“It’s a good joke your asking her that, because she doesn’t know. You see she doesn’t come from a village at all. Her father was a forester, and the nearest village was so far away that she was waiting to go there till it was time for her to be married.” He put a rough arm round Elizabeth’s shoulders and gave her a shake. “And that’s why you’re so shy, my little pigeon—And then her father and mother died, and she started out to look for her brother who had joined the Red Army, and as she hadn’t the least idea where he was, she hadn’t much chance of finding him, and it was a real bit of luck for her finding me.”
“Was her father a kulak?” said Irina, still staring.
The well-to-do peasantry upon whom the Revolution had made special war had been driven out of their holdings in thousands all over Russia. This girl with that undefined look of being different might be the daughter of such a family, crazed perhaps by her sufferings. There are many crazy people in the Revolutionary paradise. Women who have seen their homes burned down, their husbands shot, and their children starved to death are often not quite sane afterwards.
Stephen laughed again.
“A kulak’s daughter? What an idea! Didn’t I tell you her father was a forester?” He let go of Elizabeth and gave her a push. “Run along with that straw, or my grandmother will scold, and when my grandmother scolds it’s all we can do to keep the roof on.”
As Elizabeth ran out, he began to pile up the straw which she had pulled down. As he worked, he sang in his big rolling voice:
“Let the red cock crow on the Kulak’s roof!
Pull down the beams of the Kulak’s house!
Let the red cock crow!
Let the red fire glow!
Pull down the beams of the Kulak’s house!”
“What is that song?” said Irina.
He looked over his shoulder and saw that she was pale.
“It’s a very good song. There’s another verse.” He went on singing:
“Let the red cock crow on the Kulak’s roof!
Pull down the walls of the Kulak’s house!
Let the red cock crow!
Let the red Cause grow!
Pull down the walls of the Kulak’s house!”
“Where did you get that song?” said Irina.
Stephen turned round laughing.
“I made it. Don’t you think it goes well? I knew you’d like it.”
Irina stamped her foot.
“I hate it!”
He came over to her and took her by the shoulders.
“Was it you who reported Nikita for hiding grain?”
“No!” said Irina violently. She wrenched away from him and went back a step or two. “Why should you say such a thing? Why should you think I would do such a thing?”
Stephen looked mildly surprised.
“Why should you be angry with me? Wouldn’t it have been your duty to report him if you knew that he was hiding grain?” He whistled the air of the song he had just sung—Pull down the beams of the Kulak’s house.
“Be silent!” said Irina passionately.
Stephen stopped whistling.
“You are not a good Communist if you are sorry for kulaks and grain-hoarders,” he said contemptuously. “I suppose it was Nikita’s wife Anna who frightened you by saying it would be your turn to be unhappy one day.”
“She did not frighten me!” said Irina with heaving breast.
Stephen pressed his advantage.
“I should never have thought that you would have been superstitious, Irina. To be afraid of a poor, silly, demented woman’s curse!”
Irina was frightfully pale.
“She did not curse me!”
“Well, it sounded very like it to me. Isn’t it cursing to wish anyone unhappy?” He shrugged his shoulders. “There are curses I’d prefer to that myself.”
“I tell you she did not curse me!”
“All right,” said Stephen cheerfully—“you didn’t report Nikita, and Anna didn’t curse you, and you’re not superstitious, because none of us have any superstitions left. It’s a wonderful world—isn’t it?”
He turned back to the straw and sang again:
“The red cock crows on the kulak’s roof.”
Irina rushed out of the barn.
CHAPTER XI
Stephen came back into the house and found Elizabeth alone there. She was looking pale and troubled.
“That’s all right,” he said. “But we must get away. She’s a heap too interested in you.”
Elizabeth had turned away. She said without looking round,
“What happened? What did you say?”
Stephen laughed a little grimly.
“I pulled off a good rousing counter-attack. I asked her if it was she who reported Nikita for grain hoarding. Akulina was talking about it last night.”
“Was it Irina?” Elizabeth’s tone was low and horrified.
“I don’t know. I expect so. She’d look upon it as a duty—you’ve got to remember that—a painful duty.”
Still without looking round, Elizabeth said,
“She wouldn’t find it a painful duty to report me.”
“I don’t know,” said Stephen. “I don’t believe she’d know, herself. Most of the time she’s a set of copy-book maxims for Young Communists, very handsomely bound, but every now and then a streak of something real crops up, and then I’m sorry for her because she doesn’t know what to do with it.”
Elizabeth went over to the old-fashioned loom and stood there fingering it.
“It would be better to tell her that we are not married.”
“Why?”
“It would be better.”
He came and leaned against the wall beyond the loom so that he could see her face.
“Why do you want to commit suicide?”
She lifted her eyebrows.
“I don’t.”
“Telling Irina we’re not married would be suicide—for both of us. And a nasty, painful, lingering suicide too—weeks in a buggy Bolshevist prison, a lot of beastly interrogations—they’re great on third degree—and a nasty, messy execution at the end of it. I could do it much better with a revolver if you’re really set on it. Of course it would annoy Akulina very much to come in and find our corpses on the floor, because she takes a good deal of pains to keep things clean. I expect you’ve noticed there aren’t any insects, and that’s more than you can say about most peasants’ houses.”
Elizabeth looked up, met his teasing eyes, and quickly looked away. She frowned a little and said,
“When we were talking on the bridge, you said—I should be—rather an asset.” She hesitated curiously over the words. “You said anyone who was looking for you wouldn’t expect you to have—a woman with you. I’ve wanted to ask you about it. What did you mean? Are people looking for you?”
“They’re not looking for Red Stefan,” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t mean that. We’d be badly up against it if they were.”
“What did you mean?”
“I told you I was in Tronsk to meet a man who was taking over my job. When he didn’t come, I was pretty sure he’d been done in. Well; they might have known he was going to meet someone, and that would mean they’d be keeping their eyes skinned for anyone who was hanging around in Tronsk without a good excuse. They might have come to wonder why Red Stefan was kicking his heels there. But if he was there to pick up a wife, that let him out. That’s what I meant.”
“I see,” said Elizabeth. She smiled suddenly and sweetly. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I should like to think it was.”
“Oh, it’s quite true,” said Stephen. Then, with one of his abrupt turns, “I didn’t tell you that I knew Petroff, did I?”
She was really startled.
“No—you didn’t.”
He looked pleased.
“I know him quite well. We’re almost bosom companions. You see, I saved his life.”
“Why did you?”
“I didn’t kn
ow what a nuisance he was going to be. It was in the early days at Magnitogorsk. The whole place had run out of vodka—and you know what Petroff is when he can’t get vodka. I had two bottles, and he swore they saved his life.”
“I didn’t know you’d been in Magnitogorsk.”
“Oh, I’ve been in lots of places,” said Stephen cheerfully.
It came on to snow that evening and snowed all night. An hour before the snow began Irina left the village for the nearest Collective Farm, which was about ten versts away. The schoolmaster drove her over, and his wife was quite certain that he would be snowed up at the Farm with Irina and unable to return. All the women agreed with her that this was what Irina had intended. Akulina did not scruple to assert that she had caused the snow to fall—how, or by what arts, it was not for a God-fearing woman to say.
In the morning there was a frozen whiteness everywhere under a heavy lowering sky. Stephen and Yuri went out to make a path to the cow-shed and the barn. Presently Stephen came back alone.
“We’re off,” he said. “Yuri’s getting out the sledge. He’s grumbling like anything, but he’s really quite pleased, because he’ll get a fabulous price in Tronsk for Akulina’s eggs and a couple of the cheeses they’ve been hiding. The hens have laid so well this week that if they were anyone else’s, Akulina would say it was witchcraft.”
The sledge was much more comfortable than the cart had been. It ran smoothly over the crisp snow, under which lay buried the ruts and pot-holes of their journey from Tronsk. Yuri drove. The horse went gaily to a tinkling of bells. Elizabeth, well wrapped from the biting cold, found herself strangely happy. Pleasant to be flying along like this—pleasant to be leaving the village behind—pleasant to be getting away from Irina. Before she knew what she was going to say, she had spoken Irina’s name.
“Irina—why did she go away like that?”
“She went to the Collective Farm,” said Stephen without any expression in his voice.
“Why?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“She often goes there.”
Elizabeth had a quick, vivid memory of what she had seen when she came into the barn—Irina holding Stephen by the arm, leaning to him, speaking low and earnestly, with the glow in her cheeks which gave her a warmer beauty. Why had she begun to speak about Irina? If there was something between her and Stephen, he would not tell her. Why should he? She was just a stranger whom he was befriending at a great risk to himself because she was his countrywoman. Why should he tell her about his private affairs? She felt suddenly cold and desolate. A shiver ran over her, and at once Stephen asked,
“Are you cold?”
“No.”
“You shivered.”
“I’m not cold.”
Stephen considered this for a moment. Then he said,
“Have I made you angry?”
“Of course not.”
He pursued this line of thought.
“You sounded angry.”
It would be quite dreadful if he were to think that she was angry about Irina. She said quickly in a laughing voice,
“You don’t know how I sound when I’m angry.”
Stephen said, “No—that’s true.” And then, with one of his sudden changes of subject, “I want to talk to you about Petroff. Do you mind?”
He was really thinking that he should like to see Elizabeth angry, because that was a way he had not seen her yet. Every fresh way of seeing her was something added to the picture in his mind. Anger is like a lightning flash; it reveals with an intense, brief light. He would like to see Elizabeth by that revealing flash. Only of course he would rather the anger should not be directed against him. Petroff stepped naturally into his mind as an altogether suitable person for Elizabeth to be angry with. Let Petroff be struck by the lightning, and more power to it. He smiled affably as he said,
“I want to talk to you about Petroff. Do you mind?”
At any other moment Elizabeth would have minded. She would not, perhaps, have said so, but she would have winced a little. At this moment, and as an alternative to Irina, Petroff was positively welcome. She said quite truthfully,
“No, I don’t mind.”
Stephen leaned back beside her.
“Well then, I’ve been thinking a lot about Petroff’s position. You see, the whole thing is a good deal like that game called devil-in-the-dark. I don’t know if you ever played it. You put out all the lights, and one person is He. The others are all trying to get out of the room without being caught. You have to listen like mad and guess where He is, and what He’s doing, before you move a step. That’s why I want to talk about Petroff—I’ve got to guess what he’s likely to do. To begin with—is he in love with you?”
Elizabeth’s lips lifted a little.
“I shouldn’t call it that.”
“Well, it’s more a question of what he would call it—isn’t it?”
“He called it being in love,” said Elizabeth.
“Sometimes that sort of thing is just a passing fancy with a fellow like Petroff, but sometimes it takes a pretty strong hold. I’m awfully sorry to bother you about this, but you’re the only person I can ask—I can’t very well go to Petroff. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why should I mind?” said Elizabeth. Petroff was no longer the last horror of a nightmare. She had come out of the dream in which he had troubled her, and he simply did not matter any more.
“Well then, have you any idea how deep this went with him?”
Elizabeth’s brows drew together.
“I don’t really know. I should say not very deep. But he likes getting his own way. I’ve heard him boast that nobody ever got the better of him.”
“You think he’d try and find you?”
“I think he’d try and find the formula.”
“Yes—if he thought you’d got it. He really does think so?”
“I don’t know. He may have been trying to torment me. I don’t know. I believe he does think I know something.”
Stephen nodded thoughtfully.
“Then I figure it out this way. He’ll try very hard to find you. He’s not in terribly good odour at present—I’ve heard that from more than one quarter. A lot of the Communists in power are very strict about things like drink, and it’s perfectly well known that Petroff is a good deal too fond of the vodka bottle. If he hadn’t been a really clever mining engineer, he’d have got the sack long ago. If he could produce a new aluminium alloy which would assure them a lead in the manufacture of aircraft, it would be bound to give him a new lease of political life. That’s how it looks to me. So when I heard he was down at the Collective Farm, I thought we’d better get a move on.”
Elizabeth drew a sharp breath of dismay.
Stephen nodded.
“I heard yesterday.”
“The farm Irina went to?”
“That’s the one.” He laughed a little. “An old lady who lived near my guardian in Devonshire used to say, ‘Compliments pass when gentlefolk meet.’ She was about a hundred.”
Elizabeth’s eyes were on him, wide and startled.
“Do they know each other, Irina and Petroff?”
“Oh Lord, yes! Irina knows everyone. She was one of the people who told me that Petroff was for it unless he mended his ways.”
“I see—” said Elizabeth.
Petroff and Irina—Irina and Petroff.… The names linked themselves in her mind. And Irina had gone to the Collective Farm.
Stephen’s voice came through her thoughts.
“I wanted to ask you about that formula. You haven’t got it written down anywhere?”
“No. Nicolas said it wouldn’t be safe.”
“Yes—he was right. You wouldn’t know how to hide it.” He paused, and then added briskly, “But I should.”
Elizabeth looked at him in surprise.
“Do you want me to write it down?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Why?” said Elizabeth.
&nb
sp; Stephen was silent.
Elizabeth fixed her eyes on him.
“Do tell me why you said that.”
“Well, it’s rather difficult to explain. I was thinking you might easily forget a bit of it—and—several other things like that.”
“What sort of things?”
He shook his head. Impossible to tell her just what their chances were of getting clear, or that he might use the formula to bargain her free. It wasn’t that he had thought out any plan. It was merely the old sense that knowledge was power.
Elizabeth looked away across the snow for some time. Little feathery clouds blew up from the horse’s hoofs. The bells on the harness tinkled. The runners of the sledge made a soft crunching sound as they slid over the snow and pressed it down. There were no other sounds. Everything beyond them was cold, still, and empty—life, and growth, and fertility all frozen. But in Elizabeth herself they had suddenly, wonderfully quickened. The frost was all gone from her heart; just in one moment the last of it had broken and dissolved in a strange warmth and confusion of thought and feeling. She felt as if it were about to sweep her away. Her hands clasped one another beneath the sheepskins. She closed her eyes for a moment.
At once Stephen was asking her,
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
She looked up at him then, a strange bewildered look.
“What were we talking about?”
“Are you all right? Why did you shut your eyes like that? We were talking about the formula.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth—“the formula. You wanted it?”
She had quite forgotten why Stephen wanted it, and it did not matter in the least. She had a most overwhelming desire to give him whatever he wanted. If it had been the heart out of her breast, it would have been a little thing, and this longing to give would be still unspent. The formula was like a mere speck of dust caught in a torrent. If he wanted it, it was his. Whatever he wanted of her was his already, given with both hands and a heart that asked only to go on giving.
She told him the formula in a soft, steady voice, repeating it as she had learned it from Nicolas Radin’s dry and shaking lips. Poor Nicolas! She thought of him with a great softness of pity. She said the words he had taught her without missing a syllable. She repeated the figures, the instructions, the explanatory details. How many hundreds of times had she said them over in her mind—as she walked along a lonely street, as she stood silent in the bread queue waiting for her poor ration, or at night whilst the old woman snored beside her in the dark? It was as if they had been frozen into the ice about her heart. Now, on this new warm flood, they came pouring out. Only she could still control her voice. The outpouring was in thought alone. The words came in a quiet, measured order, whilst her hands held one another hard and her eyes looked away across the snow to the grey horizon. For Elizabeth it flamed with all the jewel colours of sunrise.
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