The Secret City

by Sir Hugh Walpole

  VII

  I do not know exactly what occurred during that afternoon. NeitherLawrence nor Nina spoke about it to me. I only know that Nina returnedsubdued and restrained. I can imagine them going out into that quiettown and walking along the deserted quay; the quiet that afternoon was,I remember, marvellous. The whole world was holding its breath. Greatevents were occurring, but we were removed from them all. The icequivered under the sun and the snowclouds rose higher and higher intothe blue, and once and again a bell chimed and jangled.... There was anamazing peace. Through this peaceful world Nina and Lawrence walked. Hismind must, I know, have been very far away from Nina, probably he sawnothing of her little attempts at friendship; her gasping sentencesthat seemed to her so daring and significant he scarcely heard. His onlyconcern was to endure the walk as politely as possible and return toVera.

  Perhaps if she had not had that conversation with her uncle she wouldhave realised more clearly how slight a response was made to her, butshe thought only that this was his English shyness and gaucherie--shemust go slowly and carefully. He was not like a Russian. She must notfrighten him. Ah, how she loved him as she walked beside him, seeing andnot seeing the lovely frozen colours of the winter day, the quicklyflooding saffron sky! The first bright star, the great pearl-grey cloudof the Neva as it was swept into the dark. In the dark she put, I amsure, her hand on his arm, and felt his strength and took her smallhurried steps beside his long ones. He did not, I expect, feel her handon his sleeve at all. It was Vera whom he saw through the dusk. Verawatching the door for his return, knowing that his eyes would rush tohers, that every beat of his heart was for her....

  I found them all seated at dinner when I entered. I brought them thenews of the shooting up at the Nicholas Station.

  "Perhaps, we had better not go to the theatre," I said. "A number ofpeople were killed this afternoon, and all the trams are stopped."

  Still it was all remote from us. They laughed at the idea of not goingto the theatre. The tickets had been bought two weeks ago, and the walkwould be pleasant. Of course we would go. It would be fun, too, to seewhether anything were happening.

  With how strange a clarity I remember the events of that evening. It isdetached and hangs by itself among the other events of that amazingtime, as though it had been framed and separated for some especialpurpose. My impression of the colour of it now is of a scene intenselyquiet.

  I saw at once on my arrival that Vera was not yet prepared to receive meback into her friendship. And I saw, too, that she included Lawrence inthis ostracism. She sat there, stiff and cold, smiling and talkingsimply because she was compelled, for politeness sake, to do so. Shewould scarcely speak to me at all, and when I saw this I turned anddevoted myself to Uncle Ivan, who was always delighted to make me atesting-ground for his English.

  But poor Jerry! Had I not been so anxious lest a scene should burst uponus all I could have laughed at the humour of it. Vera's attitude was acomplete surprise to him. He had not seen her during the preceding week,and that absence from her had heightened his desire until it burnt hisvery throat with its flame. One glance from her, when he came in, wouldhave contented him. He could have rested then, happily, quietly; butinstead of that glance she had avoided his eye, her hand was cold andtouched his only for an instant. She had not spoken to him again afterthe first greeting. I am sure that he had never known a time when hisfeelings threatened to be too much for him. His hold on himself and hisemotions had been complete. "These fellers," he once said to me aboutsome Russians, "are always letting their feelings overwhelm them--likewomen. And they like it. Funny thing!" Well, funny or no, he realised itnow; his true education, like Nina's, like Vera's, like Bohun's, likeMarkovitch's, perhaps like my own, was only now beginning. Funny andpathetic, too, to watch his broad, red, genial face struggling toexpress a polite interest in the conversation, to show nothing butfriendliness and courtesy. His eyes were as restless as minnows; theydarted for an instant towards Vera, then darted off again, then flashedback. His hand moved for a plate, and I saw that it was shaking. PoorJerry! He had learnt what suffering was during those last weeks. But themost silent of us all that evening was Markovitch. He sat huddled overhis food and never said a word. If he looked up at all he glowered, andso soon as he had finished eating he returned to his workshop, closingthe door behind him. I caught Semyonov looking at him with a pleasant,speculative smile....

  At last Vera, Nina, Lawrence, and I started for the theatre. I can't saythat I was expecting a very pleasant evening, but the deathlikestillness, both of ourselves and the town did, I confess, startle me.Scarcely a word was exchanged by us between the English Prospect andSaint Isaac's Square. The square looked lovely in the bright moonlight,and I said something about it. It was indeed very fine, the cathedrallike a hovering purple cloud, the old sentry in his high peaked hat, theblack statue, and the blue shadows over the snow. It was then thatLawrence, with an air of determined strength, detached Vera from us andwalked ahead with her. I saw that he was talking eagerly to her.

  Nina said, with a little shudder, "Isn't it quiet, Durdles? As thoughthere were ghosts round every corner."

  "Hope you enjoyed your walk this afternoon," I said.

  "No, it was quiet then. But not like it is now. Let's walk faster andcatch the others up. Do you believe in ghosts, Durdles?"

  "Yes, I think I do."

  "So do I. Was it true, do you think, about the people being shot at theNicholas Station to-day?"

  "I daresay."

  "Perhaps all the dead people are crowding round here now. Why isn't anyone out walking?"

  "I suppose they are all frightened by what they've heard, and think itbetter to stay at home."

  We were walking down the Morskaia, and our feet gave out a ringing echo.

  "Let's keep up with them," Nina said. When we had joined the others Ifound that they were both silent--Lawrence very red, Vera pale. We wereall feeling rather weary. A woman met us. "You aren't allowed to crossthe Nevski," she said; "the Cossacks are stopping everybody." I can seeher now, a stout, red-faced woman, a shawl over her head, and carrying abasket. Another woman, a prostitute I should think, came up and joinedus.

  "What is it?" she asked us.

  The stout woman repeated in a trembling, agitated voice, "You aren'tallowed to cross the Nevski. The Cossacks are stopping everybody."

  The prostitute shook her head in her alarm, and little flakes of powderdetached themselves from her nose. "_Bozhe moi_--_bozhe moi_!" shesaid, "and I promised not to be late."

  Vera then, very calmly and quietly, took command of the situation."We'll go and see," she said, "what is really the truth."

  We turned up the side street to the Moika Canal, which lay like powderedcrystal under the moon. Not a soul was in sight.

  There arrived then one of the most wonderful moments of my life. TheNevski Prospect, that broad and mighty thoroughfare, stretched before uslike a great silver river. It was utterly triumphantly bare and naked.Under the moon it flowed, with proud tranquillity, so far as the eyecould see between its high black banks of silent houses.

  At intervals of about a hundred yards the Cossack pickets, like ebonystatues on their horses, guarded the way. Down the whole silver expansenot one figure was to be seen; so beautiful was it under the high moon,so still, so quiet, so proud, that it was revealing now for the firsttime its real splendour. At no time of the night or day is the Nevskideserted. How happy it must have been that night!...

  For us, it was as though we hesitated on the banks of a river. I felt astrange superstition, as though something said to me, "You cross thatand you are plunged irrevocably into a new order of events. Go home, andyou will avoid danger." Nina must have had something of the samefeeling, because she said:

  "Let's go home. They won't let us cross. I don't want to cross. Let's gohome."

  But Vera said firmly, "Nonsense! We've gone so far. We've got thetickets. I'm going on."

  I felt the note in her voice, superstitiously, as a kind o
f desperatechallenge, as though she had said:

  "Well, you see nothing worse can happen to me than has happened."

  Lawrence said roughly, "Of course, we're going on."

  The prostitute began, in a trembling voice, as though we must all ofnecessity understand her case:

  "I don't want to be late this time, because I've been late so oftenbefore.... It always is that way with me... always unfortunate...."

  We started across, and when we stepped into the shining silver surfacewe all stopped for an instant, as though held by an invisible force.

  "That's it," said Vera, speaking it seemed to herself. "So it always iswith us. All revolutions in Russia end this way--"

  An unmounted Cossack came forward to us.

  "No hanging about there," he said. "Cross quickly. No one is to delay."

  We moved to the other side of the Moika bridge. I thought of theCossacks yesterday who had assured the people that they would notfire--well, that impulse had passed. Protopopoff and his men hadtriumphed.

  We were all now in the shallows on the other bank of the canal. Theprostitute, who was still at our side, hesitated for a moment, as thoughshe were going to speak. I think she wanted to ask whether she mightwalk with us a little way. Suddenly she vanished without sound, into theblack shadows.

  "Come along," said Vera. "We shall be dreadfully late." She seemed to bemastered by an overpowering desire not to be left alone with Lawrence.She hurried forward with Nina, and Lawrence and I came more slowlybehind. We were now in a labyrinth of little streets and blackoverhanging flats. Not a soul anywhere--only the moonlight in greatbroad flashes of light--once or twice a woman hurried by keeping in theshadow. Sometimes, at the far end of the street, we saw the shining,naked Nevski.

  Lawrence was silent, then, just as we were turning into the square wherethe Michailovsky Theatre was he began:

  "What's the matter?... What's the matter with her, Durward? What have Idone?"

  "I don't know that you've done anything," I answered.

  "But don't you see?" he went on. "She won't speak to me. She won't lookat me. I won't stand this long. I tell you I won't stand it long. I'llmake her come off with me in spite of them all. I'll have her to myself.I'll make her happy, Durward, as she's never been in all her life. But Imust have her.... I can't live close to her like this, and yet never bewith her. Never alone, never alone. Why is she behaving like this tome?"

  He spoke really like a man in agony. The words coming from him in littletortured sentences as though they were squeezed from him desperately,with pain at every breath that he drew.

  "She's afraid of herself, I expect, not of you." I put my hand on hissleeve. "Lawrence," I said, "go home. Go back to England. This isbecoming too much for both of you. Nothing can come of it, butunhappiness for everybody."

  "No!" he said. "It's too late for any of your Platonic advice, Durward.I'm going to have her, even though the earth turns upside down."

  We went up the steps and into the theatre. There was, of course,scarcely any one there. The Michailovsky is not a large theatre, but thestalls looked extraordinarily desolate, every seat watching one with akind of insolent wink as though, like the Nevski ten minutes before itsaid, "Well, now you humans are getting frightened, you're all stoppingaway. We're coming back to our own!"

  There was some such malicious air about the whole theatre. Above, in thecircle, the little empty boxes were dim and shadowy, and one fanciedfigures moved there, and then saw that there was no one. Someone up inthe gallery laughed, and the laugh went echoing up and down the emptyspaces. A few people came in and sat nervously about, and no one spokeexcept in a low whisper, because voices sounded so loud and impertinent.

  Then again the man in the gallery laughed, and every one looked upfrowning. The play began. It was, I think, _Les Idees de Francoise_, butof that I cannot be sure. It was a farce of the regular French type,with a bedroom off, and marionettes who continually separated intocouples and giggled together. The giggling to-night was of a sadlyhollow sort. I pitied and admired the actors, spontaneous as a rule, butnow bravely stuffing any kind of sawdust into the figures in theirhands, but the leakage was terrible, and the sawdust lay scattered allabout the stage. The four of us sat as solemn as statues--I don't thinkone of us smiled. It was during the second Act that I suddenly laughed.I don't know that anything very comic was happening on the stage, but Iwas aware, with a kind of ironic subconsciousness, that some of thesuperior spirits in their superior Heaven must be deriving a great dealof fun from our situation. There was Vera thinking, I suppose, ofnothing but Lawrence, and Lawrence thinking of nothing but Vera, andNina thinking of nothing but Lawrence, and the audience thinking oftheir safety, and the players thinking of their salaries, andProtopopoff at home thinking of his victory, and the Czar in Tsarskoethinking of his Godsent autocracy, and Europe thinking of its ideals,and Germany thinking of its militarism--all self-justified, allmistaken, and all fulfilling some deeper plan at whose purpose theycould not begin to guess. And how intermingled we all were! Vera andNina, M. Robert and Mdlle. Flori on the other side of the footlights,Trenchard and Marie killed in Galicia, the Kaiser and Hindenburg, theArchbishop of Canterbury and the postmaster of my village in Glebeshire.

  The curtain is coming down, the fat husband is deceived once again, thelovers are in the bedroom listening behind the door, the comic waiter iswinking at the chamber-maid....

  The lights are up and we are alone again in the deserted theatre.

  Towards the end of the last interval I went out into the passage behindthe stalls to escape from the chastened whispering that went tremblingup and down like the hissing of terrified snakes. I leaned against thewall in the deserted passage and watched the melancholy figure of thecloak-room attendant huddled up on a chair, his head between his hands.

  Suddenly I saw Vera. She came up to me as though she were going to walkpast me, and then she stopped and spoke. She talked fast, not looking atme, but beyond, down the passage.

  "I'm sorry, Ivan Andreievitch," she said. "I was cross the other day. Ihurt you. I oughtn't to have done that."

  "You know," I said, "that I never thought of it for a minute."

  "No, I was wrong. But I've been terribly worried during these lastweeks. I've thought it all out to-day and I've decided--" there was acatch in her breath and she paused; she went on--"decided that theremustn't be any more weakness. I'm much weaker than I thought. I would beashamed if I didn't think that shame was a silly thing to have. But nowI am quite clear; I must make Nicholas and Nina happy. Whatever elsecomes I must do that. It has been terrible, these last weeks. We've allbeen angry and miserable, and now I must put it right. I can if I try.I've been forgetting that I chose my own life myself, and now I mustn'tbe cowardly because it's difficult. I will make it right myself...."

  She paused again, then she said, looking me straight in the face,

  "Ivan Andreievitch, does Nina care for Mr. Lawrence?"

  She was looking at me, with large black eyes so simply, with such trustin me, that I could only tell her the truth.

  "Yes," I said, "she does."

  Her eyes fell, then she looked up at me again.

  "I thought so," she said. "And does he care for her?"

  "No," I said, "he does not."

  "He must," she said. "It would be a very happy thing for them to marry."

  She spoke very low, so that I could scarcely hear her words.

  "Wait, Vera," I said. "Let it alone. Nina's very young. The mood willpass. Lawrence, perhaps, will go back to England."

  She drew in her breath and I saw her hand tremble, but she still lookedat me, only now her eyes were not so clear. Then she laughed. "I'mgetting an old woman, Ivan Andreievitch. It's ridiculous...." She brokeoff. Then held out her hand.

  "But we'll always be friends now, won't we? I'll never be cross with youagain."

  I took her hand. "I'm getting old too," I said. "And I'm useless ateverything. I only make a bungle of everything I try. But I'll be
yourtrue friend to the end of my time--"

  The bell rang and we went back into the theatre.