The Secret City Part 28

"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 Va.s.sily 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 cla.s.s 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, coa.r.s.e, 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 G.o.d! 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 cl.u.s.tered above the bend of the Ca.n.a.l seemed to s.h.i.+ft 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 pa.s.sing 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 h.o.a.rdings 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 Ca.n.a.l. Beside a little kiosk, on the s.p.a.ce 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.