"I haven't heard a word," I said.
His face fel . "I felt sure you'd help me?" he said.
"Tel me the rest and perhaps I can put things together," I suggested.
"The rest is real y Semyonov. The queerest things have been happening.
Of course, the thing is to get rid of al 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 fel er, 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 al just like a caged animal--'for ever.'
"I would have offered to retire myself if I hadn't been so interested, but this was al 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 tel 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 fel ow 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 real y 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 fel ers at the Front when they're off their heads or something... but Semyonov was worse than that. It was a strong man crying, with al 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 al 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 al that. But, by Jove, you never know!... Now, Durward, you've got to tel me. You've known Semyonov for years. You can explain. What's it al about, and what's he trying to do to Markovitch?"
"I can scarcely think what to tel you," I said at last. "I don't real y 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 al 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 naiver 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 al 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 al 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. Real y 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--wel , 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 al . 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 al 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 fal en away from him because women are dul --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 cal s 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 al , 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 fol owed 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 tel 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 real y 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 wel 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 al 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 naive 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 fal ing 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 al . 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, equal y 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 literal y paralyzed with fright. Had it been any one else she would have fought, but in her uncle's drawing gradual y nearer and nearer to the centre of al 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 al 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 al 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 bal et, 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-rol er 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 equal y 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 col ar so high, his tail-coat so much too smal , 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 tel 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 hol ow 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 cal ed 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 wonderful y 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 mournful y, 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 smel 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 al 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 wel ?"
"No--not real y. 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 al . 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 al 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 al ," 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 al this? Fools? Scoundrels! Scoundrels!
That's what they are. I must believe in Russia now or I shall die. And so with al 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 tel 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 tel 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 fal en--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 st