VI
The next day, Sunday, I have always called in my mind Nina's day, and soI propose to deal with it here, describing it as far as possible fromher point of view and placing her in the centre of the picture.
The great fact about Nina, at the end, when everything has been said,must always be her youth. That Russian youthfulness is something that noWestern people can ever know, because no Western people are accustomed,from their very babyhood, to bathe in an atmosphere that deals only withideas.
In no Russian family is the attempt to prevent children from knowingwhat life really is maintained for long; the spontaneous impetuosity ofthe parents breaks it down. Nevertheless the Russian boy and girl, whenthey come to the awkward age, have not the least idea of what lifereally is. Dear me, no! They possess simply a bundle of incoherentideas, untested, ill-digested, but a wonderful basis for incessantconversation. Experience comes, of course, and for the most part it isunhappy experience.
Life is a tragedy to every Russian simply because the daily round isforgotten by him in his pursuit of an ultimate meaning. We in the Westhave learnt to despise ultimate meanings as unpractical and ratherpriggish things.
Nina had thought so much and tested so little. She loved so vehementlythat her betrayal was the more inevitable. For instance, she did notlove Boris Grogoff in the least, but he was in some way connected withthe idea of freedom. She was, I am afraid, beginning to love Lawrencedesperately--the first love of her life--and he too was connected withthe idea of freedom because he was English. We English do not understandsufficiently how the Russians love us for our easy victory over tyranny,and despise us for the small use we have made of our victory--and then,after all, there is something to be said for tyranny too....
But Nina did not see why she should not capture Lawrence. She felt hervitality, her health, her dominant will beat so strongly within her thatit seemed to her that nothing could stop her. She loved him for hisstrength, his silence, his good-nature, yes, and his stupidity. Thislast gave her a sense of power over him, and of motherly tenderness too.She loved his stiff and halting Russian--it was as though he were butten years old.
I am convinced, too, that she did not consider that she was doing anywrong to Vera. In the first place she was not as yet really sure thatVera cared for him. Vera, who had been to her always a mother ratherthan a sister, seemed an infinite age. It was ridiculous that Verashould fall in love--Vera so stately and stern and removed from passion.Those days were over for Vera, and, with her strong sense of duty andthe fitness of things, she would realise that. Moreover Nina could notbelieve that Lawrence cared for Vera. Vera was not the figure to beloved in that way. Vera's romance had been with Markovitch years andyears ago, and now, whenever Nina looked at Markovitch, it made it atonce impossible to imagine Vera in any new romantic situation.
Then had come the night of the birthday party, and suspicion had at onceflamed up again. She was torn that night and for days afterwards with araging jealousy.
She hated Vera, she hated Lawrence, she hated herself. Then again hermood had changed. It was, after all, natural that he should have gone toprotect Vera; she was his hostess; he was English, and did not know howtrivial a Russian scene of temper was. He had meant nothing, and poorVera, touched that at her matronly age any one should show herattention, had looked at him gratefully.
That was all. She loved Vera; she would not hurt her with suchridiculous suspicions, and, on that Friday evening when Semyonov hadcome to see me, she had been her old self again, behaving to Vera withall the tenderness and charm and affection that were her most delightfulgifts.
On this Sunday morning she was reassured; she was gay and happy andpleased with the whole world. The excitement of the disturbances of thelast two days provided an emotional background, not too thrilling to bepainful, because, after all, these riots would, as usual, come tonothing, but it was pleasant to feel that the world was buzzing, andthat without paying a penny one might see a real cinematograph showsimply by walking down the Nevski.
I do not know, of course, what exactly happened that morning untilSemyonov came in, but I can see the Markovitch family, like ten thousandother Petrograd families, assembling somewhere about eleven o'clockround the Samovar, all in various stages of undress, all sleepy andpale-faced, and a little befogged, as all good Russians are when,through the exigencies of sleep, they've been compelled to allow theirideas to escape from them for a considerable period. They discussed, ofcourse, the disturbances, and I can imagine Markovitch portentouslyannouncing that "It was all over, he had the best of reasons-forknowing...."
As he once explained to me, he was at his worst on Sunday, because hewas then so inevitably reminded of his lost youth.
"It's a gloomy day, Ivan Andreievitch, for all those who have not quitedone what they expected. The bells ring, and you feel that they ought tomean something to you, but of course one's gone past all that.... Butit's a pity...."
Nina's only thought that morning was that Lawrence was coming in theafternoon to take her for a walk. She had arranged it all. After a veryevident hint from her he had suggested it. Vera had refused, becausesome aunts were coming to call, and finally it had been arranged thatafter the walk Lawrence should bring Nina home, stay to half-past sixdinner, and that then they should all go to the French theatre. I alsowas asked to dinner and the theatre. Nina was sure that something musthappen that afternoon. It would be a crisis.... She felt within her suchvitality, such power, such domination, that she believed that to-day shecould command anything.... She was, poor child, supremely confident, andthat not through conceit or vanity, but simply because she was afatalist and believed that destiny had brought Lawrence to her feet....
It was the final proof of her youth that she saw the whole universeworking to fulfil her desire.
The other proof of her youth was that she began, for the first time, tosuffer desperately. The most casual mention of Lawrence's name wouldmake her heart beat furiously, suffocating her, her throat dry, hercheeks hot, her hands cold. Then, as the minute of his arrivalapproached, she would sit as though she were the centre of a leapingfire that gradually inch by inch was approaching nearer to her, theflames staring like little eyes on the watch, the heat advancing andreceding in waves like hands. She hoped that no one would notice heragitation. She talked nonsense to whomsoever was near to her with littlenervous laughs; she seemed to herself to be terribly unreal, with afierce hostile creature inside her who took her heart in his hot handsand pressed it, laughing at her.
And then the misery! That little episode at the circus of which I hadbeen a witness was only the first of many dreadful ventures. Sheconfessed to me afterwards that she did not herself know what she wasdoing. And the final result of these adventures was to encourage herbecause he had not repelled her. He _must_ have noticed, she thought,the times when her hand had touched his, when his mouth had been, soclose to hers that their very thoughts had mingled, when she had feltthe stuff of his coat, and even for an instant stroked it. He _must_have noticed these things, and still he had never rebuffed her. He wasalways so kind to her; she fancied that his voice had a special note oftenderness in it when he spoke to her, and when she looked at his ugly,quiet, solid face, she could not believe that they were not meant forone another. He _must_ want her, her gaiety, happiness, youth--it wouldbe wrong for him _not_ to! There could be no girls in that stupid,practical, far-away England who would be the wife to him that she wouldbe.
Then the cursed misery of that waiting! They could hear in theirsitting-room the steps coming up the stone stairs outside their flat,and every step seemed to be his. Ah, he had come earlier than he hadfixed. Vera had stupidly forgotten, perhaps, or he had found waiting anylonger impossible. Yes, surely that was his footfall; she knew it sowell. There, now he was turning towards the door; there was a pause;soon there would be the tinkle of the bell!...
No, he had mounted higher; it was not Lawrence--only some stupid,ridiculous creature who was impertinently daring to put her into
thismisery of disappointment. And then she would wonder suddenly whether shehad been looking too fixedly at the door, whether they had noticed her,and she would start and look about her self-consciously, blushing alittle, her eyes hot and suspicious.
I can see her in all these moods; it was her babyhood that was leavingher at last. She was never to be quite so spontaneously gay again,never quite so careless, so audacious, so casual, so happy. In Russiathe awkward age is very short, very dramatic, often enough very tragic.Nina was as helpless as the rest of the world.
At any rate, upon this Sunday, she was sure of her afternoon. Her eyeswere wild with excitement. Any one who looked at her closely must havenoticed her strangeness, but they were all discussing the events of thelast two days; there were a thousand stories, nearly all of them falseand a few; true facts.
No one in reality knew anything except that there had been somedemonstrations, a little shooting, and a number of excited speeches. Thetown on that lovely winter morning seemed absolutely quiet.
Somewhere about mid-day Semyonov came in, and without thinking about itNina suddenly found herself sitting in the window talking to him. Thisconversation, which was in its results to have an important influence onher whole life, continued the development which that eventful Sunday wasto effect in her. Its importance lay very largely in the fact that heruncle had never spoken to her seriously like a grown-up woman before.Semyonov was, of course, quite clever enough to realise the change whichwas transforming her, and he seized it, at once, for his own advantage.She, on her side, had always, ever since she could remember, beenintrigued by him. She told me once that almost her earliest memory wasbeing lifted into the air by her uncle and feeling the thick solidstrength of his grasp, so that she was like a feather in the air, poisedon one of his stubborn fingers; when he kissed her each hair of hisbeard seemed like a pale, taut wire, so stiff and resolute was it. HerUncle Ivan was a flabby, effeminate creature in comparison. Then, as shehad grown older, she had realised that he was a dangerous man, dangerousto women, who loved and feared and hated him. Vera said that he hadgreat power over them and made them miserable, and that he was,therefore, a bad, wicked man. But this only served to make him, inNina's eyes, the more a romantic figure.
However, he had never treated her in the least seriously, had tossed herin the air spiritually just as he had done physically when she was ababy, had given her chocolates, taken her once or twice to the cinema,laughed at her, and, she felt, deeply despised her. Then came the warand he had gone to the Front, and she had almost forgotten him. Thencame the romantic story of his being deeply in love with a nurse who hadbeen killed, that he was heartbroken and inconsolable and a changed man.Was it wonderful that on his return to Petrograd she should feel againthat old Byronic (every Russian is still brought up on Byron) romance?She did not like him, but--well--Vera was a staid old-fashionedthing.... Perhaps they all misjudged him; perhaps he really neededcomfort and consolation. He certainly seemed kinder than he used to be.But, until to-day, he had never talked to her seriously.
How her heart leapt into her throat when he began, at once, in his quietsoft voice,
"Well, Nina dear, tell me all about it. I know, so you needn't befrightened. I know and I understand."
She flung a terrified glance around her, but Uncle Ivan was reading thepaper at the other end of the room, her brother-in-law was cutting uplittle pieces of wood in his workshop, and Vera was in the kitchen.
"What do you mean?" she said in a whisper. "I don't understand."
"Yes, you do," he answered, smiling at her. "You know, Nina, you're inlove with the Englishman, and have been for a long time. Well, why not?Don't be so frightened about it. It is quite time that you should be inlove with some one, and he's a fine strong young man--not over-blessedwith brains, but you can supply that part of it. No, I think it's a verygood match. I like it. Believe me, I'm your friend, Nina." He put hishand on hers.
He looked so kind, she told me afterwards, that she felt as though shehad never known him before; her eyes were filled with tears, sooverwhelming a relief was it to find some one at last who sympathisedand understood and wanted her to succeed. I remember that she waswearing that day a thin black velvet necklet with a very small diamondin front of it. She had been given it by Uncle Ivan on her lastbirthday, and instead of making her look grown-up it gave her aridiculously childish appearance as though she had stolen into Vera'sbedroom and dressed up in her things. Then, with her fair tousled hairand large blue eyes, open as a rule with a startled expression as thoughshe had only just awakened into an astonishingly exciting world, she wasaltogether as unprotected and as guileless and as honest as any humanbeing alive. I don't know whether Semyonov felt her innocence andyouth--I expect he considered very little beside the plans that he hadthen in view.... and innocence had never been very interesting to him.He spoke to her just as a kind, wise, thoughtful uncle ought to speak toa niece caught up into her first love-affair. From the moment of thathalf-hour's conversation in the window Nina adored him, and believedevery word that came from his mouth.
"You see, Nina dear," he went on, "I've not spoken to you before becauseyou neither liked me nor trusted me. Quite rightly you listened to whatothers said about me--"
"Oh no," interrupted Nina. "I never listen to anybody."
"Well then," said Semyonov, "we'll say that you were very naturallyinfluenced by them. And quite right--perfectly right. You were only agirl then--you are a woman now. I had nothing to say to you then--now Ican help you, give you a little advice perhaps--"
I don't know what Nina replied. She was breathlessly pleased andexcited.
"What I want," he went on, "is the happiness of you all. I was sorrywhen I came back to find that Nicholas and Vera weren't such friends asthey used to be. I don't mean that there's anything wrong at all, butthey must be brought closer together--and that's what you and I, whoknow them and love them, can do--"
"Yes, yes," said Nina eagerly. Semyonov then explained that the thingthat really was, it seemed to him, keeping them apart were Nicholas'sinventions. Of course Vera had long ago seen that these inventions werenever going to come to anything, that they were simply wastingNicholas's time when he might, by taking an honest clerkship orsomething of the kind, be maintaining the whole household, and the verythought of him sitting in his workshop irritated her. The thing to do,Semyonov explained, was to laugh Nicholas out of his inventions, to showhim that it was selfish nonsense his pursuing them, to persuade him tomake an honest living.
"But I thought," said Nina, "you approved of them. I heard you only theother day telling him that it was a good idea, and that he must go on--"
"Ah!" said Semyonov. "That was my weakness, I'm afraid. I couldn't bearto disappoint him. But it was wrong of me--and I knew it at the time."
Now Nina had always rather admired her brother-in-law's inventions. Shehad thought it very clever of him to think of such things, and she hadwondered why other people did not applaud him more.
Now suddenly she saw that it was very selfish of him to go on with thesethings when they never brought in a penny, and Vera had to do all thedrudgery. She was suddenly indignant with him. In how clear a light heruncle placed things!
"One thing to do," said Semyonov, "is to laugh at him about them. Notvery much, not unkindly, but enough to make him see the folly of it."
"I think he does see that already, poor Nicholas," said Nina with wisdombeyond her years.
"To bring Nicholas and Vera together," said Semyonov, "that's what wehave to do, you and I. And believe me, dear Nina, I on my side will doall I can to help you. We are friends, aren't we?--not only uncle andniece."
"Yes," said Nina breathlessly. That was all that there was to theconversation, but it was quite enough to make Nina feel as though shehad already won her heart's desire. If any one as clever as her unclebelieved in this, then it _must_ be true. It had not been only her ownsilly imagination--Lawrence cared for her. Her uncle had seen it,otherwise he would never have encouraged her
--Lawrence cared for her....
Suddenly, in the happy spontaneity of the moment she did what she veryseldom did, bent forward and kissed him.
She told me afterwards that that kiss seemed to displease him.
He got up and walked away.
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