by Rebecca West
“There was now no reason why I shouldn’t carry out my plan. But my legs refused to raise me from the bench, and I began to wonder whether my whole life was not a pretence and an evasion, whether I had not adopted intellectual pursuits simply to cover up an inaptitude for action. But I turned my mind back to Kant and Hegel and received their benediction. Fitting my hand round the revolver in my pocket, I went through the iron gate. I found myself walking more and more slowly as I drew nearer the hut. I decided I wouldn’t try to get Berr to take a walk with me, I would satisfy myself of his guilt in the hut and shoot him down there, and take my chance of being caught. If fate was against me, so much better for the Law of Nature. But when I came to the hut and looked through the window I did not see the man I had come to find. True, there was a man in there, sitting in a cushioned chair and holding a sprig of green leaves to his nostrils, but he looked as humble and patient as a saint on an icon. And he took no more notice of me than if he were a saint on an icon. Though I had come as close to the hut as I could without treading on the flowers growing round the walls, and though I was darkening his window, he did not raise his head.
“I gripped the window-sill and leaned right into the room. Immediately the man’s expression changed, and he assumed again his air of arrogance. He lifted his head and asked, in French, ‘Is someone there?’ He was looking straight at me, but not at my face, at a point somewhere below my collarbone. I remained quite still, and after some seconds his proud mask melted, he again appeared gentle and abstracted, though he continued to stare in my direction. I was incredulous and leaned farther into the hut. I took my revolver out of my pocket and then, without releasing the safety catch, I pointed it straight at him. Knitting his brows doubtfully, summoning back part of his insolence, he asked again, ‘Is someone there?’ And then I knew that he was not our spy, he was not a Tsarist spy, and that if a million men told me so, they would all be perjurers. For he was blind.
“I put my revolver back into my pocket, and I answered, speaking French as he did, ‘Yes, I’m here.’
“He then demanded pompously, ‘And who are you?’
“I gave him my right name. I was astonished that I did so, I had not meant to. ‘I am Vassili Iulievitch Chubinov,’ I said, and I couldn’t go on.
“‘What, a Russian!’ he exclaimed, breaking into our language. ‘I’m a Russian too, I’m Porfirio Ilyitch Berr. What brings you here, friend?’
“I spoke quite strangely to him. ‘I’m in trouble, in great trouble.’
“‘That makes you like a whole lot of other people,’ he answered, smiling. ‘We’re all in trouble, all the sons of men are in trouble. But what sort of trouble are you in?’
“To my own amazement I burst into tears. I wished I could tell him the whole story, but of course it was impossible. I found myself blurting out, just as I had blurted out my real name, ‘I’ve lost a friend.’
“‘What do you mean, lost a friend?’ asked Berr. ‘Has he died, or has he done something wicked to you?’
“I didn’t know how to carry on this conversation, for I couldn’t be honest, and I hated to deceive this man, partly because he was blind, and partly because he was so pleasant, so unexpectedly pleasant. I’d have liked to turn round and rush away, but I knew it was my duty to my comrades to clear up this mystery which, during the last few minutes, had become so much more obscure and menacing. Also I wanted to stay with him. I can’t tell you how enjoyable it was, just being there with him. But all the same I didn’t know what to say next, for of course I hadn’t lost a friend, the words had just come into my head. So I determined to speak about you, Nikolai Nikolaievitch, who are at the core of this mystery, and who are a fixed point in my life. I said, ‘Well, my trouble’s a long story, and I won’t burden you with it now, but my friend, he isn’t dead, and he hasn’t done anything wicked’—this of course is not true, as a Minister of the Tsar you are sunk in wickedness—’ but I’ve lost him, I can’t get at him, and I believe you know where he is, and as he’s the one person in the world who can help me, I wish you’d tell me how to find him, for I believe you know him. I speak of Nikolai Nikolaievitch Diakonov.’
“He threw out his arms, he laughed, he shouted your address aloud, as if he were cheering at a game. ‘That’s where he is! You’re lucky to have such a friend. Unlucky to have thought you’d lost him! Go and find him. It’s no distance from the Arc de Triomphe, it won’t even cost you much to get there. You’ve come to the right place to get news of him. For my wife, did you see her a minute ago, you should have met her on the way up, my little Emilia, we owe all we have to Nikolai Nikolaievitch and his wife Sofia Andreievna, who though she is still alive may be counted among the saints, and we visit their home at least once a week. For, listen, some years ago the Evil One afflicted my wife and me with the most unimaginable stream of misfortunes. I used to be a janitor in the Law Courts at Moscow, but a rich grain merchant who had noticed me when he was bringing a case asked me and my wife to come and be caretakers in his apartment house here in Paris, and as I wanted to see the world and as our niece, whom we brought up as our own, had married a Frenchman who had a little restaurant here by Les Halles, I took the job. Well, the grain merchant died one day from a heart attack and his heirs sold the house without ever leaving Russia, and just at that moment I—’ he paused, and his face became sullen and aggressive, as it had been when I first saw him—’ just at that moment I lost my sight. You can’t think, my friend, what it was like for me to become blind and helpless, because though I am nobody I was a little bit of a somebody in my way, I was not only head of the janitors’ corps at the Law Courts, I was the best billiards player among our sort of people in St. Petersburg; and as for family responsibilities, I’d always been the one who was leaned on, not the one who leaned. And my niece’s husband had made a terrible mess of his little restaurant, and there were three children by then, he would have helped, but I couldn’t let him. I thought we’d come down to begging in the streets, if somebody at the Russian Church hadn’t told the Countess Diakonova about us, and ever since then she and her husband have been our mother and our father. They got my niece’s husband a job in the canteen in the big new factory down the road, which belongs to the family of the Count’s sister-in-law, and they put us into this flat, where we all live together and are very happy, and they never tire of thinking of this and that which make this horrible affliction easier for me.’
“‘Just look,’ he said, ‘at this hut. They sent men to build it, facing south, so that I can sit here with the sun on my skin. They’ve put a telephone in the flat, so that my wife can call help if I fall, as I sometimes do, and everybody else is out. Oh, go to them quickly, they’ll give you the blood out of their hearts.’ He went on to tell me that when he and his wife went to your apartment they were always graciously received by Sofia Andreievna, and were given a meal of good Russian food in a little room, either by themselves or with some other Russians who’d been unfortunate, and afterwards they were taken back into Sofia Andreievna’s drawing-room where she’d be sitting with some friends and a priest or two from the church in the Rue Darou, and they would have edifying conversation, but it was not too pious, they would laugh a lot. There was. an intimate of the house whom they liked very much, who turned out to be the Monsieur Kamensky of whom I had been hearing the day before. Stankovitch seemed to have got a very accurate idea of him from searching his room, for Berr said that he talked with the priests and the Countess as piously as if he were a priest too, though he was an engineer, told them funny stories which made him and his wife laugh but were at the same time suitable for the nobility to hear, and gave them Russian newspapers and magazines, always of an improving kind, which his wife read to him in the evenings. ‘He’s a good fellow,’ Berr said, ‘but he’s not a fountain like the Count or the Countess.’ ‘Who else is in the house?’ I asked, but Berr, frowning, said, ‘How should I know? But you’re wondering if they’ve got too many poor souls round them, there’ll be no room
for you? Oh, never worry about that.’ I could not go on questioning him.
“I felt I must go back to Paris and talk all this out with Gorin at once. The error he had made about Berr was monstrous. It was true that anybody might have been deceived by seeing Berr and his wife walking through the streets; the defence his pride had built up to conceal his affliction was convincing. But Gorin should have told the investigating comrades to do much more than merely follow Berr from his tenement in the suburbs to the Avenue Kléber, he should have insisted on them collecting material from his neighbours. Because of this gross technical blunder the spy who had passed himself off as Berr had used the confusion he had created as cover for the betrayal of comrade after comrade, and I, who was of value to the cause, had nearly risked my life by murdering a man whose death would have done us no good whatsoever. Also I had the most terrible feeling that, if I had killed the man who sat facing me so brightly, smiling out of his darkness, I would have been vile beyond simple vileness, the earth and the sea would have rejected my spirit, I would have fallen off the world through the atmosphere into the nothingness of space, rejected, rejected, rejected, not by your God, but by me, by me. By me. I did not want to talk to Gorin. I wanted to try him.
“I went into the hut and kissed Berr on both cheeks and said, ‘Good-bye, my brother, I must be on my way.’ He would not let me go, he held me close to him, and said soberly, ‘But, for the love of God, don’t go back to Paris yet. I’m blind but I feel things. You’re rigid with suffering, you’re like a poor soldier that’s lain wounded all night on a frozen battlefield. You’re not fit yet even for the short journey back to Paris.’ I was in agony as he spoke. I was afraid he would feel the revolver which I had slipped into the pocket of my overcoat. When I freed myself and moved away, he followed me, though he plainly felt afraid of moving when his wife wasn’t there, and his steps were short and hesitant. But he risked falling because he was so anxious about me. ‘Stay and sit here in the hut and get the good of the sun. It’s free,’ he told me, smiling. ‘Or go up to our flat, it’s number 36, that’s always been my lucky number, and tell my wife that I’ve sent you and she’s to make you some good Russian tea. For that’s something which Sofia Andreievna always gives us, and the little fellow Kamensky too, he sometimes gives us special tea he gets from a cousin who’s out in Samarkand.’ I could only stammer, ‘Porfirio Ilyitch, I’m not worth all this.’ He said, ‘You’re talking nonsense, for I can feel you’re a good man, wasted by abstinences. You smell only of soap and smoke, and what’s a cigarette? Stay with us, you can sleep on a mattress on the floor, and perhaps tomorrow it’ll seem to you that what you’ve done hasn’t been so serious.’ I was relieved that he hadn’t understood what I had told him, for of course I had done nothing. Unaccountably, I found myself weeping, and I was just able to stammer out, ‘I’m very grateful, but I can’t stay and I can’t explain why. It’s just that I have to hurry away for the sake of many people.’ Even then I couldn’t bring myself to go, I crossed the threshold and then turned round and stood still, looking back at him. That puzzled him, he knitted his brows and I could see he was listening intensely. He muttered to himself, ‘I suppose I can’t hear him walking over the grass,’ and he shouted past me down the slope, ‘Don’t think you’re lost, I thought I was and all my dear family with me, and we were all saved.’ I crept off, and from a safe distance I called back a wordless greeting.”
VII
Nikolai said, “Poor Berr. The poor blind one without an evil thought in his head, who gave so much to beggars when he was a janitor at the Law Courts, that it grew troublesome, they hung about the place. You nearly killed him. And if you had, the lie your friend so vilely told about him, the lie you so fatuously believed, would have lived after him. A most honourable man would have been remembered as a traitor and a spy. I’ve often cursed my police agents as thick-witted blunderers. Compared to you clever ones, they don’t look so bad.”
“How deeply privilege corrupts,” said Chubinov. “You are a kind man. You have been kind to Berr. But because you are an aristocrat your kindness towards Berr has lacked a heart. You have never troubled to learn his name.”
“I don’t see why, simply because I’ve raised up one of the afflicted, I should be put under the obligation of knowing his name,” said Nikolai. “God must know the name of every human being created from the beginning of time to its end, for He takes their whole experience in His bosom. But what difference does it make whether I remember or forget anybody’s name? I’ve given this man a hut where he can sit in the sun. It doesn’t make the sunlight less warm because I didn’t take a note of his name, and it certainly won’t make it any warmer that now you’ve used his name so often in your infernal maunderings I shall never be able to forget it. This is Western emotionalism. Your father never thought you would come to anything, and he was right. I’m not moved by your story, you know. You seem to be patting yourself on the back because you’ve found yourself respecting a good man. But your father and mother, my wife and I, and all the people on our side, have always respected such men. If you hadn’t gone off gipsying with all these professional criminals and atheists you never would have thought of doing anything else. Have you anything more to say that I would think better worth listening to?”
“Can’t you have patience with me, Nikolai Nikolaievitch? Isn’t it clear to you yet that I’ve a story to tell which is immensely important to you? Listen. I beg you to listen. I caught the train back to Paris, and I found myself in a strange state of mind. I had, as you will realize, many things to worry me—yes, yes, I know that it is I who have got myself into this mess, but am I in any worse mess than you are? I tell you, listen. My journey was in a sense very happy. Whenever I thought of Berr my heart glowed with joy. But at the same time I was appalled by the corruption I had discovered within the movement to which I had given my life, a corruption which seemed not less than that which had repelled me in the Tsardom. My mind kept on turning back to this filthy mystery I had uncovered, and I was anguished. When I got to the Gare du Nord I rang up Gorin’s hotel, the Hôtel de Guipuzcoa et de Racine, but they told me he was still not there; and when I rang up the pension at Montreux the proprietress told me that he had not returned there either, and though I tried to gain her confidence, knowing that she was a sympathizer, she repeated that she knew nothing of his plans. Her tone was indeed so impatient that the thought struck me, if Gorin was so wrong about Berr, was he wrong about this woman also, was he perpetually betraying the movement by a foolish credulity, previously quite foreign to him, perhaps the result of his recent ill health?
“I found myself standing outside the station in a state of bewilderment. This was so large a business, who could I take it to but Gorin? Just as a child who is hurt will run to its mother’s room, even if he knows that she has gone out, I found myself walking across Paris to the Hôtel de Ville until I came to Gorin’s hotel. I persuaded myself that I meant to go in and make inquiries to see if the concierge hadn’t made a mistake and he was really there all the time, but I hadn’t the smallest reason for supposing this, so I didn’t go in, but sat down at a table outside a café on the opposite side of the narrow street, and drank one cup of coffee after another. At first I was the only person there, and I sat with my face turned to the traffic and talked to myself. Then noon came, and the place filled up, and I had to behave normally. I found this a great effort, and I marvelled that anybody as unstable as I am had for so long been able to carry the burden of belonging to a secret society without betraying it; and I began to fear I might have done so. All my thoughts brought me back to the idea of betrayal, which seemed to pervade the air, so that everyone alike was tainted with it. I felt so guilty, though of what treachery I couldn’t define, that when the waiter brought me an omelet I had ordered, I eyed him as if he might be going to arrest me. But I found peace in thinking of Berr. I fell into a sort of happy trance, which lasted until I saw Gorin walking down the opposite side of the street towards his hotel. A
t the sight of the neat, small figure, walking so lightly yet so soberly, everything that I had been thinking and feeling seemed absurd, and everything that had happened to me that morning seemed trivial. I had nearly killed an innocent man, I had discovered that I was enslaved by a faceless iniquity, but all that seemed unimportant. I would have liked to push away my plate and bury my head on my folded arms and go to sleep, and let what was happening happen. But before Gorin turned in at the door of his hotel, he paused and surveyed the people on the terrasse of the café opposite, a routine glance, such as any of us would give when entering our lodgings, in case we were watched. His eyes passed quickly and without impertinence from face to face, and paused for one moment at mine. My heart stopped. I felt sinful and untidy. Of course I did not greet him. We never did that in the street. But a look crossed his face that I knew was a command, an intimation that he wanted to speak to me as soon as possible, and he turned and went into the hotel.
“As soon as I had paid my bill I followed him, and the concierge told me that he’d left word that I was to be sent up to his room. As I went up the stairs to the fourth floor I felt as sick as if I were going to consult a doctor about the health of someone I loved and feared was about to die; and I also felt bewildered by this misplaced emotion. For I had simply to tell Gorin I thought he had made a mistake, and the worst that could happen was that I might have to defend my point of view to the committee of the Battle Organization, a duty which I believed Gorin would make as easy for me as possible, since he was the fairest and least self-regarding person I’d ever known. Why then did I feel as if I were going to hear the words, ‘Yes, your mother has cancer’? And when I entered Gorin’s room I suffered another irrational change of mood. It seemed as if I had no good reason for coming to see him, and that as soon as I had said what was in my mind my own words would prove I’d made a fuss about nothing.