The Secret City

by Sir Hugh Walpole

  XIV

  As soon as I had finished reading the letter I went to the telephone andrang up the Markovitches' flat. Bohun spoke to me. I asked him whetherNicholas was there, he said, "Yes, fast asleep in the arm-chair," WasSemyonov there? "No, he was dining out that night." I asked him toremind Vera that I was expecting to take her to the meeting next day,and rang off. There was nothing more to be done just then. Two minuteslater there was a knock on my door and Vera came in.

  "Why!" I cried. "I've just been ringing up to tell you that, of course,I was coming on Monday."

  "That is partly what I wanted to know," she said, smiling. "And also Ithought that you'd fancied we'd all deserted you."

  "No," I answered. "I don't expect you round here every time I'm ill.That would be absurd. You'll be glad to know at any rate that I'vedecided to give up these ridiculous rooms. I deserve all the illness Iget so long as I'm here."

  "Yes, that's good," she answered. "How you could have stayed so long--"She dropped into a chair, closed her eyes and lay back. "Oh, IvanAndreievitch, but I'm tired!"

  She looked, lying there, white-faced, her eyelids like grey shadows,utterly exhausted. I waited in silence. After a time she opened her eyesand said, suddenly:

  "We all come and talk to you, don't we? I, Nina, Nicholas, Sherry (shemeant Lawrence), even Uncle Alexei. I wonder why we do, because we nevertake your advice, you know.... Perhaps it's because you seem rightoutside everything."

  I coloured a little at that.

  "Did I hurt you?... I'm sorry. No, I don't know that I am. I don't mindnow whether I hurt any one. You know that he's going back to England?"

  I nodded my head.

  "He told you himself?"

  "Yes," I said.

  She lay back in her chair and was silent for a long time.

  "You think I'm a noble woman, don't you. Oh yes, you do! I can see youjust thirsting for my nobility. It's what Uncle Alexei always says aboutyou, that you've learnt from Dostoieffsky how to be noble, and it'sbecome a habit with you."

  "If you're going to believe--" I began angrily.

  "Oh, I hate him! I listen to nothing that he says. All the same,Durdles, this passion for nobility on your part is very irritating. Ican see you now making up the most magnificent picture of my nobility.I'm sure if you were ever to write a book about us all, you'd write ofme something like this: 'Vera Michailovna had won her victory. She hadachieved her destiny.... Having surrendered her lover she was as fine asa Greek statue!' Something like that.... Oh, I can see you at it!"

  "You don't understand--" I began.

  "Oh, but I do!" she answered. "I've watched your attitude to me from thefirst. You wanted to make poor Nina noble, and then Nicholas, and then,because they wouldn't either of them do, you had to fall back upon me:memories of that marvellous woman at the Front, Marie some one or other,have stirred up your romantic soul until it's all whipped cream andjam--mulberry jam, you know, so as to have the proper dark colour."

  "Why all this attack on me?" I asked. "What have I done?"

  "You've done nothing," she cried. "We all love you, Durdles, becauseyou're such a baby, because you dream such dreams, see nothing as itis.... And perhaps after all you're right--your vision is as good asanother. But this time you've made me restless. You're never to see meas a noble woman again, Ivan Andreievitch. See me as I am, just forfive minutes! I haven't a drop of noble feeling in my soul!"

  "You've just given him up," I said. "You've sent him back to England,although you adore him, because your duty's with your husband. You'rebreaking your heart--"

  "Yes, I am breaking my heart," she said quietly. "I'm a dead womanwithout him. And it's my weakness, my cowardice, that is sending himaway. What would a French woman or an English woman have done? Given upthe world for their lover. Given up a thousand Nicholases, sacrificed ahundred Ninas--that's real life. That's real, I tell you. What feelingis there in my soul that counts for a moment beside my feeling forSherry? I say and I feel and I know that I would die for him, die withhim, happily, gladly. Those are no empty words.

  "I who have never been in love before, I am devoured by it now untilthere is nothing left of me--nothing.... And yet I remain. It is ourweakness, our national idleness. I haven't the strength to leaveNicholas. I am soft, sentimental, about his unhappiness. Pah! how Idespise myself.... I am capable of living on here for years with husbandand lover, going from one to another, weeping for both of them. AlreadyI am pleading with Sherry that he should remain here. We will see whatwill happen. We will see what will happen! Ah, my contempt for myself!Without bones, without energy, without character.

  "But this is life, Ivan Andreievitch! I stay here, I send him awaybecause I cannot bear to see Nicholas suffer. And I do not care forNicholas. Do you understand that? I never loved him, and now I have acontempt for him--in spite of myself. Uncle Alexei has done that. Ohyes! He has made a fool of Nicholas for months, and although I havehated him for doing that, I have seen, also, what a fool Nicholas is!But he is a hero, too. Make _him_ as noble as you like, IvanAndreievitch. You cannot colour it too high. He is the real thing and Iam the sham.... But oh! I do not want to live with him any more, I amtired of him, his experiments, his lamentations, his weakness, his lackof humour--tired of him, sick of him. And yet I cannot leave him,because I am soft, soft without bones, like my country, IvanAndreievitch.... My lover is strong. Nothing can change his will. Hewill go, will leave me, until he knows that I am free. Then he willnever leave me again.

  "Perhaps I will get tired of his strength one day--it may be--just asnow I am tired of Nicholas's weakness. Everything has its end.

  "But no! he has humour, and he sees life as it is. I shall be ablealways to tell him the truth. With Nicholas it is always lies...."

  She suddenly sprang up and stood before me.

  "Now, do you think me noble?" she cried.

  "Yes," I answered.

  "Ah! you are incorrigible! You have drunk Dostoieffsky until you can seenothing but God and the moujik! But I am alive, Ivan Andreievitch, not aheroine in a book! Alive, alive, alive! Not one of your Lisas or Annasor Natashas. I'm alive enough to shoot Uncle Alexei and poisonNicholas--but I'm soft too, soft so that I cannot bear to see a rabbitkilled... and yet I love Sherry so that I am blind for him and deaf forhim and dead for him--when he is not there. My love--the only one of mylife--the first and the last--"

  She flung out her arms:

  "Life! Now! Before it is too late! I want it, I want him, I wanthappiness!"

  She stood thus for a moment, staring out to the sea. Then her armsdropped, she laughed, fastening her cloak--

  "There's your nobility, Ivan Andreievitch--theatrical, all of it. I knowwhat I am, and I know what I shall do. Nicholas will live to eighty; Ialso. I shall hate him, but I shall he in an agony when he cuts hisfinger. I shall never see Sherry again. Later, he will marry a freshEnglish girl like an apple.... I, because I am weak, soft putty--I havemade it so."

  She turned away from me, staring desperately at the wall. When shelooked back to me her face was grey.

  She smiled. "What a baby you are!... But take care of yourself. Don'tcome on Monday if it's bad weather. Good-bye."

  She went.

  After a bad, sleepless night, and a morning during which I dozed in anightmareish kind of way, I got up early in the afternoon, had some tea,and about six o'clock started out.

  It was a lovely evening; the spring light was in the air, the tuftedtrees beside the canal were pink against the pale sky, and thin layersof ice, like fragments of jade, broke the soft blue of the water. Howpleasant to feel the cobbles firm beneath one's feet, to know that thesnow was gone for many months, and that light now would flood thestreets and squares! Nevertheless, my foreboding was not raised, and theveils of colour hung from house to house and from street to street couldnot change the realities of the scene.

  I climbed the stairs to the flat and found Vera waiting for me. She waswith Uncle Ivan, who, I found to my disappointment, was coming with us
.

  We started off.

  "We can walk across to the Bourse," she said. "It's such a lovelyevening, and we're a little early."

  We talked of nothing but the most ordinary things; Uncle Ivan's companyprevented anything else. To say that I cursed him is to put it verymildly. He had been, I believe, oblivious of all the scenes that hadoccurred during the last weeks. If the Last Judgement occurred under hisvery nose, and he had had a cosy meal in front of him, he would havenoticed nothing. The Revolution had had no effect on him at all; it didnot seem strange to him that Semyonov should come to live with them; hehad indeed fancied that Nicholas had not "been very well" lately, butthen Nicholas had always been an odd and cantankerous fellow, and he, ashe told me, never paid too much attention to his moods. His one anxietywas lest Sacha should be hindered from her usual shopping on the morrow,it being May Day, when there would be processions and other tiresomethings. He hoped that there was enough food in the house.

  "There will be cold cutlets and cheese," Vera said.

  He told me that he really did not know why he was going to this meeting.He took no interest in politics, and he hated speeches, but he wouldlike to see our Ambassador. He had heard that he was always excellentlydressed....

  Vera said very little. Her troubles that evening must have beenaccumulating upon her with terrible force--I did not know, at that time,about her night-scene with Nicholas. She was very quiet, and just as weentered the building she whispered to me:

  "Once over to-morrow--"

  I did not catch the rest. People pressed behind us, and for a moment wewere separated; we were not alone again. I have wondered since what shemeant by that, whether she had a foreboding or some more definitewarning, or whether she simply referred to the danger of riots andgeneral lawlessness. I shall never know now.

  I had expected a crowded meeting, but I was not prepared for themultitude that I found. We entered by a side-door, and then passed up anarrow passage, which led us to the reserved seats at the side of theplatform. I had secured these some days before. In the dark passage onecould realise nothing; important gentlemen in frock-coats, officers, andone or two soldiers, were hurrying to and fro, with an air of having agreat deal to do, and not knowing at all how to do it. Beyond thedarkness there was a steady hum, like the distant whirr of a greatmachine. There was a very faint smell in the air of boots and humanflesh. A stout gentleman with a rosette in his buttonhole showed us toour seats. Vera sat between Uncle Ivan and myself. When I looked aboutme I was amazed. The huge hall was packed so tightly with human beingsthat one could see nothing but wave on wave of faces, or, rather, thesame face, repeated again and again and again, the face of a baby, of achild, of a credulous, cynical dreamer, a face the kindest, the naivest,the cruellest, the most friendly, the most human, the most savage, themost Eastern, and the most Western in the world.

  That vast presentation of that reiterated visage seemed suddenly toexplain everything to me. I felt at once the stupidity of any appeal,and the instant necessity for every kind of appeal. I felt the negation,the sudden slipping into insignificant unimportance of the whole of theWestern world--and, at the same time, the dismissal of the East. "Nolonger my masters" a voice seemed to cry from the very heart of thatmultitude. "No longer will we halt at your command, no longer will yourwords be wisdom to us, no longer shall we smile with pleasure at yourstories, and cringe with fear at your displeasure; you may hate ourdefection, you may lament our disloyalty, you may bribe us and smileupon us, you may preach to us and bewail our sins. We are no longeryours--WE ARE OUR OWN--Salute a new world, for it is nothing less thatyou see before you!..."

  And yet never were there forces more unconscious of theirdestiny--utterly unselfconscious as animals, babies, the flowers of thefield. Still there to be driven, perhaps to be persuaded, to be whipped,to be cajoled, to be blinded, to be tricked and deceived, drugged anddeafened--but not for long! The end of that old world had come--the newworld was at hand--"Life begins to-morrow!"

  The dignitaries came upon the platform, and, beyond them all, indistinction, nobility, wisdom was our own Ambassador. This is no placefor a record of the discretion and tact and forbearance that he hadshown during those last two years. To him had fallen perhaps the mostdifficult work of all in the war. It might seem that on broad groundsthe Allies had failed with Russia, but the end was not yet, and in yearsto come, when England reaps unexpected fruit from her Russian alliance,let her remember to whom she owed it. No one could see him there thatnight without realising that there stood before Russia, as England'srepresentative, not only a great courtier and statesman, but a greatgentleman, who had bonds of courage and endurance that linked him to themeanest soldier there.

  I have emphasised this because he gave the note to the whole meeting.Again and again one's eyes came back to him and always that high brow,that unflinching carriage of the head, the nobility and breeding ofevery movement gave one reassurance and courage. One's own troublesseemed small beside that example, and the tangled morality of that vexedtime seemed to be tested by a simpler and higher standard.

  It was altogether a strange affair. At first it lacked interest, somemember of the Italian Embassy spoke, I think, and then some one fromSerbia. The audience was apathetic. All those bodies, so tightly wedgedtogether that arms and legs were held in an iron vice, stayedmotionless, and once and again there would be a short burst of applauseor a sibilant whisper, but it would be something mechanical anduninspired. I could see one soldier, in the front row behind thebarrier, a stout fellow with a face of supreme good humour, down whoseforehead the sweat began to trickle; he was patient for a while, then hetried to raise his hand. He could not move without sending a ripple downthe whole front line. Heads were turned indignantly in his direction. Hesubmitted; then the sweat trickled into his eyes. He made a superhumaneffort and half raised his arm; the crowd pushed again and his arm fell.His face wore an expression of ludicrous despair....

  The hall got hotter and hotter. Soldiers seemed to be still pressing inat the back. The Italian gentleman screamed and waved his arms, but thefaces turned up to his were blank and amiably expressionless.

  "It is indeed terribly hot," said Uncle Ivan.

  Then came a sailor from the Black Sea Fleet who had made himself famousduring these weeks by his impassioned oratory. He was a thin dark-eyedfellow, and he obviously knew his business. He threw himself at onceinto the thick of it all, paying no attention to the stout frock-coatedgentlemen who sat on the platform, dealing out no compliments, whetherto the audience or the speakers, wasting no time at all. He told themall that they had debts to pay, that their honour was at stake, and thatEurope was watching them. I don't know that that Face that stared at himcared very greatly for Europe, but it is certain that a breath ofemotion passed across it, that there was a stir, a movement, aresponse....

  He sat down, there was a roar of applause; he regarded themcontemptuously. At that moment I caught sight of Boris Grogoff. I hadbeen on the watch for him. I had thought it very likely that he would bethere. Well, there he was, at the back of the crowd, listening with acontemptuous sneer on his face, and a long golden curl poking out fromunder his cap.

  And then something else occurred--something really strange. I wasconscious, as one sometimes is in a crowd, that I was being stared at bysome one deliberately. I looked about me, and then, led by theattraction of the other's gaze, I saw quite close to me, on the edge ofthe crowd nearest to the platform, the Rat.

  He was dressed rather jauntily in a dark suit with his cup set on oneside, and his hair shining and curled. His face glittered with soap, andhe was smiling in his usual friendly way. He gazed at me quite steadily.My lips moved very slightly in recognition. He smiled and, I fancy,winked.

  Then, as though he had actually spoken to me, I seemed to hear him say:

  "Well, good-bye.... I'm never coming to you again. Good-bye, good-bye."

  It was as definite a farewell as you can have from a man, more definitethan you will have from most, as
though, further, he said: "I'm gone forgood and all. I have other company and more profitable plunder. On theback of our glorious Revolution I rise from crime to crime....Good-bye."

  I was, in sober truth, never to speak to him again. I cannot but regretthat on the last occasion when I should have a real opportunity oflooking him full in the face, he was to offer me a countenance offriendly good-humour and amiable rascality.

  I shall have, until I die, a feeling of tenderness....

  I was recalled from my observation of Grogoff and the Rat by thesensation that the waters of emotion were rising higher around me. Iraised my eyes and saw that the Belgian Consul was addressing themeeting. He was a stout little man, with eye-glasses and a face of noimportance, but it was quite obvious at once that he was most terriblyin earnest. Because he did not know the Russian language he was underthe unhappy necessity of having a translator, a thin and amiableRussian, who suffered from short sight and a nervous stammer.

  He could not therefore have spoken under heavier disadvantages, and myheart ached for him. It need not have done so. He started in a lowvoice, and they shouted to him to speak up. At the end of his firstparagraph the amiable Russian began his translation, sticking his noseinto the paper, losing the place and stuttering over his sentences.There was a restless movement in the hall, and the poor Belgian Consulseemed lost. He was made, however, of no mean stuff. Before the Russianhad finished his translation the little man had begun again. This timehe had stepped forward, waving his glasses and his head and his hand,bending forward and backward, his voice rising and rising. At the end ofhis next paragraph he paused and, because the Russian was slow andstammering once again, went forward on ids own account. Soon he forgothimself, his audience, his translator, everything except his own dearBelgium. His voice rose and rose; he pleaded with a marvellous rhythm ofeloquence her history, her fate, her shameful devastation. He appealedon behalf of her murdered children, her ravished women, her slaughteredmen.

  He appealed on behalf of her Arts, her Cathedrals, and libraries ruined,her towns plundered. He told a story, very quietly, of an oldgrandfather and grandmother murdered and their daughter ravished beforethe eyes of her tiny children. Here he himself began to shed tears. Hetried to brush them back. He paused and wiped his eyes.... Finally,breaking down altogether, he turned away and hid his face....

  I do not suppose that there were more than a dozen persons in that hallwho understood anything of the language in which he spoke. Certainly itwas the merest gibberish to that whole army of listening men.Nevertheless, with every word that he uttered the emotion grew tenser.Cries--little sharp cries like the bark of a puppy--broke out here andthere. "_Verrno! Verrno! Verrno_! (True! True! True!)" Movements, likethe swift finger of the wind on the sea, hovered, wavered, andvanished....

  He turned back to them, his voice broken with sobs, and he could onlycry the one word "Belgia... Belgia... Belgia"... To that theyresponded. They began to shout, to cry aloud. The screams of "_Verrno...Verrno_" rose until it seemed that the roof would rise with them.The air was filled with shouts, "Bravo for the Allies." "_Soyousniki!Soyousniki_!" Men raised their caps and waved them, smiled upon oneanother as though they had suddenly heard wonderful news, shouted andshouted and shouted... and in the midst of it all the little rotundBelgian Consul stood bowing and wiping his eyes.

  How pleased we all were! I whispered to Vera: "You see! They do care!Their hearts are touched. We can do anything with them now!"

  Even Uncle Ivan was moved, and murmured to himself "Poor Belgium! PoorBelgium!"

  How delighted, too, were the gentlemen on the platform. Smiling, theywhispered to one another, and I saw several shake hands. A great moment.The little Consul bowed finally and sat down.

  Never shall I forget the applause that followed. Like one man thethousands shouted, tears raining down their cheeks, shaking hands, evenembracing! A vast movement, as though the wind had caught them anddriven them forward, rose, lifted them, so that they swayed like bendingcorn towards the platform, for an instant we were all caught uptogether. There was one great cry: "Belgium!"

  The sound rose, fell, sunk into a muttering whisper, died to give way tothe breathless attention that awaited the next speaker.

  I whispered to Vera: "I shall never forget that. I'm going to leave onthat. It's good enough for me."

  "Yes," she said, "we'll go."

  "What a pity," whispered Uncle Ivan, "that they didn't understand whatthey were shouting about."

  We slipped out behind the platform; turned down the dark long passage,hearing the new speaker's voice like a bell ringing beyond thick walls,and found our way into the open.

  The evening was wonderfully fresh and clear. The Neva lay before us likea blue scarf, and the air faded into colourless beauty above the darkpurple of the towers and domes. Vera caught my arm: "Look!" shewhispered. "There's Boris!" I knew that she had on several occasionstried to force her way into his flat, that she had written every day toNina (letters as it afterwards appeared, that Boris kept from her). Iwas afraid that she would do something violent.

  "Wait!" I whispered, "perhaps Nina is here somewhere."

  Grogoff was standing with another man on a small improvised platformjust outside the gates of the Bourse.

  As the soldiers came out (many of them were leaving now on the full tideof their recent emotions) Grogoff and his friend caught them, held them,and proceeded to instruct their minds.

  I caught some of Grogoff's sentences: "_Tovaristchi_!" I heard him cry,"Comrades! Listen to me. Don't allow your feelings to carry you away!You have serious responsibilities now, and the thing for you to do isnot to permit sentiment to make you foolish. Who brought you into thiswar? Your leaders? No, your old masters. They bled you and robbed youand slaughtered you to fill their own pockets. Who is ruling the worldnow? The people to whom the world truly belongs? No, the Capitalists,the money-grubbers, the old thieves like Nicholas who is now under lockand key... Capitalists... England, France... Thieves, Robbers....

  "Belgium? What is Belgium to you? Did you swear to protect her people?Does England, who pretends such loving care for Belgium, does she lookafter Ireland? What about her persecution of South Africa? Belgium? Haveyou heard what she did in the Congo?..."

  As the men came, talking, smiling, wiping their eyes, they were caughtby Grogoff's voice. They stood there and listened. Soon they began tonod their heads. I heard them muttering that good old word "_Verrno!Verrno_!" again. The crowd grew. The men began to shout their approval."Aye! it's true," I heard a solder near me mutter. "The English arethieves"; and another "Belgium?... After all I could not understand aword of what that little fat man said."

  I heard no more, but I did not wonder now at the floods that were risingand rising, soon to engulf the whole of this great country. The end ofthis stage of our story was approaching for all of us.

  We three had stood back, a little in the shadow, gazing about to seewhether we could hail a cab.

  As we waited I took my last look at Grogoff, his stout figure againstthe purple sky, the masts of the ships, the pale tumbling river, theblack line of the farther shore. He stood, his arms waving, his mouthopen, the personification of the disease from which Russia wassuffering.

  A cab arrived. I turned, said as it were, my farewell to Grogoff andeverything for which he stood, and went.

  We drove home almost in silence. Vera, staring in front of her, her faceproud and reserved, building up a wall of her own thoughts.

  "Come in for a moment, won't you?" she asked me, rather reluctantly Ithought. But I accepted, climbed the stairs and followed Uncle Ivan'sstubby and self-satisfied progress into the flat.

  I heard Vera cry. I hurried after her and found, standing closetogether, in the middle of the room Henry Bohun and Nina!

  With a little sob of joy and shame too, Nina was locked in Vera's arms.