The Secret City Part 43

"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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sion, 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.