The Secret City Part 32

"We, many of us, marched along, singing the 'Ma.r.s.eillaise' 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 s.h.i.+ps all cl.u.s.tered 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 s.h.i.+ps lay against the white shadows like sleeping animals. The curve of the sky, with its mult.i.tude 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 grat.i.tude to G.o.d. Then with my head on my hands, looking down at the masts of the s.h.i.+ps, feeling Petrograd behind me with its lights as though it were the City of G.o.d, I burst into tears--tears of happiness and joy and humble grat.i.tude.... 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 s.h.i.+ver 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 grat.i.tude.

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 ba.s.s 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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d! Thank G.o.d!" 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 partic.i.p.ator?"

Vera was alone during most of that day; and even now, after the time that has pa.s.sed, 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 s.h.i.+ne 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...