At this private conference of young delegates, Willi, of course, was in the chair—making lavish use of his commanding gestures, his bold, cheerful voice, and his tumbling hair—and Radek was at his side, smothered in curls, wearing his merrily militant spectacles, reading his resolution, explaining it, answering questions. (He was a good speaker too—but his pen was beyond price.) Lenin, as he always preferred to, had sat inconspicuously among the rest, and contented himself with listening attentively.
All might have gone well. The young delegates listened closely to their Russo-Polish comrade and seemed in agreement.
All might have gone well if something extremely unpleasant hadn’t happened. They had not had the sense to lock the door. And through the unlocked door, unnoticed at first, came two malicious tale-bearers, two horrid old bags: Madame Blok, who was Grimm’s friend no less, and Martov’s lady friend, Dimka Smidovich. Once these wretched females were in, there was no getting them out: they’d scream and make a scene! And the whole meeting could hardly move elsewhere! Anyway, they’d already seen and heard Radek speaking, and realized, of course, that a resolution for the Swiss Congress was being drafted by Russians.
What an infernal nuisance! What a colossal fiasco! Loathsome creatures with their filthy little intrigues! Of course, they’d rushed off to Grimm and whispered in his ear. And he, the brute, the blackguard, the utter swine, had believed the silly bitches. He’d tried to start a vulgar brawl by printing vile innuendos in his Berner Tagwacht, which were absolutely incomprehensible to ninety-nine percent of its readers: “A certain small group of foreigners, who look at our workers’ movement through spectacles of their own, and are utterly indifferent to Swiss affairs, are trying in a fit of impatience to provoke an artificial revolution in our country! …”
Poppycock! Unmitigated hogwash! And that is what they call a working-class leader?
Then at the Congress they’d laughed down Nobs’s resolution. When he proposed making it a rule for the future that only those opposed to national self-defense should be nominated for parliament, Greulich had been greatly amused. If we elect such deputies, he said, their hotheadedness may land them in the skittle alley.
The Congress roared with laughter.
Moreover, consideration of the Kienthal resolution had been postponed—until February 1917.
What a tragedy it all was! So much effort, so many evenings, so much conviction, lucid thought, and revolutionary dynamite had gone into it! And the result was—a heap of vulgar, stupid opportunist debris, like dingy cotton wool, like the dust of junk rooms.
In musty Switzerland the bacillus of petty bourgeois cretinism reigned triumphant.
And the bourgeois world still stood, unexploded.
* * *
FOR FOLK LIKE YOU WITH NIMBLE TONGUE
THE ROAD AHEAD IS NEVER LONG.
FOR FOLK LIKE ME WITH NO BOOK LEARNING
T’S THE LONG, LONG LANE THAT HAS NO TURNING.
* * *
[38]
On the afternoon of 7 November, Vorotyntsev looked in at General Staff HQ once more to deal with unfinished business, and emerged onto the Nevsky. He had a ticket for the late train in his pocket, and had said goodbye to Olda that morning, so that at last he would be able to spend an evening with Nanny and Vera. All he had to do was walk along the Nevsky one last time, as far as Karavannaya Street. He felt full to the brim with some luminous, ringing substance, triumphant yet at ease, as if his body was supported not by his skeleton but by the pressure of that substance from within. He seemed not to have lost anything in those last few days, not to be in any way depleted, but rather to have taken in more and more of that triumphant substance, so that now he was filled with a tingling vibrancy the like of which he had never experienced, and would have thought impossible a week ago.
One of the objects on Olda’s walls was a dark metal gong. One stroke with a horsehair-headed stick and its deep booming note went on and on, a lingering, muffled joyous resonance. Georgi felt now that he was vibrating like that gong. He had thought of himself as having mass, as a thing of burnished metal, but had not known till now that such sounds could be drawn from him. But there it was—that steady, booming sound in his breast. The world seemed new—especially the women in it.
He had spent eight days in Petrograd, it would soon be nine, and he had not achieved the sole object of his journey, had not arranged a single serious interview. He could not remember neglecting his duty in this way at any time in his life.
His mind reproached him, but his body felt only gratitude. Time was running out, in a few months, a few weeks, it might be too late to save the situation. But he too had only one life, and was living, perhaps, the last month of it—how could he decline the gift that fate had put in his way? Without it he would be a pauper, without those eight days he would never have known what life could be.
He reproached himself, but there were excuses. For a start, he had tried several times to telephone Guchkov and had left messages. He had picked up the receiver that very afternoon and missed him yet again: yes, he is in town, and will probably be back this evening. They were evidently fated not to meet. Then again, while distracting him from his duty Olda had left a little cloud of doubt in his mind. It was all a lot more complicated than he had thought in his impetuosity, it needed careful consideration. Somehow, his eagerness to look people up and clarify matters had cooled in those eight days.
He had taken off from Romania like a shell from a gun, but had gradually lost his destructive velocity in flight.
Walking along the Prospect, Vorotyntsev, as soldiers do, kept half an eye open for other soldiers, to be sure of returning their salute. On this occasion, crossing the Politseisky Bridge, he saw from the corner of his eye a powerfully built officer with a tall fur hat and major general’s epaulets. His hand shot up, to salute smartly, before he looked the general in the face and recognized—Svechin.
Svechin replied with the same mechanical gesture before looking Vorotyntsev over and recognizing him.
Although he had read in Russky Invalid that Svechin was now a major general, he had only vaguely remembered it, and failed to substitute the new for the old Svechin in his mind’s eye. He stood, now, blinking in surprise.
They turned, walked toward each other, and their hands met.
“Ye-gori?”
“Your Excellency!”
“That’s enough of that!”
Svechin gave him a little hug. “You could have been the same, only you chose not to. Remember the old definition: What’s a general? A colonel who’s become stupid enough.”
“Glad you remember. But you still haven’t said no?”
Svechin’s heavy lips parted in a smile.
“Doesn’t apply to me, as far as I can see. Besides, refusing would look ungracious. Anyway”—touching the gold hilt of Vorotyntsev’s sword—"isn’t that just as good?”
Was he merely being polite or did he mean it?
Vorotyntsev had, in fact, felt no envy when he first read of Svechin’s promotion, and felt none now that he saw him. Envy and resentment were two feelings he had never known, perhaps because of his supreme self-confidence. Never once in the past two years had he regretted relieving his feelings in the presence of the generals at GHQ and ramming the truth down their throats.
Still—there had been a little pang when he read the Invalid and another one now.
“Maybe this isn’t you, though? Can there be two of you? You’re at GHQ, I’ve got your letter in my pocket, inviting me there.”
“Maybe there are two of you as well? I wrote thinking you were with your regiment and here you are in Petersburg.”
A lucky meeting! Vorotyntsev hadn’t known how seriously to take Svechin’s letter, received just as he was setting out. Should he or shouldn’t he look in at GHQ on his return journey?
“I’m leaving tonight.”
“And I’m off in three hours’ time. Pity we can’t travel together.”
Svechin’s left hand
held a little crocodile-skin case, too small to be called luggage or a burden, so that even a general could carry it without a breach of regulations.
“But when did you get here? I wish we could have gotten together!” Vorotyntsev blurted out. He couldn’t really regret it: how could they have met, with Olda around?
There was a cold glint in Svechin’s black eyes. “This morning.”
Vorotyntsev was puzzled. “You got here today, and you’re leaving today?”
“I … er …” Svechin’s big lips set in a grim line. “I only came to break it off with my wife.”
Vorotyntsev couldn’t take it in. “Between getting here this morning and leaving tonight?”
“One day’s more than enough,” Svechin said curtly, looking past Vorotyntsev.
In the meantime, they had unthinkingly turned around and Vorotyntsev was walking in Svechin’s direction. They crossed the Moika, stood for a while, crossed the Nevsky to the Businessmen’s Club, and stood there a bit. Then, letting their feet decide for them, they went off along the Moika toward Gorokhovaya Street.
The sky had been overcast all day, and the heavy clouds were darker still as the early northern dusk approached. Rain was setting in, and the spots crinkled the gray surface of the Moika.
“It’s like this,” Svechin explained gloomily. “A few months ago I discovered that my wife was hanging around with the Rasputin clique. I warned her. But I’m not like the Evangelist—I don’t give seven and seventy warnings, just one. Especially when it’s a woman.”
Vorotyntsev was mildly deprecating. “Why be so much harder on women?”
“I’ll tell you why,” Svechin said heavily. “Any other way you’re done for. You can forgive your orderly ten times, you can forgive a volunteer for running from the battlefield, there’s some chance he may improve. But if a woman doesn’t take your first warning to heart there’s no hope for her.”
A strange, a merciless judgment. It was good, though, to meet an old friend unexpectedly and find that you were as much at ease with each other as ever. But could anything have failed to please him, now that there was Olda? Everything was splendid, everything was just right, even the rain.
“What exactly happened?”
“Nothing much. The Holy Man came to tea a time or two, that’s all. He was in my apartment—drinking tea!” Svechin’s long lips writhed. It was a sign that he was enraged. That habit and the brilliant blackness of his eyes had earned him his nickname—"the Mad Mullah.” His rages, however, never affected the way in which he discharged his duties.
“So he came to tea! I ask you! Just ordinary hospitality!” Vorotyntsev retorted, still more cheerfully, almost teasingly. “Probably there were other guests as well, all talking about spiritual matters.”
Svechin refused to see the funny side. “If they want to pray, that’s what a church is for,” he answered sternly. “And if you can’t do without holy men, take a trip to the Optina monastery. You get a different sort of holy man there anyway … But when half a dozen silly women dress up in see-through frocks to rub themselves against a hulking great country bumpkin …”
“Come on, not half a dozen at a time!”
“If not a dozen! People say they go to the bathhouse with him—countesses, princesses, every one of them somebody’s wife, like mine—and take turns sponging him down.”
“Come on, not all of them. Not every time,” Vorotyntsev said dubiously.
Still … here we are sedately strolling along the embankment but—one false step and … splash!
“I’m not condemning those countesses wholesale. My one reservation is that it’s no place for my wife. She ought to consider her husband. Even if all they do is collect black rusks to wrap in their scented hankies, and beg Grishka to give them his dirty underclothes to wear. They took tea at my table, after she’d been warned—that’s quite enough.”
“What does she say about it?”
“I don’t know. And it makes no difference.” He pursed his lips as if to whistle. “I didn’t find her at home, you see. And I wasn’t going to wait, because I have to be at GHQ tomorrow. I wrote her a note, packed this case—and the rest is up to her.”
Vorotyntsev was taken aback. Just like that? Ending a marriage as if you were rushing into a cavalry charge!
“My sons are both cadets. They’ll go on to officer training school.”
The rain was heavier now, and the big spots were wetting their fur hats and greatcoats. They walked on along the Moika and turned into Kirpichny Lane. It was getting dark, and the air was raw. Lamps would soon be lit.
“Where are you going now?”
“Nowhere much. To have dinner.”
“Let’s dine together, then. We can go to my sister’s if you like.”
“No, let’s go to a restaurant. Cubat’s is quite near here.”
They walked along Kirpichny Lane. Past the triple-arched plate-glass window of the restaurant, already curtained and cozily lit from within. They turned onto Bolshaya Morskaya Street and walked toward the stuccoed building’s marble portico. As they turned the corner, a hansom cab with pneumatic tires stole past them and pulled up at Cubat’s. A young man got out and handed down his lady. A slender girl in a reddish-brown coat and a black hat which did not quite cover her hair, she jumped lightly down, lost her footing, and was steadied by her companion in what looked like an embrace. They went in before the two officers, and a whiff of perfume followed the girl into the vestibule.
The friends took off their greatcoats under the pink-shaded lamps, enjoying the warmth, and unbuckled their swords. The other two were dealt with by the next cloakroom attendant. The girl’s coat had concealed an exquisitely molded form clad in a golden ankle-length dress, with long luxuriant hair falling in two cascades down her back. Her companion called her Likonya.
Georgi, sated, you might suppose, with feminine charms, nonetheless looked at her attentively. Even her he would not have noticed earlier. But now, when their eyes met, he did not find it improper to let his gaze linger just a little longer, as if trying not just to show admiration but to give her some special message.
“Did young ladies like that come here in the old days? Wasn’t Cubat’s a place for talking business?”
“When we get back a lot of things will be unrecognizable,” Svechin replied darkly.
The first thing that was unrecognizable and unpleasant was her companion, with his neat tiers of gray ringlets, a hint—could it be?—of lipstick, and his indolent, self-assured manner. He glanced at them haughtily, showing no more interest in two senior officers wearing the aiguillettes and silver badges of Staff Academy graduates than in the cloakroom attendant.
“Imagine it—a milksop like that—when we’re at war. I’d like to double him through the communication trenches with his head between his knees.”
“Yes,” Svechin muttered. “They read their somnambulist poetry, they listen to those hysterics Severyanin and Vertinsky. We have no idea what’s growing here while we’re away.”
The ground floor of the restaurant was a long carpeted room with warm-colored silk curtains at the big, triple-arched windows, dim overhead lighting, and shaded table lamps. But Cubat’s had certainly changed its character: glitteringly ornamented ladies sat smoking cigarettes with long mouthpieces. And in the far corner, at several tables placed together and laden with dishes, a large party was celebrating some great civilian triumph. The excessively loud voices of the well wined and dined could be heard across the restaurant, and on a platform behind a curtain some sort of spectacle was being contrived for them.
Vorotyntsev had never been a lover of restaurants—partly because money had been tight for so many years, but also on principle: restaurants slow down the work in hand and increase the share of pleasure in life disproportionately—something which Vorotyntsev had never permitted himself and had long ceased to want.
But it was pleasant for once to sink into a comfortable chair, facing Svechin, sit lapped in a subtle combination
of appetizing smells, and while you waited for the menu—what? Smoke, of course.
A lucky chance all right! An excellent opportunity to talk to a friend about anything and everything without constraint. Although all Vorotyntsev’s conversations in Petrograd so far had not helped him to order his thoughts, but left him more confused.
Svechin too had settled himself comfortably, to make the most of the time until his train left, and was contentedly lighting his pipe. No one could have guessed that this was more or less the moment when his wife would enter their apartment to be guillotined by the note from a husband whom she had supposed to be seven hundred versts away.
Astounding that he could be so peremptory. And control his feelings so effortlessly.
They were so much at ease with each other because there was no need for them to go into details: although they had not met for two years, and hardly ever written to each other, one word was enough as a rule for each to understand at once, and as a rule completely.
If the word was “Champagne”—it meant not the homeland of the wine, but the sector in which the Allies had promised all summer to launch an offensive and relieve us, but instead of doing so they had left us to perish for lack of shells in last year’s disastrous retreat. They had sent us no shells either, but once we were done for, had fired off three million of their own—in Champagne, where else?—all to no purpose.
What, come to that, had the Allies achieved in the whole of 1915? How much fighting had the British infantry done? Since the beginning of the war it had advanced a few hundred yards. They knew how to look after themselves.
Then again—why did we fling the Caucasian Army into an unnecessary and hopeless offensive over the Turkish mountains? Could anything be more senseless than our assault on Turkey? Mountains, snow, heroes, and miracles like those of Suvorov’s campaigns—and Erzerum is taken! But they could make no use of it, it was all for nothing.
Ah, but it rescued the Allies at Salonika. It made things easier for England in Mesopotamia.
November 1916 Page 77