by Hugh Walpole
“What has happened to you all? Don’t you see, don’t you see what you are doing? What has come to you, you who were the most modest people in Europe and are now suddenly the most conceited? What do you hope to do by this surrender?
“Do you know, in the first place, what you will do? You will deliver the peoples of three-quarters of the globe into hopeless slavery; you will lose, perhaps for ever, the opportunity of democracy; you will establish the grossest kind of militarism for all time. Why do you think Germany is going to listen to you? What sign has she ever shown that she would? When have her people ever turned away or shown horror at any of the beastly things her rulers have been doing in this war?… What about your own Revolution? Do you believe in it? Do you treasure it? Do you want it to last? Do you suppose for a moment that, if you bow to Germany, she won’t instantly trample out your Revolution and give you back your monarchy? How can she afford to have a revolutionary republic close to her own gates? What is she doing at this moment? Piling up armies with which to invade you, and conquer you, and lead you into slavery. What have you done so far by your Revolutionary orders? What have you done by relaxing discipline in the army? What good have you done to any one or anything? Is any one the happier? Isn’t there disorder everywhere — aren’t all your works stopping and your industries failing? What about the eighty million peasants who have been liberated in the course of a night? Who’s going to lead them if you are not? This thing has happened by its own force, and you are sitting down under it, doing nothing. Why did it succeed? Simply because there was nothing to oppose it. Authority depended on the army, not on the Czar, and the army was the people. So it is with the other armies of the world. Do you think that the other armies couldn’t do just as you did if they wished. They could, in half an hour. They hate the war as much as you do, but they have also patriotism. They see that their country must be made strong first before other countries will listen to its ideas. But where is your patriotism? Has the word Russia been mentioned once by you since the Revolution? Never once…. ‘Democracy,’ ‘Brotherhood’ — but how are Democracy and Brotherhood to be secured unless other countries respect you…. Oh, I tell you it’s absurd!… It’s more than absurd, it’s wicked, it’s rotten….”
Poor boy, he was very near tears. He sat down suddenly, staring blankly in front of him, his hands clenched.
Rozanov answered him, Rozanov flushed, his fat body swollen with food and drink, a little unsteady on his legs, and the light of the true mystic in his pig-like eyes. He came forward into the middle of the circle.
“That’s perhaps true what you say,” he cried; “it’s very English, very honest, and, if you will forgive me, young man, very simple. You say that we Russians are conceited. No, we are not conceited, but we see farther than the rest of the world. Is that our curse? Perhaps it is, but equally, perhaps, we may save the world by it. Now look at me! Am I a fine man? No, I am not. Every one knows I am not. No man could look at my face and say that I am a fine man. I have done disgraceful things all my life. All present know some of the things I have done, and there are some worse things which nobody knows save myself. Well, then…. Am I going to stop doing such things? Am I now, at fifty-five, about to become instantly a saint? Indeed not. I shall continue to do the things that I have already done, and I shall drop into a beastly old age. I know it.
“So, young man, I am a fair witness. You may trust me to speak the truth as I see it. I believe in Christ. I believe in the Christ-life, the Christ-soul. If I could, I would stop my beastliness and become Christlike. I have tried on several occasions, and failed, because I have no character. But does that mean that I do not believe in it when I see it? Not at all. I believe in it more than ever. And so with Russia — you don’t see far enough, young man, neither you nor any of your countrymen. It is one of your greatest failings that you do not care for ideas. How is this war going to end? By the victory of Germany? Perhaps…. Perhaps even it may be that Russia by her weakness will help to that victory. But is that the end? No…. If Russia has an Idea and because of her faith in that Idea, she will sacrifice everything, will be buffeted on both cheeks, will be led into slavery, will deliver up her land and her people, will be mocked at by all the world… perhaps that is her destiny…. She will endure all that in order that her Idea may persist. And her Idea will persist. Are not the Germans and Austrians human like ourselves? Slowly, perhaps very slowly, they will say to themselves: ‘There is Russia who believes in the peace of the world, in the brotherhood of man, and she will sacrifice everything for it, she will go out, as Christ did, and be tortured and be crucified — and then on the third day she will rise again.’ Is not that the history of every triumphant Idea?… You say that meanwhile Germany will triumph. Perhaps for a time she may, but our Idea will not die.
“The further Germany goes, the deeper will that Idea penetrate into her heart. At the end she will die of it, and a new Germany will be born into a new world…. I tell you I am an evil man, but I believe in God and in the righteousness of God.”
What do I remember after those words of Rozanov? It was like a voice speaking to me across a great gulf of waters — but that voice was honest. I do not know what happened after his speech. I think there was a lot of talk. I cannot remember.
Only just before I was going I was near Nina for a moment.
She looked up at me just as she used to do.
“Durdles — is Vera all right?”
“She’s miserable, Nina, because you’re not there. Come back to us.”
But she shook her head.
“No, no, I can’t. Give her my—” Then she stopped. “No, tell her nothing.”
“Can I tell her you’re happy?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m all right,” she answered roughly, turning away from me.
X
But the adventures of that Easter Monday night were not yet over. I had walked away with Bohun; he was very silent, depressed, poor boy, and shy with the reaction of his outburst.
“I made the most awful fool of myself,” he said.
“No, you didn’t,” I answered.
“The trouble of it is,” he said slowly, “that neither you nor I see the humorous side of it all strongly enough. We take it too seriously. It’s got a funny side all right.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “But you must remember that the Markovitch situation isn’t exactly funny just now — and we’re both in the middle of it. Oh! if only I could find Nina back home and Semyonov away, I believe the strain would lift. But I’m frightened that something’s going to happen. I’ve grown very fond of these people, you know, Bohun — Vera and Nina and Nicholas. Isn’t it odd how one gets to love Russians — more than one’s own people? The more stupid things they do the more you love them — whereas with one’s own people it’s quite the other way. Oh, I do want Vera and Nina and Nicholas to be happy!”
“Isn’t the town queer to-night?” said Bohun, suddenly stopping. (We were just at the entrance to the Mariensky Square.)
“Yes,” I said. “I think these days between the thaw and the white nights are in some ways the strangest of all. There seems to be so much going on that one can’t quite see.”
“Yes — over there — at the other end of the Square — there’s a kind of mist — a sort of water-mist. It comes from the Canal.”
“And do you see a figure like an old bent man with a red lantern? Do you see what I mean — that red light?”
“And those shadows on the further wall like riders passing with silver-tipped spears? Isn’t it…? There they go — ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen….”
“How still the Square is? Do you see those three windows all alight?
Isn’t there a dance going on? Don’t you hear the music?”
“No, it’s the wind.”
“No, surely…. That’s a flute — and then violins. Listen! Those are fiddles for certain!”
“How still, how still it is!”
We stood and listened whilst the whi
te mist gathered and grew over the cobbles. Certainly there was a strain of music, very faint and dim, threading through the air.
“Well, I must go on,” said Bohun. “You go up to the left, don’t you? Good-night.” I watched Bohun’s figure cross the Square. The light was wonderful, like fold on fold of gauze, but opaque, so that buildings showed with sharp outline behind it. The moon was full and quite red. I turned to go home and ran straight into Lawrence.
“Good heavens!” I cried. “Are you a ghost too?”
He didn’t seem to feel any surprise at meeting me. He was plainly in a state of tremendous excitement. He spoke breathlessly.
“You’re exactly the man. You must come back with me. My diggings now are only a yard away from here.”
“It’s very late,” I began, “and—”
“Things are desperate,” he said. “I don’t know—” he broke off. “Oh! come and help me, Durward, for God’s sake!”
I went with him, and we did not exchange another word until we were in his rooms.
He began hurriedly taking off his clothes. “There! Sit on the bed. Different from Wilderling’s, isn’t it? Poor devil…. I’m going to have a bath if you don’t mind — I’ve got to clear my head.”
He dragged out a tin bath from under his bed, then a big can of water from a corner. Stripped, he looked so thick and so strong, with his short neck and his bull-dog build, that I couldn’t help saying,
“You don’t look a day older than the last time you played Rugger for
Cambridge.”
“I am, though.” He sluiced the cold water over his head, grunting. “Not near so fit — gettin’ fat too…. Rugger days are over. Wish all my other days were over too.”
He got out of the bath, wiped himself, put on pyjamas, brushed his teeth, then his hair, took out a pipe, and then sat beside me on the bed.
“Look here, Durward,” he said. “I’m desperate, old man.” (He said “desprite.”) “We’re all in a hell of a mess.”
“I know,” I said.
He puffed furiously at his pipe.
“You know, if I’m not careful I shall go a bit queer in the head. Get so angry, you know,” he added simply.
“Angry with whom?” I asked.
“With myself mostly for bein’ such a bloody fool. But not only myself — with Civilisation, Durward, old cock! — and also with that swine Semyonov.”
“Ah, I thought you’d come to him,” I said.
“Now the points are these,” he went on, counting on his thick stubbly fingers. “First, I love Vera — and when I say love I mean love. Never been in love before, you know — honest Injun, never…. Never had affairs with tobacconists’ daughters at Cambridge — never had an affair with a woman in my life — no, never. Used to wonder what was the matter with me, why I wasn’t like other chaps. Now I know. I was waitin’ for Vera. Quite simple. I shall never love any one again — never. I’m not a kid, you know, like young Bohun — I love Vera once and for all, and that’s that…”
“Yes,” I said. “And the next point?”
“The next point is that Vera loves me. No need to go into that — but she does.”
“Yes, she does,” I said.
“Third point, she’s married, and although she don’t love her man she’s sorry for him. Fourth point, he loves her. Fifth point, there’s a damned swine hangin’ round called Alexei Petrovitch Semyonov…. Well, then, there you have it.”
He considered, scratching his head. I waited. Then he went on:
“Now it would be simpler if she didn’t want to be kind to Nicholas, if Nicholas didn’t love her, if — a thousand things were different. But they must be as they are, I suppose. I’ve just been with her. She’s nearly out of her mind with worry.”
He paused, puffing furiously at his pipe. Then he went on:
“She’s worrying about me, about Nina, and about Nicholas. And especially about Nicholas. There’s something wrong with him. He knows about my kissing her in the flat. Well, that’s all right. I meant him to know. Everything’s just got to be above-board. But Semyonov knows too, and that devil’s been raggin’ him about it, and Nicholas is just like a bloomin’ kid. That’s got to stop. I’ll wring that feller’s neck. But even that wouldn’t help matters much. Vera says Nicholas is not to be hurt whatever happens. ‘Never mind us,’ she says, ‘we’re strong and can stand it.’ But he can’t. He’s weak. And she says he’s just goin’ off his dot. And it’s got to be stopped — it’s just got to be stopped. There’s only one way to stop it.”
He stayed: suddenly he put his heavy hand on my knee.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’ve got to clear out. That’s what I mean. Right away out. Back to
England.”
I didn’t speak.
“That’s it,” he went on, but now as though he were talking to himself.
“That’s what you’ve got to do, old son…. She says so, and she’s right.
Can’t alter our love, you know. Nothing changes that. We’ve got to hold
on… Ought to have cleared out before….”
Suddenly he turned. He almost flung himself upon me. He gripped my arms so that I would have cried out if the agony in his eyes hadn’t held me.
“Here,” he muttered, “let me alone for a moment. I must hold on. I’m pretty well beat. I’m just about done.”
For what seemed hours we sat there. I believe it was, in reality, only a few minutes. He sat facing me, his eyes staring at me but not seeing me, his body close against me, and I could see the sweat glistening on his chest through the open pyjamas. He was rigid as though he had been struck into stone.
He suddenly relaxed.
“That’s right,” he said; “thanks, old man. I’m better now. It’s a bit late, I expect, but stay on a while.”
He got into bed. I sat beside him, gripped his hand, and ten minutes later he was asleep.
XI
The next day, Tuesday, was stormy with wind and rain. It was strange to see from my window the whirlpool of ice-encumbered waters. The rain fell in slanting, hissing sheets upon the ice, and the ice, in lumps and sheets and blocks, tossed and heaved and spun. At times it was as though all the ice was driven by some strong movement in one direction, then it was like the whole pavement of the world slipping down the side of the firmament into space. Suddenly it would be checked and, with a kind of quiver, station itself and hang chattering and clutching until the sweep would begin in the opposite direction!
I could see only dimly through the mist, but it was not difficult to imagine that, in very truth, the days of the flood had returned. Nothing could be seen but the tossing, heaving welter of waters with the ice, grim and grey through the shadows, like “ships and monsters, sea-serpents and mermaids,” to quote Galleon’s Spanish Nights.
Of course the water came in through my own roof, and it was on that very afternoon that I decided, once and for all, to leave this abode of mine. Romantic it might be; I felt it was time for a little comfortable realism. My old woman brought me the usual cutlets, macaroni, and tea for lunch; then I wrote to a friend in England; and finally, about four o’clock, after one more look at the hissing waters, drew my curtains, lit my candles, and sat down near my stove to finish that favourite of mine, already mentioned in these pages, De la Mare’s The Return.
I read on with absorbed attention. I did not hear the dripping on the roof, nor the patter-patter of the drops from the ceiling, nor the beating of the storm against the glass. My candles blew in the draught, and shadows crossed and recrossed the page. Do you remember the book’s closing words? —
“Once, like Lawford in the darkness at Widderstone, he glanced up sharply across the lamplight at his phantasmagorical shadowy companion, heard the steady surge of multitudinous rain-drops, like the roar of Time’s winged chariot hurrying near, then he too, with spectacles awry, bobbed on in his chair, a weary old sentinel on the outskirts of his friend’s denuded battlefield.”
From this I was suddenly roused by the sharp noise of knocking, and starting up, my book clattering to the floor, I saw facing me, in the doorway, Semyonov. Twice before he had come to me just like this — out of the heart of a dreamless sleep. Once in the orchard near Buchatch, on a hot summer afternoon; once in this same room on a moonlit night. Some strange consciousness, rising, it seemed, deep out of my sleep, told me that this would be the last time that I would so receive him.
“May I come in?” he said.
“If you must, you must,” I answered. “I am not physically strong enough to prevent you.”
He laughed. He was dripping wet. He took off his hat and overcoat, sat down near the stove, bending forward, holding his cloak in his hands and watching the steam rise from it.
I moved away and stood watching. I was not going to give him any possible illusion as to my welcoming him. He turned round and looked at me.
“Truly, Ivan Andreievitch,” he said, “you are a fine host. This is a miserable greeting.”
“There can be no greetings between us ever again,” I answered him. “You are a blackguard. I hope that this is our last meeting.”
“But it is,” he answered, looking at me with friendliness; “that is precisely why I’ve come. I’ve come to say good-bye.”
“Good-bye?” I repeated with astonishment. This chimed in so strangely with my premonition. “I never was more delighted to hear it. I hope you’re going a long distance from us all.”
“That’s as may be,” he answered. “I can’t tell you definitely.”
“When are you going?” I asked.
“That I can’t tell you either. But I have a premonition that it will be soon.”