Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  “No one,” said he.

  I felt suddenly a ridiculous affront.

  “No one?” I asked, incredulous.

  “No one,” he answered. “They’ve all forgotten you, Barin,” he added maliciously, knowing that that would hurt me.

  It was strange how deeply I cared. Here was I who, only a short while before, had declared myself done with the world for ever, and now I was almost crying because no one had been to see me! Indeed, I believe in my weakness and distress I actually did cry. No one at all? Not Vera nor Nina nor Jeremy nor Bohun? Not young Bohun even…? And then slowly my brain realised that there was now a new world. None of the old conditions held any longer.

  We had been the victims of an earthquake. Now it was — every man for himself! Quickly then there came upon me an eager desire to know what had happened in the Markovitch family. What of Jerry and Vera? What of Nicholas? What of Semyonov…?

  “Rat,” I said, “this afternoon I am going out!”

  “Very well, Barin,” he said, “I, too, have an engagement.”

  In the afternoon I crept out like an old sick man. I felt strangely shy and nervous. When I reached the corner of Ekateringofsky Canal and the English Prospect I decided not to go in and see the Markovitches. For one thing I shrank from the thought of their compassion. I had not shaved for many days. I was that dull sickly yellow colour that offends the taste of all healthy vigorous people. I did not want their pity. No…. I would wait until I was stronger.

  My interest in life was reviving with every step that I took. I don’t know what I had expected the outside world to be. This was April 14. It was nearly a month since the outburst of the Revolution, and surely there should be signs in the streets of the results of such a cataclysm. There were, on the surface, no signs. There was the same little cinema on the canal with its gaudy coloured posters, there was the old woman sitting at the foot of the little bridge with her basket of apples and bootlaces, there was the same wooden hut with the sweets and the fruit, the same figures of peasant women, soldiers, boys hurrying across the bridge, the same slow, sleepy Isvostchick stumbling along carelessly. One sign there was. Exactly opposite the little cinema, on the other side of the canal, was a high grey block of flats. This now was starred and sprayed with the white marks of bullets. It was like a man marked for life with smallpox. That building alone was witness to me that I had not dreamt the events of that week.

  The thaw made walking very difficult. The water poured down the sides of the houses and gurgled in floods through the pipes. The snow was slippery under the film of gleaming wet, and there were huge pools at every step. Across the middle of the English Prospect, near the Baths, there was quite a deep lake….

  I wandered slowly along, enjoying the chill warmth of the soft spring sun. The winter was nearly over! Thank God for that! What had happened during my month of illness? Perhaps a great Revolutionary army had been formed, and a mighty, free, and united Russia was going out to save the world! Oh, I did hope that it was so! Surely that wonderful white week was a good omen. No Revolution in history had started so well as this one….

  I found my way at last very slowly to the end of the Quay, and the sight of the round towers of my favourite church was like the reassuring smile of an old friend. The sun was dropping low over the Neva. The whole vast expanse of the river was coloured very faintly pink. Here, too, there was the film of the water above the ice; the water caught the colour, but the ice below it was grey and still. Clouds of crimson and orange and faint gold streamed away in great waves of light from the sun. The long line of buildings and towers on the farther side was jet-black; the masts of the ships clustering against the Quay were touched at their tips with bright gold. It was all utterly still, not a sound nor a movement anywhere; only one figure, that of a woman, was coming slowly towards me. I felt, as one always does at the beginning of a Russian spring, a strange sense of expectation. Spring in Russia is so sudden and so swift that it gives an overwhelming impression of a powerful organising Power behind it. Suddenly the shutters are pulled back and the sun floods the world! Upon this afternoon one could feel the urgent business of preparation pushing forward, arrogantly, ruthlessly. I don’t think that I had ever before realised the power of the Neva at such close quarters. I was almost ashamed at the contrast of its struggle with my own feebleness.

  I saw then that the figure coming towards me was Nina.

  III

  As she came nearer I saw that she was intensely preoccupied. She was looking straight in front of her but seeing nothing. It was only when she was quite close to me that I saw that she was crying. She was making no sound. Her mouth was closed; the tears were slowly, helplessly, rolling down her cheeks.

  She was very near to me indeed before she saw me; then she looked at me closely before she recognised me. When she saw that it was I, she stopped, fumbled for her handkerchief, which she found, wiped her eyes, then turned away from me and looked out over the river.

  “Nina, dear,” I said, “what’s the matter?”

  She didn’t answer; at length she turned round and said:

  “You’ve been ill again, haven’t you?”

  One cheek had a dirty tear-stain on it, which made her inexpressibly young and pathetic and helpless.

  “Yes,” I said, “I have.”

  She caught her breath, put out her hand, and touched my arm.

  “Oh, you do look ill!… Vera went to ask, and there was a rough-looking man there who said that no one could see you, but that you were all right…. One of us ought to have forced a way in — M. Bohun wanted to — but we’ve all been thinking of ourselves.”

  “What’s the matter, Nina?” I asked. “You’ve been crying.”

  “Nothing’s the matter. I’m all right.”

  “No, you’re not. You ought to tell me. You trusted me once.”

  “I don’t trust any one,” she answered fiercely. “Especially not

  Englishmen.”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked again.

  “Nothing…. We’re just as we were. Except,” she suddenly looked up at me, “Uncle Alexei’s living with us now.”

  “Semyonov!” I cried out sharply, “living with you!”

  “Yes,” she went on, “in the room where Nicholas had his inventions is

  Uncle Alexei’s bedroom.”

  “Why, in Heaven’s name?” I cried.

  “Uncle Alexei wanted it. He said he was lonely, and then he just came. I don’t know whether Nicholas likes it or not. Vera hates it, but she agreed at once.”

  “And do you like it?” I asked.

  “I like Uncle Alexei,” she answered. “We have long talks. He shows me how silly I’ve been.”

  “Oh!” I said… “and what about Nicholas’ inventions?”

  “He’s given them up for ever.” She looked at me doubtfully, as though she were wondering whether she could trust me. “He’s so funny now — Nicholas, I mean. You know he was so happy when the Revolution came. Now he’s in a different mood every minute. Something’s happened to him that we don’t know about.”

  “What kind of thing?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. He’s seen something or heard something. It’s some secret he’s got. But Uncle Alexei knows.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because he’s always saying things that make Nicholas angry, and we can’t see anything in them at all…. Uncle Alexei’s very clever.”

  “Yes, he is,” I agreed. “But you haven’t told me why you were crying just now.”

  She looked at me. She gave a little shiver. “Oh, you do look ill!…

  Everything’s going wrong together, isn’t it?”

  And with that she suddenly left me, hurrying away from me, leaving me miserable and apprehensive of some great trouble in store for all of us.

  IV

  It is impossible to explain how disturbed I was by Nina’s news. Semyonov living in the flat! He must have some very strong reason for this, to leav
e his big comfortable flat for the pokiness of the Markovitches’!

  And then that the Markovitches should have him! There were already inhabitants enough — Nicholas, Vera, Nina, Uncle Ivan, Bohun. Then the inconvenience and discomfort of Nicholas’s little hole as a bedroom! How Semyonov must loathe it!

  From that moment the Markovitches’ flat became for me the centre of my drama. Looking back I could see now how all the growing development of the story had centred round those rooms. I did not of course know at this time of that final drama of the Thursday afternoon, but I knew of the adventure with the policeman, and it seemed to me that the flat was a cup into which the ingredients were being poured one after another until at last the preparation would be complete, and then….

  Oh, but I cared for Nina and Vera and Nicholas — yes, and Jerry too! I wanted to see them happy and at peace before I left them — in especial Nicholas.

  And Semyonov came closer to them and closer, following some plan of his own and yet, after all, finally like a man driven by a power, constructed it might be, out of his own very irony.

  I made a kind of bet with fate that by Easter Day every one should be happy by then.

  Next day, the 15th of April, was the great funeral for the victims of the Revolution. I believe, although of course at that time I had heard nothing, that there had been great speculation about the day, many people thinking that it would be an excuse for further trouble, the Monarchists rising, or the “Soviet” attacking the Provisional Government, or Milyukoff and his followers attacking the Soviet. They need not have been alarmed. No one had as yet realised the lengths that Slavonic apathy may permit itself….

  I went down about half-past ten to the Square at the end of the Sadovaya and found it filled with a vast concourse of peasants, not only the Square was filled, but the Sadovaya as far as the eye could see. They were arranged in perfect order, about eight in a row, arm in arm. Every group carried its banner, and far away into the distance one could see the words “Freedom,” “Brotherhood,” “The Land for All,” “Peace of the World,” floating on the breeze. Nevertheless, in spite of these fine words, it was not a very cheering sight. The day was wretched — no actual rain, but a cold damp wind blowing and the dirty snow, half ice and half water; the people themselves were not inspiring. They were all, it seemed, peasants. I saw very few workmen, although I believe that multitudes were actually in the procession. Those strange, pale, Eastern faces, passive, apathetic, ignorant, childish, unreasoning, stretched in a great cloud under the grey overhanging canopy of the sky. They raised if once and again a melancholy little tune that was more wail than anything else. They had stood there, I was told, in pools of frozen water for hours, and were perfectly ready to stand thus for many hours more if they were ordered to do so. As I regarded their ignorance and apathy I realised for the first time something of what the Revolution had already done.

  A hundred million of these children — ignorant, greedy, pathetic, helpless, revengeful — let loose upon the world! Where were their leaders? Who, indeed, would their leaders be? The sun sometimes broke through for a moment, but the light that it threw on their faces only made them more pallid, more death-like. They did not laugh nor joke as our people at home would have done…. I believe that very few of them had any idea why they were there….

  Suddenly the word came down the lines to move forward. Very slowly, wailing their little tune, they advanced.

  But the morning was growing old and I must at once see Vera. I had made up my mind, during the night, to do anything that lay in my power to persuade Vera and Nina to leave their flat. The flat was the root of all their trouble, there was something in its atmosphere, something gloomy and ominous. They would be better at the other end of the town, or, perhaps, over on the Vassily Ostrov. I would show Vera that it was a fatal plan to have Semyonov to live with them (as in all probability she herself knew well enough), and their leaving the flat was a very good excuse for getting rid of him. I had all this in my head as I went along. I was still feeling ill and feeble, and my half-hour’s stand in the market-place had seriously exhausted me. I had to lean against the walls of the houses every now and then; it seemed to me that, in the pale watery air, the whole world was a dream, the high forbiding flats looking down on to the dirty ice of the canals, the water dripping, dripping, dripping…. No one was about. Every one had gone to join in the procession. I could see it, with my mind’s eye, unwinding its huge tails through the watery-oozing channels of the town, like some pale-coloured snake, crawling through the misty labyrinths of a marsh.

  In the flat I found only Uncle Ivan sitting very happily by himself at the table playing patience. He was dressed very smartly in his English black suit and a black bow tie. He behaved with his usual elaborate courtesy to me but, to my relief, on this occasion, he spoke Russian.

  It appeared that the Revolution had not upset him in the least. He took, he assured me, no interest whatever in politics. The great thing was “to live inside oneself,” and by living inside oneself he meant, I gathered, that one should be entirely selfish. Clothes were important, and food and courteous manners, but he must say that he could not see that one would be very much worse off even though one were ruled by the Germans — one might, indeed, be a great deal more comfortable. And as to this Revolution he couldn’t really understand why people made such a fuss. One class or another class what did it matter? (As to this he was, I fear, to be sadly undeceived. He little knew that, before the year was out, he would be shovelling snow in the Morskaia for a rouble an hour.) So centred was he upon himself that he did not notice that I looked ill. He offered me a chair, indeed, but that was simply his courteous manners. Very ridiculous, he thought, the fuss that Nicholas made about the Revolution — very ridiculous the fuss that he made about everything….

  Alexei had been showing Nicholas how ridiculous he was.

  “Oh, has he?” said I. “How’s he been doing that?”

  Laughing at him, apparently. They all laughed at him. It was his own fault.

  “Alexei’s living with us now, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said, “what’s he doing that for?”

  “He wanted to,” said Uncle Ivan simply. “He’s always done what he’s wanted to, all his life.”

  “It makes it a great many of you in one small flat.”

  “Yes, doesn’t it?” said Uncle Ivan amiably. “Very pleasant — although, Ivan Andreievitch, I will admit to you quite frankly that I’ve always been frightened of Alexei. He has such a very sharp tongue. He discovers one’s weak spots in a marvellous manner…. We all have weak spots you know,” he added apologetically.

  “Yes, we have,” I said.

  Then, to my relief, Vera came in. She was very sweet to me, expressing much concern about my illness, asking me to stay and have my meal with them…. She suddenly broke off. There was a letter lying on the table addressed to her. I saw at once that it was in Nina’s handwriting.

  “Nina! Writing to me!” She picked it up, stood back looking at the envelope before she opened it. She read it, then turned on me with a cry.

  “Nina!… She’s gone!”

  “Gone!” I repeated, starting at once.

  “Yes…. Read!” She thrust it into my hand.

  In Nina’s sprawling schoolgirl hand I read:

  Dear Vera — I’ve left you and Nicholas for ever…. I have been thinking of this for a long time, and now Uncle Alexei has shown me how foolish I’ve been, wanting something I can’t have. But I’m not a child any longer. I must lead my own life…. I’m going to live with Boris who will take care of me. It’s no use you or any one trying to prevent me. I will not come back. I must lead my own life now. Nina.

  Vera was beside herself.

  “Quick! Quick! Some one must go after her. She must be brought back at once. Quick! Scora! Scora!… I must go. No, she is angry with me. She won’t listen to me. Ivan Andreievitch, you must go. At once! You must bring her back with you. Darling, darling Nina!�
�� Oh, my God, what shall I do if anything happens to her!”

  She clutched my arm. Even as she spoke, she had got my hat and stick.

  “This is Alexei Petrovitch,” I said.

  “Never mind who it is,” she answered. “She must be brought back at once. She is so young. She doesn’t know…. Boris — Oh! it’s impossible. Don’t leave without bringing her back with you.”

  Even old Uncle Ivan seemed distressed.

  “Dear, dear…” he kept repeating, “dear, dear…. Poor little Nina.

  Poor little Nina—”

  “Where does Grogoff live?” I asked.

  “16 Gagarinskaya…. Flat 3. Quick. You must bring her back with you. Promise me.”

  “I will do my best,” I said.

  I found by a miracle of good fortune an Isvostchick in the street outside. We plunged along through the pools of water in the direction of the Gagarinskaya. That was a horrible drive. In the Sadovaya we met the slow, winding funeral procession.

  On they went, arm in arm, the same little wailing tune, monotonously repeating, but sounding like nothing human, rather exuding from the very cobbles of the road and the waters of the stagnant canals.

  The march of the peasants upon Petrograd! I could see them from all the quarters of the town, converging upon the Marsovoie Pole, stubborn, silent, wraiths of earlier civilisation, omens of later dominations. I thought of Boris Grogoff. What did he, with all his vehemence and conceit, intend to do with these? First he would flatter them — I saw that clearly enough. But then when his flatteries failed, what then? Could he control them? Would they obey him? Would they obey anybody until education had shown them the necessities for co-ordination and self-discipline? The river at last was overflowing its banks — would not the savage force of its power be greater than any one could calculate? The stream flowed on…. My Isvostchick took his cab down a side street, and then again met the strange sorrowful company. From this point I could see several further bridges and streets, and over them all I saw the same stream flowing, the same banners blowing — and all so still, so dumb, so patient.