by Hugh Walpole
Especially when he tried, as he was sometimes ill-advised enough to do, to flirt with young girls, he was a dismal failure. He was intended, by nature, to be mysterious and malevolent, and had he only had a malevolent spirit there would have been no tragedy — but in the confused welter that he called his soul, malevolence was the least of the elements, and other things — love, sympathy, twisted self-pity, ambition, courage, and cowardice — drowned it. He was on his best behaviour to-night, and over the points of his high white collar his peaked, ugly, anxious face peered, appealing to the Fates for generosity.
But the Fates despise those who appeal.
I very soon saw that he was on excellent terms with Semyonov, and this could only be, I was sure, because Semyonov had been flattering him. Very soon I learnt the truth. I was standing near the table, watching the company, when I found Markovitch at my side.
“Very glad you’ve come, Ivan Andreievitch,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to come and see you, only I’ve been too busy.”
“How’s the ink getting along?” I asked him.
“Oh, the ink!” He brushed my words scornfully aside. “No, that’s nothing. We must postpone that to a more propitious time. Meanwhile — meanwhile, Ivan Andreievitch, I’ve hit it at last!”
“What is it this time?” I asked.
He could hardly speak for his excitement. “It’s wood — the bark — the bark of the tree, you know — a new kind of fibre for cloth. If I hadn’t got to look after these people here, I’d take you and show you now. You’re a clever fellow — you’d understand at once. I’ve been showing it to Alexei” (he nodded in the direction of Semyonov), “and he entirely agrees with me that there’s every kind of possibility in it. The thing will be to get the labour — that’s the trouble nowadays — but I’ll find somebody — one of these timber men….”
So that was it, was it? I looked across at Semyonov, who was now seated on Vera’s right hand just opposite Boris Grogoff. He was very quiet, very still, looking about him, his square pale beard a kind of symbol of the secret immobility of his soul. I fancied that I detected behind his placidity an almost relieved self-satisfaction, as though things were going very much better than he had expected.
“So Alexei Petrovitch thinks well of it, does he?” I asked.
“Most enthusiastic,” answered Markovitch eagerly. “He’s gone into the thing thoroughly with me, and has made some admirable suggestions…. Ivan Andreievitch, I think I should tell you — I misjudged him. I wasn’t fair on what I said to you the other day about him. Or perhaps it is that being at the Front has changed him, softened him a bit. His love affair there, you know, made him more sympathetic and kindly. I believe he means well to us all. Vera won’t agree with me. She’s more cynical than she used to be. I don’t like that in her. She never had a suspicious nature before, but now she doesn’t trust one.”
“You don’t tell her enough,” I interrupted.
“Tell her?” he looked at me doubtfully. “What is there I should tell her?”
“Everything!” I answered.
“Everything?” His eyes suddenly narrowed, his face was sharp and suspicious. “Does she tell me everything? Answer me that, Ivan Andreievitch. There was a time once — but now — I give my confidences where I’m trusted. If she treated me fairly—”
There was no chance to say more; they called us to the table. I took my place between Nina and Ivan.
As I have said, the supper began very merrily. Boris Grogoff was, I think, a little drunk when he arrived; at any rate he was noisy from the very beginning. I have wondered often since whether he had any private knowledge that night which elated and excited him, and was responsible in part, perhaps, for what presently occurred. It may well have been so, although at the time, of course, nothing of the kind occurred to me. Nina appeared to have recovered her spirits. She was sitting next to Lawrence, and chattered and laughed with him in her ordinary fashion.
And now, stupidly enough, when I try to recall exactly the steps that led up to the catastrophe, I find it difficult to see things clearly. I remember that very quickly I was conscious that there was danger in the air. I was conscious of it first in the eyes of Semyonov, those steady, watching, relentless eyes so aloof as to be inhuman. He was on the other side of the table, and suddenly I said to myself, “He’s expecting something to happen.” Then, directly after that I caught Vera’s eye, and I saw that she too was anxious. She looked pale and tired and sad.
I caught myself in the next instant saying to myself, “Well, she’s got Lawrence to look after her now” — so readily does the spirit that is beyond one’s grasp act above and outside one’s poor human will.
I saw then that the trouble was once again, as it had often been before, Grogoff. He was drinking heavily the rather poor claret which Markovitch had managed to secure from somewhere. He addressed the world in general.
“I tell you that we’re going to stop this filthy war,” he cried. “And if our government won’t do it, we’ll take things into our own hands….”
“Well,” said Semyonov, smiling, “that’s a thing that no Russian has ever said before, for certain.”
Every one laughed, and Grogoff flushed. “Oh, it’s easy to sneer!” he said. “Just because there’ve been miserable cowards in Russian history, you think it will always be so. I tell you it is not so. The time is coming when tyranny will topple from its throne, and we’ll show Europe the way to liberty.”
“By which you mean,” said Semyonov, “that you’ll involve Russia in at least three more wars in addition to the one she’s at present so magnificently losing.”
“I tell you,” screamed Grogoff, now so excited that he was standing on his feet and waving his glass in the air, “that this time you have not cowards to deal with. This will not be as it was in 1905; I know of what I’m speaking.”
Semyonov leant over the table and whispered something in Markovitch’s ear. I had seen that Markovitch had already been longing to speak. He jumped up on to his feet, fiercely excited, his eyes flaming.
“It’s nonsense that you are talking, sheer nonsense!” he cried. “Russia’s lost the war, and all we who believed in her have our hearts broken. Russia won’t be mended by a few vapouring idiots who talk and talk without taking action.”
“What do you call me?” screamed Grogoff.
“I mention no names,” said Markovitch, his little eyes dancing with anger. “Take it or no as you please. But I say that we have had enough of all this vapouring talk, all this pretence of courage. Let us admit that freedom has failed in Russia, that she must now submit herself to the yoke.”
“Coward! Coward!” screamed Grogoff.
“It’s you who are the coward!” cried Markovitch.
“Call me that and I’ll show you!”
“I do call you it!”
There was an instant’s pause, during which we all of us had, I suppose, some idea of trying to intervene.
But it was too late. Grogoff raised his hand and, with all his force, flung his glass at Markovitch. Markovitch ducked his head, and the glass smashed with a shattering tinkle on the wall behind him.
We all cried out, but the only thing of which I was conscious was that Lawrence had sprung from his seat, had crossed to where Vera was standing, and had put his hand on her arm. She glanced up at him. That look which they exchanged, a look of revelation, of happiness, of sudden marvellous security, was so significant that I could have cried out to them both, “Look out! Look out!”
But if I had cried they would not have heard me.
My next instinct was to turn to Markovitch. He was frowning, coughing a little, and feeling the top of his collar. His face was turned towards Grogoff and he was speaking — could catch some words: “No right… in my own house… Boris… I apologise… please don’t think of it.” But his eyes were not looking at Boris at all; they were turned towards Vera, staring at her, begging her, beseeching her…. What had he seen? How much had he understood? And
Nina? And Semyonov?
But at once, in a way most truly Russian, the atmosphere had changed. It was Nina who controlled the situation. “Boris,” she cried, “come here!”
We all waited in silence. He looked at her, a little sulkily, his head hanging, but his eyes glancing up at her.
He seemed nothing then but a boy caught in some misdemeanour, obstinate, sulky, but ready to make peace if a chance were offered him.
“Boris, come here!”
He moved across to her, looking her full in the face, his mouth sulky, but his eyes rebelliously smiling.
“Well… well….”
She stood away from the table, drawn to her full height, her eyes commanding him: “How dare you! Boris, how dare you! My birthday — mine — and you’ve spoilt it, spoilt it all. Come here — up close!”
He came to her until his hands were almost on her body; he hung his head, standing over her.
She stood back as though she were going to strike him, then suddenly with a laugh she sprang upon the chair beside her, flung her arms round his neck and kissed him; then, still standing on the chair, turned and faced us all.
“Now, that’s enough — all of you. Michael, Uncle Ivan, Uncle Alexei,
Durdles — how dare you, all of you? You’re all as bad — every one of you.
I’ll punish all of you if we have any more politics. Beastly politics!
What do they matter? It’s my birthday. My birthday, I tell you. It
shan’t be spoilt.”
She seemed to me so excited as not to know what she was saying. What had she seen? What did she know?… Meanwhile Grogoff was elated, wildly pleased like a boy who, contrary to all his expectations, had won a prize.
He went up to Markovitch with his hand out:
“Nicholas — forgive me — Prasteete — I forgot myself. I’m ashamed — my abominable temper. We are friends. You were right, too. We talk here in Russia too much, far too much, and when the moment comes for action we shrink back. We see too far perhaps. Who knows? But you were right and I am a fool. You’ve taught me a lesson by your nobility. Thank you, Nicholas. And all of you — I apologise to all of you.”
We moved away from the table. Vera came over to us, and then sat on the sofa with her arm around Nina’s neck. Nina was very quiet now, sitting there, her cheeks flushed, smiling, but as though she were thinking of something quite different.
Some one proposed that we should play “Petits Cheveaux.” We gathered around the table, and soon every one was laughing and gambling.
Only once I looked up and saw that Markovitch was gazing at Vera; and once again I looked at Vera and saw that she was staring before her, seeing nothing, lost in some vision — but it was not of Markovitch that she was thinking….
I was the first to leave — I said good-night to every one. I could hear their laughter as I waited at the bottom of the stairs for the Dvornik to let me out.
But when I was in the street the world was breathlessly still. I walked up the Prospect — no soul was in sight, only the scattered lamps, the pale snow, and the houses. At the end of the Canal I stopped. The silence was intense.
It seemed to me then that in the very centre of the Canal the ice suddenly cracked, slowly pulled apart, leaving a still pool of black water. The water slowly stirred, rippled, then a long, horned, and scaly head pushed up. I could see the shining scales on its thick side and the ribbed horn on the back of the neck. Beneath it the water stirred and heaved. With dead glazed eyes it stared upon the world, then slowly, as though it were drawn from below, it sank. The water rippled in narrowing circles — then all was still….
The moon came out from behind filmy shadow. The world was intensely light, and I saw that the ice of the canal had never been broken, and that no pool of black water caught the moon’s rays.
It was fiercely cold and I hurried home, pulling my Shuba more closely about me.
PART II. LAWRENCE
I
Of some of the events that I am now about to relate it is obvious that I could not have been an eye-witness — and yet, looking back from the strange isolation that is now my world I find it incredibly difficult to realise what I saw and what I did not. Was I with Nina and Vera on that Tuesday night when they stood face to face with one another for the first time? Was I with Markovitch during his walk through that marvellous new world that he seemed himself to have created? I know that I shared none of these things…, and yet it seems to me that I was at the heart of them all. I may have been told many things by the actors in those events — I may not. I cannot now in retrospect see any of it save as my own personal experience, and as my own personal experience I must relate it; but, as I have already said at the beginning of this book, no one is compelled to believe either my tale or my interpretation. Every man would, I suppose, like to tell his story in the manner of some other man. I can conceive the events of this part of my narration being interpreted in the spirit of the wildest farce, of the genteelest comedy, of the most humorous satire— “Other men, Other gifts.” I am a dull and pompous fellow, as Semyonov often tells me; and I hope that I never allowed him to see how deeply I felt the truth of his words.
Meanwhile I will begin with a small adventure of Henry Bohun’s. Apparently, one evening soon after Nina’s party, he found himself about half-past ten in the evening, lonely and unhappy, walking down the Nevski. Gay and happy crowds wandered by him, brushing him aside, refusing to look at him, showing in fact no kind of interest in his existence. He was suddenly frightened, the distances seemed terrific and the Nevski was so hard and bright and shining — that it had no use at all for any lonely young man. He decided suddenly that he would go and see me. He found an Isvostchick, but when they reached the Ekaterinsgofsky Canal the surly coachman refused to drive further, saying that his horse had gone lame, and that this was as far as he had bargained to go.
Henry was forced to leave the cab, and then found himself outside the little people’s cinema, where he had once been with Vera and myself.
He knew that my rooms were not far away, and he started off beside the white and silent canal, wondering why he had come, and wishing he were back in bed.
There was still a great deal of the baby in Henry, and ghosts and giants and scaly-headed monsters were not incredibilities to his young imagination. As he left the main thoroughfare and turned down past the widening docks, he suddenly knew that he was terrified. There had been stories of wild attacks on rich strangers, sand-bagging and the rest, often enough, but it was not of that kind of thing that he was afraid. He told me afterwards that he expected to see “long thick crawling creatures” creeping towards him over the ice. He continually turned round to see whether some one were following him. When he crossed the tumbledown bridge that led to my island it seemed that he was absolutely alone in the whole world. The masts of the ships dim through the cold mist were like tangled spiders’ webs. A strange hard red moon peered over the towers and chimneys of the distant dockyard. The ice was limitless, and of a dirty grey pallor, with black shadows streaking it. My island must have looked desolate enough, with its dirty snow-heaps, old boards and scrap-iron and tumbledown cottages.
Again, as on his first arrival in Petrograd, Henry was faced by the solemn fact that events are so often romantic in retrospect, but grimly realistic in experience. He reached my lodging and found the door open. He climbed the dark rickety stairs and entered my sitting-room. The blinds were not drawn, and the red moon peered through on to the grey shadows that the ice beyond always flung. The stove was not burning, the room was cold and deserted. Henry called my name and there was no answer. He went into my bedroom and there was no one there. He came back and stood there listening.
He could hear the creaking of some bar beyond the window and the melancholy whistle of a distant train.
He was held there, as though spellbound. Suddenly he thought that he heard some one climbing the stairs. He gave a cry, and that was answered by a movement so close to him that it was alm
ost at his elbow.
“Who’s there?” he cried. He saw a shadow pass between the moon and himself. In a panic of terror he cried out, and at the same time struck a match. Some one came towards him, and he saw that it was Markovitch.
He was so relieved to find that it was a friend that he did not stop to wonder what Markovitch should be doing hiding in my room. It afterwards struck him that Markovitch looked odd. “Like a kind of conspirator, in old shabby Shuba with the collar turned up. He looked jolly ill and dirty, as though he hadn’t slept or washed. He didn’t seem a bit surprised at seeing me there, and I think he scarcely realised that it was me. He was thinking of something else so hard that he couldn’t take me in.”
“Oh, Bohun!” he said in a confused way.
“Hullo, Nicolai Leontievitch,” Bohun said, trying to be unconcerned.
“What are you doing here?”
“Came to see Ivan Andreievitch,” he said. “Wasn’t here; I was going to write to him.”
Bohun then lit a candle and discovered that the place was in a very considerable mess. Some one had been sifting my desk, and papers and letters were lying about the floor. The drawers of my table were open, and one chair was over-turned. Markovitch stood back near the window, looking at Bohun suspiciously. They must have been a curious couple for such a position. There was an awkward pause, and then Bohun, trying to speak easily, said:
“Well, it seems that Durward isn’t coming. He’s out dining somewhere I expect.”
“Probably,” said Markovitch drily.
There was another pause, then Markovitch broke out with: “I suppose you think I’ve been here trying to steal something.”