that you were alive--so I got some
+cabbage soup and gave it you. That certainly saved you.... I'm going to
+stay with you now."
+
+I did not care in the least whether he went or stayed. He chattered on.
+By staying with me he would inevitably neglect his public duties.
+Perhaps I didn't know that he had public duties? Yes, he was now an
+Anarchist, and I should be astonished very shortly, by the things the
+Anarchists would do. All the same, they had their own discipline. They
+had their own processions, too, like any one else. Only four days ago he
+had marched all over Petrograd carrying a black flag. He must confess
+that he was rather sick of it. But they must have processions.... Even
+the prostitutes had marched down the Nevski the other day demanding
+shorter hours.
+
+But of course I cannot remember all that he said. During the next few
+days I slowly pulled myself out of the misty dead world in which I had
+been lying. Pain came back to me, leaping upon me and then receding,
+finally, on the third day suddenly leaving me altogether. The Rat fed me
+on cabbage soup and glasses of tea and caviare and biscuits. During
+those three days he never left me, and indeed tended me like a woman. He
+would sit by my bed and with his rough hand stroke my hair, while he
+poured into my ears ghastly stories of the many crimes that he had
+committed. I noticed that he was cleaner and more civilised. His beard
+was clipped and he smelt of cabbage and straw--a rather healthy smell.
+One morning he suddenly took the pail, filled it with water and washed
+himself in front of my windows. He scrubbed himself until I should have
+thought that he had no skin left.
+
+"You're a fine big man, Rat," I said.
+
+He was delighted with that, and came quite near my bed, stretching his
+naked body, his arms and legs and chest, like a pleased animal.
+
+"Yes, I'm a fine man, Barin," he said; "many women have loved me, and
+many will again..." Then he went back, and producing clean drawers and
+vest from somewhere (I suspect that they were mine but I was too weak to
+care), put them on.
+
+On the second and third days I felt much better. The thaw was less
+violent, the wood crackled in my stove. On the morning of Wednesday
+April 14 I got up, dressed, and sat in front of my window. The ice was
+still there, but over it lay a faint, a very faint, filmy sheen of
+water. It was a day of gleams, the sun flashing in and out of the
+clouds. Just beneath my window a tree was pushing into bud. Pools of
+water lay thick on the dirty melting snow. I got the Rat to bring a
+little table and put some books on it. I had near me _The Spirit of
+Man_, Keats's _Letters_, _The Roads_, Beddoes, and _Pride and
+Prejudice_. A consciousness of the outer world crept, like warmth,
+through my bones.
+
+"Rat," I said, "who's been to see me?"
+
+"No one," said he.
+
+I felt suddenly a ridiculous affront.
+
+"No one?" I asked, incredulous.
+
+"No one," he answered. "They've all forgotten you, Barin," he added
+maliciously, knowing that that would hurt me.
+
+It was strange how deeply I cared. Here was I who, only a short while
+before, had declared myself done with the world for ever, and now I was
+almost crying because no one had been to see me! Indeed, I believe in my
+weakness and distress I actually did cry. No one at all? Not Vera nor
+Nina nor Jeremy nor Bohun? Not young Bohun even...? And then slowly my
+brain realised that there was now a new world. None of the old
+conditions held any longer.
+
+We had been the victims of an earthquake. Now it was--every man for
+himself! Quickly then there came upon me an eager desire to know what
+had happened in the Markovitch family. What of Jerry and Vera? What of
+Nicholas? What of Semyonov...?
+
+"Rat," I said, "this afternoon I am going out!"
+
+"Very well, Barin," he said, "I, too, have an engagement."
+
+In the afternoon I crept out like an old sick man. I felt strangely shy
+and nervous. When I reached the corner of Ekateringofsky Canal and the
+English Prospect I decided not to go in and see the Markovitches. For
+one thing I shrank from the thought of their compassion. I had not
+shaved for many days. I was that dull sickly yellow colour that offends
+the taste of all healthy vigorous people. I did not want their pity.
+No.... I would wait until I was stronger.
+
+My interest in life was reviving with every step that I took. I don't
+know what I had expected the outside world to be. This was April 14. It
+was nearly a month since the outburst of the Revolution, and surely
+there should be signs in the streets of the results of such a cataclysm.
+There were, on the surface, no signs. There was the same little cinema
+on the canal with its gaudy coloured posters, there was the old woman
+sitting at the foot of the little bridge with her basket of apples and
+bootlaces, there was the same wooden hut with the sweets and the fruit,
+the same figures of peasant women, soldiers, boys hurrying across the
+bridge, the same slow, sleepy Isvostchick stumbling along carelessly.
+One sign there was. Exactly opposite the little cinema, on the other
+side of the canal, was a high grey block of flats. This now was starred
+and sprayed with the white marks of bullets. It was like a man marked
+for life with smallpox. That building alone was witness to me that I had
+not dreamt the events of that week.
+
+The thaw made walking very difficult. The water poured down the sides of
+the houses and gurgled in floods through the pipes. The snow was
+slippery under the film of gleaming wet, and there were huge pools at
+every step. Across the middle of the English Prospect, near the Baths,
+there was quite a deep lake....
+
+I wandered slowly along, enjoying the chill warmth of the soft spring
+sun. The winter was nearly over! Thank God for that! What had happened
+during my month of illness? Perhaps a great Revolutionary army had been
+formed, and a mighty, free, and united Russia was going out to save the
+world! Oh, I did hope that it was so! Surely that wonderful white week
+was a good omen. No Revolution in history had started so well as this
+one....
+
+I found my way at last very slowly to the end of the Quay, and the sight
+of the round towers of my favourite church was like the reassuring smile
+of an old friend. The sun was dropping low over the Neva. The whole vast
+expanse of the river was coloured very faintly pink. Here, too, there
+was the film of the water above the ice; the water caught the colour,
+but the ice below it was grey and still. Clouds of crimson and orange
+and faint gold streamed away in great waves of light from the sun. The
+long line of buildings and towers on the farther side was jet-black; the
+masts of the ships clustering against the Quay were touched at their
+tips with bright gold. It was all utterly still, not a sound nor a
+movement anywhere; only one figure, that of a woman, was coming slowly
+towards me. I felt, as one always does at the beginning of a Russian
+spring, a strange sense of expectation. Spring in Russia is so sudden
+and so swift that it gives an overwhelming impression of a powerful
+organising Power behind it. Suddenly the shutters are pulled back and
+the sun floods the world! Upon this afternoon one could feel the urgent
+business of preparation pushing forward, arrogantly, ruthlessly. I don't
+think that I had ever before realised the power of the Neva at such
+close quarters. I was almost ashamed at the contrast of its struggle
+with my own feebleness.
+
+I saw then that the figure coming towards me was Nina.
+
+
+
+III
+
+As she came nearer I saw that she was intensely preoccupied. She was
+looking straight in front of her but seeing nothing. It was only when
+she was quite close to me that I saw that she was crying. She was making
+no sound. Her mouth was closed; the tears were slowly, helplessly,
+rolling down her cheeks.
+
+She was very near to me indeed before she saw me; then she looked at me
+closely before she recognised me. When she saw that it was I, she
+stopped, fumbled for her handkerchief, which she found, wiped her eyes,
+then turned away from me and looked out over the river.
+
+"Nina, dear," I said, "what's the matter?"
+
+She didn't answer; at length she turned round and said:
+
+"You've been ill again, haven't you?"
+
+One cheek had a dirty tear-stain on it, which made her inexpressibly
+young and pathetic and helpless.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I have."
+
+She caught her breath, put out her hand, and touched my arm.
+
+"Oh, you _do_ look ill!... Vera went to ask, and there was a
+rough-looking man there who said that no one could see you, but that you
+were all right.... One of us ought to have forced a way in--M. Bohun
+wanted to--but we've all been thinking of ourselves."
+
+"What's the matter, Nina?" I asked. "You've been crying."
+
+"Nothing's the matter. I'm all right."
+
+"No, you're not. You ought to tell me. You trusted me once."
+
+"I don't trust any one," she answered fiercely. "Especially not
+Englishmen."
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked again.
+
+"Nothing.... We're just as we were. Except," she suddenly looked up at
+me, "Uncle Alexei's living with us now."
+
+"Semyonov!" I cried out sharply, "living with you!"
+
+"Yes," she went on, "in the room where Nicholas had his inventions is
+Uncle Alexei's bedroom."
+
+"Why, in Heaven's name?" I cried.
+
+"Uncle Alexei wanted it. He said he was lonely, and then he just came. I
+don't know whether Nicholas likes it or not. Vera hates it, but she
+agreed at once."
+
+"And do you like it?" I asked.
+
+"I like Uncle Alexei," she answered. "We have long talks. He shows me
+how silly I've been."
+
+"Oh!" I said... "and what about Nicholas' inventions?"
+
+"He's given them up for ever." She looked at me doubtfully, as though
+she were wondering whether she could trust me. "He's so funny
+now--Nicholas, I mean. You know he was so happy when the Revolution
+came. Now he's in a different mood every minute. Something's happened to
+him that we don't know about."
+
+"What kind of thing?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know. He's seen something or heard something. It's some secret
+he's got. But Uncle Alexei knows."
+
+"How can you tell?"
+
+"Because he's always saying things that make Nicholas angry, and we
+can't see anything in them at all.... Uncle Alexei's very clever."
+
+"Yes, he is," I agreed. "But you haven't told me why you were crying
+just now."
+
+She looked at me. She gave a little shiver. "Oh, you do look ill!...
+Everything's going wrong together, isn't it?"
+
+And with that she suddenly left me, hurrying away from me, leaving me
+miserable and apprehensive of some great trouble in store for all of us.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+It is impossible to explain how disturbed I was by Nina's news. Semyonov
+living in the flat! He must have some very strong reason for this, to
+leave his big comfortable flat for the pokiness of the Markovitches'!
+
+And then that the Markovitches should have him! There were already
+inhabitants enough--Nicholas, Vera, Nina, Uncle Ivan, Bohun. Then the
+inconvenience and discomfort of Nicholas's little hole as a bedroom! How
+Semyonov must loathe it!
+
+From that moment the Markovitches' flat became for me the centre of my
+drama. Looking back I could see now how all the growing development of
+the story had centred round those rooms. I did not of course know at
+this time of that final drama of the Thursday afternoon, but I knew of
+the adventure with the policeman, and it seemed to me that the flat was
+a cup into which the ingredients were being poured one after another
+until at last the preparation would be complete, and then....
+
+Oh, but I cared for Nina and Vera and Nicholas--yes, and Jerry too! I
+wanted to see them happy and at peace before I left them--in especial
+Nicholas.
+
+And Semyonov came closer to them and closer, following some plan of his
+own and yet, after all, finally like a man driven by a power,
+constructed it might be, out of his own very irony.
+
+I made a kind of bet with fate that by Easter Day every one should be
+happy by then.
+
+Next day, the 15th of April, was the great funeral for the victims of
+the Revolution. I believe, although of course at that time I had heard
+nothing, that there had been great speculation about the day, many
+people thinking that it would be an excuse for further trouble, the
+Monarchists rising, or the "Soviet" attacking the Provisional
+Government, or Milyukoff and his followers attacking the Soviet. They
+need not have been alarmed. No one had as yet realised the lengths that
+Slavonic apathy may permit itself....
+
+I went down about half-past ten to the Square at the end of the Sadovaya
+and found it filled with a vast concourse of peasants, not only the
+Square was filled, but the Sadovaya as far as the eye could see. They
+were arranged in perfect order, about eight in a row, arm in arm. Every
+group carried its banner, and far away into the distance one could see
+the words "Freedom," "Brotherhood," "The Land for All," "Peace of the
+World," floating on the breeze. Nevertheless, in spite of these fine
+words, it was not a very cheering sight. The day was wretched--no actual
+rain, but a cold damp wind blowing and the dirty snow, half ice and half
+water; the people themselves were not inspiring. They were all, it
+seemed, peasants. I saw very few workmen, although I believe that
+multitudes were actually in the procession. Those strange, pale, Eastern
+faces, passive, apathetic, ignorant, childish, unreasoning, stretched in
+a great cloud under the grey overhanging canopy of the sky. They raised
+if once and again a melancholy little tune that was more wail than
+anything else. They had stood there, I was told, in pools of frozen
+water for hours, and were perfectly ready to stand thus for many hours
+more if they were ordered to do so. As I regarded their ignorance and
+apathy I realised for the first time something of what the Revolution
+had already done.
+
+A hundred million of these children--ignorant, greedy, pathetic,
+helpless, revengeful--let loose upon the world! Where were their
+leaders? Who, indeed, would their leaders be? The sun sometimes broke
+through for a moment, but the light that it threw on their faces only
+made them more pallid, more death-like. They did not laugh nor joke as
+our people at home would have done.... I believe that very few of them
+had any idea why they were there....
+
+Suddenly the word came down the lines to move forward. Very slowly,
+wailing their little tune, they advanced.
+
+But the morning was growing old and I must at once see Vera. I had made
+up my mind, during the night, to do anything that lay in my power to
+persuade Vera and Nina to leave their flat. The flat was the root of all
+their trouble, there was something in its atmosphere, something gloomy
+and ominous. They would be better at the other end of the town, or,
+perhaps, over on the Vassily Ostrov. I would show Vera that it was a
+fatal plan to have Semyonov to live with them (as in all probability she
+herself knew well enough), and their leaving the flat was a very good
+excuse for getting rid of him. I had all this in my head as I went
+along. I was still feeling ill and feeble, and my half-hour's stand in
+the market-place had seriously exhausted me. I had to lean against the
+walls of the houses every now and then; it seemed to me that, in the
+pale watery air, the whole world was a dream, the high forbiding flats
+looking down on to the dirty ice of the canals, the water dripping,
+dripping, dripping.... No one was about. Every one had gone to join in
+the procession. I could see it, with my mind's eye, unwinding its huge
+tails through the watery-oozing channels of the town, like some
+pale-coloured snake, crawling through the misty labyrinths of a marsh.
+
+In the flat I found only Uncle Ivan sitting very happily by himself at
+the table playing patience. He was dressed very smartly in his English
+black suit and a black bow tie. He behaved with his usual elaborate
+courtesy to me but, to my relief, on this occasion, he spoke Russian.
+
+It appeared that the Revolution had not upset him in the least. He took,
+he assured me, no interest whatever in politics. The great thing was "to
+live inside oneself," and by living inside oneself he meant, I gathered,
+that one should be entirely selfish. Clothes were important, and food
+and courteous manners, but he must say that he could not see that one
+would be very much worse off even though one were ruled by the
+Germans--one might, indeed, be a great deal more comfortable. And as to
+this Revolution he couldn't really understand why people made such a
+fuss. One class or another class what did it matter? (As to this he was,
+I fear, to be sadly undeceived. He little knew that, before the year was
+out, he would be shovelling snow in the Morskaia for a rouble an hour.)
+So centred was he upon himself that he did not notice that I looked ill.
+He offered me a chair, indeed, but that was simply his courteous
+manners. Very ridiculous, he thought, the fuss that Nicholas made about
+the Revolution--very ridiculous the fuss that he made about
+everything....
+
+Alexei had been showing Nicholas how ridiculous he was.
+
+"Oh, has he?" said I. "How's he been doing that?"
+
+Laughing at him, apparently. They all laughed at him. It was his own
+fault.
+
+"Alexei's living with us now, you know."
+
+"Yes, I know," I said, "what's he doing that for?"
+
+"He wanted to," said Uncle Ivan simply. "He's always done what he's
+wanted to, all his life."
+
+"It makes it a great many of you in one small flat."
+
+"Yes, doesn't it?" said Uncle Ivan amiably. "Very pleasant--although,
+Ivan Andreievitch, I will admit to you quite frankly that I've always
+been frightened of Alexei. He has such a very sharp tongue. He discovers
+one's weak spots in a marvellous manner.... We all have weak spots you
+know," he added apologetically.
+
+"Yes, we have," I said.
+
+Then, to my relief, Vera came in. She was very sweet to me, expressing
+much concern about my illness, asking me to stay and have my meal with
+them.... She suddenly broke off. There was a letter lying on the table
+addressed to her. I saw at once that it was in Nina's handwriting.
+
+"Nina! Writing to _me_!" She picked it up, stood back looking at the
+envelope before she opened it. She read it, then turned on me with a
+cry.
+
+"Nina!... She's gone!"
+
+"Gone!" I repeated, starting at once.
+
+"Yes.... Read!" She thrust it into my hand.
+
+In Nina's sprawling schoolgirl hand I read:
+
+Dear Vera--I've left you and Nicholas for ever.... I have been thinking
+of this for a long time, and now Uncle Alexei has shown me how foolish
+I've been, wanting something I can't have. But I'm not a child any
+longer. I must lead my own life.... I'm going to live with Boris who
+will take care of me. It's no use you or any one trying to prevent me. I
+will not come back. I must lead my own life now. Nina.
+
+Vera was beside herself.
+
+"Quick! Quick! Some one must go after her. She must be brought back at
+once. Quick! _Scora! Scora_!... I must go. No, she is angry with me. She
+won't listen to me. Ivan Andreievitch, you must go. At once! You must
+bring her back with you. Darling, darling Nina!... Oh, my God, what
+shall I do if anything happens to her!"
+
+She clutched my arm. Even as she spoke, she had got my hat and stick.
+
+"This is Alexei Petrovitch," I said.
+
+"Never mind who it is," she answered. "She must be brought back at once.
+She is so young. She doesn't know.... Boris--Oh! it's impossible. Don't
+leave without bringing her back with you."
+
+Even old Uncle Ivan seemed distressed.
+
+"Dear, dear..." he kept repeating, "dear, dear.... Poor little Nina.
+Poor little Nina--"
+
+"Where does Grogoff live?" I asked.
+
+"16 Gagarinskaya.... Flat 3. Quick. You must bring her back with you.
+Promise me."
+
+"I will do my best," I said.
+
+I found by a miracle of good fortune an Isvostchick in the street
+outside. We plunged along through the pools of water in the direction of
+the Gagarinskaya. That was a horrible drive. In the Sadovaya we met the
+slow, winding funeral procession.
+
+On they went, arm in arm, the same little wailing tune, monotonously
+repeating, but sounding like nothing human, rather exuding from the very
+cobbles of the road and the waters of the stagnant canals.
+
+The march of the peasants upon Petrograd! I could see them from all the
+quarters of the town, converging upon the Marsovoie Pole, stubborn,
+silent, wraiths of earlier civilisation, omens of later dominations. I
+thought of Boris Grogoff. What did he, with all his vehemence and
+conceit, intend to do with these? First he would flatter them--I saw
+that clearly enough. But then when his flatteries failed, what then?
+Could he control them? Would they obey him? Would they obey anybody
+until education had shown them the necessities for co-ordination and
+self-discipline? The river at last was overflowing its banks--would not
+the savage force of its power be greater than any one could calculate?
+The stream flowed on.... My Isvostchick took his cab down a side street,
+and then again met the strange sorrowful company. From this point I
+could see several further bridges and streets, and over them all I saw
+the same stream flowing, the same banners blowing--and all so still, so
+dumb, so patient.
+
+The delay was maddening. My thoughts were all now on Nina. I saw her
+always before me as I had beheld her yesterday, walking slowly along,
+her eyes fixed on space, the tears trickling down her face. "Life,"
+Nikitin once said to me, "I sometimes think is like a dark room, the
+door closed, the windows bolted and your enemy shut in with you. Whether
+your enemy or yourself is the stronger who knows?... Nor does it matter,
+as the issue is always decided outside.... Knowing that you can at least
+afford to despise him."
+
+I felt something of that impotence now. I cursed the Isvostchick, but
+wherever he went this slow endless stream seemed to impede our way. Poor
+Nina! Such a baby! What was it that had driven her to this? She did not
+love the man, and she knew quite well that she did not. No, it was an
+act of defiance. But defiance to whom--to Vera? to Lawrence?... and
+what had Semyonov said to her?
+
+Then, thank Heaven, we crossed the Nevski, and our way was clear. The
+old cabman whipped up his horse and, in a minute or two we were outside
+16 Gagarinskaya. I will confess to very real fears and hesitations as I
+climbed the dark stairs (the lift was, of course, not working). I was
+not the kind of man for this kind of job. In the first place I hated
+quarrels, and knowing Grogoff's hot temper I had every reason to expect
+a tempestuous interview. Then I was ill, aching in every limb and seeing
+everything, as I always did when I was unwell, mistily and with
+uncertainty. Then I had a very shrewd suspicion that there was
+considerable truth in what Semyonov had said, that I was interfering in
+what only remotely concerned me. At any rate, that was certainly the
+view that Grogoff would take, and Nina, perhaps also. I felt, as I rang
+the bell of No. 3, that unpleasant pain in the pit of the stomach that
+tells you that you're going to make a fool of yourself.
+
+Well, it would not be for the first time.
+
+"Boris Nicolaievitch, _doma_?" I asked the cross-looking old woman who
+opened the door.
+
+"_Doma_," she answered, holding it open to let me pass.
+
+I was shown into a dark, untidy sitting-room. It seemed at first sight
+to be littered with papers, newspapers, Revolutionary sheets and
+proclamations, the _Pravda_, the _Novaya Jezn_, the _Soldatskaya
+Mwyssl_.... On the dirty wall-paper there were enormous dark
+photographs, in faded gilt frames, of family groups; on one wall there
+was a large garishly coloured picture of Grogoff himself in student's
+dress. The stove was unlighted and the room was very cold. My heart
+ached for Nina.
+
+A moment after Grogoff came in. He came forward to me very amiably,
+holding out his hand.
+
+"Nu, Ivan Andreievitch.... What can I do for you?" he asked, smiling.
+
+And how he had changed! He was positively swollen with
+self-satisfaction. He had never been famous for personal modesty, but he
+seemed now to be physically twice his normal size. He was fat, his
+cheeks puffed, his stomach swelling beneath the belt that bound it. His
+fair hair was long, and rolled in large curls on one side of his head
+and over his forehead. He spoke in a loud, overbearing voice.
+
+"Nu, Ivan Andreievitch, what can I do for you?" he repeated.
+
+"Can I see Nina?" I asked.
+
+"Nina?..." he repeated as though surprised. "Certainly--but what do you
+want to say to her?"
+
+"I don't see that that's your business," I answered. "I have a message
+for her from her family."
+
+"But of course it's my business," he answered. "I'm looking after her
+now."
+
+"Since when?" I asked.
+
+"What does that matter?... She is going to live with me."
+
+"We'll see about that," I said.
+
+I knew that it was foolish to take this kind of tone. It could do no
+good, and I was not the sort of man to carry it through.
+
+But he was not at all annoyed.
+
+"See, Ivan Andreievitch," he said, smiling. "What is there to discuss?
+Nina and I have long considered living together. She is a grown-up
+woman. It's no one's affair but her own."
+
+"Are you going to marry her?" I asked.
+
+"Certainly not," he answered; "that would not suit either of us. It's
+no good your bringing your English ideas here, Ivan Andreievitch. We
+belong to the new world, Nina and I."
+
+"Well, I want to speak to her," I answered.
+
+"So you shall, certainly. But if you hope to influence her at all you
+are wasting your time, I assure you. Nina has acted very rightly. She
+found the home life impossible. I'm sure I don't wonder. She will assist
+me in my work. The most important work, perhaps, that man has ever been
+called on to perform...."
+
+He raised his voice here as though he were going to begin a speech. But
+at that moment Nina came in. She stood in the doorway looking across at
+me with a childish mixture of hesitation and boldness, of anger and
+goodwill in her face. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes heavy. Her hair was
+done in two long plaits. She looked about fourteen.
+
+She came up to me, but she didn't offer me her hand. Boris said:
+
+"Nina dear, Ivan Andreievitch has come to give you a message from your
+family." There was a note of scorn in his voice as he repeated my
+earlier sentence.
+
+"What is it?" she asked, looking at me defiantly.
+
+"I'd like to give it you alone," I said.
+
+"Whatever you say to me it is right that Boris should hear," she
+answered.
+
+I tried to forget that Grogoff was there. I went on:
+
+"Well then, Nina, you must know what I want to say. They are heartbroken
+at your leaving them. You know of course that they are. They beg you to
+come back.... Vera and Nicholas too. They simply won't know what to do
+without you. Vera says that you have been angry with her. She doesn't
+know why, but she says that she will do her very best if you come back,
+so that you won't be angry any more.... Nina, dear, you know that it is
+they whom you really love. You never can be happy here. You know that
+you cannot.... Come back to them! Come back! I don't know what it was
+that Alexei Petrovitch said to you, but whatever it was you should not
+listen to it. He is a bad man and only means harm to your family. He
+does indeed...."
+
+I paused. She had never moved whilst I was speaking. Now she only said,
+shaking her head, "It's no good, Ivan Andreievitch.... It's no good."
+
+"But why? Why?" I asked. "Give me your reasons, Nina."
+
+She answered proudly, "I don't see why I should give you any reasons,
+Ivan Andreievitch. I am free. I can do as I wish."
+
+"There's something behind this that I don't know," I said. "I ought to
+know.... It isn't fair not to tell me. What did Alexei Petrovitch say to
+you?"
+
+But she only shook her head.
+
+"He had nothing to do with this. It is my affair, Ivan Andreievitch. I
+couldn't live with Vera and Nicholas any longer."
+
+Grogoff then interfered.
+
+"I think this is about enough...." he said. "I have given you your
+opportunity. Nina has been quite clear in what she has said. She does
+not wish to return. There is your answer." He cleared his voice and went
+on in rather a higher tone: "I think you forget, Ivan Andreievitch,
+another aspect of this affair. It is not only a question of our private
+family disputes. Nina has come here to assist me in my national work. As
+a member of the Soviet I may, without exaggeration, claim to have an
+opportunity in my hands that has been offered in the past to few human
+beings. You are an Englishman, and so hidebound with prejudices and
+conventions. You may not be aware that there has opened this week the
+greatest war the world has ever seen--the war of the proletariats
+against the bourgeoisies and capitalists of the world." I tried to
+interrupt him, but he went on, his voice ever rising and rising: "What
+is your wretched German war? What but a struggle between the capitalists
+of the different countries to secure greater robberies and extortions,
+to set their feet more firmly than ever on the broad necks of the
+wretched People! Yes, you English, with your natural hypocrisy, pretend
+that you are fighting for the freedom of the world. What about Ireland?
+What about India? What about South Africa?... No, you are all alike.
+Germany, England, Italy, France, and our own wretched Government that
+has, at last, been destroyed by the brave will of the People. We declare
+a People's War!... We cry aloud to the People to throw down their arms!
+And the People will hear us!"
+
+He paused for breath. His arms were raised, his eyes on fire, his cheeks
+crimson.
+
+"Yes," I said, "that is all very well. But suppose the German people are
+the only ones who refuse to listen to you. Suppose that all the other
+nations, save Germany, have thrown down their arms--a nice chance then
+for German militarism!"
+
+"But the German people will listen!" he screamed, almost frothing at the
+mouth. "They are ready at any moment to follow our example. William and
+your George and the rest of them--they are doomed, I tell you!"
+
+"Nevertheless," I went on, "if you desert us now by making peace and
+Germany wins this war you will have played only a traitor's part, and
+all the world will judge you."
+
+"Traitor! Traitor!" The word seemed to madden him. "Traitor to whom,
+pray? Traitor to our Czar and your English king? Yes, and thank God for
+it! Did the Russian people make the war? They were led like lambs to the
+slaughter. Like lambs, I tell you. But now they will have their revenge.
+On all the Bourgeoisie of the world. The Bourgeoisie of the world!..."
+
+He suddenly broke off, flinging himself down on the dirty sofa. "Pheugh.
+Talking makes one hot!... Have a drink, Ivan Andreievitch.... Nina,
+fetch a drink."
+
+Through all this my eyes had never left her for a moment. I had hoped
+that this empty tub-thumping to which we had been listening would have
+affected her. But she had not moved nor stirred.
+
+"Nina!" I said softly. "Nina. Come with me!"
+
+But she only shook her head. Grogoff, quite silent now, lolled on the
+sofa, watching us. I went up to her and put my hand on her sleeve.
+
+"Dear Nina," I said, "come back to us."
+
+I saw her lip tremble. There was unshed tears in her eyes. But again she
+shook her head.
+
+"What have they done," I asked, "to make you take this step?"
+
+"Something has happened...." she said slowly. "I can't tell you."
+
+"Just come and talk to Vera."
+
+"No, it's hopeless... I can't see her again. But, Durdles... tell her
+it's not her fault."
+
+At the sound of my pet name I took courage again.
+
+"But tell me, Nina.... Do you love this man?"
+
+She turned round and looked at Grogoff as though she were seeing him for
+the first time.
+
+"Love?... Oh no, not love! But he will be kind to me, I think. And I
+must be myself, be a woman, not a child any longer."
+
+Then, suddenly clearing her voice, speaking very firmly, looking me full
+in the face, she said:
+
+"Tell Vera... that I saw... what happened that Thursday afternoon--the
+Thursday of the Revolution week. Tell her that--when you're alone with
+her. Tell her that--then she'll understand."
+
+She turned and almost ran out of the room.
+
+"Well, you see," said Grogoff smiling lazily from the sofa.
+
+"That settles it."
+
+"It doesn't settle it," I answered. "We shall never rest until we have
+got her back."
+
+But, I had to go. There was nothing more just then to be done.
+
+
+
+V
+
+On my return I found Vera alone waiting for me with restless impatience.
+
+
+"Well?" she said eagerly. Then when she saw that I was alone her face
+clouded.
+
+"I trusted you--" she began.
+
+"It's no good," I said at once. "Not for the moment. She's made up her
+mind. It's not because she loved him nor, I think, for anything very
+much that her uncle said. She's got some idea in her head. Perhaps you
+can explain it."
+
+"I?" said Vera, looking at me.
+
+"Yes. She gave me a message for you."
+
+"What was it?" But even as she asked the question she seemed to fear the
+answer, because she turned away from me.
+
+"She told me to tell you that she saw what happened on the afternoon of
+the Thursday in Revolution week. She said that then you would
+understand."
+
+Vera looked at me with the strangest expression of defiance, fear,
+triumph.
+
+"What did she see?"
+
+"I don't know. That's what she told me."
+
+Vera did a strange thing. She laughed.
+
+"They can all know. I don't care. I want them to know. Nina can tell
+them all."
+
+"Tell them what?"
+
+"Oh, you'll hear with the rest. Uncle Alexei has done this. He told Nina
+because he hates me. He won't rest until he ruins us all. But I don't
+care. He can't take from me what I've got. He can't take from me what
+I've got.... But we must get her back, Ivan Andreievitch. She _must_
+come back--"
+
+Nicholas came in and then Semyonov and then Bohun.
+
+Bohun, drawing me aside, whispered to me: "Can I come and see you? I
+must ask your advice--"
+
+"To-morrow evening," I told him, and left.
+
+Next day I was ill again. I had I suppose done too much the day before.
+I was in bed alone all day. My old woman had suddenly returned without a
+word of explanation or excuse. She had not, I am sure, even got so far
+as the Moscow Province. I doubt whether she had even left Petrograd. I
+asked her no questions. I could tell of course that she had been
+drinking. She was a funny old creature, wrinkled and yellow and hideous,
+very little different in any way from a native in the wilds of Central
+Africa. The savage in her liked gay colours and trinkets, and she would
+stick flowers in her hair and wear a tinkling necklace of bright red and
+blue beads. She had a mangy dog, hairless in places and rheumy at the
+eyes, who was all her passion, and this creature she would adore, taking
+it to sleep with her, talking to it by the hour together, pulling its
+tail and twisting its neck so that it growled with rage--and then, when
+it growled, she, too, would make strange noises as though sympathising
+with it.
+
+She returned to me from no sort of sense of duty, but simply because, I
+think, she did not know where else to go. She scowled on me and informed
+me that now that there had been the Revolution everything was different;
+nevertheless the sight of my sick yellow face moved her as sickness and
+misfortune always move every Russian, however old and debased he may be.
+
+"You shouldn't have gone out walking," she said crossly. "That man's
+been here again?" referring to the Rat, whom she hated.
+
+"If it hadn't been for him," I said, "I would have died."
+
+But she made the flat as cheerful as she could, lighting the stove,
+putting some yellow flowers into a glass, dusting the Benois
+water-colour, putting my favourite books beside my bed.
+
+When Henry Bohun came in he was surprised at the brightness of
+everything.
+
+"Why, how cosy you are!" he cried.
+
+"Ah, ha," I said, "I told you it wasn't so bad here."
+
+He picked up my books, looked at Galleon's _Roads_ and then _Pride and
+Prejudice_.
+
+"It's the simplest things that last," he said. "Galleon's jolly good,
+but he's not simple enough. _Tess_ is the thing, you know, and
+_Tono-Bungay,_ and _The Nigger of the Narcissus_... I usen't to think
+so. I've grown older, haven't I?"
+
+He had.
+
+"What do you think of _Discipline_ now?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" he blushed, "I was a young cuckoo."
+
+"And what about knowing all about Russia after a week?"
+
+"No--and that reminds me!" He drew his chair closer to my bed. "That's
+what I've come to talk about. Do you mind if I gas a lot?"
+
+"Gas as much as you like," I said.
+
+"Well, I can't explain things unless I do.... You're sure you're not too
+seedy to listen?"
+
+"Not a bit. It does me good," I told him.
+
+"You see in a way you're really responsible. You remember, long ago,
+telling me to look after Markovitch when I talked all that rot about
+caring for Vera?"
+
+"Yes--I remember very well indeed."
+
+"In a way it all started from that. You put me on to seeing Markovitch
+in quite a different light. I'd always thought of him as an awfully dull
+dog with very little to say for himself, and a bit loose in the
+top-story too. I thought it a terrible shame a ripping woman like Vera
+having married him, and I used to feel sick with him about it. Then
+sometimes he'd look like the devil himself, as wicked as sin, poring
+over his inventions, and you'd fancy that to stick a knife in his back
+might be perhaps the best thing for everybody.
+
+"Well, you explained him to me and I saw him different--not that I've
+ever got very much out of him. I don't think that he either likes me or
+trusts me, and anyway he thinks me too young and foolish to be of any
+importance--which I daresay I am. He told me, by the way, the other day,
+that the only Englishman he thought anything of was yourself--"
+
+"Very nice of him," I murmured.
+
+"Yes, but not very flattering to me when I've spent months trying to be
+fascinating to him. Anyhow, although I may be said to have failed in one
+way, I've got rather keen on the pursuit. If I can't make him like me I
+can at least study him and learn something. That's a leaf out of your
+book, Durward. You're always studying people, aren't you?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," I said.
+
+"Yes, of course you are. Well, I'll tell you frankly I've got fond of
+the old bird. I don't believe you could live at close quarters with any
+Russian, however nasty, and not get a kind of affection for him. They're
+so damned childish."
+
+"Oh yes, you could," I said. "Try Semyonov."
+
+"I'm coming to him in a minute," said Bohun. "Well, Markovitch was most
+awfully unhappy. That's one thing one saw about him at once--unhappy of
+course because Vera didn't love him and he adored her. But there was
+more in it than that. He let himself go one night to me--the only time
+he's ever talked to me really. He was drunk a bit, and he wanted to
+borrow money off me. But there was more in it than that. He talked to me
+about Russia. That seemed to have been his great idea when the war began
+that it was going to lead to the most marvellous patriotism all through
+Russia. It seemed to begin like that, and do you know, Durward, as he
+talked I saw that patriotism _was_ at the bottom of everything, that you
+could talk about Internationalism until you were blue in the face, and
+that it only began to mean anything when you'd learnt first what
+nationality was--that you couldn't really love all mankind until you'd
+first learnt to love one or two people close to you. And that you
+couldn't love the world as a vast democratic state until you'd learnt to
+love your own little bit of ground, your own fields, your own river,
+your own church tower. Markovitch had it all as plain as plain. 'Make
+your own house secure and beautiful. Then it is ready to take its place
+in the general scheme. We Russians always begin at the wrong end,' he
+said. 'We jump all the intermediate stages. I'm as bad as the rest.' I
+know you'll say I'm so easily impressed, Durward, but he was wonderful
+that night--and so _right_. So that as he talked I just longed to rush
+back and see that my village--Topright in Wiltshire--was safe and sound
+with the highgate at the end of the village street, and the village
+stores with the lollipop windows, and the green with the sheep on it,
+and the ruddy stream with the small trout and the high Down beyond....
+Oh well, you know what I mean--"
+
+"I know," said I.
+
+"I saw that the point of Markovitch was that he must have some ideal to
+live up to. If he couldn't have Vera he'd have Russia, and if he
+couldn't have Russia he'd have his inventions. When we first came along
+a month or two ago he'd lost Russia, he was losing Vera, and he wasn't
+very sure about his inventions. A bad time for the old boy, and you were
+quite right to tell me to look after him. Then came the Revolution, and
+he thought that everything was saved. Vera and Russia and everything.
+Wasn't he wonderful that week? Like a child who has suddenly found
+Paradise.... Could any Englishman ever be cheated like that by
+anything? Why a fellow would be locked up for a loony if he looked as
+happy as Markovitch looked that week. It wouldn't be decent.... Well,
+then...." He paused dramatically. "What's happened to him since,
+Durward?"
+
+"How do you mean? What's happened to him since?" I asked.
+
+"I mean just what I say. Something happened to him at the end of that
+week. I can put my finger almost exactly on the day--the Thursday of
+that week. What was it? That's one of the things I've come to ask you
+about?"
+
+"I don't know. I was ill," I said.
+
+"No, but has nobody told you anything?"
+
+"I haven't heard a word," I said.
+
+His face fell. "I felt sure you'd help me?" he said.
+
+"Tell me the rest and perhaps I can put things together," I suggested.
+
+"The rest is really Semyonov. The queerest things have been happening.
+Of course, the thing is to get rid of all one's English ideas, isn't it?
+and that's so damned difficult. It's no use saying an English fellow
+wouldn't do this or that. Of course he wouldn't.... Oh, they _are_
+queer!"
+
+He sighed, poor boy, with the difficulty of the whole affair.
+
+"Giving them up in despair, Bohun, is as bad as thinking you understand
+them completely. Just take what comes."
+
+"Well, 'what came' was this. On that Thursday evening Markovitch was as
+though he'd been struck in the face. You never saw such a change. Of
+course we all noticed it. White and sickly, saying nothing to anybody.
+Next morning, quite early, Semyonov came over and proposed lodging with
+us.
+
+"It absolutely took my breath away, but no one else seemed very
+astonished. What on earth did he want to leave his comfortable flat and
+come to us for? We were packed tight enough as it was. I never liked the
+feller, but upon my word I simply hated him as he sat there, so quiet,
+stroking his beard and smiling at us in his sarcastic way.
+
+"To my amazement Markovitch seemed quite keen about it. Not only agreed,
+but offered his own room as a bedroom. 'What about your inventions?'
+some one asked him.
+
+"'I've given them up,' he said, looking at us all just like a caged
+animal--'for ever.'
+
+"I would have offered to retire myself if I hadn't been so interested,
+but this was all so curious that I was determined to see it out to the
+end. And you'd told me to look after Markovitch. If ever he'd wanted
+looking after it was now! I could see that Vera hated the idea of
+Semyonov coming, but after Markovitch had spoken she never said a word.
+So then it was all settled."
+
+"What did Nina do?" I asked.
+
+"Nina? She never said anything either. At the end she went up to
+Semyonov and took his hand and said, 'I'm so glad you're coming, Uncle
+Alexei,' and looked at Vera. Oh! they're all as queer as they can be, I
+tell you!"
+
+"What happened next?" I asked eagerly.
+
+"Everything's happened and nothing's happened," he replied. "Nina's run
+away. Of course you know that. What she did it for I can't imagine.
+Fancy going to a fellow like Grogoff! Lawrence has been coming every day
+and just sitting there, not saying anything. Semyonov's amiable to
+everybody--especially amiable to Markovitch. But he's laughing at him
+all the time I think. Anyway he makes him mad sometimes, so that I think
+Markovitch is going to strike him. But of course he never does.... Now
+here's a funny thing. This is really what I want to ask you most about."
+
+He drew his chair closer to my bed and dropped his voice as though he
+were going to whisper a secret to me.
+
+"The other night I was awake--about two in the morning it was--and
+wanted a book--so I went into the dining-room. I'd only got bedroom
+slippers on and I was stopped at the door by a sound. It was Semyonov
+sitting over by the further window, in his shirt and trousers, his beard
+in his hands, and sobbing as though his heart would break. I'd never
+heard a man cry like that. I hate hearing a man cry anyway. I've heard
+fellers at the Front when they're off their heads or something... but
+Semyonov was worse than that. It was a strong man crying, with all his
+wits about him.... Then I heard some words. He kept repeating again and
+again. 'Oh, my dear, my dear, my dear!... Wait for me!... Wait for me!
+Wait for me!...' over and over again--awful! I crept back to my room
+frightened out of my life. I've never known anything so awful. And
+Semyonov of all people!
+
+"It was like that man in _Wuthering Heights_. What's his name?
+Heathcliffe! I always thought that was a bit of an exaggeration when he
+dashed his head against a tree and all that. But, by Jove, you never
+know!... Now, Durward, you've got to tell me. You've known Semyonov for
+years. You can explain. What's it all about, and what's he trying to do
+to Markovitch?"
+
+"I can scarcely think what to tell you," I said at last. "I don't really
+know much about Semyonov, and my guesses will probably strike you as
+insane."
+
+"No, they won't," said Bohun. "I've learnt a bit lately."
+
+"Semyonov," I said, "is a deep-dyed sensualist. All his life he's
+thought about nothing but gratifying his appetites. That's simple
+enough--there are plenty of that type everywhere. But unfortunately for
+him he's a very clever man, and like every Russian both a cynic and an
+idealist--a cynic in facts _because_ he's an idealist. He got everything
+so easily all through his life that his cynicism grew and grew. He had
+wealth and women and position. He was as strong as a horse. Every 'one
+gave way to him and he despised everybody. He went to the Front, and one
+day came across a woman different from any other whom he had ever
+known."
+
+"How different?" asked Bohun, because I paused.
+
+"Different in that she was simpler and naïver and honester and better
+and more beautiful--"
+
+"Better than Vera?" Bohun asked.
+
+"Different," I said. "She was younger, less strong-willed, less clever,
+less passionate perhaps. But alone--alone, in all the world. Every one
+must love her--No one could help it...."
+
+I broke off again. Bohun waited.
+
+I went on. "Semyonov saw her and snatched her from the Englishman to
+whom she was engaged. I don't think she ever really loved the
+Englishman, but she loved Semyonov."
+
+"Well?" said Bohun.
+
+"She was killed. A stray shot, when she was giving tea to the men in the
+trenches.... It meant a lot... to all of us. The Englishman was killed
+too, so he was all right. I think Semyonov would have liked that same
+end; but he didn't get it, so he's remained desolate. Really desolate,
+in a way that only your thorough sensualist can be. A beautiful fruit
+just within his grasp, something at last that can tempt his jaded
+appetite. He's just going to taste it, when whisk! it's gone, and gone,
+perhaps, into some one else's hands. How does he know? How does he know
+anything? There may be another life--who can really prove there isn't?
+and when you've seen something in the very thick and glow of existence,
+something more alive than life itself, and, click! it's gone--well, it
+_must_ have gone somewhere, mustn't it? Not the body only, but that
+soul, that spirit, that individual personal expression of beauty and
+purity and loveliness? Oh, it must be somewhere yet!... It _must_ be!...
+At any rate _he_ didn't know. And he didn't know either that she might
+not have proved his idealism right after all. Ah! to your cynic there's
+nothing more maddening! Do you think your cynic loves his cynicism? Not
+a bit of it! Not he! But he won't be taken in by sham any more. That he
+swears....
+
+"So it was with Semyonov. This girl might have proved the one real
+exception; she might have lasted, she might have grown even more
+beautiful and more wonderful, and so proved his idealism true after all.
+He doesn't know, and I don't know. But there it is. He's haunted by the
+possibility of it all his days. He's a man now ruled by an obsession. He
+thinks of one thing and one thing only, day and night. His sensuality
+has fallen away from him because women are dull--sterile to him beside
+that perfect picture of the woman lost. Lost! he may recover her! He
+doesn't know. The thought of death obsesses him. What is there in it? Is
+she behind there or no? Is she behind there, maddening thought, with her
+Englishman?
+
+"He must know. He _must_ know. He calls to her--she won't come to him.
+What is he to do? Suicide? No, to a proud man like Semyonov that's a
+miserable confession of weakness. How they'd laugh at him, these other
+despicable human beings, if he did that! He'd prove himself as weak as
+they. No, that's not for him. What then?
+
+"This is a fantastic world, Bohun, and nothing is impossible for it.
+Suppose he were to select some one, some weak and irritable and
+sentimental and disappointed man, some one whose every foible and
+weakness he knew, suppose he were to place himself near him and so
+irritate and confuse and madden him that at last one day, in a fury of
+rage and despair, that man were to do for him what he is too proud to do
+for himself! Think of the excitement, the interest, the food for his
+cynicism, the food for his conceit such a game would be to Semyonov. Is
+this going to do it? Or this? Or this? Now I've got him far enough?
+Another five minutes!... Think of the hairbreadth escapes, the check and
+counter check, the sense, above all, that to a man like Semyonov is
+almost everything, that he is master of human emotions, that he can
+direct wretched, weak human beings whither he will.
+
+"And the other--the weak, disappointed, excitable man--can't you see
+that Semyonov has him close to his hand, that he has only to stretch a
+finger--"
+
+"Markovitch!" cried Bohun.
+
+"Now you know," I said, "why you've got to stay on in that flat."
+
+
+
+VI
+
+I have said already, I think, that the instinctive motive of Vera's life
+was her independent pride. Cling to that, and however the world might
+rock and toss around her she could not be wrecked. Imagine, then, what
+she must have suffered during the weeks that followed her surrender to
+Lawrence. Not that for a moment she intended to go back on her
+surrender, which was, indeed, the proudest moment of her whole life.
+She never looked back for one second after that embrace, she never
+doubted herself or him or the supreme importance of love itself; but the
+rest of her--her tenderness, her fidelity, her loyalty, her
+self-respect--this was all tortured now by the things that she seemed
+compelled to do. It must have appeared to her as though Fate, having
+watched that complete abandonment, intended to deprive her of everything
+upon which she had depended. She was, I think, a woman of very simple
+instincts. The things that had been in her life--her love for Nina, her
+maternal tenderness for Nicholas, her sense of duty--remained with her
+as strongly after that tremendous Thursday afternoon as they had been
+before it. She did not see why they need be changed. She did not love
+Nina any the less because she loved Lawrence; indeed, she had never
+loved Nina so intensely as on the night when she had realised her love
+for Lawrence to the full, that night when they had sheltered the
+policeman. And she had never pretended to love Nicholas. She had always
+told him that she did not love him. She had been absolutely honest with
+him always, and he had often said to her, "If ever real love comes into
+your life, Vera, you will leave me," and she had always answered him,
+"No, Nicholas, why should I? I will never change. Why should I?"
+
+She honestly thought that her love for Lawrence need not alter things.
+She would tell Nicholas, of course, and then she would act as he wished.
+If she were not to see Lawrence she would not see him--that would make
+no difference to her love for him. What she did not realise--and that
+was strange after living with him for so long--was that he was always
+hoping that her tender kindliness towards him would, one day, change
+into something more passionate. I think that, subconsciously, she did
+realise it, and that was why she was, during those weeks before the
+Revolution, so often uneasy and unhappy. But I am sure that definitely
+she never admitted it.
+
+The great fact was that, as soon as possible, she must tell Nicholas
+all about it. And the days went by, and she did not. She did not, partly
+because she had now some one else as well as herself to consider. I
+believe that in those weeks between that Thursday and Easter Day she
+never had one moment alone with Lawrence. He came, as Bohun had told me,
+to see them; he sat there and looked at her, and listened and waited.
+She herself, I expect, prevented their being alone. She was waiting for
+something to happen. Then Nina's flight overwhelmed everything. That
+must have been the most awful thing. She never liked Grogoff, never
+trusted him, and had a very clear idea of his character. But more awful
+to her than his weakness was her knowledge that Nina did not love him.
+What could have driven her to do such a thing? She knew of her affection
+for Lawrence, but she had, perhaps, never taken that seriously. How
+could Nina really love Lawrence when he, so obviously, cared nothing at
+all for her? She reasoned then, as every one always does, on the lines
+of her own character. She herself could never have cared seriously for
+any one had there been no return. Her pride would not have allowed
+her....
+
+But Nina had been the charge of her life. Before Nicholas, before her
+own life, before everything. Nina was her duty, her sacred cause--and
+now she was betraying her trust! Something must be done--but what? but
+what? She knew Nina well enough to realise that a false step would only
+plunge her farther than ever into the business. It must have seemed to
+her indeed that because of her own initial disloyalty the whole world
+was falling away from her.
+
+Then there came Semyonov; I did not at this time at all sufficiently
+realise that her hatred of her uncle--for it _was_ hatred, more, much
+more than mere dislike--had been with her all her life. Many months
+afterwards she told me that she could never remember a time when she had
+not hated him. He had teased her when she was a very little girl,
+laughing at her naïve honesty, throwing doubts on her independence,
+cynically ridiculing her loyalty. There had been one horrible winter
+month (then ten or eleven years of age) when she had been sent to stay
+with him in Moscow.
+
+He had a fine house near the Arbat, and he was living (although she did
+not of course know anything about that at the time) with one of his
+gaudiest mistresses. Her mother and father being dead she had no
+protection. She was defenceless. I don't think that he in any way
+perverted her innocence. I except that he was especially careful to
+shield her from his own manner of life (he had always his own queer
+tradition of honour which he effected indeed to despise), but she felt
+more than she perceived. The house was garish, over-scented and
+over-lighted. There were many gilt chairs and large pictures of naked
+women and numbers of coloured cushions. She was desperately lonely. She
+hated the woman of the house, who tried, I have no doubt, to be kind to
+her, and after the first week she was left to herself.
+
+One night, long after she had gone to bed there was a row downstairs,
+one of the scenes common enough between Semyonov and his women.
+Terrified, she went to the head of the stairs and heard the smash of
+falling glass and her uncle's voice raised in a scream of rage and
+vituperation. A great naked woman in a gold frame swung and leered at
+her in the lighted passage. She fled back to her dark room and lay, for
+the rest of that night, trembling and quivering with her head beneath
+the bed-clothes.
+
+From that moment she feared her uncle as much as she hated him. Long
+afterwards came his influence over Nicholas. No one had so much
+influence over Nicholas as he. Nicholas himself admitted it. He was
+alternately charmed and frightened, beguiled and disgusted, attracted
+and repulsed. Before the war Semyonov had, for a time, seen a good deal
+of them, and Nicholas steadily degenerated. Then Semyonov was bored with
+it all and went off after other game more worthy of his doughty spear.
+Then came the war, and Vera devoutedly hoped that her dear uncle would
+meet his death at the hands of some patriotic Austrian. He did indeed
+for a time disappear from their lives, and it seemed that he might never
+come back again. Then on that fateful Christmas Day he did return, and
+Vera's worst fears were realised. She hated him all the more because of
+her impotence. She could do nothing against him at all. She was never
+very subtle in her dealings with people, and her own natural honesty
+made her often stupid about men's motives. But the thing for which she
+feared her uncle most was his, as it seemed to her, supernatural
+penetration into the thoughts of others.
+
+She of course greatly exaggerated his gifts in that direction simply
+because they were in no way her gifts, and he, equally of course,
+discovered very early in their acquaintance that this was the way to
+impress her. He played tricks with her exactly as a conjurer produces a
+rabbit out of a hat....
+
+When he announced his intention of coming to live in the flat she was
+literally paralyzed with fright. Had it been any one else she would have
+fought, but in her uncle's drawing gradually nearer and nearer to the
+centre of all their lives, coming as it seemed to her so silently and
+mysteriously, without obvious motive, and yet with so stealthy a plan,
+against this man she could do nothing....
+
+Nevertheless she determined to fight for Nicholas to the last--to fight
+for Nicholas, to bring back Nina, these were now the two great aims of
+her life; and whilst they were being realised her love for Lawrence must
+be passive, passive as a deep passionate flame beats with unwavering
+force in the heart of the lamp....
+
+They had made me promise long before that I would spend Easter Eve with
+them and go with them to our church on the Quay. I wondered now whether
+all the troubles of the last weeks would not negative that invitation,
+and I had privately determined that if I did not hear from them again I
+would slip off with Lawrence somewhere. But on Good Friday Markovitch,
+meeting me in the Morskaia, reminded me that I was coming.
+
+It is very difficult to give any clear picture of the atmosphere of the
+town between Revolution week and this Easter Eve, and yet all the seeds
+of the later crop of horrors were sewn during that period. Its spiritual
+mentality corresponded almost exactly with the physical thaw that
+accompanied it--mist, then vapour dripping of rain, the fading away of
+one clear world into another that was indistinct, ghostly, ominous. I
+find written in my Diary of Easter Day--exactly five weeks after the
+outbreak of the Revolution--these words: "From long talks with K. and
+others I see quite clearly that Russians have gone mad for the time
+being. It's heartbreaking to see them holding meetings everywhere,
+arguing at every street corner as to how they intend to arrange a
+democratic peace for Europe, when meanwhile the Germans are gathering
+every moment force upon the frontiers."
+
+Pretty quick, isn't it, to change from Utopia to threatenings of the
+worst sort of Communism? But the great point for us in all this--the
+great point for our private personal histories as well as the public
+one--was that it was during these weeks that the real gulf between
+Russia and the Western world showed itself! Yes, for more than three
+years we had been pretending that a week's sentiment and a hurriedly
+proclaimed Idealism could bridge a separation which centuries of magic
+and blood and bones had gone to build. For three years we tricked
+ourselves (I am not sure that the Russians were ever really deceived)
+... but we liked the ballet, we liked Tolstoi and Dostoieffsky (we
+translated their inborn mysticism into the weakest kind of
+sentimentality), we liked the theory of inexhaustible numbers, we liked
+the picture of their pounding, steam-roller like, to Berlin... we
+tricked ourselves, and in the space of a night our trick was exposed.
+
+Plain enough the reasons for these mistakes that we in England have made
+over that same Revolution, mistakes made by none more emphatically than
+by our own Social Democrats. Those who hailed the Revolution as the
+fulfilment of all their dearest hopes, those who cursed it as the
+beginning of the damnation of the world--all equally in the wrong. The
+Revolution had no thought for _them_. Russian extremists might shout as
+they pleased about their leading the fight for the democracies of the
+world--they never even began to understand the other democracies.
+Whatever Russia may do, through repercussion, for the rest of the world,
+she remains finally alone--isolated in her Government, in her ideals, in
+her ambitions, in her abnegations. For a moment the world-politics of
+her foreign rulers seemed to draw her into the Western whirlpool. For a
+moment only she remained there. She has slipped back again behind her
+veil of mist and shadow. We may trade with her, plunge into her
+politics, steal from her Art, emphasise her religion--she remains alone,
+apart, mysterious....
+
+I think it was with a kind of gulping surprise, as after a sudden plunge
+into icy cold water, that we English became conscious of this. It came
+to us first in the form that to us the war was everything--to the
+Russian, by the side of an idea the war was nothing at all. How was I,
+for instance, to recognise the men who took a leading part in the events
+of this extraordinary year as the same men who fought with bare hands,
+with fanatical bravery through all the Galician campaign of two years
+before?
+
+Had I not realised sufficiently at that time that Russia moves always
+according to the Idea that governs her--and that when that Idea changes
+the world, _his_ world changes with it....
+
+Well, to return to Markovitch....
+
+
+
+VII
+
+I was on the point of setting out for the English Prospect on Saturday
+evening when there was a knock on my door, and to my surprise Nicholas
+Markovitch came in. He was in evening dress--rather quaint it seemed to
+me, with his pointed collar so high, his tail-coat so much too small,
+and his large-brimmed bowler hat. He explained to me confusedly that he
+wished to walk with me alone to the church... that he had things to
+tell me... that we should meet the others there. I saw at once two
+things, that he was very miserable, that he was a little drunk. His
+misery showed itself in his strange, pathetic, gleaming eyes, that
+looked so often as though they held unshed tears (this gave him an
+unfortunate ridiculous aspect), in his hollow pale cheeks and the droop
+of his mouth, not petulant nor peevish, simply unhappy in the way that
+animals or very young children express unhappiness. His drunkenness
+showed itself in quite another way. He was unsteady a little on his
+feet, and his hands trembled, his forehead was flushed, and he spoke
+thickly, sometimes running his words together. At the same time he was
+not very drunk, and was quite in control of his thoughts and
+intentions.
+
+We went out together. It could not have been called a fine night--it was
+too cold, and there was a hint of rain in the air--and yet there is
+beauty, I believe, in every Russian Easter Eve. The day comes so
+wonderfully at the end of the long heavy winter. The white nights with
+their incredible, almost terrifying beauty are at hand, the ice is
+broken, the new world of sun and flowers is ready, at an instant's magic
+word, to be born. Nevertheless this year there was an incredible pathos
+in the wind. The soul of Petrograd was indeed stirring, but mournfully,
+ominously. There were not, for one thing, the rows of little fairy lamps
+that on this night always make the streets so gay. They hang in chains
+and clusters of light from street to street, blazing in the square,
+reflected star-like in the canals, misty and golden-veiled in distance.
+To-night only the churches had their lights; for the rest, the streets
+were black chasms of windy desolation, the canals burdened with the
+breaking ice which moved restlessly against the dead barges. Very strong
+in the air was the smell of the sea; the heavy clouds that moved in a
+strange kind of ordered procession overhead seemed to carry that scent
+with them, and in the dim pale shadows of the evening glow one seemed to
+see at the end of every street mysterious clusters of masts, and to hear
+the clank of chains and the creak of restless boards. There were few
+people about and a great silence everywhere. The air was damp and thick,
+and smelt of rotten soil, as though dank grass was everywhere pushing
+its way up through the cobbles and paving-stones.
+
+As we walked Markovitch talked incessantly. It was only a very little
+the talk of a drunken man, scarcely disconnected at all, but every now
+and again running into sudden little wildnesses and extravagances. I
+cannot remember nearly all that he said. He came suddenly, as I expected
+him to do, to the subject of Semyonov.
+
+"You know of course that Alexei Petrovitch is living with us now?"
+
+"Yes. I know that."
+
+"You can understand, Ivan Andreievitch, that when he came first and
+proposed it to me I was startled. I had other things--very serious
+things to think of just then. We weren't--we aren't--very happy at home
+just now... you know that... I didn't think he'd be very gay with us.
+I told him that. He said he didn't expect to be gay anywhere at this
+time, but that he was lonely in his flat all by himself, and he thought
+for a week or two he'd like company. He didn't expect it would be for
+very long. No.... He said he was expecting 'something to happen.'
+Something to himself, he said, that would alter his affairs. So, as it
+was only for a little time, well, it didn't seem to matter. Besides,
+he's a powerful man. He's difficult to resist--very difficult to
+resist...."
+
+"Why have you given up your inventions, Nicolai Leontievitch?" I said to
+him, suddenly turning round upon him.
+
+"My inventions?" he repeated, seeming very startled at that.
+
+"Yes, your inventions."
+
+"No, no.... Understand, I have no more use for them. There are other
+things now to think about--more important things."
+
+"But you were getting on with them so well?"
+
+"No--not really. I was deceiving myself as I have often deceived myself
+before. Alexei showed me that. He told me that they were no good--"
+
+"But I thought that he encouraged you?"
+
+"Yes--at first--only at first. Afterwards he saw into them more
+clearly; he changed his mind. I think he was only intending to be kind.
+A strange man... a strange man...."
+
+"A very strange man. Don't you let him influence you, Nicholas
+Markovitch."
+
+"Influence me? Do you think he does that?" He suddenly came close to me,
+catching my arm.
+
+"I don't know. I haven't seen you often together."
+
+"Perhaps he does... _Mojet bweet_... You may be right. I don't know--I
+don't know what I feel about him at all. Sometimes he seems to me very
+kind; sometimes I'm frightened of him, sometimes"--here he dropped his
+voice--"he makes me very angry, so angry that I lose control of
+myself--a despicable thing... a despicable thing... just as I used to
+feel about the old man to whom I was secretary. I nearly murdered him
+once. In the middle of the night I thought suddenly of his stomach, all
+round and white and shining. It was an irresistible temptation to plunge
+a knife into it. I was awake for hours thinking of it. Every man has
+such hours.... At the same time Alexei can be very kind."
+
+"How do you mean--kind?" I asked.
+
+"For instance he has some very good wine--fifty bottles at least--he has
+given it all to us. Then he insists on paying us for his food. He is a
+generous-spirited man. Money is nothing to us--"
+
+"Don't you drink his wine," I said.
+
+Nicholas was instantly offended.
+
+"What do you mean, Ivan Andreievitch? Not drink his wine? Am I an
+infant? Can I not look after myself?--_Blagadaryoo Vas_.... I am more
+than ten years old." He took his hand away from my arm.
+
+"No, I didn't mean that at all," I assured him. "Of course not--only you
+told me not long ago that you had given up wine altogether. That's why I
+said what I did."
+
+"So I have! So I have!" he eagerly assured me. "But Easter's a time for
+rejoicing... Rejoicing!"--his voice rose suddenly shrill and
+scornful--"rejoicing with the world in the state that it is. Truly, Ivan
+Andreievitch, I don't wonder at Alexei's cynicism. I don't indeed. The
+world is a sad spectacle for an observant man." He suddenly put his hand
+through my arm, so close to me now that I could feel his beating heart.
+"But you believe, don't you, Ivan Andreievitch, that Russia now has
+found herself?" His voice became desperately urgent and beseeching. "You
+must believe that. You don't agree with those fools who don't believe
+that she will make the best of all this? Fools? Scoundrels! Scoundrels!
+That's what they are. I must believe in Russia now or I shall die. And
+so with all of us. If she does not rise now as one great country and
+lead the world, she will never do so. Our hearts must break. But she
+will... she will! No one who is watching events can doubt it. Only
+cynics like Alexei doubt--he doubts everything. And he cannot leave
+anything alone. He must smear everything with his dirty finger. But he
+must leave Russia alone... I tell him...."
+
+He broke off. "If Russia fails now," he spoke very quietly, "my life is
+over. I have nothing left. I will die."
+
+"Come, Nicolai Leontievitch," I said, "you mustn't let yourself go like
+that. Life isn't over because one is disappointed in one's country. And
+even though one is disappointed one does not love the less. What's
+friendship worth if every disappointment chills one's affection? One
+loves one's country because she is one's country, not because she's
+disappointing...." And so I went on with a number of amiable platitudes,
+struggling to comfort him somewhere, and knowing that I was not even
+beginning to touch the trouble of his soul.
+
+He drew very close to me, his fingers gripping my sleeve--"I'll tell
+you, Ivan Andreievitch--but you mustn't tell anybody else. I'm afraid.
+Yes, I am. Afraid of myself, afraid of this town, afraid of Alexei,
+although that must seem strange to you. Things are very bad with me,
+Ivan Andreievitch. Very bad, indeed. Oh! I have been disappointed! yes,
+I have. Not that I expected anything else. But now it has come at last,
+the blow that I have always feared has fallen--a very heavy blow. My own
+fault, perhaps, I don't know. But I'm afraid of myself. I don't know
+what I may do. I have such strange dreams--Why has Alexei come to stay
+with us?"
+
+"I don't know," I said.
+
+Then, thank God, we reached the church. It was only as we went up the
+steps that I realised that he had never once mentioned Vera.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+And yet with all our worries thick upon us it was quite impossible to
+resist the sweetness and charm and mystery of that service.
+
+I think that perhaps it is true, as many have said, that people did not
+crowd to the churches on that Easter as they had earlier ones, but our
+church was a small one, and it seemed to us to be crammed. We stumbled
+up the dark steps, and found ourselves at the far end of the very narrow
+nave. At the other end there was a pool of soft golden light in which
+dark figures were bathed mysteriously. At the very moment of our
+entering, the procession was passing down the nave on its way round the
+outside of the church to look for the Body of Our Lord. Down the nave
+they came, the people standing on either side to let them pass, and
+then, many of them, falling in behind. Every one carried a lighted
+candle. First there were the singers, then men carrying the coloured
+banners, then the priest in stiff gorgeous raiment, then officials and
+dignitaries, finally the crowd. The singing, the forest of lighted
+candles, the sudden opening of the black door and the blowing in of the
+cold night wind, the passing of the voices out into the air, the soft,
+dying away of the singing and then the hushed expectation of the waiting
+for the return--all this had in it something so elemental, so simple,
+and so true to the very heart of the mystery of life that all trouble
+and sorrow fell away and one was at peace.
+
+How strange was that expectation! We knew so well what the word must be;
+we could tell exactly the moment of the knock of the door, the deep
+sound of the priest's voice, the embracings and dropping of wax over
+every one's clothes that would follow it--and yet every year it was the
+same! There _was_ truth in it, there was some deep response to the human
+dependence, some whispered promise of a future good. We waited there,
+our hearts beating, crowded against the dark walls. It was a very
+democratic assembly, bourgeoisie, workmen, soldiers, officers, women in
+evening dress and peasant women with shawls over their heads. No one
+spoke or whispered.
+
+Suddenly there was a knock. The door was opened. The priest stood there,
+in his crimson and gold. "Christ is risen!" he cried, his voice
+vibrating as though he had indeed but just now, out there in the dark
+and wind, made the great discovery.
+
+"He is risen indeed!" came the reply from us all. Markovitch embraced
+me. "Let us go," he whispered, "I can't bear it somehow to-night."
+
+We went out. Everywhere the bells were ringing--the wonderful deep boom
+of St. Isaac's, and then all the other bells, jangling, singing, crying,
+chattering, answering from all over Petrograd. From the other side of
+the Neva came the report of the guns and the fainter, more distant echo
+of the guns near the sea. I could hear behind it all the incessant
+"chuck-chuck, chuck-chuck," of the ice colliding on the river.
+
+It was very cold, and we hurried back to Anglisky Prospect. Markovitch
+was quite silent all the way.
+
+When we arrived we found Vera and Uncle Ivan and Semyonov waiting for us
+(Bohun was with friends). On the table was the _paskha_, a sweet paste
+made of eggs and cream, curds and sugar, a huge ham, a large cake or
+rather, sweet bread called _kulich_, and a big bowl full of Easter eggs,
+as many-coloured as the rainbow. This would be the fare during the whole
+week, as there was to be no cooking until the following Saturday--and
+very tired of the ham and the eggs one became before that day. There was
+also wine--some of Semyonov's gift, I supposed--and a tiny bottle of
+vodka.
+
+We were not a very cheerful company. Uncle Ivan, who was really
+distinguished by his complete inability to perceive what was going on
+under his nose, was happy, and ate a great deal of the ham and certainly
+more of the _paskha_ than was good for him.
+
+I do not know who was responsible for the final incident--Semyonov
+perhaps--but I have often wondered whether some word or other of mine
+precipitated it. We had finished our meal and were sitting quietly
+together, each occupied with his own thoughts. I had noticed that
+Markovitch had been drinking a great deal.
+
+I was just thinking it was time for me to go when I heard Semyonov say:
+
+"Well, what do you think of your Revolution now, Nicholas?"
+
+"What do you mean--my Revolution?" he asked.
+
+(The strange thing on looking back is that the whole of this scene seems
+to me to have passed in a whisper, as though we were all terrified of
+somebody.)
+
+"Well--do you remember how you talked to me?... about the saving of the
+world and all the rest of it that this was going to be? Doesn't seem to
+be quite turning out that way, does it, from all one hears? A good deal
+of quarrelling, isn't there? And what about the army--breaking up a bit,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Don't, Uncle Alexei," I heard Vera whisper.
+
+"What I said I still believe," Nicholas answered very quietly. "Leave
+Russia alone, Alexei--and leave me alone, too."
+
+"I'm not touching you, Nicholas," Semyonov answered, laughing softly.
+
+"Yes you are--you know that you are. I'm not angry--not yet. But it's
+unwise of you--unwise...."
+
+"Unwise--how?"
+
+"Never mind. 'Below the silent pools there lie hidden many devils.'
+Leave me alone. You are our guest."
+
+"Indeed, Nicholas," said Semyonov, still laughing, "I mean you no harm.
+Ask our friend Durward here whether I ever mean any one any harm. He
+will, I'm sure, give me the best of characters."
+
+"No--no harm perhaps--but still you tease me.... I'm a fool to mind....
+But then I am a fool--every one knows it."
+
+All the time he was looking with his pathetic eyes and his pale face at
+Vera.
+
+Vera said again, very low, almost in a whisper: "Uncle Alexei...
+please."
+
+"But really, Nicholas," Semyonov went on, "you under-rate yourself. You
+do indeed. Nobody thinks you a fool. I think you a very lucky man. With
+your talents--"
+
+"Talents!" said Nicholas softly, looking at Vera. "I have no talents."
+
+"--And Vera's love for you," went on Semyonov--
+
+"Ah! that is over!" Nicholas said, so low that I scarcely heard it. I do
+not know what then exactly happened. I think that Vera put out her hand
+to cover Nicholas'. At any rate I saw him draw his away, very gently. It
+lay on the table, and the only sound beside the voices was the tiny
+rattle of his nails as his hand trembled against the woodwork.
+
+Vera said something that I did not catch.
+
+"No..." Nicholas said. "No... We must be true with one another, Vera.
+I have been drinking too much wine. My head is aching, and perhaps my
+words are not very clear. But it gives me courage to say what I have in
+my mind. I haven't thought out yet what we must do. Perhaps you can
+help me. But I must tell you that I saw everything that happened here on
+that Thursday afternoon in the week of the Revolution--"
+
+Vera made a little movement of distress
+
+"Yes, you didn't know--but I was in my room--where Alexei sleeps now,
+you know. I couldn't help seeing. I'm very sorry."
+
+"No, Nicholas, I'm very glad," Vera answered quietly.
+
+"I would have told you in any case. I should have told you before. I
+love him and he loves me, just as you saw. I would like Ivan
+Andreievitch and Uncle Ivan and every one to know. There is nothing to
+conceal. I have never loved any one before, and I'm not ashamed of
+loving some one now.... It doesn't alter our life, Nicholas. I care for
+you just as I did care, and I will do just as you tell me. I will never
+see him again if that's what you wish, but I shall always love him."
+
+"Ah, Vera--you are cruel." Nicholas gave a little cry like a hurt
+animal, then he went away from us, standing for a moment looking at us.
+
+"We'll have to consider what we must do. I don't know. I can't think
+to-night.... And you, Alexei, you leave me alone...."
+
+He went stumbling away towards his bedroom.
+
+Vera said nothing to any of us. She got up slowly, looked about her for
+a moment as though she were bewildered by the light and then went after
+Nicholas. I turned to Semyonov.
+
+"You'd better go back to your own place," I said.
+
+"Not yet, thank you," he answered, smiling.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+On the afternoon of Easter Monday I was reminded by Bohun of an
+engagement that I had made some weeks before to go that evening to a
+party at the house of a rich merchant, Rozanov by name. I have, I think,
+mentioned him earlier in this book. I cannot conceive why I had ever
+made the promise, and in the afternoon, meeting Bohun at Watkins'
+bookshop in the Morskaia, I told him that I couldn't go.
+
+"Oh, come along!" he said. "It's your duty."
+
+"Why my duty?"
+
+"They're all talking as hard as they can about saving the world by
+turning the other cheek, and so on; and a few practical facts about
+Germany from you will do a world of good."
+
+"Oh, your propaganda!" I said.
+
+"No, it isn't my propaganda," he answered. "It's a matter of life and
+death to get these people to go on with the war, and every little
+helps."
+
+"Well, I'll come," I said, shaking my head at the book-seller, who was
+anxious that I should buy the latest works of Mrs. Elinor Glyn and Miss
+Ethel Dell. I had in fact reflected that a short excursion into other
+worlds would be good for me. During these weeks I had been living in the
+very heart of the Markovitches, and it would be healthy to escape for a
+moment.
+
+But I was not to escape.
+
+I met Bohun at the top of the English Prospect, and we decided to walk.
+Rozanov lived in the street behind the Kazan Cathedral. I did not know
+very much about him except that he was a very wealthy merchant, who had
+made his money by selling cheap sweets to the peasant. He lived, I knew,
+an immoral and self-indulgent life, and his hobby was the quite
+indiscriminate collection of modern Russian paintings, his walls being
+plastered with innumerable works by Benois, Somoff, Dobeijinsky,
+Yakofflyeff, and Lançeray. He had also two Serovs, a fine Vrubel, and
+several Ryepins. He had also a fine private collection of indecent
+drawings.
+
+"I really don't know what on earth we're going to this man for," I said
+discontentedly. "I was weak this afternoon."
+
+"No, you weren't," said Bohun. "And I'll tell you frankly that I'm jolly
+glad not to be having a meal at home to-night. Do you know, I don't
+believe I can stick that flat much longer!"
+
+"Why, are things worse?" I asked.
+
+"It's getting so jolly creepy," Bohun said. "Everything goes on normally
+enough outwardly, but I suppose there's been some tremendous row. Of
+course I don't knew any-thing about that. After what you told me the
+other night though, I seem to see everything twice its natural size."
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked him.
+
+"You know when something queer's going on inside a house you seem to
+notice the furniture of the rooms much more than you ordinarily do. I
+remember once a fellow's piano making me quite sick whenever I looked at
+it. I didn't know why; I don't know why now, but the funny thing is that
+another man who knew him once said exactly the same thing to me about
+it. He felt it too. Of course we're none of us quite normal just now.
+The whole town seems to be turning upside down. I'm always imagining
+there are animals in the canals; and don't you notice what lots of queer
+fellows there are in the Nevski now, and Chinese and Japs--all sorts of
+wild men. And last night I had a dream that all the lumps of ice in the
+Nevski turned into griffins and went marching through the Red Square
+eating every one up on their way...." Bohun laughed. "That's because
+_I'd_ eaten something of course--too much _paskha_ probably.
+
+"But, seriously, I came in this evening at five o'clock, and the first
+thing I noticed was that little red lacquer musical box of Semyonov's.
+You know it. The one with a sports-man in a top hat and a horse and a
+dog on the lid. He brought it with some other little things when he
+moved in. It's a jolly thing to look at, but it's got two most
+irritating tunes. One's like 'The Blue Bells of Scotland.' You said
+yourself the other day it would drive you mad if you heard it often.
+Well, there it was, jangling away in its self-sufficient wheezy voice.
+Semyonov was sitting in the armchair reading the newspaper, Markovitch
+was standing behind the chair with the strangest look on his face.
+Suddenly, just as I came in he bent down and I heard him say: 'Won't you
+stop the beastly thing?' 'Certainly,' said Semyonov, and he went across
+in his heavy plodding kind of way and stopped it. I went off to my room
+and then, upon my word, five minutes after I heard it begin again, thin
+and reedy through the walls. But when I came back into the dining-room
+there was no one there. You can't think how that tune irritated me, and
+I tried to stop it. I went up to it, but I couldn't find the hinge or
+the key. So on it went, over and over again. Then there's another thing.
+Have you ever noticed how some chairs will creak in a room, just as
+though some one were sitting down or getting up? It always, in ordinary
+times, makes you jump, but when you're strung up about something--!
+There's a chair in the Markovitches' dining-room just like that. It
+creaks more like a human being than anything you ever heard, and
+to-night I could have sworn Semyonov got up out of it. It was just like
+his heavy slow movement. However, there wasn't any one there. Do you
+think all this silly?" he asked.
+
+"No, indeed I don't," I answered.
+
+"Then there's a picture. You know that awful painting of a mid-Victorian
+ancestor of Vera's--a horrible old man with bushy eyebrows and a high,
+rather dirty-looking stock?"
+
+"Yes, I know it," I said.
+
+"It's one of those pictures with eyes that follow you all round the
+room. At least it has now. I usen't to notice them. Now they stare at
+you as though they'd eat you, and I know that Markovitch feels them
+because he keeps looking up at the beastly thing. Then there's--But no,
+I'm not going to talk any more about it. It isn't any good. One gets
+thinking of anything these days. One's nerves are all on edge. And that
+flat's too full of people any way."
+
+"Yes, it is," I agreed.
+
+We arrived at Rozanov's house, and went up in a very elegant
+heavily-gilt lift. Once in the flat we were enveloped in a cloud of men
+and women, tobacco smoke, and so many pictures that it was like tumbling
+into an art-dealer's. Where there weren't pictures there was gilt, and
+where there wasn't gilt there was naked statuary, and where there wasn't
+naked statuary there was Rozanov, very red and stout and smiling, gay in
+a tightly fitting black-tail coat, white waistcoat and black trousers.
+Who all the people were I haven't the least idea. There was a great
+many. A number of Jews and Jewesses, amiable, prosperous, and kindly, an
+artist or two, a novelist, a lady pianist, two or three actors. I
+noticed these. Then there was an old maid, a Mlle. Finisterre, famous in
+Petrograd society for her bitterness and acrimony, and in appearance an
+exact copy of Balzac's Sophie Gamond.
+
+I noticed several of those charming, quiet, wise women of whom Russia is
+so prodigal, a man or two whom I had met at different times, especially
+one officer, one of the finest, bravest, and truest men I have ever
+known; some of the inevitable giggling girls--and then suddenly,
+standing quite alone, Nina!
+
+Her loneliness was the first thing that struck me. She stood back
+against the wall underneath the shining frames, looking about her with a
+nervous, timid smile. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in the
+old way that she used to do when she was trying to imitate Vera, and I
+don't know why but that seemed to me a good omen, as though she were
+already on her way back to us. She was wearing a very simple white
+frock.
+
+In spite of her smile she looked unhappy, and I could see that during
+this last week experience had not been kind to her, because there was an
+air of shyness and uncertainty which had never been there before. I was
+just going over to speak to her when two of the giggling girls
+surrounded her and carried her off.
+
+I carried the little picture of her in my mind all through the noisy,
+strident meal that followed. I couldn't see her from where I sat, nor
+did I once catch the tones of her voice, although I listened. Only a
+month ago there would have been no party at which Nina was present where
+her voice would not have risen above all others.
+
+No one watching us would have believed any stories about food shortage
+in Petrograd. I daresay at this very moment in Berlin they are having
+just such meals. Until the last echo of the last Trump has died away in
+the fastnesses of the advancing mountains the rich will be getting from
+somewhere the things that they desire! I have no memory of what we had
+to eat that night, but I know that it was all very magnificent and
+noisy, kind-hearted and generous and vulgar. A great deal of wine was
+drunk, and by the end of the meal every one was talking as loudly as
+possible. I had for companion the beautiful Mlle. Finisterre. She had
+lived all her life in Petrograd, and she had a contempt for the citizens
+of that fine town worthy of Semyonov himself. Opposite us sat a stout,
+good-natured Jewess, who was very happily enjoying her food. She was
+certainly the most harmless being in creation, and was probably guilty
+of a thousand generosities and kindnesses in her private life.
+Nevertheless, Mlle. Finisterre had for her a dark and sinister hatred,
+and the remarks that she made about her, in her bitter and piercing
+voice, must have reached their victim. She also abused her host very
+roundly, beginning to tell me in the fullest detail the history of an
+especially unpleasant scandal in which he had notoriously figured. I
+stopped her at last.
+
+"It seems to me," I said, "that it would be better not to say these
+things about him while you're eating his bread and salt."
+
+She laughed shrilly, and tapped me on the arm with a bony finger.
+
+"Oh, you English!... always so moral and strict about the proprieties...
+and always so hypercritical too. Oh, you amuse me! I'm French, you
+see--not Russian at all; these poor people see through nothing--but we
+French!"
+
+After dinner there was a strange scene. We all moved into the long,
+over-decorated drawing-room. We sat about, admired the pictures (a
+beautiful one by Somoff I especially remember--an autumn scene with
+eighteenth-century figures and colours so soft and deep that the effect
+was inexpressibly delicate and mysterious), talked and then fell into
+one of those Russian silences that haunt every Russian party. I call
+those silences "Russian," because I know nothing like them in any other
+part of the world. It is as though the souls of the whole company
+suddenly vanished through the windows, leaving only the bodies and
+clothes. Every one sits, eyes half closed, mouths shut, hands
+motionless, host and hostess, desperately abandoning every attempt at
+rescue, gaze about them in despair.
+
+The mood may easily last well into the morning, when the guests, still
+silent, will depart, assuring everybody that they have enjoyed
+themselves immensely, and really believing that they have; or it may
+happen that some remark will suddenly be made, and instantly back
+through the windows the souls will come, eagerly catching up their
+bodies again, and a babel will arise, deafening, baffling, stupefying.
+Or it may happen that a Russian will speak with sudden authority, almost
+like a prophet, and will continue for half an hour and more, pouring out
+his soul, and no one will dream of thinking it an improper exhibition.
+
+In fine, anything can happen at a Russian party. What happened on this
+occasion was this. The silence had lasted for some minutes, and I was
+wondering for how much longer I could endure it (I had one eye on Nina
+somewhere in the background, and the other on Bohun restlessly kicking
+his patent-leather shoes one against the other), when suddenly a quiet,
+ordinary little woman seated near me said:
+
+"The thing for Russia to do now is to abandon all resistance and so
+shame the world." She was a mild, pleasant-looking woman, with the eyes
+of a very gentle cow, and spoke exactly as though she were still
+pursuing her own private thoughts. It was enough; the windows flew open,
+the souls came flooding in, and such a torrent of sound poured over the
+carpet that the naked statuary itself seemed to shiver at the threatened
+deluge. Every one talked; every one, even, shouted. Just as, during the
+last weeks, the streets had echoed to the words "Liberty," "Democracy,"
+"Socialism," "Brotherhood," "Anti-annexation," "Peace of the world," so
+now the art gallery echoed. The very pictures shook in their frames.
+
+One old man in a white beard continued to cry, over and over again,
+"Firearms are not our weapons... bullets are not our weapons. It's the
+Peace of God, the Peace of God that we need."
+
+One lady (a handsome Jewess) jumped up from her chair, and standing
+before us all recited a kind of chant, of which I only caught sentences
+once, and again:
+
+"Russia must redeem the world from its sin... this slaughter must be
+slayed... Russia the Saviour of the world... this slaughter must be
+slayed."
+
+I had for some time been watching Bohun. He had travelled a long journey
+since that original departure from England in December; but I was not
+sure whether he had travelled far enough to forget his English terror of
+making a fool of himself. Apparently he had.... He said, his voice
+shaking a little, blushing as he spoke:
+
+"What about Germany?"
+
+The lady in the middle of the floor turned upon him furiously:
+
+"Germany! Germany will learn her lesson from us. When we lay down our
+arms her people, too, will lay down theirs."
+
+"Supposing she doesn't?"
+
+The interest of the room was now centred on him, and every one else was
+silent.
+
+"That is not our fault. We shall have made our example."
+
+A little hum of applause followed this reply, and that irritated Bohun.
+He raised his voice:
+
+"Yes, and what about your allies, England and France, are you going to
+betray them?"
+
+Several voices took him up now. A man continued:
+
+"It is not betrayal. We are not betraying the proletariat of England and
+France. They are our friends. But the alliance with the French and
+English Capitalistic Governments was made not by us but by our own
+Capitalistic Government, which is now destroyed."
+
+"Very well, then," said Bohun. "But when the war began did you not--all
+of you, not only your Government, but you people now sitting in this
+room--did you not all beg and pray England to come in? During those days
+before England's intervention, did you not threaten to call us cowards
+and traitors if we did not come in? _Pomnite_?"
+
+There was a storm of answers to this. I could not distinguish much of
+what it was. I was fixed by Mlle. Finisterre's eagle eye, gleaming at
+the thought of the storm that was rising.
+
+"That's not our affair.... That's not our affair," I heard voices
+crying. "We did support you. For years we supported you. We lost
+millions of men in your service.... Now this terrible slaughter must
+cease, and Russia show the way to peace."
+
+Bohun's moment then came upon him. He sprang to his feet, his face
+crimson, his body quivering; so desperate was his voice, so urgent his
+distress that the whole room was held.
+
+"What has happened to you all? Don't you see, don't you see what you are
+doing? What has come to you, you who were the most modest people in
+Europe and are now suddenly the most conceited? What do you hope to do
+by this surrender?
+
+"Do you know, in the first place, what you will do? You will deliver the
+peoples of three-quarters of the globe into hopeless slavery; you will
+lose, perhaps for ever, the opportunity of democracy; you will establish
+the grossest kind of militarism for all time. Why do you think Germany
+is going to listen to you? What sign has she ever shown that she would?
+When have her people ever turned away or shown horror at any of the
+beastly things her rulers have been doing in this war?... What about
+your own Revolution? Do you believe in it? Do you treasure it? Do you
+want it to last? Do you suppose for a moment that, if you bow to
+Germany, she won't instantly trample out your Revolution and give you
+hack your monarchy? How can she afford to have a revolutionary republic
+close to her own gates? What is she doing at this moment? Piling up
+armies with which to invade you, and conquer you, and lead you into
+slavery. What have you done so far by your Revolutionary orders? What
+have you done by relaxing discipline in the army? What good have you
+done to any one or anything? Is any one the happier? Isn't there
+disorder everywhere--aren't all your works stopping and your industries
+failing? What about the eighty million peasants who have been liberated
+in the course of a night? Who's going to lead them if you are not? This
+thing has happened by its own force, and you are sitting down under it,
+doing nothing. Why did it succeed? Simply because there was nothing to
+oppose it. Authority depended on the army, not on the Czar, and the army
+was the people. So it is with the other armies of the world. Do you
+think that the other armies couldn't do just as you did if they wished.
+They could, in half an hour. They hate the war as much as you do, but
+they have also patriotism. They see that their country must be made
+strong first before other countries will listen to its ideas. But where
+is your patriotism? Has the word Russia been mentioned once by you since
+the Revolution? Never once.... 'Democracy,' 'Brotherhood'--but how are
+Democracy and Brotherhood to be secured unless other countries respect
+you.... Oh, I tell you it's absurd!... It's more than absurd, it's
+wicked, it's rotten...."
+
+Poor boy, he was very near tears. He sat down suddenly, staring blankly
+in front of him, his hands clenched.
+
+Rozanov answered him, Rozanov flushed, his fat body swollen with food
+and drink, a little unsteady on his legs, and the light of the true
+mystic in his pig-like eyes. He came forward into the middle of the
+circle.
+
+"That's perhaps true what you say," he cried; "it's very English, very
+honest, and, if you will forgive me, young man, very simple. You say
+that we Russians are conceited. No, we are not conceited, but we see
+farther than the rest of the world. Is that our curse? Perhaps it is,
+but equally, perhaps, we may save the world by it. Now look at me! Am I
+a fine man? No, I am not. Every one knows I am not. No man could look at
+my face and say that I am a fine man. I have done disgraceful things all
+my life. All present know some of the things I have done, and there are
+some worse things which nobody knows save myself. Well, then.... Am I
+going to stop doing such things? Am I now, at fifty-five, about to
+become instantly a saint? Indeed not. I shall continue to do the things
+that I have already done, and I shall drop into a beastly old age. I
+know it.
+
+"So, young man, I am a fair witness. You may trust me to speak the truth
+as I see it. I believe in Christ. I believe in the Christ-life, the
+Christ-soul. If I could, I would stop my beastliness and become
+Christlike. I have tried on several occasions, and failed, because I
+have no character. But does that mean that I do not believe in it when I
+see it? Not at all. I believe in it more than ever. And so with
+Russia--you don't see far enough, young man, neither you nor any of your
+countrymen. It is one of your greatest failings that you do not care for
+ideas. How is this war going to end? By the victory of Germany?
+Perhaps.... Perhaps even it may be that Russia by her weakness will help
+to that victory. But is that the end? No.... If Russia has an Idea and
+because of her faith in that Idea, she will sacrifice everything, will
+be buffeted on both cheeks, will be led into slavery, will deliver up
+her land and her people, will be mocked at by all the world... perhaps
+that is her destiny.... She will endure all that in order that her Idea
+may persist. And her Idea will persist. Are not the Germans and
+Austrians human like ourselves? Slowly, perhaps very slowly, they will
+say to themselves: 'There is Russia who believes in the peace of the
+world, in the brotherhood of man, and she will sacrifice everything for
+it, she will go out, as Christ did, and be tortured and be
+crucified--and then on the third day she will rise again.' Is not that
+the history of every triumphant Idea?... You say that meanwhile Germany
+will triumph. Perhaps for a time she may, but our Idea will not die.
+
+"The further Germany goes, the deeper will that Idea penetrate into her
+heart. At the end she will die of it, and a new Germany will be born
+into a new world.... I tell you I am an evil man, but I believe in God
+and in the righteousness of God."
+
+What do I remember after those words of Rozanov? It was like a voice
+speaking to me across a great gulf of waters--but that voice was honest.
+I do not know what happened after his speech. I think there was a lot of
+talk. I cannot remember.
+
+Only just before I was going I was near Nina for a moment.
+
+She looked up at me just as she used to do.
+
+"Durdles--is Vera all right?"
+
+"She's miserable, Nina, because you're not there. Come back to us."
+
+But she shook her head.
+
+"No, no, I can't. Give her my--" Then she stopped. "No, tell her
+nothing."
+
+"Can I tell her you're happy?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," she answered roughly, turning away from me.
+
+
+
+X
+
+But the adventures of that Easter Monday night were not yet over. I had
+walked away with Bohun; he was very silent, depressed, poor boy, and shy
+with the reaction of his outburst.
+
+"I made the most awful fool of myself," he said.
+
+"No, you didn't," I answered.
+
+"The trouble of it is," he said slowly, "that neither you nor I see the
+humorous side of it all strongly enough. We take it too seriously. It's
+got a funny side all right."
+
+"Maybe you're right," I said. "But you must remember that the Markovitch
+situation isn't exactly funny just now--and we're both in the middle of
+it. Oh! if only I could find Nina back home and Semyonov away, I believe
+the strain would lift. But I'm frightened that something's going to
+happen. I've grown very fond of these people, you know, Bohun--Vera and
+Nina and Nicholas. Isn't it odd how one gets to love Russians--more than
+one's own people? The more stupid things they do the more you love
+them--whereas with one's own people it's quite the other way. Oh, I do
+_want_ Vera and Nina and Nicholas to be happy!"
+
+"Isn't the town queer to-night?" said Bohun, suddenly stopping. (We were
+just at the entrance to the Mariensky Square.)
+
+"Yes," I said. "I think these days between the thaw and the white nights
+are in some ways the strangest of all. There seems to be so much going
+on that one can't quite see."
+
+"Yes--over there--at the other end of the Square--there's a kind of
+mist--a sort of water-mist. It comes from the Canal."
+
+"And do you see a figure like an old bent man with a red lantern? Do you
+see what I mean--that red light?"
+
+"And those shadows on the further wall like riders passing with
+silver-tipped spears? Isn't it...? There they go--ten, eleven, twelve,
+thirteen...."
+
+"How still the Square is? Do you see those three windows all alight?
+Isn't there a dance going on? Don't you hear the music?"
+
+"No, it's the wind."
+
+"No, surely.... That's a flute--and then violins. Listen! Those are
+fiddles for certain!"
+
+"How still, how still it is!"
+
+We stood and listened whilst the white mist gathered and grew over the
+cobbles. Certainly there was a strain of music, very faint and dim,
+threading through the air.
+
+"Well, I must go on," said Bohun. "You go up to the left, don't you?
+Good-night." I watched Bohun's figure cross the Square. The light was
+wonderful, like fold on fold of gauze, but opaque, so that buildings
+showed with sharp outline behind it. The moon was full and quite red. I
+turned to go home and ran straight into Lawrence.
+
+"Good heavens!" I cried. "Are you a ghost too?"
+
+He didn't seem to feel any surprise at meeting me. He was plainly in a
+state of tremendous excitement. He spoke breathlessly.
+
+"You're exactly the man. You must come back with me. My diggings now are
+only a yard away from here."
+
+"It's very late," I began, "and--"
+
+"Things are desperate," he said. "I don't know--" he broke off. "Oh!
+come and help me, Durward, for God's sake!"
+
+I went with him, and we did not exchange another word until we were in
+his rooms.
+
+He began hurriedly taking off his clothes. "There! Sit on the bed.
+Different from Wilderling's, isn't it? Poor devil.... I'm going to have
+a bath if you don't mind--I've got to clear my head."
+
+He dragged out a tin bath from under his bed, then a big can of water
+from a corner. Stripped, he looked so thick and so strong, with his
+short neck and his bull-dog build, that I couldn't help saying,
+
+"You don't look a day older than the last time you played Rugger for
+Cambridge."
+
+"I am, though." He sluiced the cold water over his head, grunting. "Not
+near so fit--gettin' fat too.... Rugger days are over. Wish all my other
+days were over too."
+
+He got out of the bath, wiped himself, put on pyjamas, brushed his
+teeth, then his hair, took out a pipe, and then sat beside me on the
+bed.
+
+"Look here, Durward," he said. "I'm desperate, old man." (He said
+"desprite.") "We're all in a hell of a mess."
+
+"I know," I said.
+
+He puffed furiously at his pipe.
+
+"You know, if I'm not careful I shall go a bit queer in the head. Get so
+angry, you know," he added simply.
+
+"Angry with whom?" I asked.
+
+"With myself mostly for bein' such a bloody fool. But not only
+myself--with Civilisation, Durward, old cock!--and also with that swine
+Semyonov."
+
+"Ah, I thought you'd come to him," I said.
+
+"Now the points are these," he went on, counting on his thick stubbly
+fingers. "First, I love Vera--and when I say love I mean love. Never
+been in love before, you know--honest Injun, never.... Never had affairs
+with tobacconists' daughters at Cambridge--never had an affair with a
+woman in my life--no, never. Used to wonder what was the matter with me,
+why I wasn't like other chaps. Now I know. I was waitin' for Vera. Quite
+simple. I shall never love any one again--never. I'm not a kid, you
+know, like young Bohun--I love Vera once and for all, and that's that..."
+
+"Yes," I said. "And the next point?"
+
+"The next point is that Vera loves me. No need to go into that--but she
+does."
+
+"Yes, she does," I said.
+
+"Third point, she's married, and although she don't love her man she's
+sorry for him. Fourth point, he loves her. Fifth point, there's a
+damned swine hangin' round called Alexei Petrovitch Semyonov.... Well,
+then, there you have it."
+
+He considered, scratching his head. I waited. Then he went on:
+
+"Now it would be simpler if she didn't want to be kind to Nicholas, if
+Nicholas didn't love her, if--a thousand things were different. But they
+must be as they are, I suppose. I've just been with her. She's nearly
+out of her mind with worry."
+
+He paused, puffing furiously at his pipe. Then he went on:
+
+"She's worrying about me, about Nina, and about Nicholas. And especially
+about Nicholas. There's something wrong with him. He knows about my
+kissing her in the flat. Well, that's all right. I meant him to know.
+Everything's just got to be above-board. But Semyonov knows too, and
+that devil's been raggin' him about it, and Nicholas is just like a
+bloomin' kid. That's got to stop. I'll wring that feller's neck. But
+even that wouldn't help matters much. Vera says Nicholas is not to be
+hurt whatever happens. 'Never mind us,' she says, 'we're strong and can
+stand it.' But he can't. He's weak. And she says he's just goin' off his
+dot. And it's got to be stopped--it's just got to be stopped. There's
+only one way to stop it."
+
+He stayed: suddenly he put his heavy hand on my knee.
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked.
+
+"I've got to clear out. That's what I mean. Right away out. Back to
+England."
+
+I didn't speak.
+
+"That's it," he went on, but now as though he were talking to himself.
+"That's what you've got to do, old son.... She says so, and she's right.
+Can't alter our love, you know. Nothing changes that. We've got to hold
+on... Ought to have cleared out before...."
+
+Suddenly he turned. He almost flung himself upon me. He gripped my arms
+so that I would have cried out if the agony in his eyes hadn't held me.
+
+"Here," he muttered, "let me alone for a moment. I must hold on. I'm
+pretty well beat. I'm just about done."
+
+For what seemed hours we sat there. I believe it was, in reality, only a
+few minutes. He sat facing me, his eyes staring at me but not seeing me,
+his body close against me, and I could see the sweat glistening on his
+chest through the open pyjamas. He was rigid as though he had been
+struck into stone.
+
+He suddenly relaxed.
+
+"That's right," he said; "thanks, old man. I'm better now. It's a bit
+late, I expect, but stay on a while."
+
+He got into bed. I sat beside him, gripped his hand, and ten minutes
+later he was asleep.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+The next day, Tuesday, was stormy with wind and rain. It was strange to
+see from my window the whirlpool of ice-encumbered waters. The rain fell
+in slanting, hissing sheets upon the ice, and the ice, in lumps and
+sheets and blocks, tossed and heaved and spun. At times it was as though
+all the ice was driven by some strong movement in one direction, then it
+was like the whole pavement of the world slipping down the side of the
+firmament into space. Suddenly it would be checked and, with a kind of
+quiver, station itself and hang chattering and clutching until the sweep
+would begin in the opposite direction!
+
+I could see only dimly through the mist, but it was not difficult to
+imagine that, in very truth, the days of the flood had returned. Nothing
+could be seen but the tossing, heaving welter of waters with the ice,
+grim and grey through the shadows, like "ships and monsters,
+sea-serpents and mermaids," to quote Galleon's _Spanish Nights_.
+
+Of course the water came in through my own roof, and it was on that very
+afternoon that I decided, once and for all, to leave this abode of mine.
+Romantic it might be; I felt it was time for a little comfortable
+realism. My old woman brought me the usual cutlets, macaroni, and tea
+for lunch; then I wrote to a friend in England; and finally, about four
+o'clock, after one more look at the hissing waters, drew my curtains,
+lit my candles, and sat down near my stove to finish that favourite of
+mine, already mentioned in these pages, De la Mare's _The Return_.
+
+I read on with absorbed attention. I did not hear the dripping on the
+roof, nor the patter-patter of the drops from the ceiling, nor the
+beating of the storm against the glass. My candles blew in the draught,
+and shadows crossed and recrossed the page. Do you remember the book's
+closing words?--
+
+"Once, like Lawford in the darkness at Widderstone, he glanced up
+sharply across the lamplight at his phantasmagorical shadowy companion,
+heard the steady surge of multitudinous rain-drops, like the roar of
+Time's winged chariot hurrying near, then he too, with spectacles awry,
+bobbed on in his chair, a weary old sentinel on the outskirts of his
+friend's denuded battlefield."
+
+"Shadowy companion," "multitudinous rain-drops," "a weary old sentinel,"
+"his friend's denuded battlefield"... the words echoed like little
+muffled bells in my brain, and it was, I suppose, to their chiming that
+I fell into dreamless sleep.
+
+From this I was suddenly roused by the sharp noise of knocking, and
+starting up, my book clattering to the floor, I saw facing me, in the
+doorway, Semyonov. Twice before he had come to me just like this--out of
+the heart of a dreamless sleep. Once in the orchard near Buchatch, on a
+hot summer afternoon; once in this same room on a moonlit night. Some
+strange consciousness, rising, it seemed, deep out of my sleep, told me
+that this would be the last time that I would so receive him.
+
+"May I come in?" he said.
+
+"If you must, you must," I answered. "I am not physically strong enough
+to prevent you."
+
+He laughed. He was dripping wet. He took off his hat and overcoat, sat
+down near the stove, bending forward, holding his cloak in his hands and
+watching the steam rise from it.
+
+I moved away and stood watching. I was not going to give him any
+possible illusion as to my welcoming him. He turned round and looked at
+me.
+
+"Truly, Ivan Andreievitch," he said, "you are a fine host. This is a
+miserable greeting."
+
+"There can be no greetings between us ever again," I answered him. "You
+are a blackguard. I hope that this is our last meeting."
+
+"But it is," he answered, looking at me with friendliness; "that is
+precisely why I've come. I've come to say good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye?" I repeated with astonishment. This chimed in so strangely
+with my premonition. "I never was more delighted to hear it. I hope
+you're going a long distance from us all."
+
+"That's as may be," he answered. "I can't tell you definitely."
+
+"When are you going?" I asked.
+
+"That I can't tell you either. But I have a premonition that it will be
+soon."
+
+"Oh, a premonition," I said, disappointed. "Is nothing settled?"
+
+"No, not definitely. It depends on others."
+
+"Have you told Vera and Nicholas?"
+
+"No--in fact, only last night Vera begged me to go away, and I told her
+that I would love to do anything to oblige her, but this time I was
+afraid that I couldn't help her. I would be compelled, alas, to stay on
+indefinitely."
+
+"Look here, Semyonov," I said, "stop that eternal fooling. Tell me
+honestly--are you going or not?"
+
+"Going away from where?" he asked, laughing.
+
+"From the Markovitches, from all of us, from Petrograd?"
+
+"Yes--I've told you already," he answered. "I've come to say good-bye."
+
+"Then what did you mean by telling Vera--"
+
+"Never you mind, Ivan Andreievitch. Don't worry your poor old head with
+things that are too complicated for you--a habit of yours, I'm afraid.
+Just believe me when I say that I've come to say good-bye. I have an
+intuition that we shall never talk together again. I may be wrong. But
+my intuitions are generally correct."
+
+I noticed then that his face was haggard, his eyes dark, the light in
+them exhausted as though he had not slept.... I had never before seen
+him show positive physical distress. Let his soul be what it might, his
+body seemed always triumphant.
+
+"Whether your intuition is right or no," I said, "this _is_ the last
+time. I never intend to speak to you again if I can help it. The day
+that I hear that you have really left us, never to return, will be one
+of the happiest days of my life."
+
+Semyonov gave me a strange look, humorous, ironical, and, upon my word,
+almost affectionate: "That's very sad what you say, Ivan
+Andreievitch--if you mean it. And I suppose you mean it, because you
+English always do mean what you say.... But it's sad because, truly, I
+have friendly feelings towards you, and you're almost the only man in
+the world of whom I could say that."
+
+"You speak as though your friendship were an honour," I said hotly.
+"It's a degradation."
+
+He smiled. "Now that's melodrama, straight out of your worst English
+plays. _And_ how bad they can be!... But you hadn't always this vehement
+hatred. What's changed your mind?"
+
+"I don't know that I _have_ changed my mind," I answered. "I think I've
+always disliked you. But there at the Front and in the Forest you were
+brave and extraordinarily competent. You treated Trenchard abominably,
+of course--but he rather asked for it in some ways. Here you've been
+nothing but the meanest skunk and sneak. You've set out deliberately to
+poison the lives of some of the best-hearted and most helpless people on
+this earth.... You deserve hanging, if any murderer ever did!"
+
+He looked at me so mildly and with such genuine interest that I was
+compelled to feel my indignation a whit melodramatic.
+
+"If you are going," I said more calmly, "for Heaven's sake go! It
+_can't_ be any pleasure to you, clever and talented as you are, to bait
+such harmless people as Vera and Nicholas. You've done harm enough.
+Leave them, and I forgive you everything."
+
+"Ah, of course your forgiveness is of the first importance to me," he
+said, with ironic gravity. "But it's true enough. You're going to be
+bothered with me--I _do_ seem a worry to you, don't I?--for only a few
+days more. And how's it going to end, do you think? Who's going to
+finish me off? Nicholas or Vera? Or perhaps our English Byron, Lawrence?
+Or even yourself? Have you your revolver with you? I shall offer no
+resistance, I promise you."
+
+Suddenly he changed. He came closer to me. His weary, exhausted eyes
+gazed straight into mine: "Ivan Andreievitch, never mind about the
+rest--never mind whether you do or don't hate me, that matters to
+nobody. What I tell you is the truth. I have come to you, as I have
+always come to you, like the moth to the flame. Why am I always pursuing
+you? Is it for the charm and fascination of your society? Your wit? Your
+beauty? I won't flatter you--no, no, it's because you alone, of all
+these fools here, knew her. You knew her as no one else alive knew her.
+She liked you--God knows why! At least I do know why--it was because of
+her youth and innocence and simplicity, because she didn't know a wise
+man from a fool, and trusted all alike.... But you knew her, you knew
+her. You remember her and can talk of her. Ah, how I've hungered,
+hungered, to talk to you about her! Sometimes I've come all this way and
+then turned back at the door. How I've prayed that it might have been
+some other who knew her, some real man, not a sentimental, gloomy old
+woman like yourself, Ivan Andreievitch. And yet you have your points.
+You have in you the things that she saw--you are honest, you are
+brave.... You are like a good English clergyman. But she!... I should
+have had some one with wit, with humour, with a sense of life about her.
+All the things, all the little things--the way she walked, her clothes,
+her smile--when she was cross! Ah, she was divine when she was cross!...
+Ivan Andreievitch, be kind to me! Think for a moment less of your
+morals, less of your principles--and talk to me of her! Talk to me of
+her!"
+
+He had drawn quite close to me; he looked like a madman--I have no doubt
+that, at that moment, he was one.
+
+"I can't!... I won't!" I answered, drawing away. "She is the most sacred
+memory I have in my life. I hate to think of her with you. And that
+because you smirch everything you touch. I have no feeling of
+jealousy...."
+
+"You? Jealousy!" he said, looking at me scornfully. "Why should you be
+jealous?"
+
+"I loved her too," I said.
+
+He looked at me. In spite of myself the colour flooded my face. He
+looked at me from head to foot--my plainness, my miserable physique, my
+lameness, my feeble frame--everything was comprehended in the scorn of
+that glance.
+
+"No," I said, "you need not suppose that she ever realised. She did not.
+I would have died rather than have spoken of it. But I will not talk
+about her. I will not."
+
+He drew away from me. His face was grave; the mockery had left it.
+
+"Oh, you English, how strange you are!... In trusting, yes.... But the
+things you miss! I understand now many things. I give up my desire. You
+shan't smirch your precious memories.... And you, too, must understand
+that there has been all this time a link that has bound us.... Well,
+that link has snapped. I must go. Meanwhile, after I am gone, remember
+that there is more in life, Ivan Andreievitch, than you will ever
+understand. Who am I?... Rather ask, what am I? I am a Desire, a
+Purpose, a Pursuit--what you like. If another suffer for that I cannot
+help it, and if human nature is so weak, so stupid, it is right that it
+should suffer. But perhaps I am not myself at all, Ivan Andreievitch.
+Perhaps this is a ghost that you see.... What if the town has changed in
+the night and strange souls have slipped into our old bodies?
+
+"Isn't there a stir about the town? Is it I that pursue Nicholas, or is
+it my ghost that pursues myself? Is it Nicholas that I pursue? Is not
+Nicholas dead, and is it not my hope of release that I follow?... Don't
+be so sure of your ground, Ivan Andreievitch. You know the proverb:
+'There's a secret city in every man's heart. It is at that city's altars
+that the true prayers are offered.' There has been more than one
+Revolution in the last two months."
+
+He came up to me:
+
+"Do not think too badly of me, Ivan Andreievitch, afterwards. I'm a
+haunted man, you know."
+
+He bent forward and kissed me on the lips. A moment later he was gone.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+That Tuesday night poor young Bohun will remember to his grave--and
+beyond it, I expect.
+
+He came in from his work about six in the evening and found Markovitch
+and Semyonov sitting in the dining-room. Everything was ordinary enough.
+Semyonov was in the armchair reading a newspaper; Markovitch was walking
+very quietly up and down the farther end of the room. He wore faded blue
+carpet slippers; he had taken to them lately. Everything was the same as
+it had always been. The storm that had raged all day had now died down,
+and a very pale evening sun struck little patches of colour on the big
+table with the fading table-cloth, on the old brown carpet, on the
+picture of the old gentleman with bushy eyebrows, on Semyonov's
+musical-box, on the old knick-knacks and the untidy shelf of books.
+(Bohun looked especially to see whether the musical-box were still
+there. It was there on a little side-table.) Bohun, tired with his long
+day's efforts to shove the glories of the British Empire down the
+reluctant throats of the indifferent Russians, dropped into the other
+armchair with a tattered copy of Turgenieff's _House of Gentle-folks_,
+and soon sank into a state of half-slumber.
+
+He roused himself from this to hear Semyonov reading extracts from the
+newspaper. He caught, at first, only portions of sentences. I am writing
+this, of course, from Bohun's account of it, and I cannot therefore
+quote the actual words, but they were incidents of disorder at the
+Front.
+
+"There!" Semyonov would say, pausing. "Now, Nicholas... What do you say
+to that? A nice state of things. The Colonel was murdered, of course,
+although our friend the _Retch_ doesn't put it quite so bluntly. The
+_Novaya Jezn_ of course highly approves. Here's another...." This went
+on for some ten minutes, and the only sound beside Semyonov's voice was
+Markovitch's padding steps. "Ah! here's another bit!... Now what about
+that, my fine upholder of the Russian Revolution? See what they've been
+doing near Riga! It says...."
+
+"Can't you leave it alone, Alexei? Keep your paper to yourself!"
+
+These words came in so strange a note, a tone so different from
+Markovitch's ordinary voice, that they were, to Bohun, like a warning
+blow on the shoulder.
+
+"There's gratitude--when I'm trying to interest you! How childish, too,
+not to face the real situation! Do you think you're going to improve
+things by pretending that anarchy doesn't exist? So soon, too, after
+your beautiful Revolution! How long is it? Let me see... March, April...
+yes, just about six weeks.... Well, well!"
+
+"Leave me alone, Alexei!... Leave me alone!"
+
+Bohun had with that such a sense of a superhuman effort at control
+behind the words that the pain of it was almost intolerable. He wanted,
+there and then, to have left the room. It would have been better for him
+had he done so. But some force held him in his chair, and, as the scene
+developed, be felt as though his sudden departure would have laid too
+emphatic a stress on the discomfort of it.
+
+He hoped that in a moment Vera or Uncle Ivan would come and the scene
+would end.
+
+Semyonov, meanwhile, continued: "What were those words you used to me
+not so long ago? Something about free Russia, I think--Russia moving
+like one man to save the world--Russia with an unbroken front.... Too
+optimistic, weren't you?"
+
+The padding feet stopped. In a whisper that seemed to Bohun to fill the
+room with echoing sound Markovitch said:
+
+"You have tempted me for weeks now, Alexei.... I don't know why you hate
+me so, nor why you pursue me. Go back to your own place. If I am an
+unfortunate man, and by my own fault, that should be nothing to you who
+are more fortunate."
+
+"Torment you! I?... My dear Nicholas, never! But you are so childish in
+your ideas--and are you unfortunate? I didn't know it. Is it about your
+inventions that you are speaking? Well, they were never very happy, were
+they?"
+
+"You praised them to me!"
+
+"Did I?... My foolish kindness of heart, I'm afraid. To tell the truth,
+I was thankful when you saw things as they were..."
+
+"You took them away from me."
+
+"I took them away? What nonsense! It was your own wish--Vera's wish
+too."
+
+"Yes, you persuaded both Vera and Nina that they were no good. They
+believed in them before you came."
+
+"You flatter me, Nicholas. I haven't such power over Vera's opinions,
+I'm afraid. If I tell her anything she believes at once the opposite.
+You must have seen that yourself."
+
+"You took her belief away from me. You took her love away from me."
+
+Semyonov laughed. That laugh seemed to rouse Markovitch to frenzy. He
+screamed out. "You have taken everything from me!... You will not leave
+me alone! You must be careful. You are in danger, I tell you."
+
+Semyonov sprang up from his chair, and the two men, advancing towards
+one another, came into Bohun's vision.
+
+Markovitch was like a madman, his hands raised, his eyes staring from
+his head, his body trembling. Semyonov was quiet, motionless, smiling,
+standing very close to the other.
+
+"Well, what are you going to do?" he asked.
+
+Markovitch stood for a moment, his hands raised, then his whole body
+seemed to collapse. He moved away, muttering something which Bohun could
+not hear. With shuffling feet, his head lowered, he went out of the
+room. Semyonov returned to his seat.
+
+To Bohun, an innocent youth with very simple and amiable ideas about
+life, the whole thing seemed "beastly beyond words."
+
+"I saw a man torture a dog once," he told me. "He didn't do much to it
+really. Tied it up to a tree and dug into it with a pen-knife. I went
+home and was sick.... Well, I felt sick this time, too."
+
+Nevertheless his own "sickness" was not the principal affair. The point
+was the sense of danger that seemed now to tinge with its own faint
+stain every article in the room. Bohun's hatred of Semyonov was so
+strong that he felt as though he would never be able to speak to him
+again; but it was not really of Semyonov that he was thinking. His
+thoughts were all centred round Markovitch. You must remember that for a
+long time now he had considered himself Markovitch's protector. This
+sense of his protection had developed in him an affection for the man
+that he would not otherwise have felt. He did not, of course, know of
+any of Markovitch's deepest troubles. He could only guess at his
+relations with Vera, and he did not understand the passionate importance
+that he attached to his Russian idea. But he knew enough to be aware of
+his childishness, his simplicity, his _naïveté_, and his essential
+goodness. "He's an awfully decent sort, really," he used to say in a
+kind of apologetic defence. The very fact of Semyonov's strength made
+his brutality seem now the more revolting. "Like hitting a fellow half
+your size"....
+
+He saw that things in that flat were approaching a climax, and he knew
+enough now of Russian impetuosity to realise that climaxes in that
+country are, very often, no ordinary affairs. It was just as though
+there were an evil smell in the flat, he explained to me. "It seemed to
+hang over everything. Things looked the same and yet they weren't the
+same at all."
+
+His main impression that "something would very soon happen if he didn't
+look out," drove everything else from his mind--but he didn't quite see
+what to do. Speak to Vera? To Nicholas? To Semyonov?... He didn't feel
+qualified to do any of these things.
+
+He went to bed that night early, about ten o'clock. He couldn't sleep.
+His door was not quite closed and he could hear first Vera, then Uncle
+Ivan, lastly Markovitch go to bed. He lay awake then, with that
+exaggerated sense of hearing that one has in the middle of the night,
+when one is compelled, as it were, against one's will, to listen for
+sounds. He heard the dripping of the tap in the bathroom, the creaking
+of some door in the wind (the storm had risen again) and all the
+thousand and one little uncertainties, like the agitated beating of
+innumerable hearts that penetrate the folds and curtains of the night.
+As he lay there he thought of what he would do did Markovitch really go
+off his head. He had a revolver, he knew. He had seen it in his hand.
+And then what was Semyonov after? My explanation had seemed, at first,
+so fantastic and impossible that Bohun had dismissed it, but now, after
+the conversation that he had just overheard, it did not seem impossible
+at all--especially in the middle of the night. His mind travelled back
+to his own first arrival in Petrograd, that first sleep at the "France"
+with the dripping water and the crawling rats, the plunge into the Kazan
+Cathedral, and everything that followed.
+
+He did not see, of course, his own progress since that day, or the many
+things that Russia had already done for him, but he did feel that such
+situations as the one he was now sharing were, to-day, much more in the
+natural order of things than they would have been four months before....
+
+He dozed off and then was awakened, sharply, abruptly, by the sound of
+Markovitch's padded feet. There could be no mistaking them; very softly
+they went past Bohun's door, down the passage towards the dining-room.
+He sat up in bed, and all the other sounds of the night seemed suddenly
+to be accentuated--the dripping of the tap, the blowing of the wind, and
+even the heavy breathing of old Sacha, who always slept in a sort of
+cupboard near the kitchen, with her legs hanging out into the passage.
+Suddenly no sound! The house was still, and, with that, the sense of
+danger and peril was redoubled, as though the house were holding its
+breath as it watched....
+
+Bohun could endure it no longer; he got up, put on his dressing-gown and
+bedroom slippers, and went out. When he got as far as the dining-room
+door he saw that Markovitch was standing in the middle of the room with
+a lighted candle in his hand. The glimmer of the candle flung a circle,
+outside which all was dusk. Within the glimmer there was Markovitch, his
+hair rough and strangely like a wig, his face pale yellow, and wearing
+an old quilted bed-jacket of a purple green colour. He was in a
+night-dress, and his naked legs were like sticks of tallow.
+
+He stood there, the candle shaking in his hand, as though he were
+uncertain as to what he would do next. He was saying something to
+himself, Bohun thought.
+
+At any rate his lips were moving. Then he put his hand into the pocket
+of his bed-coat and took out a revolver. Bohun saw it gleam in the
+candle-light. He held it up close to his eyes as though he were
+short-sighted and seemed to sniff at it. Then, clumsily, Bohun said, he
+opened it, to see whether it were loaded, I suppose, and closed it
+again. After that, very softly indeed, he shuffled off towards the door
+of Semyonov's room, the room that had once been the sanctuary of his
+inventions.
+
+All this time young Bohun was paralysed. He said that all his life now,
+in spite of his having done quite decently in France, he would doubt his
+capacity in a crisis because, during the whole of this affair, he never
+stirred. But that was because it was all exactly like a dream. "I was in
+the dream, you know, as well as the other fellows. You know those dreams
+when you're doing your very damnedest to wake up--when you struggle and
+sweat and know you'll die if something doesn't happen--well, it was like
+that, except that I didn't struggle and swear, but just stood there,
+like a painted picture, watching...."
+
+Markovitch had nearly reached Semyonov's door (you remember that there
+was a little square window of glass in the upper part of it) when he did
+a funny thing. He stopped dead as though some one had rapped him on the
+shoulder. He stopped and looked round, then, very slowly, as though he
+were compelled, gazed with his nervous blinking eyes up at the portrait
+of the old gentleman with the bushy eyebrows. Bohun looked up too and
+saw (it was probably a trick of the faltering candle-light) that the old
+man was not looking at him at all, but steadfastly, and, of course,
+ironically at Markovitch. The two regarded one another for a while, then
+Markovitch, still moving with the greatest caution, slipped the
+revolver back into his pocket, got a chair, climbed on to it and lifted
+the picture down from its nail. He looked at it for a moment, staring
+into the cracked and roughened paint, then hung it deliberately back on
+its nail again, but with its face to the wall. As he did this his bare,
+skinny legs were trembling so on the chair that, at every moment, he
+threatened to topple over. He climbed down at last, put the chair back
+in its place, and then once more turned towards Semyonov's door.
+
+When he reached it he stopped and again took out the revolver, opened
+it, looked into it, and closed it. Then he put his hand on the
+door-knob.
+
+It was then that Bohun had, as one has in dreams, a sudden impulse to
+scream: "Look out! Look out! Look out!" although, Heaven knows, he had
+no desire to protect Semyonov from anything. But it was just then that
+the oddest conviction came over him, namely, an assurance that Semyonov
+was standing on the other side of the door, looking through the little
+window and waiting. He could not have told, any more than one can ever
+tell in dreams, how he was so certain of this. He could only see the
+little window as the dimmest and darkest square of shadow behind
+Markovitch's candle, but he was sure that this was so. He could even see
+Semyonov standing there, in his shirt, with his thick legs, his head a
+little raised, listening...
+
+For what seemed an endless time Markovitch did not move. He also seemed
+to be listening. Was it possible that he heard Semyonov's breathing?...
+But, of course, I have never had any actual knowledge that Semyonov was
+there. That was simply Bohun's idea....
+
+Then Markovitch began very slowly, bending a little, as though it were
+stiff and difficult, to turn the handle. I don't know what then Bohun
+would have done. He must, I think, have moved, shouted, screamed, done
+something or other. There was another interruption. He heard a quick,
+soft step behind him. He moved into the shadow.
+
+It was Vera, in her night-dress, her hair down her back.
+
+She came forward into the room and whispered very quietly: "Nicholas!"
+
+He turned at once. He did not seem to be startled or surprised; he had
+dropped the revolver at once back into his pocket. He came up to her,
+she bent down and kissed him, then put her arm round him and led him
+away.
+
+When they had gone Bohun also went back to bed. The house was very still
+and peaceful. Suddenly he remembered the picture. It would never do, he
+thought, if in the morning it were found by Sacha or Uncle Ivan with its
+face to the wall. After hesitating he lit his own candle, got out of bed
+again, and went down the passage.
+
+"The funny thing was," he said, "that I really expected to find it just
+as it always was, face outwards.... as though the whole thing really had
+been a dream. But it wasn't. It had its face to the wall all right. I
+got a chair, turned it round, and went back to bed again."
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+That night, whether as a result of my interview with Semyonov I do not
+know, my old enemy leapt upon me once again. I had, during the next
+three days, one of the worst bouts of pain that it has ever been my
+fortune to experience. For twenty-four hours I thought it more than any
+man could bear, and I hid my head and prayed for death; during the next
+twenty-four I slowly rose, with a dim far-away sense of deliverance; on
+the third day I could hear, in the veiled distance, the growls of my
+defeated foe....
+
+Through it all, behind the wall of pain, my thoughts knocked and
+thudded, urging me to do something. It was not until the Friday or the
+Saturday that I could think consecutively. My first thought was driven
+in on me by the old curmudgeon of a doctor, as his deliberate opinion
+that it was simply insanity to stay on in those damp rooms when I
+suffered from my complaint, that I was only asking for what I got, and
+that he, on his part, had no sympathy for me. I told him that I entirely
+agreed with him, that I had determined several weeks ago to leave these
+rooms, and that I thought that I had found some others in a different,
+more populated part of the town. He grunted his approval, and,
+forbidding me to go out for at least a week, left me. At least a
+week!... No, I must be out long before that. Now that the pain had left
+me, weak though I was, I was wildly impatient to return to the
+Markovitches. Through all these last days' torments I had been conscious
+of Semyonov, seen his hair and his mouth and his beard and his square
+solidity and his tired, exhausted eyes, and strangely, at the end of it
+all, felt the touch of his lips on mine. Oddly, I did not hate Semyonov;
+I saw quite clearly that I had never hated him--something too impersonal
+about him, some sense, too, of an outside power driving him. No, I did
+not hate him, but God! how I feared him--feared him not for my own sake,
+but for the sake of those who had--was this too arrogant?--been given as
+it seemed to me,--into my charge.
+
+I remembered that Monday was the 30th of April, and that, on that
+evening, there was to be a big Allied meeting at the Bourse, at which
+our Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, the Belgian Consul, and others,
+were to speak. I had promised to take Vera to this. Tuesday the 1st of
+May was to see a great demonstration by all the workmen's and soldiers'
+committees. It was to correspond with the Labour demonstrations arranged
+to take place on that day all over Europe, and the Russian date had been
+altered to the new style in order to provide for this. Many people
+considered that the day would be the cause of much rioting, of definite
+hostility to the Provisional Government, of anti-foreign demonstrations,
+and so on; others, idealistic Russians, believed that all the soldiers,
+the world over, would on that day throw down their arms and proclaim a
+universal peace....
+
+I for my part believed that it would mark the ending of the first phase
+of the Revolution and the beginning of the second, and that for Russia
+at any rate it would mean the changing from a war of nations into a war
+of class--in other words, that it would mean the rising up of the
+Russian peasant as a definite positive factor in the world's affairs.
+
+But all that political business was only remotely, at that moment, my
+concern. What I wanted to know was what was happening to Nicholas, to
+Vera, to Lawrence, and the others. Even whilst I was restlessly
+wondering what I could do to put myself into touch with them, my old
+woman entered with a letter which she said had been brought by hand.
+
+The letter was from Markovitch.
+
+I give this odd document here exactly as I received it. I do not attempt
+to emphasise or explain or comment in any way. I would only add that no
+Russian is so mad as he seems to any Englishman, and no Englishman so
+foolish as he seems to any Russian.
+
+I must have received this letter, I think, late on Sunday afternoon,
+because I was, I remember, up and dressed, and walking about my room. It
+was written on flimsy grey paper in pencil, which made it difficult to
+read. There were sentences unfinished, words misspelt, and the whole of
+it in the worst of Russian handwritings. Certain passages, I am, even
+now, quite unable to interpret:
+
+It ran as follows:
+
+Dear Ivan Andreievitch--Vera tells me that you are ill again. She has
+been round to enquire, I think. I did not come because I knew that if I
+did I should only talk about my own troubles, the same as you've always
+listened to, and what kind of food is that for a sick man? All the same,
+that is just what I am doing now, but reading a letter is not like
+talking to a man; you can always stop and tear the paper when perhaps it
+would not be polite to ask a man to go. But I hope, nevertheless, that
+you won't do that with this--not because of any desire I may have to
+interest you in myself, but because of something of much more importance
+than either of us, something I want you to believe--something you _must_
+believe.... Don't think me mad. I am quite sane sitting here in my room
+writing.... Every one is asleep. Every one but not everything. I've been
+queer, now and again, lately... off and on. Do you know how it comes?
+When the inside of the world goes further and further within dragging
+you after it, until at last you are in the bowels of darkness choking.
+I've known such moods all my life. Haven't you known them? Lately, of
+course, I've been drinking again. I tell you, but I wouldn't own it to
+most people. But they all know, I suppose.... Alexei made me start
+again, but it's foolish to put everything on to him. If I weren't a weak
+man he wouldn't be able to do anything with me, would he? Do you believe
+in God, and don't you think that He intended the weak to have some
+compensation somewhere, because it isn't their fault that they're weak,
+is it! They can struggle and struggle, but it's like being in a net.
+Well, one must just make a hole in the net large enough to get out of,
+that's all. And now, ever since two days ago, when I resolved to make
+that hole, I've been quite calm. I'm as calm as anything now writing to
+you. Two days ago Vera told me that he was going back to England.... Oh,
+she was so good to me that day, Ivan Andreievitch. We sat together all
+alone in the flat, and she had her hand in mine, just as we used to do
+in the old days when I pretended to myself that she loved me. Now I know
+that she did not, but the warmer and more marvellous was her kindness to
+me, her goodness, and nobility. Do you not think, Ivan Andreievitch,
+that if you go deep enough in every human heart, there is this kernel of
+goodness, this fidelity to some ideal. Do you know we have a proverb:
+"In each man's heart there is a secret town at whose altars the true
+prayers are offered!" Even perhaps with Alexei it is so, only there you
+must go very deep, and there is no time.
+
+But I must tell you about Vera. She told me so kindly that he was going
+to England, and that now her whole life would be led in Nina and myself.
+I held her hand very close in mine and asked her, Was it really true
+that she loved him. And she said, yes she did, but that that she could
+not help. She said that she had spoken with him, and that they had
+decided that it would be best for him to go away. Then she begged my
+forgiveness for many things, because she had been harsh or cross,--I
+don't know what things.... Oh, Ivan Andreievitch, _she_ to beg
+forgiveness of _me!_
+
+But I held her hand closer and closer, because I knew that it was the
+last time that I would be able so truly to hold it. How could she not
+see that now everything was over--everything--quite everything! Am I one
+to hold her, to chain her down, to keep her when she has already
+escaped? Is that the way to prove my fidelity to her?
+
+Of course I did not speak to her of this, but for the first time in all
+our years together, I felt older than her and wiser. But of course
+Alexei saw it. How he heard I do not know, but that same day he came to
+me and he seemed to be very kind.
+
+I don't know what he said, but he explained that Vera would always be
+unhappy now, always, longing and waiting and hoping.... "Keep him here
+in Russia!" he whispered to me. "She will get tired of him then--they
+will tire of one another; but if you send him away...." Oh! he is a
+devil, Ivan Andreievitch, and why has he persecuted me so? What have I
+ever done to him? Nothing... but for weeks now he has pursued me and
+destroyed my inventions, and flung Russia in my face and made Nina, dear
+Nina, laugh at me, and now, when the other things are finished, he shows
+me that Vera will be unhappy so long as I am alive. What have I ever
+done, Ivan Andreievitch? I am so unimportant, why has he taken such a
+trouble? To-day I gave him his last chance... or last night... it is
+four in the morning now, and the bells are already ringing for the early
+Mass. I said to him:
+
+"Will you go away? Leave us all for ever? Will you promise never to
+return?"
+
+He said in that dreadful quiet sure way of his: "No, I will never go
+away until you make me."
+
+Vera hates him. I cannot leave her alone with him, can I? I (here there
+are three lines of illegible writing)... so I will think again and
+again of that last time when we sat together and all the good things
+that she said. What greatness of soul, what goodness, what splendour!
+And perhaps after all I am a fortunate man to be allowed to be faithful
+to so fine a grandeur! Many men have poor ambitions, and God bestows
+His gifts with strange blindness, I often think. But I am tired, and you
+too will be tired. Perhaps you have not got so far. I must thank you for
+your friendship to me. I am very grateful for it. And you, if afterwards
+you ever think of me, think that I always wished to... no, why should
+you think of me at all? But think of Russia! That is why I write this.
+You love Russia, and I believe that you will continue to love Russia
+whatever she will do. Never forget that it is because she cares so
+passionately for the good of the world that she makes so many mistakes.
+She sees farther than other countries, and she cares more. But she is
+also more ignorant. She has never been allowed to learn anything or to
+try to do anything for herself.
+
+You are all too impatient, too strongly aware of your own conditions,
+too ignorant of hers! Of course there are wicked men here and many idle
+men, but every country has such. You must not judge her by that nor by
+all the talk you hear. We talk like blind men on a dark road.... Do you
+believe that there are no patriots here? Ah! how bitterly I have been
+disappointed during these last weeks! It has broken my heart... but do
+not let your heart be broken. You can wait. You are young. Believe in
+Russian patriotism, believe in Russian future, believe in Russian
+soul.... Try to be patient and understand that she is blindfolded,
+ignorant, stumbling... but the glory will come; I can see it shining
+far away!... It is not for me, but for you--and for Vera... for Vera...
+Vera....
+
+Here the letter ended; only scrawled very roughly across the paper the
+letters N.M....
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+As soon as I had finished reading the letter I went to the telephone and
+rang up the Markovitches' flat. Bohun spoke to me. I asked him whether
+Nicholas was there, he said, "Yes, fast asleep in the arm-chair," Was
+Semyonov there? "No, he was dining out that night." I asked him to
+remind Vera that I was expecting to take her to the meeting next day,
+and rang off. There was nothing more to be done just then. Two minutes
+later there was a knock on my door and Vera came in.
+
+"Why!" I cried. "I've just been ringing up to tell you that, of course,
+I was coming on Monday."
+
+"That is partly what I wanted to know," she said, smiling. "And also I
+thought that you'd fancied we'd all deserted you."
+
+"No," I answered. "I don't expect you round here every time I'm ill.
+That would be absurd. You'll be glad to know at any rate that I've
+decided to give up these ridiculous rooms. I deserve all the illness I
+get so long as I'm here."
+
+"Yes, that's good," she answered. "How you could have stayed so long--"
+She dropped into a chair, closed her eyes and lay back. "Oh, Ivan
+Andreievitch, but I'm tired!"
+
+She looked, lying there, white-faced, her eyelids like grey shadows,
+utterly exhausted. I waited in silence. After a time she opened her eyes
+and said, suddenly:
+
+"We all come and talk to you, don't we? I, Nina, Nicholas, Sherry (she
+meant Lawrence), even Uncle Alexei. I wonder why we do, because we never
+take your advice, you know.... Perhaps it's because you seem right
+outside everything."
+
+I coloured a little at that.
+
+"Did I hurt you?... I'm sorry. No, I don't know that I am. I don't mind
+now whether I hurt any one. You know that he's going back to England?"
+
+I nodded my head.
+
+"He told you himself?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+She lay back in her chair and was silent for a long time.
+
+"You think I'm a noble woman, don't you. Oh yes, you do! I can see you
+just thirsting for my nobility. It's what Uncle Alexei always says about
+you, that you've learnt from Dostoieffsky how to be noble, and it's
+become a habit with you."
+
+"If you're going to believe--" I began angrily.
+
+"Oh, I hate him! I listen to nothing that he says. All the same,
+Durdles, this passion for nobility on your part is very irritating. I
+can see you now making up the most magnificent picture of my nobility.
+I'm sure if you were ever to write a book about us all, you'd write of
+me something like this: 'Vera Michailovna had won her victory. She had
+achieved her destiny.... Having surrendered her lover she was as fine as
+a Greek statue!' Something like that.... Oh, I can see you at it!"
+
+"You don't understand--" I began.
+
+"Oh, but I do!" she answered. "I've watched your attitude to me from the
+first. You wanted to make poor Nina noble, and then Nicholas, and then,
+because they wouldn't either of them do, you had to fall back upon me:
+memories of that marvellous woman at the Front, Marie some one or other,
+have stirred up your romantic soul until it's all whipped cream and
+jam--mulberry jam, you know, so as to have the proper dark colour."
+
+"Why all this attack on me?" I asked. "What have I done?"
+
+"You've done nothing," she cried. "We all love you, Durdles, because
+you're such a baby, because you dream such dreams, see nothing as it
+is.... And perhaps after all you're right--your vision is as good as
+another. But this time you've made me restless. You're never to see me
+as a noble woman again, Ivan Andreievitch. See me as I am, just for
+five minutes! I haven't a drop of noble feeling in my soul!"
+
+"You've just given him up," I said. "You've sent him back to England,
+although you adore him, because your duty's with your husband. You're
+breaking your heart--"
+
+"Yes, I am breaking my heart," she said quietly. "I'm a dead woman
+without him. And it's my weakness, my cowardice, that is sending him
+away. What would a French woman or an English woman have done? Given up
+the world for their lover. Given up a thousand Nicholases, sacrificed a
+hundred Ninas--that's real life. That's real, I tell you. What feeling
+is there in my soul that counts for a moment beside my feeling for
+Sherry? I say and I feel and I know that I would die for him, die with
+him, happily, gladly. Those are no empty words.
+
+"I who have never been in love before, I am devoured by it now until
+there is nothing left of me--nothing.... And yet I remain. It is our
+weakness, our national idleness. I haven't the strength to leave
+Nicholas. I am soft, sentimental, about his unhappiness. Pah! how I
+despise myself.... I am capable of living on here for years with husband
+and lover, going from one to another, weeping for both of them. Already
+I am pleading with Sherry that he should remain here. We will see what
+will happen. We will see what will happen! Ah, my contempt for myself!
+Without bones, without energy, without character.
+
+"But this is life, Ivan Andreievitch! I stay here, I send him away
+because I cannot bear to see Nicholas suffer. And I do not care for
+Nicholas. Do you understand that? I never loved him, and now I have a
+contempt for him--in spite of myself. Uncle Alexei has done that. Oh
+yes! He has made a fool of Nicholas for months, and although I have
+hated him for doing that, I have seen, also, what a fool Nicholas is!
+But he is a hero, too. Make _him_ as noble as you like, Ivan
+Andreievitch. You cannot colour it too high. He is the real thing and I
+am the sham.... But oh! I do not want to live with him any more, I am
+tired of him, his experiments, his lamentations, his weakness, his lack
+of humour--tired of him, sick of him. And yet I cannot leave him,
+because I am soft, soft without bones, like my country, Ivan
+Andreievitch.... My lover is strong. Nothing can change his will. He
+will go, will leave me, until he knows that I am free. Then he will
+never leave me again.
+
+"Perhaps I will get tired of his strength one day--it may be--just as
+now I am tired of Nicholas's weakness. Everything has its end.
+
+"But no! he has humour, and he sees life as it is. I shall be able
+always to tell him the truth. With Nicholas it is always lies...."
+
+She suddenly sprang up and stood before me.
+
+"Now, do you think me noble?" she cried.
+
+"Yes," I answered.
+
+"Ah! you are incorrigible! You have drunk Dostoieffsky until you can see
+nothing but God and the moujik! But I am alive, Ivan Andreievitch, not a
+heroine in a book! Alive, alive, alive! Not one of your Lisas or Annas
+or Natashas. I'm alive enough to shoot Uncle Alexei and poison
+Nicholas--but I'm soft too, soft so that I cannot bear to see a rabbit
+killed... and yet I love Sherry so that I am blind for him and deaf for
+him and dead for him--when he is not there. My love--the only one of my
+life--the first and the last--"
+
+She flung out her arms:
+
+"Life! Now! Before it is too late! I want it, I want him, I want
+happiness!"
+
+She stood thus for a moment, staring out to the sea. Then her arms
+dropped, she laughed, fastening her cloak--
+
+"There's your nobility, Ivan Andreievitch--theatrical, all of it. I know
+what I am, and I know what I shall do. Nicholas will live to eighty; I
+also. I shall hate him, but I shall he in an agony when he cuts his
+finger. I shall never see Sherry again. Later, he will marry a fresh
+English girl like an apple.... I, because I am weak, soft putty--I have
+made it so."
+
+She turned away from me, staring desperately at the wall. When she
+looked back to me her face was grey.
+
+She smiled. "What a baby you are!... But take care of yourself. Don't
+come on Monday if it's bad weather. Good-bye."
+
+She went.
+
+After a bad, sleepless night, and a morning during which I dozed in a
+nightmareish kind of way, I got up early in the afternoon, had some tea,
+and about six o'clock started out.
+
+It was a lovely evening; the spring light was in the air, the tufted
+trees beside the canal were pink against the pale sky, and thin layers
+of ice, like fragments of jade, broke the soft blue of the water. How
+pleasant to feel the cobbles firm beneath one's feet, to know that the
+snow was gone for many months, and that light now would flood the
+streets and squares! Nevertheless, my foreboding was not raised, and the
+veils of colour hung from house to house and from street to street could
+not change the realities of the scene.
+
+I climbed the stairs to the flat and found Vera waiting for me. She was
+with Uncle Ivan, who, I found to my disappointment, was coming with us.
+
+We started off.
+
+"We can walk across to the Bourse," she said. "It's such a lovely
+evening, and we're a little early."
+
+We talked of nothing but the most ordinary things; Uncle Ivan's company
+prevented anything else. To say that I cursed him is to put it very
+mildly. He had been, I believe, oblivious of all the scenes that had
+occurred during the last weeks. If the Last Judgement occurred under his
+very nose, and he had had a cosy meal in front of him, he would have
+noticed nothing. The Revolution had had no effect on him at all; it did
+not seem strange to him that Semyonov should come to live with them; he
+had indeed fancied that Nicholas had not "been very well" lately, but
+then Nicholas had always been an odd and cantankerous fellow, and he, as
+he told me, never paid too much attention to his moods. His one anxiety
+was lest Sacha should be hindered from her usual shopping on the morrow,
+it being May Day, when there would be processions and other tiresome
+things. He hoped that there was enough food in the house.
+
+"There will be cold cutlets and cheese," Vera said.
+
+He told me that he really did not know why he was going to this meeting.
+He took no interest in politics, and he hated speeches, but he would
+like to see our Ambassador. He had heard that he was always excellently
+dressed....
+
+Vera said very little. Her troubles that evening must have been
+accumulating upon her with terrible force--I did not know, at that time,
+about her night-scene with Nicholas. She was very quiet, and just as we
+entered the building she whispered to me:
+
+"Once over to-morrow--"
+
+I did not catch the rest. People pressed behind us, and for a moment we
+were separated; we were not alone again. I have wondered since what she
+meant by that, whether she had a foreboding or some more definite
+warning, or whether she simply referred to the danger of riots and
+general lawlessness. I shall never know now.
+
+I had expected a crowded meeting, but I was not prepared for the
+multitude that I found. We entered by a side-door, and then passed up a
+narrow passage, which led us to the reserved seats at the side of the
+platform. I had secured these some days before. In the dark passage one
+could realise nothing; important gentlemen in frock-coats, officers, and
+one or two soldiers, were hurrying to and fro, with an air of having a
+great deal to do, and not knowing at all how to do it. Beyond the
+darkness there was a steady hum, like the distant whirr of a great
+machine. There was a very faint smell in the air of boots and human
+flesh. A stout gentleman with a rosette in his buttonhole showed us to
+our seats. Vera sat between Uncle Ivan and myself. When I looked about
+me I was amazed. The huge hall was packed so tightly with human beings
+that one could see nothing but wave on wave of faces, or, rather, the
+same face, repeated again and again and again, the face of a baby, of a
+child, of a credulous, cynical dreamer, a face the kindest, the naïvest,
+the cruellest, the most friendly, the most human, the most savage, the
+most Eastern, and the most Western in the world.
+
+That vast presentation of that reiterated visage seemed suddenly to
+explain everything to me. I felt at once the stupidity of any appeal,
+and the instant necessity for every kind of appeal. I felt the negation,
+the sudden slipping into insignificant unimportance of the whole of the
+Western world--and, at the same time, the dismissal of the East. "No
+longer my masters" a voice seemed to cry from the very heart of that
+multitude. "No longer will we halt at your command, no longer will your
+words be wisdom to us, no longer shall we smile with pleasure at your
+stories, and cringe with fear at your displeasure; you may hate our
+defection, you may lament our disloyalty, you may bribe us and smile
+upon us, you may preach to us and bewail our sins. We are no longer
+yours--WE ARE OUR OWN--Salute a new world, for it is nothing less that
+you see before you!..."
+
+And yet never were there forces more unconscious of their
+destiny--utterly unselfconscious as animals, babies, the flowers of the
+field. Still there to be driven, perhaps to be persuaded, to be whipped,
+to be cajoled, to be blinded, to be tricked and deceived, drugged and
+deafened--but not for long! The end of that old world had come--the new
+world was at hand--"Life begins to-morrow!"
+
+The dignitaries came upon the platform, and, beyond them all, in
+distinction, nobility, wisdom was our own Ambassador. This is no place
+for a record of the discretion and tact and forbearance that he had
+shown during those last two years. To him had fallen perhaps the most
+difficult work of all in the war. It might seem that on broad grounds
+the Allies had failed with Russia, but the end was not yet, and in years
+to come, when England reaps unexpected fruit from her Russian alliance,
+let her remember to whom she owed it. No one could see him there that
+night without realising that there stood before Russia, as England's
+representative, not only a great courtier and statesman, but a great
+gentleman, who had bonds of courage and endurance that linked him to the
+meanest soldier there.
+
+I have emphasised this because he gave the note to the whole meeting.
+Again and again one's eyes came back to him and always that high brow,
+that unflinching carriage of the head, the nobility and breeding of
+every movement gave one reassurance and courage. One's own troubles
+seemed small beside that example, and the tangled morality of that vexed
+time seemed to be tested by a simpler and higher standard.
+
+It was altogether a strange affair. At first it lacked interest, some
+member of the Italian Embassy spoke, I think, and then some one from
+Serbia. The audience was apathetic. All those bodies, so tightly wedged
+together that arms and legs were held in an iron vice, stayed
+motionless, and once and again there would be a short burst of applause
+or a sibilant whisper, but it would be something mechanical and
+uninspired. I could see one soldier, in the front row behind the
+barrier, a stout fellow with a face of supreme good humour, down whose
+forehead the sweat began to trickle; he was patient for a while, then he
+tried to raise his hand. He could not move without sending a ripple down
+the whole front line. Heads were turned indignantly in his direction. He
+submitted; then the sweat trickled into his eyes. He made a superhuman
+effort and half raised his arm; the crowd pushed again and his arm fell.
+His face wore an expression of ludicrous despair....
+
+The hall got hotter and hotter. Soldiers seemed to be still pressing in
+at the back. The Italian gentleman screamed and waved his arms, but the
+faces turned up to his were blank and amiably expressionless.
+
+"It is indeed terribly hot," said Uncle Ivan.
+
+Then came a sailor from the Black Sea Fleet who had made himself famous
+during these weeks by his impassioned oratory. He was a thin dark-eyed
+fellow, and he obviously knew his business. He threw himself at once
+into the thick of it all, paying no attention to the stout frock-coated
+gentlemen who sat on the platform, dealing out no compliments, whether
+to the audience or the speakers, wasting no time at all. He told them
+all that they had debts to pay, that their honour was at stake, and that
+Europe was watching them. I don't know that that Face that stared at him
+cared very greatly for Europe, but it is certain that a breath of
+emotion passed across it, that there was a stir, a movement, a
+response....
+
+He sat down, there was a roar of applause; he regarded them
+contemptuously. At that moment I caught sight of Boris Grogoff. I had
+been on the watch for him. I had thought it very likely that he would be
+there. Well, there he was, at the back of the crowd, listening with a
+contemptuous sneer on his face, and a long golden curl poking out from
+under his cap.
+
+And then something else occurred--something really strange. I was
+conscious, as one sometimes is in a crowd, that I was being stared at by
+some one deliberately. I looked about me, and then, led by the
+attraction of the other's gaze, I saw quite close to me, on the edge of
+the crowd nearest to the platform, the Rat.
+
+He was dressed rather jauntily in a dark suit with his cup set on one
+side, and his hair shining and curled. His face glittered with soap, and
+he was smiling in his usual friendly way. He gazed at me quite steadily.
+My lips moved very slightly in recognition. He smiled and, I fancy,
+winked.
+
+Then, as though he had actually spoken to me, I seemed to hear him say:
+
+"Well, good-bye.... I'm never coming to you again. Good-bye, good-bye."
+
+It was as definite a farewell as you can have from a man, more definite
+than you will have from most, as though, further, he said: "I'm gone for
+good and all. I have other company and more profitable plunder. On the
+back of our glorious Revolution I rise from crime to crime....
+Good-bye."
+
+I was, in sober truth, never to speak to him again. I cannot but regret
+that on the last occasion when I should have a real opportunity of
+looking him full in the face, he was to offer me a countenance of
+friendly good-humour and amiable rascality.
+
+I shall have, until I die, a feeling of tenderness....
+
+I was recalled from my observation of Grogoff and the Rat by the
+sensation that the waters of emotion were rising higher around me. I
+raised my eyes and saw that the Belgian Consul was addressing the
+meeting. He was a stout little man, with eye-glasses and a face of no
+importance, but it was quite obvious at once that he was most terribly
+in earnest. Because he did not know the Russian language he was under
+the unhappy necessity of having a translator, a thin and amiable
+Russian, who suffered from short sight and a nervous stammer.
+
+He could not therefore have spoken under heavier disadvantages, and my
+heart ached for him. It need not have done so. He started in a low
+voice, and they shouted to him to speak up. At the end of his first
+paragraph the amiable Russian began his translation, sticking his nose
+into the paper, losing the place and stuttering over his sentences.
+There was a restless movement in the hall, and the poor Belgian Consul
+seemed lost. He was made, however, of no mean stuff. Before the Russian
+had finished his translation the little man had begun again. This time
+he had stepped forward, waving his glasses and his head and his hand,
+bending forward and backward, his voice rising and rising. At the end of
+his next paragraph he paused and, because the Russian was slow and
+stammering once again, went forward on ids own account. Soon he forgot
+himself, his audience, his translator, everything except his own dear
+Belgium. His voice rose and rose; he pleaded with a marvellous rhythm of
+eloquence her history, her fate, her shameful devastation. He appealed
+on behalf of her murdered children, her ravished women, her slaughtered
+men.
+
+He appealed on behalf of her Arts, her Cathedrals, and libraries ruined,
+her towns plundered. He told a story, very quietly, of an old
+grandfather and grandmother murdered and their daughter ravished before
+the eyes of her tiny children. Here he himself began to shed tears. He
+tried to brush them back. He paused and wiped his eyes.... Finally,
+breaking down altogether, he turned away and hid his face....
+
+I do not suppose that there were more than a dozen persons in that hall
+who understood anything of the language in which he spoke. Certainly it
+was the merest gibberish to that whole army of listening men.
+Nevertheless, with every word that he uttered the emotion grew tenser.
+Cries--little sharp cries like the bark of a puppy--broke out here and
+there. "_Verrno! Verrno! Verrno_! (True! True! True!)" Movements, like
+the swift finger of the wind on the sea, hovered, wavered, and
+vanished....
+
+He turned back to them, his voice broken with sobs, and he could only
+cry the one word "Belgia... Belgia... Belgia"... To that they
+responded. They began to shout, to cry aloud. The screams of "_Verrno...
+Verrno_" rose until it seemed that the roof would rise with them.
+The air was filled with shouts, "Bravo for the Allies." "_Soyousniki!
+Soyousniki_!" Men raised their caps and waved them, smiled upon one
+another as though they had suddenly heard wonderful news, shouted and
+shouted and shouted... and in the midst of it all the little rotund
+Belgian Consul stood bowing and wiping his eyes.
+
+How pleased we all were! I whispered to Vera: "You see! They do care!
+Their hearts are touched. We can do anything with them now!"
+
+Even Uncle Ivan was moved, and murmured to himself "Poor Belgium! Poor
+Belgium!"
+
+How delighted, too, were the gentlemen on the platform. Smiling, they
+whispered to one another, and I saw several shake hands. A great moment.
+The little Consul bowed finally and sat down.
+
+Never shall I forget the applause that followed. Like one man the
+thousands shouted, tears raining down their cheeks, shaking hands, even
+embracing! A vast movement, as though the wind had caught them and
+driven them forward, rose, lifted them, so that they swayed like bending
+corn towards the platform, for an instant we were all caught up
+together. There was one great cry: "Belgium!"
+
+The sound rose, fell, sunk into a muttering whisper, died to give way to
+the breathless attention that awaited the next speaker.
+
+I whispered to Vera: "I shall never forget that. I'm going to leave on
+that. It's good enough for me."
+
+"Yes," she said, "we'll go."
+
+"What a pity," whispered Uncle Ivan, "that they didn't understand what
+they were shouting about."
+
+We slipped out behind the platform; turned down the dark long passage,
+hearing the new speaker's voice like a bell ringing beyond thick walls,
+and found our way into the open.
+
+The evening was wonderfully fresh and clear. The Neva lay before us like
+a blue scarf, and the air faded into colourless beauty above the dark
+purple of the towers and domes. Vera caught my arm: "Look!" she
+whispered. "There's Boris!" I knew that she had on several occasions
+tried to force her way into his flat, that she had written every day to
+Nina (letters as it afterwards appeared, that Boris kept from her). I
+was afraid that she would do something violent.
+
+"Wait!" I whispered, "perhaps Nina is here somewhere."
+
+Grogoff was standing with another man on a small improvised platform
+just outside the gates of the Bourse.
+
+As the soldiers came out (many of them were leaving now on the full tide
+of their recent emotions) Grogoff and his friend caught them, held them,
+and proceeded to instruct their minds.
+
+I caught some of Grogoff's sentences: "_Tovaristchi_!" I heard him cry,
+"Comrades! Listen to me. Don't allow your feelings to carry you away!
+You have serious responsibilities now, and the thing for you to do is
+not to permit sentiment to make you foolish. Who brought you into this
+war? Your leaders? No, your old masters. They bled you and robbed you
+and slaughtered you to fill their own pockets. Who is ruling the world
+now? The people to whom the world truly belongs? No, the Capitalists,
+the money-grubbers, the old thieves like Nicholas who is now under lock
+and key... Capitalists... England, France... Thieves, Robbers....
+
+"Belgium? What is Belgium to you? Did you swear to protect her people?
+Does England, who pretends such loving care for Belgium, does she look
+after Ireland? What about her persecution of South Africa? Belgium? Have
+you heard what she did in the Congo?..."
+
+As the men came, talking, smiling, wiping their eyes, they were caught
+by Grogoff's voice. They stood there and listened. Soon they began to
+nod their heads. I heard them muttering that good old word "_Verrno!
+Verrno_!" again. The crowd grew. The men began to shout their approval.
+"Aye! it's true," I heard a solder near me mutter. "The English are
+thieves"; and another "Belgium?... After all I could not understand a
+word of what that little fat man said."
+
+I heard no more, but I did not wonder now at the floods that were rising
+and rising, soon to engulf the whole of this great country. The end of
+this stage of our story was approaching for all of us.
+
+We three had stood back, a little in the shadow, gazing about to see
+whether we could hail a cab.
+
+As we waited I took my last look at Grogoff, his stout figure against
+the purple sky, the masts of the ships, the pale tumbling river, the
+black line of the farther shore. He stood, his arms waving, his mouth
+open, the personification of the disease from which Russia was
+suffering.
+
+A cab arrived. I turned, said as it were, my farewell to Grogoff and
+everything for which he stood, and went.
+
+We drove home almost in silence. Vera, staring in front of her, her face
+proud and reserved, building up a wall of her own thoughts.
+
+"Come in for a moment, won't you?" she asked me, rather reluctantly I
+thought. But I accepted, climbed the stairs and followed Uncle Ivan's
+stubby and self-satisfied progress into the flat.
+
+I heard Vera cry. I hurried after her and found, standing close
+together, in the middle of the room Henry Bohun and Nina!
+
+With a little sob of joy and shame too, Nina was locked in Vera's arms.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+This is obviously the place for the story, based, of course, on the very
+modest and slender account given me by the hero of it, of young Bohun's
+knightly adventure. In its inception the whole affair is still
+mysterious to me. Looking back from this distance of time I see that he
+was engaged on one knightly adventure after another--first Vera, then
+Markovitch, lastly Nina. The first I caught at the very beginning, the
+second I may be said to have inspired, but to the third I was completely
+blind. I was blind, I suppose, because, in the first place, Nina had,
+from the beginning, laughed at Bohun, and in the second, she had been
+entirely occupied with Lawrence.
+
+Bohun's knight-errantry came upon her with, I am sure, as great a shock
+of surprise as it did upon me. And yet, when you come to think of it, it
+was the most natural thing. They were the only two of our party who had
+any claim to real youth, and they were still so young that they could
+believe in one ideal after another as quick as you can catch goldfish in
+a bowl of water. Bohun would, of course, have indignantly denied that he
+was out to help anybody, but that, nevertheless, was the direction in
+which his character led him; and once Russia had stripped from him that
+thin coat of self-satisfaction, he had nothing to do but mount his white
+charger and enter the tournament.
+
+I've no idea when he first thought of Nina. He did not, of course, like
+her at the beginning, and I doubt whether she caused him any real
+concern, too, until her flight to Grogoff. That shocked him terribly. He
+confessed as much to me. She had always been so happy and easy about
+life. Nothing was serious to her. I remember once telling her she ought
+to take the war more deeply. I was a bit of a prig about it, I suppose.
+At any rate she thought me one.... And then to go off to a fellow like
+Grogoff!
+
+He thought of it the more seriously when he saw the agony Vera was in.
+She did not ask him to help her, and so he did nothing; but he watched
+her efforts, the letters that she wrote, the eagerness with which she
+ravished the post, her fruitless visits to Grogoff's flat, her dejected
+misery over her failure. He began himself to form plans, not, I am
+convinced, from any especial affection for Nina, but simply because he
+had the soul of a knight, although, thank God, he didn't know it. I
+expect, too, that he was pretty dissatisfied with his knight-errantries.
+His impassioned devotion to Vera had led to nothing at all, his
+enthusiasm for Russia had led to a most unsatisfactory Revolution, and
+his fatherly protection of Markovitch had inspired apparently nothing
+more fruitful than distrust. I would like to emphasise that it was in no
+way from any desire to interfere in other people's affairs that young
+Bohun undertook these Quests. He had none of my own meddlesome quality.
+He had, I think, very little curiosity and no psychological
+self-satisfaction, but he had a kind heart, an adventurous spirit, and a
+hatred for the wrong and injustice which seemed just now to be creeping
+about the world; but all this, again thank God, was entirely
+subconscious. He knew nothing whatever about himself.
+
+The thought of Nina worried him more and more. After he went to bed at
+night, he would hear her laugh and see her mocking smile and listen to
+her shrill imitations of his own absurdities. She had been the one happy
+person amongst them all, and now--! Well, he had seen enough of Boris
+Grogoff to know what sort of fellow he was. He came at last to the
+conclusion that, after a week or two she would be "sick to death of it,"
+and longing to get away, but then "her pride would keep her at it. She'd
+got a devil of a lot of pride." He waited, then, for a while, and hoped,
+I suppose, that some of Vera's appeals would succeed. They did not; and
+then it struck him that Vera was the very last person to whom Nina would
+yield--just because she wanted to yield to her most, which was pretty
+subtle of him and very near the truth.
+
+No one else seemed to be making any very active efforts, and at last he
+decided that he must do something himself. He discovered Grogoff's
+address, went to the Gagarinskaya and looked up at the flat, hung about
+a bit in the hope of seeing Nina. Then he did see her at Rozanov's
+party, and this, although he said nothing to me about it at the time,
+had a tremendous effect on him. He thought she looked "awful." All the
+joy had gone from her; she was years older, miserable, and defiant. He
+didn't speak to her, but from that night he made up his mind. Rozanov's
+party may be said to have been really the turning-point of his life. It
+was the night that he came out of his shell, grew up, faced the
+world--and it was the night that he discovered that he cared about Nina.
+
+The vision of her poor little tired face, her "rather dirty white
+dress," her "grown-up" hair, her timidity and her loneliness, never left
+him for a moment. All the time that I thought he was occupied only with
+the problem of Markovitch and Semyonov, he was much more deeply occupied
+with Nina. So unnaturally secretive can young men be!
+
+At last he decided on a plan. He chose the Monday, the day of the Bourse
+meeting, because he fancied that Grogoff would be present at that and he
+might therefore catch Nina alone, and because he and his
+fellow-propagandists would be expected also at the meeting and he would
+therefore be free of his office earlier on that afternoon. He had no
+idea at all how he would get into the flat, but he thought that fortune
+would be certain to favour him. He always thought that.
+
+Well, fortune did. He left the office and arrived in the Gagarinskaya
+about half-past five in the evening. He walked about a little, and then
+saw a bearded tall fellow drive up in an Isvostchick. He recognised this
+man as Lenin, the soul of the anti-Government party, and a man who was
+afterwards to figure very prominently in Russia's politics. This fellow
+argued very hotly with the Isvostchick about his fare, then vanished
+through the double doors. Bohun followed him. Outside Grogoff's flat
+Lenin waited and rang the bell. Bohun waited on the floor below; then,
+when he heard the door open, he noiselessly slipped up the stairs, and,
+as Lenin entered, followed behind him whilst the old servant's back was
+turned helping Lenin with his coat. He found, as he had hoped, a crowd
+of cloaks and a Shuba hanging beside the door in the dark corner of the
+wall. He crept behind these. He heard Lenin say to the servant that,
+after all, he would not take off his coat, as he was leaving again
+immediately. Then directly afterwards Grogoff came into the hall.
+
+That was the moment of crisis. Did Grogoff go to the rack for his coat
+and all was over; a very unpleasant scene must follow--a ludicrous
+expulsion, a fling or two at the amiable habits of thieving and deceit
+on the part of the British nation, and any hope of seeing Nina ruined
+perhaps for ever. Worst of all, the ignominy of it! No young man likes
+to be discovered hidden behind a coat-rack, however honest his original
+intentions!
+
+His heart beat to suffocation as he peeped between the coats.... Grogoff
+was already wearing his own overcoat. It was, thank God, too warm an
+evening for a Shuba. The men shook hands, and Grogoff saying something
+rather deferentially about the meeting, Lenin, in short, brusque tones,
+put him immediately in his place. Then they went out together, the door
+closed behind them, and the flat was as silent as an aquarium. He waited
+for a while, and then, hearing nothing, crept into the hall. Perhaps
+Nina was out. If the old servant saw him she would think him a burglar
+and would certainly scream. He pushed back the door in front of him,
+stepped forward, and almost stepped upon Nina!
+
+She gave a little cry, not seeing whom it was. She was looking very
+untidy, her hair loose down her back, and a rough apron over her dress.
+She looked ill, and there were heavy black lines under her eyes as
+though she had not slept for weeks.
+
+Then she saw who it was and, in spite of herself, smiled.
+
+"Genry!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yes," he said in a whisper, closing the door very softly behind him.
+"Look here, don't scream or do anything foolish. I don't want that old
+woman to catch me."
+
+He has no very clear memory of the conversation that followed. She stood
+with her back to the wall, storing at him, and every now and again
+taking up a corner of her pinafore and biting it. He remembered that
+action of hers especially as being absurdly childish. But the
+overwhelming impression that he had of her was of her terror--terror of
+everything and of everybody, of everybody apparently except himself.
+(She told him afterwards that he was the only person in the world who
+could have rescued her just then because she simply couldn't be
+frightened of some one at whom she'd laughed so often.) She was
+terrified, of course, of Grogoff--she couldn't mention his name without
+trembling--but she was terrified also of the old servant, of the flat,
+of the room, of the clock, of every sound or hint of a sound that there
+was in the world. She to be so frightened! She of whom he would have
+said that she was equal to any one or anything! What she must have been
+through during those weeks to have brought her to this!... But she told
+him very little. He urged her at once that she must come away with him,
+there and then, just as she was. She simply shook her head at that.
+"No... No... No..." she kept repeating. "You don't understand."
+
+"I do understand," he answered, always whispering, and with one ear on
+the door lest the old woman should hear and come in. "We've got very
+little time," he said. "Grogoff will never let you go if he's here. I
+know why you don't come back--you think we'll all look down on you for
+having gone. But that's nonsense. We are all simply miserable without
+you."
+
+But she simply continued to repeat "No... No..." Then, as he urged her
+still further, she begged him to go away. She said that he simply didn't
+know what Grogoff would do if he returned and found him, and although
+he'd gone to a meeting he might return at any moment. Then, as though
+to urge upon him Grogoff's ferocity, in little hoarse whispers she let
+him see some of the things that during these weeks she'd endured. He'd
+beaten her, thrown things at her, kept her awake hour after hour at
+night making her sing to him... and, of course, worst things, things
+far, far worse that she would never tell to anybody, not even to Vera!
+Poor Nina, she had indeed been punished for her innocent impetuosities.
+She was broken in body and soul; she had faced reality at last and been
+beaten by it. She suddenly turned away from him, buried her head in her
+arm, as a tiny child does, and cried....
+
+It was then that he discovered he loved her. He went to her, put his arm
+round her, kissed her, stroked her hair, whispering little consoling
+things to her. She suddenly collapsed, burying her head in his breast
+and watering his waistcoat with her tears....
+
+After that he seemed to be able to do anything with her that he pleased.
+He whispered to her to go and get her hat, then her coat, then to hurry
+up and come along.... As he gave these last commands he heard the door
+open, turned and saw Masha, Grogoff's old witch of a servant, facing
+him.
+
+The scene that followed must have had its ludicrous side. The old woman
+didn't scream or make any kind of noise, she simply asked him what he
+was doing there; he answered that he was going out for a walk with the
+mistress of the house. She said that he should do nothing of the kind.
+He told her to stand away from the door. She refused to move. He then
+rushed at her, caught her round the waist, and a most impossible
+struggle ensued up and down the middle of the room. He called to Nina to
+run, and had the satisfaction of seeing her dart through the door like a
+frightened hare. The old woman bit and scratched and kicked, making
+sounds all the time like a kettle just on the boil. Suddenly, when he
+thought that Nina had had time to get well away, he gave the old woman a
+very unceremonious push which sent her back against Grogoff's chief
+cabinet, and he had the comfort to hear the whole of this crash to the
+ground as he closed the door behind him. Out in the street he found
+Nina, and soon afterwards an Isvostchick. She crouched up close against
+him, staring in front of her, saying nothing, shivering and
+shivering.... As he felt her hot hand shake inside his, he vowed that he
+would never leave her again. I don't believe that he ever will.
+
+So he took her home, and his Knight Errantry was justified at last.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+These events had for a moment distracted my mind, but as soon as I was
+alone I felt the ever-increasing burden of my duty towards Markovitch.
+
+The sensation was absolutely dream-like in its insistence on the one
+hand that I should take some kind of action, and its preventing me, on
+the other, from taking any action at all. I felt the strange inertia of
+the spectator in the nightmare, who sees the house tumbling about his
+head and cannot move. Besides, what action could I take? I couldn't
+stand over Markovitch, forbid him to stir from the flat, or imprison
+Semyonov in his room, or warn the police... besides, there were now no
+police. Moreover, Vera and Bohun and the others were surely capable of
+watching Markovitch. Nevertheless something in my heart insisted that it
+was I who was to figure in this.... Through the dusk of the streets, in
+the pale ghostly shadows that prelude the coming of the white nights, I
+seemed to see three pursuing figures, Semyonov, Markovitch, and myself.
+I was pursuing, and yet held.
+
+I went back to my flat, but all that night I could not sleep. Already
+the first music of the May Day processions could be heard, distant
+trumpets and drums, before I sank into uneasy, bewildered slumber.
+
+I dreamt then dreams so fantastic and irresolute that I cannot now
+disentangle them. I remember that I was standing beside the banks of the
+Neva. The river was rising, flinging on its course in the great
+tempestuous way that it always has during the first days of its release
+from the ice. The sky grew darker--the water rose. I sought refuge in
+the top gallery of a church with light green domes, and from here I
+watched the flood, first as it covered the quays, tumbling in cascades
+of glittering water over the high parapet, trickling in little lines and
+pools, then rising into sheeted levels, then billowing in waves against
+the walls of the house, flooding the doors and the windows, until so far
+as the eye could reach there were only high towers remaining above its
+grasp. I do not know what happened to my security, and saw at length the
+waters stretch from sky to sky, one dark, tossing ocean.
+
+The sun rose, a dead yellow; slowly the waters sank again, islands
+appeared, stretches of mud and waste. Heaving their huge bodies out of
+the ocean, vast monsters crawled through the mud, scaled and horned,
+lying like logs beneath the dead sun. The waters sank--forests rose. The
+sun sank and there was black night, then a faint dawn, and in the early
+light of a lovely morning a man appeared standing on the beach, shading
+his eyes, gazing out to sea. I fancied that in that strong bearded
+figure I recognised my peasant, who had seemed to haunt my steps so
+often. Gravely he looked round him, then turned back into the forest....
+
+Was my dream thus? Frankly I do not know--too neat an allegory to be
+true, perhaps--and yet there was something of this in it. I know that I
+saw Boris, and the Rat, and Vera, and Semyonov, and Markovitch,
+appearing, vanishing, reappearing, and that I was strongly conscious
+that the submerged and ruined world did not _touch_ them, and was only a
+background to their own individual activities.... I know that Markovitch
+seemed to come to me again and cry, "Be patient... be patient.... Have
+faith... be faithful!"
+
+I know that I woke struggling to keep him with me, crying out that he
+was not to leave me, that that way was danger.... I woke to find my room
+flooded with sunshine, and my old woman looking at me with disapproval.
+
+"Wake up, Barin," she was saying, "it's three o'clock."
+
+"Three o'clock?" I muttered, trying to pull myself together.
+
+"Three in the afternoon... I have some tea for you."
+
+When I realised the time I had the sensation of the wildest panic. I
+jumped from my bed, pushing the old woman out of the room. I had
+betrayed my trust! I had betrayed my trust! I felt assured 'that some
+awful catastrophe had occurred, something that I might have prevented.
+When I was dressed, disregarding my housekeeper's cries, I rushed out
+into the street. At my end of the Ekaterinsgofsky Canal I was stopped by
+great throngs of men and women returning homewards from the procession.
+They were marching, most of them, in ordered lines across the street,
+arm in arm, singing the "Marseillaise."
+
+Very different from the procession a few weeks before. That had been
+dumb, cowed, bewildered. This was the movement of a people conscious of
+their freedom, sure of themselves, disdaining the world. Everywhere
+bands were playing, banners were glittering, and from the very heart of
+the soil, as it seemed, the "Marseillaise" was rising.
+
+Although the sun only shone at brief intervals, there was a sense of
+spring warmth in the air. For some time I could not cross the street,
+then I broke through and almost ran down the deserted stretch of the
+Canal. I arrived almost breathless at the door in the English Prospect.
+There I found Sacha watching the people and listening to the distant
+bands.
+
+"Sacha!" I cried, "is Alexei Petrovitch at home?"
+
+"No, Barin," she answered, looking at me in some surprise. "He went out
+about a quarter of an hour ago."
+
+"And Nicholas Markovitch?"
+
+"He went out just now."
+
+"Did he tell you where he was going?"
+
+"No, Barin, but I heard Alexei Petrovitch tell him, an hour back, that
+he was going to Katerinhof."
+
+I did not listen to more. I turned and went. Katerinhof was a park, ten
+minutes distant from my island; it was so called because there was there
+the wooden palace of Katherine the Great. She had once made it her place
+of summer residence, but it was now given over to the people and was,
+during the spring and summer, used by them as a kind of fair and
+pleasure-garden. The place had always been to me romantic and
+melancholy, with the old faded wooden palace, the deserted ponds, and
+the desolate trees. I had never been there in the summer. I don't know
+with what idea I hurried there. I can only say that I had no choice but
+to go, and that I went as though I were still continuing my dream of the
+morning.
+
+Great numbers of people were hurrying there also. The road was thronged,
+and many of them sang as they went.
+
+Looking back now it has entirely a dream-like colour. I stepped from the
+road under the trees, and was at once in a world of incredible fantasy.
+So far as the eye could see there were peasants; the air was filled with
+an indescribable din. As I stepped deeper into the shelter of the
+leafless trees the colour seemed, like fluttering banners, to mingle and
+spread and sway before my eyes. Near to me were the tub-thumpers now so
+common to us all in Petrograd--men of the Grogoff kind stamping and
+shouting on their platforms, surrounded by open-mouthed soldiers and
+peasants.
+
+Here, too, were the quacks such as you might see at any fair in
+Europe--quack dentists, quack medicine-men, men with ointments for
+healing sores, men with pills, and little bottles of bright liquid, and
+tricks for ruptures and broken legs and arms. A little way beyond them
+were the pedlars. Here were the wildest men in the world. Tartars and
+Letts and Indians, Asiatics with long yellow faces, and strange fellows
+from Northern Russia. They had everything to sell, bright beads and
+looking-glasses and little lacquered trays, coloured boxes, red and
+green and yellow, lace and silk and cloths of every colour, purple and
+crimson and gold. From all these men there rose a deafening gabble.
+
+I pressed farther, although the crowd now around me was immense, and so
+I reached the heart of the fair. Here were enormous merry-go-rounds, and
+I had never seen such glittering things. They were from China, Japan,
+where you will. They were hung in shining, gleaming colours, covered
+with tinsel and silver, and, as they went tossing round, emitting from
+their hearts a wild barbaric wail that may have been, in some far
+Eastern city, the great song of all the lovers of the world for all I
+know, the colours flashed and wheeled and dazzled, and the light
+glittered from stem to stem of the brown silent trees. Here was the very
+soul of the East. Near me a Chinaman, squatting on his haunches, was
+showing before a gaping crowd the exploits of his trained mice, who
+walked up and down little crimson ladders, poked their trembling noses
+through holes of purple silk, and ran shivering down precipices of
+golden embroidery. Near to him two Japanese were catching swords in
+their mouths, and beyond them again a great number of Chinese were
+tumbling and wrestling, and near to them again some Japanese children
+did little tricks, catching coloured balls in wooden cups and turning
+somersaults.
+
+Around all these a vast mass of peasants pushed and struggled. Like
+children they watched and smiled and laughed, and always, like the flood
+of the dream, their numbers seemed to increase and increase....
+
+The noise was deafening, but always above the merry-go-rounds and the
+cheap-jacks and the shrill screams of the Japanese and the cries of the
+pedlars I heard the chant of the "Marseillaise" carried on high through
+the brown leafless park. I was bewildered and dazzled by the noise and
+the light. I turned desperately, pushing with my hands as one does in a
+dream.
+
+Then I saw Markovitch and Semyonov.
+
+I had no doubt at all that the moment had at last arrived. It was as
+though I had seen it all somewhere before. Semyonov was standing a
+little apart leaning against a tree, watching with his sarcastic smile
+the movements of the crowd. Markovitch was a little way off. I could see
+his eyes fixed absolutely on Semyonov. He did not move nor notice the
+people who jostled him. Semyonov made a movement with his hand as though
+he had suddenly come to some decision. He walked slowly away in the
+direction of the palace. Markovitch, keeping a considerable distance
+from him, followed. For a moment I was held by the crowd around me, and
+when at last I got free Semyonov had disappeared, and I could just see
+Markovitch turning the corner of the palace.
+
+I ran across the grass, trying to call out, but I could not hear my own
+voice. I turned the corner, and instantly I was in a strange place of
+peace. The old building with its wooden lattices and pillars stood
+melancholy guard over the dead pond on whose surface some fragments of
+ice still lay. There was no sun, only a heavy, oppressive air. All the
+noise was muffled as though a heavy door had swung to.
+
+They were standing quite close to me. Semyonov had turned and faced us
+both. I saw him smile, and his lips moved. A moment later I saw
+Markovitch fling his hand forward, and in the air the light on the
+revolver twinkled. I heard no sound, but I saw Semyonov raise his arm,
+as though in self-defence. His face, lifted strangely to the bare
+branches, was triumphant, and I heard quite clearly the words, like a
+cry of joy and welcome:
+
+"At last!... At last!"
+
+He tumbled forward on his face.
+
+I saw Markovitch turn the revolver on himself, and then heard a report,
+sharp and deafening, as though we had been in a small room. I saw
+Markovitch put his hand to his side, and his mouth, open as though in
+astonishment, was suddenly filled with blood. I ran to him, caught him
+in my arms; he turned on me a face full of puzzled wonder, I caught the
+word "Vera," and he crumpled up against my heart.
+
+Even as I held him, I heard coming closer and closer the rough
+triumphant notes of the "Marseillaise."
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret City, by Hugh Walpole
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12349 ***