The Secret City

by Sir Hugh Walpole

  V

  I feel conscious, as I approach the centre of my story, that there is anappearance of uncertainty in the way that I pass from one character toanother. I do not defend that uncertainty.

  What I think I really feel now, on looking back, is that each ofus--myself, Semyonov, Vera, Nina, Lawrence, Bohun, Grogoff, yes, and theRat himself--was a part of a mysterious figure who was beyond us,outside us, and above us all. The heart, the lungs, the mouth, theeyes... used against our own human agency, and yet free within thatdomination for the exercise of our own free will. Have you never feltwhen you have been swept into the interaction of some group of personsthat you were being employed as a part of a figure that without youwould be incomplete? The figure is formed.... For an instant it remains,gigantic, splendid, towering above mankind, as a symbol, a warning, ajudgement, an ideal, a threat. Dimly you recognise that you have playedsome part in the creation of that figure, and that living for a moment,as you have done, in some force outside your individuality, you have yetexpressed that same individuality more nobly than any poor assertion ofyour own small lonely figure could afford. You have been used and nowyou are alone again.... You were caught up and united to your fellowmen.God appeared to you--not, as you had expected, in a vision cut off fromthe rest of the world, but in a revelation that you shared and that wasonly revealed because you were uniting with others. And yet yourindividuality was still there, strengthened, heightened, purified.

  And the vision of the figure remains....

  When I woke on Saturday morning, after my evening with Semyonov, I wasconscious that I was relieved as though I had finally settled someaffair whose uncertainty had worried me. I lay in bed chuckling asthough I had won a triumph over Semyonov, as though I said to myself,"Well, I needn't be afraid of him any longer." It was a most beautifulday, crystal clear, with a stainless blue sky and the snow like a carpetof jewels, and I thought I would go and see how the world was behaving.I walked down the Morskaia, finding it quiet enough, although I fanciedthat the faces of the passers-by were anxious and nervous. Nevertheless,the brilliant sunshine and the clear peaceful beauty of the snowreassured me--the world was too beautiful and well-ordered a place toallow disturbance. Then at the corner of the English shop where theMorskaia joins the Nevski Prospect, I realised that something hadoccurred. It was as though the world that I had known so long, and withwhom I felt upon such intimate terms, had suddenly screwed round itsface and showed me a new grin.

  The broad space of the Nevski was swallowed up by a vast crowd, veryquiet, very amiable, moving easily, almost slothfully, in a slowlystirring stream.

  As I looked up the Nevski I realised what it was that had given me thefirst positive shock of an altered world. The trams had stopped. I hadnever seen the Nevski without its trams; I had always been forced tostand on the brink, waiting whilst the stream of Isvostchicks gallopedpast and the heavy, lumbering, coloured elephants tottered along,amiable and slow and good-natured like everything else in that country.Now the elephants were gone; the Isvostchicks were gone. So far as myeye could see, the black stream flooded the shining way.

  I mingled with the crowd and found myself slowly propelled in anamiable, aimless manner up the street.

  "What's the matter?" I asked a cheerful, fat little "Chinovnik," whoseemed to be tethered to me by some outside invincible force.

  "I don't know...." he said. "They're saying there's been some shootingup by the Nicholas Station--but that was last night. Some women had aprocession about food.... _Tak oni gavoryat_--so they say.... But Idon't know. People have just come out to see what they can see...."

  And so they had--women, boys, old men, little children. I could see nosigns of ill-temper anywhere, only a rather open-mouthed wonder andsense of expectation.

  A large woman near me, with a shawl over her head and carrying a largebasket, laughed a great deal. "No, I wouldn't go," she said. "You go andget it for yourself--I'm not coming. Not I, I was too clever for that."Then she would turn, shrilly calling for some child who was apparentlylost in the crowd. "Sacha!... Ah! Sacha!" she cried--and turning again,"Eh! look at the Cossack!... There's a fine Cossack!"

  It was then that I noticed the Cossacks. They were lined up along theside of the pavement, and sometimes they would suddenly wheel andclatter along the pavement itself, to the great confusion of the crowdwho would scatter in every direction.

  They were fine-looking men, and their faces expressed childish andrather worried amiability. The crowd obviously feared them not at all,and I saw a woman standing with her hand on the neck of one of thehorses, talking in a very friendly fashion to the soldier who rode it."That's strange," I thought to myself; "there's something queer here."It was then, just at the entrance of the "Malaia Koniushennaia," that astrange little incident occurred. Some fellow--I could just see hisshaggy head, his pale face, and black beard--had been shoutingsomething, and suddenly a little group of Cossacks moved towards him andhe was surrounded. They turned off with him towards a yard close athand. I could hear his voice shrilly protesting; the crowd also movedbehind, murmuring. Suddenly a Cossack, laughing, said something. I couldnot hear his words, but every one near me laughed. The little Chinovnikat my side said to me, "That's right. They're not going to shoot,whatever happens--not on their brothers, they say. They'll let thefellow go in a moment. It's only just for discipline's sake. That'sright. That's the spirit!"

  "But what about the police?" I asked.

  "Ah, the police!" His cheery, good-natured face was suddenly dark andscowling. "Let them try, that's all. It's Protopopoff who's ourenemy--not the Cossacks."

  And a woman near him repeated.

  "Yes, yes, it's Protopopoff. Hurrah for the Cossacks!"

  I was squeezed now into a corner, and the crowd swirled and eddied aboutme in a tangled stream, slow, smiling, confused, and excited. I pushedmy way along, and at last tumbled down the dark stone steps into the"Cave de la Grave," a little restaurant patronised by the foreigners andcertain middle-class Russians. It was full, and every one was eating hisor her meal very comfortably as though nothing at all were the matter. Isat down with a young American, an acquaintance of mine attached to theAmerican Embassy.

  "There's a tremendous crowd in the Nevski," I said.

  "Guess I'm too hungry to trouble about it," he answered.

  "Do you think there's going to be any trouble?" I asked.

  "Course not. These folks are always wandering round. M. Protopopoff hasit in hand all right."

  "Yes, I suppose he has," I answered with a sigh.

  "You seem to want trouble," he said, suddenly looking up at me.

  "No, I don't want trouble," I answered. "But I'm sick of this mess, thismismanagement, thievery, lying--one's tempted to think that anythingwould be better--"

  "Don't you believe it," he said brusquely. "Excuse me, Durward, I'vebeen in this country five years. A revolution would mean God's ownupset, and you've got a war on, haven't you?"

  "They might fight better than ever," I argued.

  "Fight!" he laughed. "They're dam sick of it all, that's what they are.And a revolution would leave 'em like a lot of silly sheep wandering onto a precipice. But there won't be no revolution. Take my word."

  It was at that moment that I saw Boris Grogoff come in. He stood in thedoorway looking about him, and he had the strangest air of a man walkingin his sleep, so bewildered, so rapt, so removed was he. He stared abouthim, looked straight at me, but did not recognise me; finally, when awaiter showed him a table, he sat down still gazing in front of him. Thewaiter had to speak to him twice before he ordered his meal, and then hespoke so strangely that the fellow looked at him in astonishment. "Guessthat chap's seen the Millennium," remarked my American. "Or he's drunk,maybe."

  This appearance had the oddest effect on me. It was as though I had beengiven a sudden conviction that after all there was something behind thisdisturbance. I saw, during the whole of the rest of that day, Grogoff'sstrange face with the exalted, bewildered eyes, the excite
d mouth, thebody tense and strained as though waiting for a blow. And now, alwayswhen I look back I see Boris Grogoff standing in the doorway of the"Cave de la Grave" like a ghost from another world warning me.

  In the afternoon I had a piece of business that took me across theriver. I did my business and turned homewards. It was almost dark, andthe ice of the Neva was coloured a faint green under the grey sky; thebuildings rose out of it like black bubbles poised over a swamp. I wasin that strange quarter of Petrograd where the river seems, like somesluggish octopus, to possess a thousand coils. Always you are turningupon a new bend of the ice, secretly stretching into darkness; strangebridges suddenly meet you, and then, where you had expected to find asolid mass of hideous flats, there will be a cluster of masts and thesmell of tar, and little fierce red lights like the eyes of waitingbeasts.

  I seemed to stand with ice on every side of me, and so frail was mytrembling wooden bridge that it seemed an easy thing for the ice, thatappeared to press with tremendous weight against its banks, to grind thesupports to fragments. There was complete silence on every side of me.The street to my left was utterly deserted. I heard no cries norcalls--only the ice seemed once and again to quiver as though somesubmerged creature was moving beneath it. That vast crowd on the Nevskiseemed to be a dream. I was in a world that had fallen into decay anddesolation, and I could smell rotting wood, and could fancy that frozenblades of grass were pressing up through the very pavement stones.Suddenly an Isvostchick stumbled along past me, down the empty street,and the bumping rattle of the sledge on the snow woke me from mylaziness. I started off homewards. When I had gone a little way and wasapproaching the bridge over the Neva some man passed me, looked back,stopped and waited for me. When I came up to him I saw to my surprisethat it was the Rat. He had his coat-collar turned over his ears and hisdirty fur cap pulled down over his forehead. His nose was very red, andhis thin hollow cheeks a dirty yellow colour.

  "Good-evening, Barin," he said, grinning.

  "Good-evening," I said. "Where are you slipping off to so secretly?"

  "Slipping off?" He did not seem to understand my word. I repeated it.

  "Oh, I'm not slipping off," he said almost indignantly. "No, indeed. I'mjust out for a walk like your Honour, to see the town."

  "What have they been doing this afternoon?" I asked. "There's been afine fuss on the Nevski."

  "Yes, there has...." he said, chuckling. "But it's nothing to the fussthere will be."

  "Nonsense," I said. "The police have got it all in control already.You'll see to-morrow...."

  "And the soldiers, Barin?"

  "Oh, the soldiers won't do anything. Talk's one thing--action'sanother."

  He laughed to himself and seemed greatly amused. This irritated me.

  "Well, what do you know?" I asked.

  "I know nothing," he chuckled. "But remember, Barin, in a week's time,if you want me I'm your friend. Who knows? In a week I may be a richman."

  "Some one else's riches," I answered.

  "Certainly," he said. "And why not? Why should he have things? Is he abetter man than I? Possibly--but then it is easy for a rich man to keepwithin the law. And then Russia's meant for the poor man. However," hecontinued, with great contempt in his voice, "that's politics--dullstuff. While the others talk I act."

  "And what about the Germans?" I asked him. "Does it occur to you thatwhen you've collected your spoils the Germans will come in and takethem?"

  "Ah, you don't understand us, Barin," he said, laughing. "You're a goodman and a kind man, but you don't understand us. What can the Germansdo? They can't take the whole of Russia. Russia's a big country.... No,if the Germans come there'll be more for us to take."

  We stood for a moment under a lamp-post. He put his hand on my arm andlooked up at me with his queer ugly face, his sentimental dreary eyes,his red nose, and his hard, cruel little mouth.

  "But no one shall touch you--unless it's myself if I'm very drunk. Butyou, knowing me, will understand afterwards that I was at least notmalicious--"

  I laughed. "And this mysticism that they tell us about in England. Areyou mystical, Rat? Have you a beautiful soul?"

  He sniffed and blew his nose with his hand.

  "I don't know what you're talking about, Barin--I suppose you haven't arouble or two on you?"

  "No, I haven't," I answered. He looked up and down the bridge as thoughhe were wondering whether an attack on me was worth while. He saw apoliceman and decided that it wasn't.

  "Well, good-night, Barin," he said cheerfully. He shuffled off. I lookedat the vast Neva, pale green and dim grey, so silent under the bridges.The policeman, enormous under his high coat, the sure and confidentguardian of that silent world, came slowly towards me, and I turned awayhome.