XV
This is obviously the place for the story, based, of course, on the verymodest and slender account given me by the hero of it, of young Bohun'sknightly adventure. In its inception the whole affair is stillmysterious to me. Looking back from this distance of time I see that hewas engaged on one knightly adventure after another--first Vera, thenMarkovitch, lastly Nina. The first I caught at the very beginning, thesecond I may be said to have inspired, but to the third I was completelyblind. I was blind, I suppose, because, in the first place, Nina had,from the beginning, laughed at Bohun, and in the second, she had beenentirely occupied with Lawrence.
Bohun's knight-errantry came upon her with, I am sure, as great a shockof surprise as it did upon me. And yet, when you come to think of it, itwas the most natural thing. They were the only two of our party who hadany claim to real youth, and they were still so young that they couldbelieve in one ideal after another as quick as you can catch goldfish ina bowl of water. Bohun would, of course, have indignantly denied that hewas out to help anybody, but that, nevertheless, was the direction inwhich his character led him; and once Russia had stripped from him thatthin coat of self-satisfaction, he had nothing to do but mount his whitecharger and enter the tournament.
I've no idea when he first thought of Nina. He did not, of course, likeher at the beginning, and I doubt whether she caused him any realconcern, too, until her flight to Grogoff. That shocked him terribly. Heconfessed as much to me. She had always been so happy and easy aboutlife. Nothing was serious to her. I remember once telling her she oughtto take the war more deeply. I was a bit of a prig about it, I suppose.At any rate she thought me one.... And then to go off to a fellow likeGrogoff!
He thought of it the more seriously when he saw the agony Vera was in.She did not ask him to help her, and so he did nothing; but he watchedher efforts, the letters that she wrote, the eagerness with which sheravished the post, her fruitless visits to Grogoff's flat, her dejectedmisery over her failure. He began himself to form plans, not, I amconvinced, from any especial affection for Nina, but simply because hehad the soul of a knight, although, thank God, he didn't know it. Iexpect, too, that he was pretty dissatisfied with his knight-errantries.His impassioned devotion to Vera had led to nothing at all, hisenthusiasm for Russia had led to a most unsatisfactory Revolution, andhis fatherly protection of Markovitch had inspired apparently nothingmore fruitful than distrust. I would like to emphasise that it was in noway from any desire to interfere in other people's affairs that youngBohun undertook these Quests. He had none of my own meddlesome quality.He had, I think, very little curiosity and no psychologicalself-satisfaction, but he had a kind heart, an adventurous spirit, and ahatred for the wrong and injustice which seemed just now to be creepingabout the world; but all this, again thank God, was entirelysubconscious. He knew nothing whatever about himself.
The thought of Nina worried him more and more. After he went to bed atnight, he would hear her laugh and see her mocking smile and listen toher shrill imitations of his own absurdities. She had been the one happyperson amongst them all, and now--! Well, he had seen enough of BorisGrogoff to know what sort of fellow he was. He came at last to theconclusion that, after a week or two she would be "sick to death of it,"and longing to get away, but then "her pride would keep her at it. She'dgot a devil of a lot of pride." He waited, then, for a while, and hoped,I suppose, that some of Vera's appeals would succeed. They did not; andthen it struck him that Vera was the very last person to whom Nina wouldyield--just because she wanted to yield to her most, which was prettysubtle of him and very near the truth.
No one else seemed to be making any very active efforts, and at last hedecided that he must do something himself. He discovered Grogoff'saddress, went to the Gagarinskaya and looked up at the flat, hung abouta bit in the hope of seeing Nina. Then he did see her at Rozanov'sparty, and this, although he said nothing to me about it at the time,had a tremendous effect on him. He thought she looked "awful." All thejoy had gone from her; she was years older, miserable, and defiant. Hedidn't speak to her, but from that night he made up his mind. Rozanov'sparty may be said to have been really the turning-point of his life. Itwas the night that he came out of his shell, grew up, faced theworld--and it was the night that he discovered that he cared about Nina.
The vision of her poor little tired face, her "rather dirty whitedress," her "grown-up" hair, her timidity and her loneliness, never lefthim for a moment. All the time that I thought he was occupied only withthe problem of Markovitch and Semyonov, he was much more deeply occupiedwith Nina. So unnaturally secretive can young men be!
At last he decided on a plan. He chose the Monday, the day of the Boursemeeting, because he fancied that Grogoff would be present at that and hemight therefore catch Nina alone, and because he and hisfellow-propagandists would be expected also at the meeting and he wouldtherefore be free of his office earlier on that afternoon. He had noidea at all how he would get into the flat, but he thought that fortunewould be certain to favour him. He always thought that.
Well, fortune did. He left the office and arrived in the Gagarinskayaabout half-past five in the evening. He walked about a little, and thensaw a bearded tall fellow drive up in an Isvostchick. He recognised thisman as Lenin, the soul of the anti-Government party, and a man who wasafterwards to figure very prominently in Russia's politics. This fellowargued very hotly with the Isvostchick about his fare, then vanishedthrough the double doors. Bohun followed him. Outside Grogoff's flatLenin waited and rang the bell. Bohun waited on the floor below; then,when he heard the door open, he noiselessly slipped up the stairs, and,as Lenin entered, followed behind him whilst the old servant's back wasturned helping Lenin with his coat. He found, as he had hoped, a crowdof cloaks and a Shuba hanging beside the door in the dark corner of thewall. He crept behind these. He heard Lenin say to the servant that,after all, he would not take off his coat, as he was leaving againimmediately. Then directly afterwards Grogoff came into the hall.
That was the moment of crisis. Did Grogoff go to the rack for his coatand all was over; a very unpleasant scene must follow--a ludicrousexpulsion, a fling or two at the amiable habits of thieving and deceiton the part of the British nation, and any hope of seeing Nina ruinedperhaps for ever. Worst of all, the ignominy of it! No young man likesto be discovered hidden behind a coat-rack, however honest his originalintentions!
His heart beat to suffocation as he peeped between the coats.... Grogoffwas already wearing his own overcoat. It was, thank God, too warm anevening for a Shuba. The men shook hands, and Grogoff saying somethingrather deferentially about the meeting, Lenin, in short, brusque tones,put him immediately in his place. Then they went out together, the doorclosed behind them, and the flat was as silent as an aquarium. He waitedfor a while, and then, hearing nothing, crept into the hall. PerhapsNina was out. If the old servant saw him she would think him a burglarand would certainly scream. He pushed back the door in front of him,stepped forward, and almost stepped upon Nina!
She gave a little cry, not seeing whom it was. She was looking veryuntidy, her hair loose down her back, and a rough apron over her dress.She looked ill, and there were heavy black lines under her eyes asthough she had not slept for weeks.
Then she saw who it was and, in spite of herself, smiled.
"Genry!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," he said in a whisper, closing the door very softly behind him."Look here, don't scream or do anything foolish. I don't want that oldwoman to catch me."
He has no very clear memory of the conversation that followed. She stoodwith her back to the wall, storing at him, and every now and againtaking up a corner of her pinafore and biting it. He remembered thataction of hers especially as being absurdly childish. But theoverwhelming impression that he had of her was of her terror--terror ofeverything and of everybody, of everybody apparently except himself.(She told him afterwards that he was the only person in the world whocould have rescued her just then because she simply couldn't befrightened of some
one at whom she'd laughed so often.) She wasterrified, of course, of Grogoff--she couldn't mention his name withouttrembling--but she was terrified also of the old servant, of the flat,of the room, of the clock, of every sound or hint of a sound that therewas in the world. She to be so frightened! She of whom he would havesaid that she was equal to any one or anything! What she must have beenthrough during those weeks to have brought her to this!... But she toldhim very little. He urged her at once that she must come away with him,there and then, just as she was. She simply shook her head at that."No... No... No..." she kept repeating. "You don't understand."
"I do understand," he answered, always whispering, and with one ear onthe door lest the old woman should hear and come in. "We've got verylittle time," he said. "Grogoff will never let you go if he's here. Iknow why you don't come back--you think we'll all look down on you forhaving gone. But that's nonsense. We are all simply miserable withoutyou."
But she simply continued to repeat "No... No..." Then, as he urged herstill further, she begged him to go away. She said that he simply didn'tknow what Grogoff would do if he returned and found him, and althoughhe'd gone to a meeting he might return at any moment. Then, as thoughto urge upon him Grogoff's ferocity, in little hoarse whispers she lethim see some of the things that during these weeks she'd endured. He'dbeaten her, thrown things at her, kept her awake hour after hour atnight making her sing to him... and, of course, worst things, thingsfar, far worse that she would never tell to anybody, not even to Vera!Poor Nina, she had indeed been punished for her innocent impetuosities.She was broken in body and soul; she had faced reality at last and beenbeaten by it. She suddenly turned away from him, buried her head in herarm, as a tiny child does, and cried....
It was then that he discovered he loved her. He went to her, put his armround her, kissed her, stroked her hair, whispering little consolingthings to her. She suddenly collapsed, burying her head in his breastand watering his waistcoat with her tears....
After that he seemed to be able to do anything with her that he pleased.He whispered to her to go and get her hat, then her coat, then to hurryup and come along.... As he gave these last commands he heard the dooropen, turned and saw Masha, Grogoff's old witch of a servant, facinghim.
The scene that followed must have had its ludicrous side. The old womandidn't scream or make any kind of noise, she simply asked him what hewas doing there; he answered that he was going out for a walk with themistress of the house. She said that he should do nothing of the kind.He told her to stand away from the door. She refused to move. He thenrushed at her, caught her round the waist, and a most impossiblestruggle ensued up and down the middle of the room. He called to Nina torun, and had the satisfaction of seeing her dart through the door like afrightened hare. The old woman bit and scratched and kicked, makingsounds all the time like a kettle just on the boil. Suddenly, when hethought that Nina had had time to get well away, he gave the old woman avery unceremonious push which sent her back against Grogoff's chiefcabinet, and he had the comfort to hear the whole of this crash to theground as he closed the door behind him. Out in the street he foundNina, and soon afterwards an Isvostchick. She crouched up close againsthim, staring in front of her, saying nothing, shivering andshivering.... As he felt her hot hand shake inside his, he vowed that hewould never leave her again. I don't believe that he ever will.
So he took her home, and his Knight Errantry was justified at last.
XVI
These events had for a moment distracted my mind, but as soon as I wasalone I felt the ever-increasing burden of my duty towards Markovitch.
The sensation was absolutely dream-like in its insistence on the onehand that I should take some kind of action, and its preventing me, onthe other, from taking any action at all. I felt the strange inertia ofthe spectator in the nightmare, who sees the house tumbling about hishead and cannot move. Besides, what action could I take? I couldn'tstand over Markovitch, forbid him to stir from the flat, or imprisonSemyonov in his room, or warn the police... besides, there were now nopolice. Moreover, Vera and Bohun and the others were surely capable ofwatching Markovitch. Nevertheless something in my heart insisted that itwas I who was to figure in this.... Through the dusk of the streets, inthe pale ghostly shadows that prelude the coming of the white nights, Iseemed to see three pursuing figures, Semyonov, Markovitch, and myself.I was pursuing, and yet held.
I went back to my flat, but all that night I could not sleep. Alreadythe first music of the May Day processions could be heard, distanttrumpets and drums, before I sank into uneasy, bewildered slumber.
I dreamt then dreams so fantastic and irresolute that I cannot nowdisentangle them. I remember that I was standing beside the banks of theNeva. The river was rising, flinging on its course in the greattempestuous way that it always has during the first days of its releasefrom the ice. The sky grew darker--the water rose. I sought refuge inthe top gallery of a church with light green domes, and from here Iwatched the flood, first as it covered the quays, tumbling in cascadesof glittering water over the high parapet, trickling in little lines andpools, then rising into sheeted levels, then billowing in waves againstthe walls of the house, flooding the doors and the windows, until so faras the eye could reach there were only high towers remaining above itsgrasp. I do not know what happened to my security, and saw at length thewaters stretch from sky to sky, one dark, tossing ocean.
The sun rose, a dead yellow; slowly the waters sank again, islandsappeared, stretches of mud and waste. Heaving their huge bodies out ofthe ocean, vast monsters crawled through the mud, scaled and horned,lying like logs beneath the dead sun. The waters sank--forests rose. Thesun sank and there was black night, then a faint dawn, and in the earlylight of a lovely morning a man appeared standing on the beach, shadinghis eyes, gazing out to sea. I fancied that in that strong beardedfigure I recognised my peasant, who had seemed to haunt my steps sooften. Gravely he looked round him, then turned back into the forest....
Was my dream thus? Frankly I do not know--too neat an allegory to betrue, perhaps--and yet there was something of this in it. I know that Isaw Boris, and the Rat, and Vera, and Semyonov, and Markovitch,appearing, vanishing, reappearing, and that I was strongly consciousthat the submerged and ruined world did not _touch_ them, and was only abackground to their own individual activities.... I know that Markovitchseemed to come to me again and cry, "Be patient... be patient.... Havefaith... be faithful!"
I know that I woke struggling to keep him with me, crying out that hewas not to leave me, that that way was danger.... I woke to find my roomflooded with sunshine, and my old woman looking at me with disapproval.
"Wake up, Barin," she was saying, "it's three o'clock."
"Three o'clock?" I muttered, trying to pull myself together.
"Three in the afternoon... I have some tea for you."
When I realised the time I had the sensation of the wildest panic. Ijumped from my bed, pushing the old woman out of the room. I hadbetrayed my trust! I had betrayed my trust! I felt assured 'that someawful catastrophe had occurred, something that I might have prevented.When I was dressed, disregarding my housekeeper's cries, I rushed outinto the street. At my end of the Ekaterinsgofsky Canal I was stopped bygreat throngs of men and women returning homewards from the procession.They were marching, most of them, in ordered lines across the street,arm in arm, singing the "Marseillaise."
Very different from the procession a few weeks before. That had beendumb, cowed, bewildered. This was the movement of a people conscious oftheir freedom, sure of themselves, disdaining the world. Everywherebands were playing, banners were glittering, and from the very heart ofthe soil, as it seemed, the "Marseillaise" was rising.
Although the sun only shone at brief intervals, there was a sense ofspring warmth in the air. For some time I could not cross the street,then I broke through and almost ran down the deserted stretch of theCanal. I arrived almost breathless at the door in the English Prospect.There I found Sacha watching the people and listening to
the distantbands.
"Sacha!" I cried, "is Alexei Petrovitch at home?"
"No, Barin," she answered, looking at me in some surprise. "He went outabout a quarter of an hour ago."
"And Nicholas Markovitch?"
"He went out just now."
"Did he tell you where he was going?"
"No, Barin, but I heard Alexei Petrovitch tell him, an hour back, thathe was going to Katerinhof."
I did not listen to more. I turned and went. Katerinhof was a park, tenminutes distant from my island; it was so called because there was therethe wooden palace of Katherine the Great. She had once made it her placeof summer residence, but it was now given over to the people and was,during the spring and summer, used by them as a kind of fair andpleasure-garden. The place had always been to me romantic andmelancholy, with the old faded wooden palace, the deserted ponds, andthe desolate trees. I had never been there in the summer. I don't knowwith what idea I hurried there. I can only say that I had no choice butto go, and that I went as though I were still continuing my dream of themorning.
Great numbers of people were hurrying there also. The road was thronged,and many of them sang as they went.
Looking back now it has entirely a dream-like colour. I stepped from theroad under the trees, and was at once in a world of incredible fantasy.So far as the eye could see there were peasants; the air was filled withan indescribable din. As I stepped deeper into the shelter of theleafless trees the colour seemed, like fluttering banners, to mingle andspread and sway before my eyes. Near to me were the tub-thumpers now socommon to us all in Petrograd--men of the Grogoff kind stamping andshouting on their platforms, surrounded by open-mouthed soldiers andpeasants.
Here, too, were the quacks such as you might see at any fair inEurope--quack dentists, quack medicine-men, men with ointments forhealing sores, men with pills, and little bottles of bright liquid, andtricks for ruptures and broken legs and arms. A little way beyond themwere the pedlars. Here were the wildest men in the world. Tartars andLetts and Indians, Asiatics with long yellow faces, and strange fellowsfrom Northern Russia. They had everything to sell, bright beads andlooking-glasses and little lacquered trays, coloured boxes, red andgreen and yellow, lace and silk and cloths of every colour, purple andcrimson and gold. From all these men there rose a deafening gabble.
I pressed farther, although the crowd now around me was immense, and soI reached the heart of the fair. Here were enormous merry-go-rounds, andI had never seen such glittering things. They were from China, Japan,where you will. They were hung in shining, gleaming colours, coveredwith tinsel and silver, and, as they went tossing round, emitting fromtheir hearts a wild barbaric wail that may have been, in some farEastern city, the great song of all the lovers of the world for all Iknow, the colours flashed and wheeled and dazzled, and the lightglittered from stem to stem of the brown silent trees. Here was the verysoul of the East. Near me a Chinaman, squatting on his haunches, wasshowing before a gaping crowd the exploits of his trained mice, whowalked up and down little crimson ladders, poked their trembling nosesthrough holes of purple silk, and ran shivering down precipices ofgolden embroidery. Near to him two Japanese were catching swords intheir mouths, and beyond them again a great number of Chinese weretumbling and wrestling, and near to them again some Japanese childrendid little tricks, catching coloured balls in wooden cups and turningsomersaults.
Around all these a vast mass of peasants pushed and struggled. Likechildren they watched and smiled and laughed, and always, like the floodof the dream, their numbers seemed to increase and increase....
The noise was deafening, but always above the merry-go-rounds and thecheap-jacks and the shrill screams of the Japanese and the cries of thepedlars I heard the chant of the "Marseillaise" carried on high throughthe brown leafless park. I was bewildered and dazzled by the noise andthe light. I turned desperately, pushing with my hands as one does in adream.
Then I saw Markovitch and Semyonov.
I had no doubt at all that the moment had at last arrived. It was asthough I had seen it all somewhere before. Semyonov was standing alittle apart leaning against a tree, watching with his sarcastic smilethe movements of the crowd. Markovitch was a little way off. I could seehis eyes fixed absolutely on Semyonov. He did not move nor notice thepeople who jostled him. Semyonov made a movement with his hand as thoughhe had suddenly come to some decision. He walked slowly away in thedirection of the palace. Markovitch, keeping a considerable distancefrom him, followed. For a moment I was held by the crowd around me, andwhen at last I got free Semyonov had disappeared, and I could just seeMarkovitch turning the corner of the palace.
I ran across the grass, trying to call out, but I could not hear my ownvoice. I turned the corner, and instantly I was in a strange place ofpeace. The old building with its wooden lattices and pillars stoodmelancholy guard over the dead pond on whose surface some fragments ofice still lay. There was no sun, only a heavy, oppressive air. All thenoise was muffled as though a heavy door had swung to.
They were standing quite close to me. Semyonov had turned and faced usboth. I saw him smile, and his lips moved. A moment later I sawMarkovitch fling his hand forward, and in the air the light on therevolver twinkled. I heard no sound, but I saw Semyonov raise his arm,as though in self-defence. His face, lifted strangely to the barebranches, was triumphant, and I heard quite clearly the words, like acry of joy and welcome:
"At last!... At last!"
He tumbled forward on his face.
I saw Markovitch turn the revolver on himself, and then heard a report,sharp and deafening, as though we had been in a small room. I sawMarkovitch put his hand to his side, and his mouth, open as though inastonishment, was suddenly filled with blood. I ran to him, caught himin my arms; he turned on me a face full of puzzled wonder, I caught theword "Vera," and he crumpled up against my heart.
Even as I held him, I heard coming closer and closer the roughtriumphant notes of the "Marseillaise."
THE END
The Secret City Page 51