by Hugh Walpole
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Bohun. “You get funny echoes up here sometimes.” We stepped back into Bohun’s room and, if I had had any anxieties, they would at once, I think, have been reassured by the unemotional figure of Bohun’s typist, a gay young woman with peroxide hair, who was typing away as though for her very life.
“Look here, Bohun, can I talk to you alone for a minute?” I asked.
The peroxide lady left us.
“It’s just about Markovitch I wanted to ask you,” I went on. “I’m infernally worried, and I want your help. It may seem ridiculous of me to interfere in another family like this, with people with whom I have, after all, nothing to do. But there are two reasons why it isn’t ridiculous. One is the deep affection I have for Nina and Vera. I promised them my friendship, and now I’ve got to back that promise. And the other is that you and I are really responsible for bringing Lawrence into the family. They never would have known him if it hadn’t been for us. There’s danger and trouble of every sort brewing, and Semyonov, as you know, is helping it on wherever he can. Well, now, what I want to know is, how much have you seen of Markovitch lately, and has he talked to you?”
Bohun considered. “I’ve seen very little of him,” he said at last. “I think he avoids me now. He’s such a weird bird that it’s impossible to tell of what he’s really thinking. I know he was pleased when I asked him to dine with me at the Bear the other night. He looked most awfully pleased. But he wouldn’t come. It was as though he suspected that I was laying a trap for him.”
“But what have you noticed about him otherwise?”
“Well, I’ve seen very little of him. He’s sulky just now. He suspected Lawrence, of course — always after that night of Nina’s party. But I think that he’s reassured again. And of course it’s all so ridiculous, because there’s nothing to suspect, absolutely nothing — is there?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I answered firmly.
He sighed with relief. “Oh, you don’t know how glad I am to hear that,” he said. “Because, although I’ve known that it was all right, Vera’s been so odd lately that I’ve wondered — you know how I care about Vera and—”
“How do you mean — odd?” I sharply interrupted.
“Well — for instance — of course I’ve told nobody — and you won’t tell any one either — but the other night I found her crying in the flat, sitting up near the table, sobbing her heart out. She thought every one was out — I’d been in my room and she hadn’t known. But Vera, Durward — Vera of all people! I didn’t let her see me — she doesn’t know now that I heard her. But when you care for any one as I care for Vera, it’s awful to think that she can suffer like that and one can do nothing. Oh, Durward, I wish to God I wasn’t so helpless! You know before I came out to Russia I felt so old; I thought there was nothing I couldn’t do, that I was good enough for anybody. And now I’m the most awful ass. Fancy, Durward! Those poems of mine — I thought they were wonderful. I thought—”
He was interrupted by a sudden sharp crackle like a fire bursting into a blaze quite close at hand. We both sprang to the windows, threw them open (they were not sealed, for some unknown reason), and rushed out on to the balcony. The scene in front of us was just what it had been before — the bubble clouds were still sailing lazily before the blue, the skaters were still hovering on the ice, the cart of wood that I had noticed was vanishing slowly into the distance. But from the Liteiny — just over the bridge — came a confused jumble of shouts, cries, and then the sharp, unmistakable rattle of a machine-gun. It was funny to see the casual life in front of one suddenly pause at that sound. The doll-like skaters seemed to spin for a moment and then freeze; one figure began to run across the ice. A small boy came racing down our street shouting. Several men ran out from doorways and stood looking up into the sky, as though they thought the noise had come from there. The sun was just setting; the bubble clouds were pink, and windows flashed fire. The rattle of the machine-gun suddenly stopped, and there was a moment’s silence when the only sound in the whole world was the clatter of the wood-cart turning the corner. I could see to the right of me the crowds in the Nevski, that had looked like the continual unwinding of a ragged skein of black silk, break their regular movement and split up like flies falling away from an opening door.
We were all on the balcony by now — the stout Burrows, Peroxide, and another lady typist, Watson, the thin and most admirable secretary (he held the place together by his diligence and order), two Russian clerks, Henry, and I.
We all leaned over the railings and looked down into the street beneath us. To our left the Fontanka Bridge was quite deserted — then, suddenly, an extraordinary procession poured across it. At that same moment (at any rate it seems so now to me on looking back) the sun disappeared, leaving a world of pale grey mist shot with gold and purple. The stars were, many of them, already out, piercing with their sharp cold brilliance the winter sky.
We could not at first see of what exactly the crowd now pouring over the bridge was composed. Then, as it turned and came down our street, it revealed itself as something so theatrical and melodramatic as to be incredible. Incredible, I say, because the rest of the world was not theatrical with it. That was always to be the amazing feature of the new scene into which, without knowing it, I was at that moment stepping. In Galicia the stage had been set — ruined villages, plague-stricken peasants, shell-holes, trenches, roads cut to pieces, huge trees levelled to the ground, historic châteaux pillaged and robbed. But here the world was still the good old jog-trot world that one had always known; the shops and hotels and theatres remained as they had always been. There would remain, I believe, for ever those dull Jaeger undergarments in the windows of the bazaar, and the bound edition of Tchekov in the book-shop just above the Moika, and the turtle and the gold-fish in the aquarium near Elisseieff; and whilst those things were there I could not believe in melodrama.
And we did not believe. We dug our feet into the snow, and leaned over the balcony railings absorbed with amused interest. The procession consisted of a number of motor lorries, and on these lorries soldiers were heaped. I can use no other word because, indeed, they seemed to be all piled upon one another, some kneeling forward, some standing, some sitting, and all with their rifles pointing outwards until the lorries looked like hedgehogs. Many of the rifles had pieces of red cloth attached to them, and one lorry displayed proudly a huge red flag that waved high in air with a sort of flaunting arrogance of its own. On either side of the lorries, filling the street, was the strangest mob of men, women, and children. There seemed to be little sign of order or discipline amongst them as they were all shouting different cries: “Down the Fontanka!” “No, the Duma!” “To the Nevski!” “No, no, Tovaristchi (comrades), to the Nicholas Station!”
Such a rabble was it that I remember that my first thought was of pitying indulgence. So this was the grand outcome of Boris Grogoff’s eloquence, and the Rat’s plots for plunder! — a fitting climax to such vain dreams. I saw the Cossack, that ebony figure of Sunday night. Ten such men, and this rabble was dispersed for ever! I felt inclined to lean over and whisper to them, “Quick! quick! Go home!… They’ll be here in a moment and catch you!”
And yet, after all, there seemed to be some show of discipline. I noticed that, as the crowd moved forward, men dropped out and remained picketing the doorways of the street. Women seemed to be playing a large part in the affair, peasants with shawls over their heads, many of them leading by the hand small children.
Burrows treated it all as a huge joke. “By Jove,” he cried, speaking across to me, “Durward, it’s like that play Martin Harvey used to do — what was it? — about the French Revolution, you know.”
“‘The Only Way,’” said Peroxide, in a prim strangled voice.
“That’s it— ‘The Only Way’ — with their red flags and all. Don’t they look ruffians, some of them?”
There was a great discussion going on under our windows. All the lorri
es had drawn up together, and the screaming, chattering, and shouting was like the noise of a parrots’ aviary. The cold blue light had climbed now into the sky, which was thick with stars; the snow on the myriad roofs stretched like a filmy cloud as far as the eye could see. The moving, shouting crowd grew with every moment mistier.
“Oh, dear! Mr. Burrows,” said the little typist, who was not Peroxide. “Do you think I shall ever be able to get home? We’re on the other side of the river, you know. Do you think the bridges will be up? My mother will be so terribly anxious.”
“Oh, you’ll get home all right,” answered Burrows cheerfully. “Just wait until this crowd has gone by. I don’t expect there’s any fuss down by the river…”
His words were cut short by some order from one of the fellows below.
Others shouted in response, and the lorries again began to move forward.
“I believe he was shouting to us,” said Bohun. “It sounded like ‘Get off’ or ‘Get away.’”
“Not he!” said Burrows; “they’re too busy with their own affairs.”
Then things happened quickly. There was a sudden strange silence below; I saw a quick flame from some fire that had apparently been lit on the Fontanka Bridge; I heard the same voice call out once more sharply, and a second later I felt rather than heard a whizz like the swift flight of a bee past my ear; I was conscious that a bullet had struck the brick behind me. That bullet swung me into the Revolution….
IX
…We were all gathered together in the office. I heard one of the Russians say in an agitated whisper, “Don’t turn on the light!… Don’t turn on the light! They can see!”
We were all in half-darkness, our faces mistily white. I could hear Peroxide breathing in a tremulous manner, as though in a moment she would break into hysteria.
“We’ll go into the inside room. We can turn the light on there,” said Burrows. We all passed into the reception-room of the office, a nice airy place with the library along one wall and bright coloured maps on the other. We stood together and considered the matter.
“It’s real!” said Burrows, his red, cheery face perplexed and strained.
“Who’d have thought it?”
“Of course it’s real!” cried Bohun impatiently (Burrows’ optimism had been often difficult to bear with indulgence).
“Now you see! What about your beautiful Russian mystic now?”
“Oh dear!” cried the little Russian typist. “And my mother!… What ever shall I do? She’ll hear reports and think that I’m being murdered. I shall never get across.”
“You’d better stay with me to-night, Miss Peredonov,” said Peroxide firmly. “My flat’s quite close here in Gagarinsky. We shall be delighted to have you.”
“You can telephone to your mother, Miss Peredonov,” said Burrows. “No difficulty at all.”
It was then that Bohun took me aside.
“Look here!” he said. “I’m worried. Vera and Nina were going to the
Astoria to have tea with Semyonov this afternoon. I should think the
Astoria might be rather a hot spot if this spreads. And I wouldn’t trust
Semyonov. Will you come down with me there now?”
“Yes,” I said, “of course I’ll come.”
We said a word to Burrows, put on our Shubas and goloshes, and started down the stairs. At every door there were anxious faces. Out of one flat came a very fat Jew.
“Gentlemen, what is this all about?”
“Riots,” said Bohun.
“Is there shooting?”
“Yes,” said Bohun.
“Bozhe moi! Bozhe moi! And I live over on Vassily Ostrov! What do you advise, Gaspoda? Will the bridges be up?”
“Very likely,” I answered. “I should stay here.”
“And they are shooting?” he asked again.
“They are,” I answered.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen — stay for a moment. Perhaps together we could think…. I am all alone here except for a lady… most unfortunate….”
But we could not stay.
The world into which we stepped was wonderful. The background of snow under the star-blazing sky made it even more fantastic than it naturally was. We slipped into the crowd and, becoming part of it, were at once, as one so often is, sympathetic with it. It seemed such a childish, helpless, and good-natured throng. No one seemed to know anything of arms or directions. There were, as I have already said, many women and little children, and some of the civilians who had rifles looked quite helpless. I saw one boy holding his gun upside down. No one paid any attention to us. There was as yet no class note in the demonstration, and the only hostile cries I heard were against Protopopoff and the police. We moved back into the street behind the Fontanka, and here I saw a wonderful sight. Some one had lighted a large bonfire in the middle of the street and the flames tossed higher and higher into the air, bringing down the stars in flights of gold, flinging up the snow until it seemed to radiate in lines and circles of white light high over the very roofs of the houses. In front of the fire a soldier, mounted on a horse, addressed a small crowd of women and boys. On the end of his rifle was a ragged red cloth.
I could not see his face. I saw his arms wave, and the fire behind him exaggerated his figure and then dropped it into a straggling silhouette against the snow. The street seemed deserted except for this group, although now I could hear distant shouting on every side of me, and the monotonous clap-clap-clap-clap of a machine-gun.
I heard him say, “Tovaristchi! now is your time! Don’t hesitate in the sacred cause of freedom! As our brethren did in the famous days of the French Revolution, so must we do now. All the Army is coming over to our side. The Preobrojenski have come over to us and have arrested their officers and taken their arms. We must finish with Protopopoff and our other tyrants, and see that we have a just rule. Tovaristchi! there will never be such a chance again, and you will repent for ever if you have not played your part in the great fight for freedom!”
So it went on. It did not seem that his audience was greatly impressed. It was bewildered and dazed. But the fire leapt up behind him giving him a legendary splendour, and the whole picture was romantic and unreal like a gaudy painting on a coloured screen.
We hurried through into the Nevski, and this we found nearly deserted. The trams of course had stopped, a few figures hurried along, and once an Isvostchick went racing down towards the river.
“Well, now, we seem to be out of it,” said Bohun, with a sigh of relief. “I must say I’m not sorry. I don’t mind France, where you can tell which is the front and which the back, but this kind of thing does get on one’s nerves. I daresay it’s only local. We shall find them all as easy as anything at the Astoria, and wondering what we’re making a fuss about.”
At that moment we were joined by an English merchant whom we both knew, a stout elderly man who had lived all his life in Russia. I was surprised to find him in a state of extreme terror. I had always known him as a calm, conceited, stupid fellow, with a great liking for Russian ladies. This pastime he was able as a bachelor to enjoy to the full. Now, however, instead of the ruddy, coarse, self-confident merchant there was a pallid, trembling jelly-fish.
“I say, you fellows,” he asked, catching my arm. “Where are you off to?”
“We’re off to the Astoria,” I answered.
“Let me come with you. I’m not frightened, not at all — all the same I don’t want to be left alone. I was in the 1905 affair. That was enough for me. Where are they firing — do you know?”
“All over the place,” said Bohun, enjoying himself. “They’ll be down here in a minute.”
“Good God! Do you really think so? It’s terrible — these fellows — once they get loose they stick at nothing…. I remember in 1905…. Good heavens! Where had we better go? It’s very exposed here, isn’t it?”
“It’s very exposed everywhere,” said Bohun. “I doubt whether any of us are alive in the morning.”
“Good heavens! You don’t say so! Why should they interfere with us?”
“Oh, rich, you know, and that kind of thing. And then we’re Englishmen.
They’ll clear out all the English.”
“Oh, I’m not really English. My mother was Russian. I could show them my papers….”
Bohun laughed. “I’m only kidding you, Watchett,” he said. “We’re safe enough. Look, there’s not a soul about!” We were at the corner of the Moika now; all was absolutely quiet. Two women and a man were standing on the bridge talking together. A few stars clustered above the bend of the Canal seemed to shift and waver ever so slightly through a gathering mist, like the smoke of blowing candles.
“It seems all right,” said the merchant, sniffing the air suspiciously as though he expected to smell blood. We turned towards the Morskaia. One of the women detached herself from the group and came to us.
“Don’t go down the Morskaia,” she said, whispering, as though some hostile figure were leaning over her shoulder. “They’re firing round the Telephone Exchange.” Even as she spoke I heard the sharp clatter of the machine-gun break out again, but now very close, and with an intimate note as though it were the same gun that I had heard before, which had been tracking me down round the town.
“Do you hear that?” said the merchant.
“Come on,” said Bohun. “We’ll go down the Moika. That seems safe enough!”
How strangely in the flick of a bullet the town had changed! Yesterday every street had been friendly, obvious, and open; they were now no longer streets, but secret blind avenues with strange trees, fantastic doors, shuttered windows, a grinning moon, malicious stars, and snow that lay there simply to prevent every sound. It was a town truly beleaguered as towns are in dreams. The uncanny awe with which I moved across the bridge was increased when the man with the women turned towards me, and I saw that he was — or seemed to be — that same grave bearded peasant whom I had seen by the river, whom Henry had seen in the Cathedral, who remained with one, as passing strangers sometimes do, like a symbol or a message or a threat.