The Secret City

by Sir Hugh Walpole

  XI

  The next day, Tuesday, was stormy with wind and rain. It was strange tosee from my window the whirlpool of ice-encumbered waters. The rain fellin slanting, hissing sheets upon the ice, and the ice, in lumps andsheets and blocks, tossed and heaved and spun. At times it was as thoughall the ice was driven by some strong movement in one direction, then itwas like the whole pavement of the world slipping down the side of thefirmament into space. Suddenly it would be checked and, with a kind ofquiver, station itself and hang chattering and clutching until the sweepwould begin in the opposite direction!

  I could see only dimly through the mist, but it was not difficult toimagine that, in very truth, the days of the flood had returned. Nothingcould be seen but the tossing, heaving welter of waters with the ice,grim and grey through the shadows, like "ships 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 veryafternoon 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 comfortablerealism. My old woman brought me the usual cutlets, macaroni, and teafor lunch; then I wrote to a friend in England; and finally, about fouro'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 ofmine, already mentioned in these pages, De la Mare's _The Return_.

  I read on with absorbed attention. I did not hear the dripping on theroof, nor the patter-patter of the drops from the ceiling, nor thebeating of the storm against the glass. My candles blew in the draught,and shadows crossed and recrossed the page. Do you remember the book'sclosing words?--

  "Once, like Lawford in the darkness at Widderstone, he glanced upsharply across the lamplight at his phantasmagorical shadowy companion,heard the steady surge of multitudinous rain-drops, like the roar ofTime's winged chariot hurrying near, then he too, with spectacles awry,bobbed on in his chair, a weary old sentinel on the outskirts of hisfriend's denuded battlefield."

  "Shadowy companion," "multitudinous rain-drops," "a weary old sentinel,""his friend's denuded battlefield"... the words echoed like littlemuffled bells in my brain, and it was, I suppose, to their chiming thatI fell into dreamless sleep.

  From this I was suddenly roused by the sharp noise of knocking, andstarting up, my book clattering to the floor, I saw facing me, in thedoorway, Semyonov. Twice before he had come to me just like this--out ofthe heart of a dreamless sleep. Once in the orchard near Buchatch, on ahot summer afternoon; once in this same room on a moonlit night. Somestrange consciousness, rising, it seemed, deep out of my sleep, told methat 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 enoughto prevent you."

  He laughed. He was dripping wet. He took off his hat and overcoat, satdown near the stove, bending forward, holding his cloak in his hands andwatching the steam rise from it.

  I moved away and stood watching. I was not going to give him anypossible illusion as to my welcoming him. He turned round and looked atme.

  "Truly, Ivan Andreievitch," he said, "you are a fine host. This is amiserable greeting."

  "There can be no greetings between us ever again," I answered him. "Youare a blackguard. I hope that this is our last meeting."

  "But it is," he answered, looking at me with friendliness; "that isprecisely why I've come. I've come to say good-bye."

  "Good-bye?" I repeated with astonishment. This chimed in so strangelywith my premonition. "I never was more delighted to hear it. I hopeyou'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 besoon."

  "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 herthat I would love to do anything to oblige her, but this time I wasafraid that I couldn't help her. I would be compelled, alas, to stay onindefinitely."

  "Look here, Semyonov," I said, "stop that eternal fooling. Tell mehonestly--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 withthings 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 anintuition that we shall never talk together again. I may be wrong. Butmy intuitions are generally correct."

  I noticed then that his face was haggard, his eyes dark, the light inthem exhausted as though he had not slept.... I had never before seenhim show positive physical distress. Let his soul be what it might, hisbody seemed always triumphant.

  "Whether your intuition is right or no," I said, "this _is_ the lasttime. I never intend to speak to you again if I can help it. The daythat I hear that you have really left us, never to return, will be oneof the happiest days of my life."

  Semyonov gave me a strange look, humorous, ironical, and, upon my word,almost affectionate: "That's very sad what you say, IvanAndreievitch--if you mean it. And I suppose you mean it, because youEnglish always do mean what you say.... But it's sad because, truly, Ihave friendly feelings towards you, and you're almost the only man inthe world of whom I could say that."

  "You speak as though your friendship were an honour," I said hotly."It's a degradation."

  He smiled. "Now that's melodrama, straight out of your worst Englishplays. _And_ how bad they can be!... But you hadn't always this vehementhatred. What's changed your mind?"

  "I don't know that I _have_ changed my mind," I answered. "I think I'vealways disliked you. But there at the Front and in the Forest you werebrave and extraordinarily competent. You treated Trenchard abominably,of course--but he rather asked for it in some ways. Here you've beennothing but the meanest skunk and sneak. You've set out deliberately topoison the lives of some of the best-hearted and most helpless people onthis earth.... You deserve hanging, if any murderer ever did!"

  He looked at me so mildly and with such genuine interest that I wascompelled to feel my indignation a whit melodramatic.

  "If you are going," I said more calmly, "for Heaven's sake go! It_can't_ be any pleasure to you, clever and talented as you are, to baitsuch harmless people as Vera and Nicholas. You've done harm enough.Leave them, and I forgive you everything."

  "Ah, of course your forgiveness is of the first importance to me," hesaid, with ironic gravity. "But it's true enough. You're going to bebothered with me--I _do_ seem a worry to you, don't I?--for only a fewdays more. And how's it going to end, do you think? Who's going tofinish me off? Nicholas or Vera? Or perhaps our English Byron, Lawrence?Or even yourself? Have you your revolver with you? I shall offer noresistance, I promise you."

  Suddenly he changed. He came closer to me. His weary, exhausted eyesgazed straight into mine: "Ivan Andreievitch, never mind about therest--never mind whether you do or don't hate me, that matters tonobody. What I tell you is the truth. I have come to you, as I havealways come to you, like the moth to the flame. Why am I always pursuingyou? Is it for the charm and fascination of your society? Your wit? Yourbeauty? I won't flatter you--no, no, it's because you alone, of allthese fools here, knew her. You knew her as no one else alive knew her.She liked you--God knows why! At least I do know why--it was because ofher youth and innocence and simplicity, because she didn't know a wiseman from a fool, and trusted all alike.... But you knew her, you knewher. You remember her and can talk of her. Ah, how I've hungered,hungered, to talk to you ab
out her! Sometimes I've come all this way andthen turned back at the door. How I've prayed that it might have beensome other who knew her, some real man, not a sentimental, gloomy oldwoman like yourself, Ivan Andreievitch. And yet you have your points.You have in you the things that she saw--you are honest, you arebrave.... You are like a good English clergyman. But she!... I shouldhave had some one with wit, with humour, with a sense of life about her.All the things, all the little things--the way she walked, her clothes,her smile--when she was cross! Ah, she was divine when she was cross!...Ivan Andreievitch, be kind to me! Think for a moment less of yourmorals, less of your principles--and talk to me of her! Talk to me ofher!"

  He had drawn quite close to me; he looked like a madman--I have no doubtthat, at that moment, he was one.

  "I can't!... I won't!" I answered, drawing away. "She is the most sacredmemory I have in my life. I hate to think of her with you. And thatbecause you smirch everything you touch. I have no feeling ofjealousy...."

  "You? Jealousy!" he said, looking at me scornfully. "Why should you bejealous?"

  "I loved her too," I said.

  He looked at me. In spite of myself the colour flooded my face. Helooked at me from head to foot--my plainness, my miserable physique, mylameness, my feeble frame--everything was comprehended in the scorn ofthat glance.

  "No," I said, "you need not suppose that she ever realised. She did not.I would have died rather than have spoken of it. But I will not talkabout her. I will not."

  He drew away from me. His face was grave; the mockery had left it.

  "Oh, you English, how strange you are!... In trusting, yes.... But thethings you miss! I understand now many things. I give up my desire. Youshan't smirch your precious memories.... And you, too, must understandthat there has been all this time a link that has bound us.... Well,that link has snapped. I must go. Meanwhile, after I am gone, rememberthat there is more in life, Ivan Andreievitch, than you will everunderstand. Who am I?... Rather ask, what am I? I am a Desire, aPurpose, a Pursuit--what you like. If another suffer for that I cannothelp it, and if human nature is so weak, so stupid, it is right that itshould suffer. But perhaps I am not myself at all, Ivan Andreievitch.Perhaps this is a ghost that you see.... What if the town has changed inthe night and strange souls have slipped into our old bodies?

  "Isn't there a stir about the town? Is it I that pursue Nicholas, or isit my ghost that pursues myself? Is it Nicholas that I pursue? Is notNicholas dead, and is it not my hope of release that I follow?... Don'tbe so sure of your ground, Ivan Andreievitch. You know the proverb:'There's a secret city in every man's heart. It is at that city's altarsthat the true prayers are offered.' There has been more than oneRevolution in the last two months."

  He came up to me:

  "Do not think too badly of me, Ivan Andreievitch, afterwards. I'm ahaunted man, you know."

  He bent forward and kissed me on the lips. A moment later he was gone.