The Secret City Part 50

"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 d.a.m.ned 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-enc.u.mbered 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 "s.h.i.+ps 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 gla.s.s. 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 mult.i.tudinous 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," "mult.i.tudinous rain-drops," "a weary old sentinel,"

"his friend's denuded battlefield"... the words echoed like little m.u.f.fled 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.