by Hugh Walpole
I seemed to step into a city ablaze with a sinister glory. If that appears melodramatic I can only say that the dazzling winter weather of those weeks was melodramatic. Never before had I seen the huge buildings tower so high, never before felt the shadows so vast, the squares and streets so limitless in their capacity for swallowing light and colour. The sky was a bitter changeless blue; the buildings black; the snow and ice, glittering with purple and gold, swept by vast swinging shadows as though huge doors opened and shut in heaven, or monstrous birds hovered, their wings spread, motionless in the limitless space.
And all this had, as ever, nothing to do with human life. The little courtyards with their woodstacks and their coloured houses, carts and the cobbled squares and the little stumpy trees that bordered the canals and the little wooden huts beside the bridges with their candles and fruit — these were human and friendly and good, but they had their precarious condition like the rest of us.
On the first afternoon of my new liberty I found myself in the Nevski Prospect, bewildered by the crowds and the talk and trams and motors and carts that passed in unending sequence up and down the long street. Standing at the corner of the Sadovia and the Nevski one was carried straight to the point of the golden spire that guarded the farther end of the great street. All was gold, the surface of the road was like a golden stream, the canal was gold, the thin spire caught into its piercing line all the colour of the swiftly fading afternoon; the wheels of the carriages gleamed, the flower-baskets of the women glittered like shining foam, the snow flung its crystal colour into the air like thin fire dim before the sun. The street seemed to have gathered on to its pavements the citizens of every country under the sun. Tartars, Mongols, Little Russians, Chinamen, Japanese, French officers, British officers, peasants and fashionable women, schoolboys, officials, actors and artists and business men and priests and sailors and beggars and hawkers and, guarding them all, friendly, urbane, filled with a pleasant self-importance that seemed at that hour the simplest and easiest of attitudes, the Police. “Rum — rum — rum — whirr — whirr — whirr — whirr” — like the regular beat of a shuttle the hum rose and fell, as the sun faded into rosy mist and white vapours stole above the still canals.
I turned to go home and felt some one touch my elbow.
I swung round and there, his broad face ruddy with the cold, was Jerry
Lawrence.
I was delighted to see him and told him so.
“Well, I’m damned glad,” he said gruffly. “I thought you might have a grudge against me.”
“A grudge?” I said. “Why?”
“Haven’t been to see you. Heard you were ill, but didn’t think you’d want me hanging round.”
“Why this modesty?” I asked.
“No — well — you know what I mean.” He shuffled his feet. “No good in a sick-room.”
“Mine wasn’t exactly a sick-room,” I said. “But I heard that you did come.”
“Yes. I came twice,” he answered, looking at me shyly. “Your old woman wouldn’t let me see you.”
“Never mind that,” I said; “let’s have an evening together soon.”
“Yes — as soon as you like.” He looked up and down the street. “There are some things I’d like to ask your advice about.”
“Certainly,” I said.
“What do you say to coming and dining at my place? Ever met Wilderling?”
“Wilderling?” I could not remember for the moment the name.
“Yes — the old josser I live with. Fine old man — got a point of view of his own!”
“Delighted,” I said.
“To-morrow. Eight o’clock. Don’t dress.”
He was just going off when he turned again.
“Awfully glad you’re better,” he said. He cleared his throat, looked at me in a very friendly way, then smiled.
“Awfully glad you’re better,” he repeated, then went off, rolling his broad figure into the evening mist.
I turned towards home.
XVIII
I arrived at the Baron’s punctually at eight o’clock. His flat was in a small side street off the English Quay. I paused for a moment, before turning into its dark recesses, to gather in the vast expanse of the frozen river and the long white quay. It was as though I had found my way behind a towering wall that now closed me in with a smile of contemptuous derision. There was no sound in the shining air and the only figure was a guard who moved monotonously up and down outside the Winter Palace.
I rang the bell and the “Schwitzer,” bowing very ceremoniously, told me the flat was on the second floor. I went up a broad stone staircase and found a heavy oak door with brass nails confronting me. When this slowly swung open I discovered a very old man with white hair bowing before me. He was a splendid figure in a uniform of dark blue, his tall thin figure straight and slim, his white moustaches so neat and fierce that they seemed to keep guard over the rest of his face as though they warned him that they would stand no nonsense. There was an air of hushed splendour behind him, and I could hear the heavy, solemn ticking of a clock keeping guard over all the austere sanctities of the place. When I had taken off my Shuba and goloshes I was ushered into a magnificent room with a high gold clock on the mantlepiece, gilt chairs, heavy dark carpets and large portraits frowning from the grey walls. The whole room was bitterly silent, save for the tick of the clock. There was no fire in the fireplace, but a large gleaming white stove flung out a close scented heat from the further corner of the room. There were two long glass bookcases, some little tables with gilt legs, and a fine Japanese screen of dull gold. The only other piece of furniture was a huge grand piano near the window.
I sat down and was instantly caught into the solemn silence. There was something threatening in the hush of it all. “We do what we’re told,” the clock seemed to say, “and so must you.” I thought of the ice and snow beyond the windows, and, in spite of myself, shivered.
Then the door opened and the Baron came in. He stood for a moment by the door, staring in front of him as though he could not penetrate the heavy and dusky air, and seen thus, under the height and space of the room, he seemed so small as to be almost ridiculous. But he was not ridiculous for long. As he approached one was struck at once by the immaculate efficiency that followed him like a protecting shadow. In himself he was a scrupulously neat old man with weary and dissipated eyes, but behind the weariness, the neatness, and dissipation was a spirit of indomitable determination and resolution. He wore a little white Imperial and a long white moustache. His hair was brushed back and his forehead shone like marble. He wore a black suit, white spats, and long, pointed, black patent-leather shoes. He had the smallest feet I have ever seen on any man.
He greeted me with great courtesy. His voice was soft, and he spoke perfect English, save for a very slight accent that was rather charming; this gave his words a certain naïvete. He rubbed his hands and smiled in a gentle but determined way, as though he meant no harm by it, but had decided that it was a necessary thing to do. I forget of what we talked, but I know that I surrendered myself at once to an atmosphere that had been strange to me for so long that I had almost forgotten its character — an atmosphere of discipline, order, comfort, and above all, of security. My mind flew to the Markovitches, and I smiled to myself at the thought of the contrast.
Then, strangely, when I had once thought of the Markovitch flat the picture haunted me for the rest of the evening. I could see the Baron’s gilt chairs and gold clock, his little Imperial and shining shoes only through the cloudy disorder of the Markovitch tables and chairs. There was poor Markovitch in his dark little room perched on his chair with his boots, with his hands, with his hair… and there was poor Uncle and there poor Vera…. Why was I pitying them? I gloried in them. That is Russia… This is….
“Allow me to introduce you to my wife,” the Baron said, bending forward, the very points of his toes expressing amiability.
The Baroness was a large solid lady with
a fine white bosom and strong white arms. Her face was homely and kind; I saw at once that she adored her husband; her placid smile carried beneath its placidity a tremulous anxiety that he should be pleased, and her mild eyes swam in the light of his encouragement. I was sure, however, that the calm and discipline that I felt in the things around me came as much from her domesticity as from his discipline. She was a fortunate woman in that she had attained the ambition of her life — to govern the household of a man whom she could both love and fear.
Lawrence came in, and we went through high folding doors into the dining-room. This room had dark-blue wall-paper, electric lights heavily shaded, and soft heavy carpets. The table itself was flooded with light — the rest of the room was dusk. I wondered as I looked about me why the Wilderlings had taken Lawrence as a paying guest. Before my visit I had imagined that they were poor, as so many of the better-class Russians were, but here were no signs of poverty. I decided that.
Our dinner was good, and the wine was excellent. We talked, of course, politics, and the Baron was admirably frank.
“I won’t disguise from you, M. Durward,” he said, “that some of us watch your English effort at winning the heart of this country with sympathy, but also, if I am not offending you, with some humour. I’m not speaking only of your propaganda efforts. You’ve got, I know, one or two literary gentlemen here — a novelist, I think, and a professor and a journalist. Well, soon you’ll find them inefficient, and decide that you must have some commercial gentlemen, and then, disappointed with them, you’ll decide for the military… and still the great heart of Russia will remain untouched.”
“Yes,” I said, “because your class are determined that the peasant shall remain uneducated, and until he is educated he will be unable to approach any of us.”
“Quite so,” said the Baron smiling at me very cheerfully. “I perceive, M. Durward, that you are a democrat. So are we all, these days…. You look surprised, but I assure you that the good of the people in the interests of the people is the only thing for which any of us care. Only some of us know Russia pretty well, and we know that the Russian peasant is not ready for liberty, and if you were to give him liberty to-night you would plunge his country into the most desperate torture of anarchy and carnage known in history. A little more soup? — we are offering you only a slight dinner.”
“Yes, but, Baron,” I said, “would you tell me when it is intended that the Russian peasant shall begin his upward course towards light and learning? If that day is to be for ever postponed?”
“It will not be for ever postponed,” said the Baron gently. “Let us finish the war, and education shall be given slowly, under wise direction, to every man, woman, and child in the country. Our Czar is the most liberal ruler in Europe — and he knows what is good for his children.”
“And Protopopoff and Stürmer?” I asked.
“Protopopoff is a zealous, loyal liberal, but he has been made to see during these last months that Russia is not at this moment ready for freedom. Stürmer — well, M. Stürmer is gone.”
“So you, yourself, Baron,” I asked, “would oppose at this moment all reform?”
“With every drop of blood in my body,” he answered, and his hand flat against the tablecloth quivered. “At this crisis admit one change and your dyke is burst, your land flooded. Every Russian is asked at this moment to believe in simple things — his religion, his Czar, his country. Grant your reforms, and in a week every babbler in the country will be off his head, talking, screaming, fighting. The Germans will occupy Russia at their own good time, you will be beaten on the West and civilisation will be set back two hundred years. The only hope for Russia is unity, and for unity you must have discipline, and for discipline, in Russia at any rate, you must have an autocracy.”
As he spoke the furniture, the grey walls, the heavy carpets, seemed to whisper an echo of his words: “Unity… Discipline… Discipline… Autocracy… Autocracy… Autocracy….”
“Then tell me, Baron,” I said, “if it isn’t an impertinent question, do you feel so secure in your position that you have no fears at all? Does such a crisis, as for instance Milyukoff’s protest last November, mean nothing? You know the discontent…. Is there no fear….?”
“Fear!” He interrupted me, his voice swift and soft and triumphant. “M. Durward, are you so ignorant of Russia that you consider the outpourings of a few idealistic Intelligentzia, professors and teachers and poets, as important? What about the people, M. Durward? You ask any peasant in the Moscow Government, or little Russia, or the Ukraine whether he will remain loyal to his Little Father or no! Ask — and the question you suggested to me will be answered.”
“Then, you feel both secure and justified?” I said.
“We feel both secure and justified” — he answered me, smiling.
After that our conversation was personal and social. Lawrence was very quiet. I observed that the Baroness had a motherly affection for him, that she saw that he had everything that he wanted, and that she gave him every now and then little friendly confidential smiles. As the meal proceeded, as I drank the most excellent wine and the warm austerity of my surroundings gathered ever more closely around me, I wondered whether after all my apprehensions and forebodings of the last weeks had not been the merest sick man’s cowardice. Surely if any kingdom in the world was secure, it was this official Russia. I could see it stretching through the space and silence of that vast land, its servants in every village, its paths and roads all leading back to the central citadel, its whispered orders flying through the air from district to district, its judgements, its rewards, its sins, its virtues, resting upon a basis of superstition and ignorance and apathy, the three sure friends of autocracy through history!
And on the other side — who? The Rat, Boris Grogoff, Markovitch. Yes, the Baron had reason for his confidence…. I thought for a moment of that figure that I had seen on Christmas Eve by the river — the strong grave bearded peasant whose gaze had seemed to go so far beyond the bounds of my own vision. But no! Russia’s mystical peasant — that was an old tale. Once, on the Front, when I had seen him facing the enemy with bare hands, I had, myself, believed it. Now I thought once more of the Rat — that was the type whom I must now confront.
I had a most agreeable evening. I do not know how long it had been since I had tasted luxury and comfort and the true fruits of civilisation. The Baron was a most admirable teller of stories, with a capital sense of humour. After dinner the Baroness left us for half an hour, and the Baron became very pleasantly Rabelaisian, speaking of his experiences in Paris and London, Vienna and Berlin so easily and with so ready a wit that the evening flew. The Baroness returned and, seeing that it was after eleven, I made my farewells. Lawrence said that he would walk with me down the quay before turning into bed. My host and hostess pressed me to come as often as possible. The Baron’s last words to me were:
“Have no fears, M. Durward. There is much talk in this country, but we are a lazy people.”
The “we” rang strangely in my ears.
“He’s of course no more a Russian than you or I,” I said to Lawrence, as we started down the quay.
“Oh yes, he is!” Lawrence said. “Quite genuine — not a drop of German blood in spite of the name. But he’s a Prussian at heart — a Prussian of the Prussians. By that I don’t mean in the least that he wants Germany to win the war. He doesn’t — his interests are all here, and you mayn’t believe me, but I assure you he’s a Patriot. He loves Russia, and he wants what’s best for her — and believes that to be Autocracy.”
After that Lawrence shut up. He would not say another word. We walked for a long time in silence. The evening was most beautiful. A golden moon flung the snow into dazzling relief against the deep black of the palaces. Across the Neva the line of towers and minarets and chimneys ran like a huge fissure in the golden, light from sky to sky.
“You said there was something you wanted to ask my advice about?”
I bro
ke the silence.
He looked at me with his long slow considering stare. He mumbled something; then, with a sudden gesture, he gripped my arm, and his heavy body quivering with the urgency of his words he said:
“It’s Vera Markovitch…. I’d give my body and soul and spirit for her happiness and safety…. God forgive me, I’d give my country and my honour…. I ache and long for her, so that I’m afraid for my sanity. I’ve never loved a woman, nor lusted for one, nor touched one in my whole life, Durward — and now… and now… I’ve gone right in. I’ve spoken no word to any one; but I couldn’t stand my own silence…. Durward, you’ve got to help me!”
I walked on, seeing the golden light and the curving arc of snow and the little figures moving like dolls from light to shadow. Lawrence! I had never thought of him as an urgent lover; even now, although I could still feel his hand quivering on my arm, I could have laughed at the ludicrous incongruity of romance, and that stolid thick-set figure. And at the same time I was afraid. Lawrence in love was no boy on the threshold of life like Bohun… here was no trivial passion. I realised even in that first astonished moment the trouble that might be in store for all of us.
“Look here, Lawrence!” I said at last. “The first thing that you may as well realise is that it is hopeless. Vera Michailovna has confided in me a good deal lately, and she is devoted to her husband, thinks of nothing else. She’s simple, naïve, with all her sense and wisdom….”