Such schoolboy fleet-footedness, such lightheartedness! Where was the settled gloom of so many months, the heaviness which he had carried with him to Shingarev’s apartment, to unburden himself with such a struggle? Whence this weightlessness, this sense of renewal? It was a miracle.
It was just as Fyodor, his traveling companion, had said: you are surprised and happy and afraid all at once—love for a woman is like feeling the heat of a flame on your face. Georgi had only half believed him (and felt envious, in case it could be like that!), but now he was experiencing it for himself. The heat of the flame caught him full in the face, there was no defense against it, nor did he wish to defend himself.
He quietly touched the unresisting ivory bell button. And almost closed his eyes as the door opened, so as not to be dazzled.
There she was!
Did she seem taller today? No, she was just as touchingly small and slender. His bouquet hid her altogether. Her hand, slightly sunburned, seemed weightless.
When you find yourself at cross-purposes you listen without understanding, you can’t harness your mind to your hearing, perhaps you will remember later on, but you’re afraid of asking the wrong questions.
They were in a big room now. Her study? The desk was hidden under leaning towers of books. There were papers everywhere. Shelves crammed with books. A big icon of St. Olga, not in a corner near the ceiling, but flat against a wall, with no lamp before it, as if it was not an icon but just an ordinary picture. There were innumerable toys and figurines, painted and unpainted, on the shelves. Ivan-Tsarevich riding the gray wolf, the battle with the Serpent Gorynich, rams with golden horns and lace-trimmed garments … more than the eye could take in.
It was still there! Still there from yesterday! Nothing had happened to dispel it! He didn’t know how he knew, but it was still there! Amazing! Nothing had been said but he knew.
There were so many different things on shelves and on the walls that it was easier to note what was missing: the usual lavish display of photographs, framed singly or in dozens. An untypical room. Another picture showed an old man with horns, a streaming beard, and powerful bare shoulders, sitting in a moonlit meadow.
The run upstairs had left him incoherent at first, and his next remarks were hit and miss—his thoughts were shaken and shattered, as in some dazed moment under fire, when you can’t get anything straight but the words come tumbling out, endlessly. Hostess and guest were still standing, and Vorotyntsev had paused before some provincial landscape, for no particular reason: water meadows and a little town beyond them. Olda Orestovna’s explanation was the first thing Vorotyntsev had clearly understood. It was a view of Makaryev on the Unzha, where her father, a Göttingen Ph.D., had been banished, and become district marshal of the gentry, and where she herself had been born and brought up.
But she broke off in the middle of her explanation, turned from the view of Makaryev to face Vorotyntsev (who only half noticed—he was still looking at the landscape and wondering how an exile could become marshal of the gentry), raised her hand, rested it lightly on his shoulder, on the edge of his epaulet, near his neck, and said in a full, firm voice, “God, how lucky we are to have people like you!”
It was said without embarrassment, not blurted out impulsively, not secretly whispered. She had spoken in a firm, clear voice. It was as though she was presenting him with a medal, hanging it around his neck on a ribbon.
Such a gesture would have been out of place if they had walked into the room in a normal, casual manner and sat down sedately at a polite distance from each other. Who, in those circumstances, would have felt able to rise, cross the room, and lay a hand on a shoulder?
This extraordinary gesture was like a shell exploding soundlessly near Vorotyntsev’s cheek, and the thoughts he had failed to express at the awkward moment of his entrance were even more dizzily muddled. Shaken, shell-shocked, derailed, Vorotyntsev, ears aflame, could not call to mind or utter the usual polite phrases. Still, he somehow kept his feet, and did not let slip that unique, that last possible chance to square accounts with the self-assured little general who had decorated him in the eyes of all Russia—the moment when Professor Andozerskaya’s hand was already slipping from his shoulder, after which it would be a gross and unpardonable impertinence to reply in the same terms …
At that very moment, before he could make the only possible reply, though not to reply was impossible, he caught the delicate hand that had decorated him, pressed his lips to it for longer, and more ardently, than ceremony required … rose, plunged again … and did the same with the hand that had not decorated him. Only then was it borne in on him that he must not remain silent, but should say something befitting the moment. The words seemed to speak themselves.
“The good fortune is ours … That you exist … That there is someone like you …”
Had he done the right thing? And why “our” good fortune? Who were “we”? All Russia perhaps? Anyway, they still stood facing each other, and Vorotyntsev, having made his feelings clear, could, it seemed, go on detaining the hands of that living statue, and did so greedily. Her hands, and her whole person, gave off a faint but distinctive perfume.
The award ceremony had gone on more than long enough. Vorotyntsev released her hands, and Olda Orestovna did not blush, did not sway on her feet, she merely smoothed her hair, and turned back with a little secret smile toward the picture, to finish what she had been saying about Makaryev.
Ah, to walk barefoot in that meadow, when the dew lifts and the ground warms up … The flowers that grow there … The town’s cattle plod past you … This is where they hold the fair (which reminded him that chests made in Makaryev were sold all over Russia). There’s our school … My father was a liberal, contributed a lot of money to local improvements. My nanny was a peasant. (They’re everywhere! Peasant nannies made us all what we are.) From her girlhood up she had always been full of questions, and grown-ups got used to telling her things.
They finished viewing the picture and sat down. Olda Orestovna spoke as though lecturing, an orderly exposition in a level voice, but Vorotyntsev had still not recovered from all the surprises of those first crowded minutes. So much had passed between them without a word spoken that the floor under their feet had lost its reliable horizontal firmness. Even in his armchair Vorotyntsev did not feel the normal pull of gravity, the armrests gave him no support, they were handles he gripped to prevent himself from rising into the air. From the first few minutes sound and sense had ceased to correspond, thoughts and sentences passed him by disconnectedly, there were things he didn’t hear, others that didn’t register, but over all, like a splendid white cloud on a sultry day, floated the assurance that he agreed with whatever she said: about the atmosphere of a lively provincial market town, about the earthenware toys from Dymkovo (those golden-horned rams and motley ducks, for instance), or the Bogorodskoye toys (peasant groups carved from lime wood), or the garishly painted toys from Troitse-Sergeevo; about Vrubel, about Scriabin … He nodded back at her, listening to her lilting voice, staring at her lips, the upper one curling slightly, the lower one fuller. And a plump cloud of delight floated serenely over it all.
He had to shake himself out of it, so as not to agree in advance with whatever she was about to say.
Last night at Shingarev’s he had felt that he had run himself to a standstill, that he could feebly, cozily just sit, and sit, and today it was worse. He had run upstairs like a schoolboy—what had become of all that energy? Why did his legs feel so pleasurably helpless? He had come here (hadn’t he?) for one reason only—to explore further important matters touched on in his presence last night. But before he could summon up the strength to speak Olda Orestovna asked him what he thought of Shingarev.
Vorotyntsev answered that the extraordinary sincerity of the man made him irresistible.
“But it’s dreadful to see how the party is corrupting him. He’s been a Kadet deputy in three Dumas, and that leaves its mark, so much has happened. The
re have been times when he’s spoken on terrorism and had to refrain from condemning it.”
“I was struck by what he said last night about Stolypin.”
“Stolypin preys on his mind. Stolypin is even more of an enigma to him than he said last night—he’s been much more open with me at times. He’s tormented by a paradox in his ideas on right and wrong: he always fought Stolypin as his duty to his party demanded, but Stolypin was doing his best for the peasants, just as Shingarev is. The Kadets made war on Stolypin—but it was he who firmly established our national assembly. They accused him of violating the constitution, but they themselves were capable of much graver violations on occasion. Party politics is a horrible business.”
What she said was true enough, but Vorotyntsev was delighted too by her manner of speaking—quiet and womanly, but confident and convincing. She thought clearly and spoke well. And she knew it.
“I was amazed by the Kadets,” he replied. “They’re so belligerent.”
“I never believe in their patriotic alarums and excursions—it’s all a bit of a game. The shell shortage actually gave them a boost. All the same, Georgi Mikhailovich”—and all at once her look was both stern and mischievous—"you are closer to the Kadets than you think.”
“I am?” He felt himself blushing, foolishly, as though he had been caught in some unseemly act. Though he was quite sure that there was nothing in it. “What makes you …? I’m nothing of the sort.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” she said, shaking her head sadly.
A treacherous flush gave him away. On the face of it, she was wrong, but deep down … she had glimpsed something he would have kept from her.
“The Kadet phenomenon,” Olda Orestovna said, still shaking her head, “is not just a political party, it’s a poison, a corrosive pervading the whole Russian atmosphere, and we all breathe it in, without even noticing. It is very difficult to hold on to your beliefs and keep them quite separate from the Kadet line. Last night, you, for instance, lightheartedly let drop some remark about a republic … That idea buzzes away in our own heads, and in the air around us, as though it was something easily imaginable. Tell me, though—when did the republican idea ever exist in Russia? All right, it was beginning to prevail in Novgorod—and Novgorod perished as a result. All through the Time of Troubles it was a Tsar they were looking for, not a republic. The same was true under the Seven Boyars. Whatever we are, we are not a republican people. The idea of anarchy appeals to us—mob violence, looting, mass disobedience—but not a republic, oh no! If you’d lived for a while in Europe, you’d know that Western states run on fast engines, but they don’t wear well, they couldn’t stand up to the dangers of three centuries.”
Under her disquieting gaze Vorotyntsev wouldn’t argue. Anyway, he … he hadn’t really meant …
But she persisted. “Republicanism is a rallying cry for the ambitious: power is there to be seized! So seize it! A republic invites everybody to fight for his own interests, but a republican always risks finding himself under the heel of his own most ruthless foe. And when did the masses, without the guidance of one single will, ever understand correctly where their interests lay and what they should be aiming at? Whenever there’s a big fire people get trampled on and trample others. You need a clear, commanding voice—a single one. You’re in the army, you ought to know that.”
“Of course,” Vorotyntsev said with a laugh.
It was all true. But why such fervor? Was this her only reason for inviting him, when he’d been imagining …?
She was looking at him questioningly, challengingly, trying to provoke some sign of life, wondering whether he was dead …
“If our present political parties should win power, do you think they’ll go on looking for some more just form of society? All they want is to make sure of a majority in elections. A democratic republic in an uneducated country is suicide. It’s an appeal to the basest passions of the people. Our naïve and trusting folk will vote at once for those who shout loudest and promise most. It will elect all sorts of rogues and loudmouthed lawyers. And decent candidates will be pushed out and trampled in the crush.”
Vorotyntsev tried to excuse himself. “I wasn’t really serious. I didn’t mean that a republic was something to aim at.”
But she had guessed correctly. It wasn’t something to aim at—but he didn’t reject it.
Her greenish eyes were as bright, and her lips as passionately restless, as if she was talking about something sensual.
“And what is it that democratic republics pride themselves on? A general leveling and so-called equality. Give adolescents the vote—so that a whiskerless lad will have the same rights and as much influence as a wise fifty-year-old. The hankering after equality is a primitive form of human self-deception, which republics exploit, demanding equal performance from those who are unequal. The monarchy, the army, or any good school all depend on a hierarchy of worth, a ladder of values. The whole natural world lives like that. And it’s only human society we think we can stir up like porridge. If we cut off, if we topple, all the higher levels … We should respond positively to people of high merit, and clear their way to influence in the state, not tear them to pieces.”
He was not so much listening as watching her lips moving—and wanting to test their firmness.
She went on, not with last night’s easy equanimity, but with eager concern.
“No, Georgi Mikhailovich, you evidently haven’t escaped infection by the Kadets. Last night I thought I would find in you an ally, which was why I started talking, but you proved to be more like an opponent. Why? I wonder. Surely all regular officers are staunch monarchists? Aren’t you?”
Vorotyntsev had to confess. “I’m … er… I … it isn’t such a simple case as that. Not escaped infection—what does that mean? Anyone who is conscious of his duty to the people, must … whatever you think. I enjoyed your defense of monarchy in general … But here we have the exception to the rule … It needs qualification.”
“Yes, Georgi Mikhailovich! Ours is indeed an exceptional case: if we lose the monarchy, we lose Russia. Exalted as he is, the people feel that the Tsar belongs with them and is much closer than any of the Duma crowd. I’ve seen all I want to see of them. Their practice has been anything but constructive, all they’re good at is letting off steam in opposition. Give them power tomorrow and they won’t be able to run the country. They wouldn’t last a minute without the Tsar.”
He just listened. Or rather didn’t listen, just marveled, just admired her and felt confused.
“For us, losing the monarchy would mean changing not just the state structure but the whole moral order of our lives. It is not given to everybody to be a monarchist, just as not everybody is capable of believing in God, and not everybody is capable of love. You’ll find that believers are more likely than not to be monarchists, and the irreligious more likely to be republicans. For a republican, of course, devotion to a monarch is deplorable stupidity. And without such devotion monarchy turns into a sham.”
“Yes … that’s just what I mean.” Vorotyntsev had difficulty in getting his words out. He couldn’t, he hadn’t wanted to tell her in so many words that the Russian monarchy had become a sham. But that was the fact of the matter.
“To have a monarch at all you must love him. Without your love he doesn’t exist. Love him, and be ready to serve him to the end!”
Her eyes shone, as though she was an officer herself, and ready to serve to the end.
Ah, if only it were so simple! But those endless, meaningless parades, instead of getting down to business? Idiotic and disastrous senior appointments by the dozen? And what if the Tsar, though hopelessly incompetent, assumes the Supreme Command? Anyone who had experienced the sacrifices exacted by the war had no choice, he must put the fatherland before the monarchy.
But this was not the time to tell her, and his heart would not have been in it.
“Ah, yes,” he said with a laugh, “the monarchist’s tragedy. All that’
s required of him is contentment, jubilation, and gratitude. Never a thought, never an action of his own, just loyalty.”
“No! It isn’t like that!” Andozerskaya insisted, waving one small hand for emphasis. “A monarchist has the right to speak freely! The right to honest disagreement! In fact, it is his sacred obligation, implicit in the oath he takes! But every subject must at every moment project a ray of loyalty and support: it is from the intersection of those rays that the monarch acquires his strength.”
There was a certain beauty in it, of course. But an abstract beauty. If you did not know how sordid and banal modern warfare was.
Altogether, he had heard nothing, here or the night before, except self-contradiction. He would have to digest it all sometime.
Not right now, though.
Right now, he was happy to find, they had drifted into the dining room, and tea was served.
Only then did he wake up to the fact that they were both from the Kostroma region. Zastruzhe was not all that far from Makaryev, yet Georgi had never got as far as the Unzha. Kostroma was in some ways a frontier province. It was precisely the point of transition from central to northern Russia, where Russia’s fertility, its modest abundance of vegetation, its limited supply of warmth faltered, where widely separated villages, churches, and mills on bare and chilly, though not yet far northern slopes diffused a sort of melancholy, and houses grew as big and strong as those of the north, fortifying themselves as best they could against longer and harsher winter months. Not that the Kostroma Region was everywhere the same: higher up the Unzha there was trackless forest.
Olda Orestovna was telling him now about her teaching. She was not overly provided with opportunities to speak her mind. Two professors at the Bestuzhev Institute, Vvedensky and Sergeevich, had come to grief already because what they said was not what the students wanted to hear. Still, it had taken Klyuchevsky himself ten years to earn his students’ forgiveness for his funeral eulogy on Aleksandr III. The women’s courses had become rather healthier since 1905–6. There were a lot of serious students, but they had not learned how to raise their voices, how to argue. There were also quite a few “radical thinkers,” and even out-and-out Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats. Those who wanted Russia to win the war were called “social traitors,” and openly defeatist talk went on in the students’ refectory. Students generally had tilted back toward politics during the war. They would start a “study circle”—on Marxism or the French Revolution—but what went on there was plain, straightforward political agitation.
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