VIII
And yet, strangely enough, when I lay awake that night in my room on mydeserted island, it was of Markovitch that I was thinking. Of all thememories of the preceding evening that of Markovitch huddled over hisfood, sullen and glowering, with Semyonov watching him, waspredominant.
Markovitch was, so to speak, the dark horse of them all, and he was alsowhen one came to look at it all the way round the centre of the story.And yet it was Markovitch with his inconsistencies, his mysteries, hisimpulses, and purposes, whom I understood least of them all. He makes,indeed, a very good symbol of my present difficulties.
In that earlier experience of Marie in the forests of Galicia the matterhad been comparatively easy. I had then been concerned with the outwardmanifestation of war--cannon, cholera, shell, and the green glitteringtrees of the forest itself. But the war had made progress since then. Ithad advanced out of material things into the very souls of men. It wasno longer the forest of bark and tinder with which the chiefs of thisworld had to deal, but, to adapt the Russian proverb itself, "with thedark forest of the hearts of men."
How much more baffling and intangible this new forest, and how deeplyserious a business now for those who were still thoughtlessly andselfishly juggling with human affairs.
"There is no ammunition," I remember crying desperately in Galicia. Wehad moved further than the question of ammunition now.
I had a strange dream that night. I saw my old forest of two yearsbefore--the very woods of Buchatch with the hot painted leaves, thepurple slanting sunlight, the smell, the cries, the whirr of the shell.But in my dream the only inhabitant of that forest was Markovitch. Hewas pursued by some animal. What beast it was I could not see, alwaysthe actual vision was denied to me, but I could hear it plunging throughthe thickets, and once I caught a glimpse of a dark crouching body likea shadow against the light.
But Markovitch I saw all the time, sweating with heat and terror, hisclothes torn, his eyes inflamed, his breath coming in desperate pants,turning once and again as though he would stop and offer defiance, thenhasting on, his face and hands scratched and bleeding. I wanted to offerhim help and assistance, but something prevented me; I could not get tohim. Finally he vanished from my sight and I was left alone in thepainted forest....
All the next morning I sat and wondered what I had better do, and atlast I decided that I would go and see Henry Bohun.
I had not seen Bohun for several weeks. I myself had been, of late, lessto the flat in the English Prospect, but I knew that he had taken myadvice that he should be kind to Nicholas Markovitch with due Britishseriousness, and that he had been trying to bring some kind ofrelationship about. He had even asked Markovitch to dine alone with him,and Markovitch, although he declined the invitation was, I believe,greatly touched.
So, about half-past one, I started off for Bohun's office on theFontanka. I've said somewhere before, I think, that Bohun's work was inconnection with the noble but uphill task of enlightening the Russianpublic as to the righteousness of the war, the British character, andthe Anglo-Russian alliance. I say "uphill," because only a few of the_real_ population of Russia showed the slightest desire to know anythingwhatever about any country outside their own. Their interest is in ideasnot in boundaries--and what I mean by "real" will be made patent by theevents of this very day. However, Bohun did his best, and it was not hisfault that the British Government could only spare enough men and moneyto cover about one inch of the whole of Russia--and, I hasten to add,that if that same British Government had plastered the whole vastcountry from Archangel to Vladivostock with pamphlets, orators, andphotographs it would not have altered, in the slightest degree, afterevents.
To make any effect in Russia England needed not only men and money but ahundred years' experience of the country. That same experience waspossessed by the Germans alone of all the Western peoples--and they havenot neglected to use it.
I went by tram to the Fontanka, and the streets seemed absolutelyquiet. That strange shining Nevski of the night before was a dream. Someone in the tram said something about rifle-shots in the Summer Garden,but no one listened. As Vera had said last night we had, none of us,much faith in Russian revolutions.
I went up in the lift to the Propaganda office and found it a very niceairy place, clean and smart, with coloured advertisements by Sheppersonand others on the walls, pictures of Hampstead and St. Albans and KewGardens that looked strangely satisfactory and homely to me, and rathertouching and innocent. There were several young women clicking away attypewriters, and maps of the Western front, and a colossal toy map ofthe London Tube, and a nice English library with all the best books fromChaucer to D.H. Lawrence and from the _Religio Medici_ to E.V. Lucas'_London_.
Everything seemed clean and simple and a little deserted, as though theheart of the Russian public had not, as yet, quite found its way there.I think "guileless" was the adjective that came to my mind, andcertainly Burrows, the head of the place--a large, red-faced, smilingman with glasses--seemed to me altogether too cheerful and pleased withlife to penetrate the wicked recesses of Russian pessimism.
I went into Bohun's room and found him very hard at work in a serious,emphatic way which only made me feel that he was playing at it. He had alittle bookcase over his table, and I noticed the _Georgian Book ofVerse_, Conrad's _Nostromo_, and a translation of Ropshin's _PaleHorse_.
"Altogether too pretty and literary," I said to him; "you ought to begetting at the peasant with a pitchfork and a hammer--not admiring theIntelligentzia."
"I daresay you're right," he said, blushing. "But whatever we do we'rewrong. We have fellows in here cursing us all day. If we're simple we'retold we're not clever enough; if we're clever we're told we're toocomplicated. If we're militant we're told we ought to betender-hearted, and if we're tender-hearted we're told we'resentimental--and at the end of it all the Russians don't care a damn."
"Well, I daresay you're doing some good somewhere," I said indulgently.
"Come and look at my view," he said, "and see whether it isn'tsplendid."
He spoke no more than the truth. We looked across the Canal over theroofs of the city--domes and towers and turrets, grey and white andblue, with the dark red walls of many of the older houses stretched likean Arabian carpet beneath white bubbles of clouds that here and theremarked the blue sky. It was a scene of intense peace, the smoke risingfrom the chimneys, Isvostchicks stumbling along on the farther banks ofthe Canal, and the people sauntering in their usual lazy fashion up anddown the Nevski. Immediately below our window was a skating-rink thatstretched straight across the Canal. There were some figures, likelittle dolls, skating up and down, and they looked rather desolatebeside the deserted band-stands and the empty seats. On the road outsideour door a cart loaded with wood slowly moved along, the high hoop overthe horse's back gleaming with red and blue.
"Yes, it _is_ a view!" I said. "Splendid!--and all as quiet as thoughthere'd been no disturbances at all. Have you heard any news?"
"No," said Bohun. "To tell the truth I've been so busy that I haven'thad time to ring up the Embassy. And we've had no one in this morning.Monday morning, you know," he added; "always very few people on Mondaymorning"--as though he didn't wish me to think that the office wasalways deserted.
I watched the little doll-like men circling placidly round and roundthe rink. One bubble cloud rose and slowly swallowed up the sun.Suddenly I heard a sharp crack like the breaking of a twig. "What'sthat?" I said, stepping forward on to the balcony. "It sounded like ashot."
"I didn't hear anything," said Bohun. "You get funny echoes up heresometimes." We stepped back into Bohun's room and, if I had had anyanxieties, they would at once, I think, have been reassured by theunemotional figure of Bohun's typist, a gay young woman with peroxidehair, who was typing away as though for her very life.
"Look here, Bohun, can I talk to you alone for a minute?" I asked.
The peroxide lady left us.
"It's just about Markovitch I wanted to ask you
," I went on. "I'minfernally worried, and I want your help. It may seem ridiculous of meto interfere in another family like this, with people with whom I have,after all, nothing to do. But there are two reasons why it isn'tridiculous. One is the deep affection I have for Nina and Vera. Ipromised them my friendship, and now I've got to back that promise. Andthe other is that you and I are really responsible for bringing Lawrenceinto the family. They never would have known him if it hadn't been forus. There's danger and trouble of every sort brewing, and Semyonov, asyou know, is helping it on wherever he can. Well, now, what I want toknow is, how much have you seen of Markovitch lately, and has he talkedto you?"
Bohun considered. "I've seen very little of him," he said at last. "Ithink he avoids me now. He's such a weird bird that it's impossible totell of what he's really thinking. I know he was pleased when I askedhim to dine with me at the Bear the other night. He looked _mostawfully_ pleased. But he wouldn't come. It was as though he suspectedthat I was laying a trap for him."
"But what have you noticed about him otherwise?"
"Well, I've seen very little of him. He's sulky just now. He suspectedLawrence, of course--always after that night of Nina's party. But Ithink that he's reassured again. And of course it's all so ridiculous,because there's nothing to suspect, absolutely nothing--is there?"
"Absolutely nothing," I answered firmly.
He sighed with relief. "Oh, you don't know how glad I am to hear that,"he said. "Because, although I've _known_ that it was all right, Vera'sbeen so odd lately that I've wondered--you know how I care about Veraand--"
"How do you mean--odd?" I sharply interrupted.
"Well--for instance--of course I've told nobody--and you won't tell anyone either--but the other night I found her crying in the flat, sittingup near the table, sobbing her heart out. She thought every one wasout--I'd been in my room and she hadn't known. But Vera, Durward--Veraof all people! I didn't let her see me--she doesn't know now that Iheard her. But when you care for any one as I care for Vera, it's awfulto think that she can suffer like that and one can do nothing. Oh,Durward, I wish to God I wasn't so helpless! You know before I came outto Russia I felt so old; I thought there was nothing I couldn't do, thatI was good enough for anybody. And now I'm the most awful ass. Fancy,Durward! Those poems of mine--I thought they were wonderful. Ithought--"
He was interrupted by a sudden sharp crackle like a fire bursting into ablaze quite close at hand. We both sprang to the windows, threw themopen (they were not sealed, for some unknown reason), and rushed out onto the balcony. The scene in front of us was just what it had beenbefore--the bubble clouds were still sailing lazily before the blue, theskaters were still hovering on the ice, the cart of wood that I hadnoticed was vanishing slowly into the distance. But from theLiteiny--just over the bridge--came a confused jumble of shouts, cries,and then the sharp, unmistakable rattle of a machine-gun. It was funnyto see the casual life in front of one suddenly pause at that sound. Thedoll-like skaters seemed to spin for a moment and then freeze; onefigure began to run across the ice. A small boy came racing down ourstreet shouting. Several men ran out from doorways and stood looking upinto the sky, as though they thought the noise had come from there. Thesun was just setting; the bubble clouds were pink, and windows flashedfire. The rattle of the machine-gun suddenly stopped, and there was amoment's silence when the only sound in the whole world was the clatterof the wood-cart turning the corner. I could see to the right of me thecrowds in the Nevski, that had looked like the continual unwinding of aragged skein of black silk, break their regular movement and split uplike flies falling away from an opening door.
We were all on the balcony by now--the stout Burrows, Peroxide, andanother lady typist, Watson, the thin and most admirable secretary (heheld the place together by his diligence and order), two Russian clerks,Henry, and I.
We all leaned over the railings and looked down into the street beneathus. To our left the Fontanka Bridge was quite deserted--then, suddenly,an extraordinary procession poured across it. At that same moment (atany rate it seems so now to me on looking back) the sun disappeared,leaving a world of pale grey mist shot with gold and purple. The starswere, many of them, already out, piercing with their sharp coldbrilliance the winter sky.
We could not at first see of what exactly the crowd now pouring over thebridge was composed. Then, as it turned and came down our street, itrevealed itself as something so theatrical and melodramatic as to beincredible. Incredible, I say, because the rest of the world was nottheatrical with it. That was always to be the amazing feature of the newscene into which, without knowing it, I was at that moment stepping. InGalicia the stage had been set--ruined villages, plague-strickenpeasants, shell-holes, trenches, roads cut to pieces, huge treeslevelled to the ground, historic chateaux pillaged and robbed. But herethe world was still the good old jog-trot world that one had alwaysknown; the shops and hotels and theatres remained as they had alwaysbeen. There would remain, I believe, for ever those dull Jaegerundergarments in the windows of the bazaar, and the bound edition ofTchekov in the book-shop just above the Moika, and the turtle and thegold-fish in the aquarium near Elisseieff; and whilst those things werethere I could not believe in melodrama.
And we did not believe. We dug our feet into the snow, and leaned overthe balcony railings absorbed with amused interest. The processionconsisted of a number of motor lorries, and on these lorries soldierswere heaped. I can use no other word because, indeed, they seemed to beall piled upon one another, some kneeling forward, some standing, somesitting, and all with their rifles pointing outwards until the lorrieslooked like hedgehogs. Many of the rifles had pieces of red clothattached to them, and one lorry displayed proudly a huge red flag thatwaved high in air with a sort of flaunting arrogance of its own. Oneither side of the lorries, filling the street, was the strangest mob ofmen, women, and children. There seemed to be little sign of order ordiscipline amongst them as they were all shouting different cries: "Downthe Fontanka!" "No, the Duma!" "To the Nevski!" "No, no, _Tovaristchi_(comrades), to the Nicholas Station!"
Such a rabble was it that I remember that my first thought was ofpitying indulgence. So this was the grand outcome of Boris Grogoff'seloquence, and the Rat's plots for plunder!--a fitting climax to suchvain dreams. I saw the Cossack, that ebony figure of Sunday night. Tensuch men, and this rabble was dispersed for ever! I felt inclined tolean over and whisper to them, "Quick! quick! Go home!... They'll behere in a moment and catch you!"
And yet, after all, there seemed to be some show of discipline. Inoticed that, as the crowd moved forward, men dropped out and remainedpicketing the doorways of the street. Women seemed to be playing a largepart in the affair, peasants with shawls over their heads, many of themleading by the hand small children.
Burrows treated it all as a huge joke. "By Jove," he cried, speakingacross to me, "Durward, it's like that play Martin Harvey used todo--what was it?--about the French Revolution, you know."
"'The Only Way,'" said Peroxide, in a prim strangled voice.
"That's it--'The Only Way'--with their red flags and all. Don't theylook ruffians, some of them?"
There was a great discussion going on under our windows. All the lorrieshad drawn up together, and the screaming, chattering, and shouting waslike the noise of a parrots' aviary. The cold blue light had climbed nowinto the sky, which was thick with stars; the snow on the myriad roofsstretched like a filmy cloud as far as the eye could see. The moving,shouting crowd grew with every moment mistier.
"Oh, dear! Mr. Burrows," said the little typist, who was not Peroxide."Do you think I shall ever be able to get home? We're on the other sideof the river, you know. Do you think the bridges will be up? My motherwill be so terribly anxious."
"Oh, you'll get home all right," answered Burrows cheerfully. "Just waituntil this crowd has gone by. I don't expect there's any fuss down bythe river..."
His words were cut short by some order from one of the fellows below.Others shouted in response, and the lorries
again began to move forward.
"I believe he was shouting to us," said Bohun. "It sounded like 'Getoff' or 'Get away.'"
"Not he!" said Burrows; "they're too busy with their own affairs."
Then things happened quickly. There was a sudden strange silence below;I saw a quick flame from some fire that had apparently been lit on theFontanka Bridge; I heard the same voice call out once more sharply, anda second later I felt rather than heard a whizz like the swift flight ofa bee past my ear; I was conscious that a bullet had struck the brickbehind me. That bullet swung me into the Revolution....
The Secret City Page 30