Several days after the professor’s meeting with the prince, I was sitting at the foot of one of the pyramids deep in thought, with the open map in my hands. Suddenly I felt that someone was standing over me. I hastily folded my map and looked up. It was the man who had accosted my employer at the Pyramid of Cheops. Pale and in great agitation, he asked me in Italian how and where I had obtained this map.
From his appearance and the interest he manifested in the map, I at once guessed that he must be that same prince described by the Armenian priest at whose house I had secretly made a copy of it. And without answering his question, I asked him in turn, in Russian, if he were not the man who had wished to buy the map from such and such a priest. He answered, ‘Yes, I am that man’, and he sat down beside me.
Then I told him who I was and how this map had come into my possession and how I already knew of his existence. Gradually we entered into conversation. When the prince had become quite calm again, he proposed that we should return to his apartment in Cairo and quietly continue our conversation there.
From then on, owing to our common interests, a real bond was established between us; we met often, and our correspondence continued uninterruptedly for almost thirty-five years. During this period we travelled together many times, in India, Tibet and various parts of Central Asia.
We met the last time but one in Constantinople, where the prince had a house in Pera, which was not far from the Russian Embassy and where from time to time he stayed for rather long periods.
This meeting took place in the following circumstances:
I was returning from Mecca in the company of some Bukharian dervishes whose acquaintance I had made there, and of several Sart pilgrims who were going home. I wished to go to Tiflis via Constantinople, then to Alexandropol to see my family, and afterwards to go on with the dervishes to Bukhara. But all these plans were changed owing to my unexpected meeting with the prince.
On arriving at Constantinople I learned that our steamer would stay there for six or seven days. For me this was most annoying news. To wait for a week, hanging about without anything to do was not the most agreeable of prospects. I therefore decided to make use of this time to visit a dervish acquaintance of mine in Broussa and incidentally see the famous Green Mosque. Going ashore at Galata, I decided to go first to the prince’s house and tidy myself up, and at the same time to see the prince’s amiable old Armenian housekeeper, Mariam Badji.
According to his last letters, the prince should by then have been in Ceylon, but to my astonishment he turned out to be still in Constantinople and even at home. As I have already said, we frequently wrote, but it was two years since we had seen each other, and this meeting was therefore a happy surprise for both of us.
I put off my trip to Broussa and even had to give up my plan of going straight to the Caucasus, in view of the prince’s request that I should accompany to Russia a young woman on whose account his trip to Ceylon had also been temporarily abandoned.
That same day I went to the bath, tidied myself up and had supper with the prince. While telling me about himself he related, with great animation and very vividly, the story of the young woman whom I had agreed to take to Russia.
As from my point of view this woman subsequently became remarkable in every respect, I wish not only to repeat her story as it was recounted by Prince Lubovedsky, but also to tell something about her later life, based on my personal meetings with her and on my own observations; the more so since the original manuscript in which I had written a more complete description of the life of this remarkable woman, under the title of ‘Confessions of a Polish Woman’, has remained in Russia among my many other manuscripts, the fate of which is still entirely unknown to me.
VITVITSKAIA
The prince told me the following story:
‘A week ago I was leaving for Ceylon on a ship of the Volunteer Fleet. I was already on board. Among those who were seeing me off was an attaché of the Russian Embassy, who in the course of conversation drew my attention to a certain passenger, a venerable-looking old man.
‘ “You see that old man,” he said. “Can anyone possibly believe that he is an important agent of the white slave traffic? Nevertheless it is so.”
‘This was said in passing. There was a great bustle on board and many people had come to see me off. Having no time to pay much attention to the old man, I quite forgot what the attaché had told me.
‘The boat started. It was morning. The weather was fine. I was sitting on deck reading. Near me, romping about, was Jack.’ (Jack was the prince’s fox-terrier, who accompanied him everywhere.)
‘A pretty girl passed and patted Jack. Then she brought him some sugar, but Jack never takes anything from anyone without my permission, so he cocked his head at me as if to ask “May I?” I nodded and said in Russian: “Yes, you may.”
‘It turned out that the young woman also spoke Russian and a conversation was started with the usual questions as to where each was going. She told me that she was going to Alexandria to take a place as governess in the family of the Russian consul.
‘During our conversation the old man whom the attaché had pointed out to me came on deck and called the young woman. When they had gone off together, I suddenly recalled what had been said about this old man, and his acquaintance with this girl seemed to me suspicious. I began to think, searching my memory. I knew the consul in Alexandria and, as far as I could remember, he could not have needed a governess. My suspicions increased.
‘Our boat had to stop at several ports, and at the first stop in the Dardanelles I sent two telegrams, one to the consul at Alexandria, asking whether he needed a governess, and the other to the consul at Salonika, where the boat was to stop next. I also confided my suspicions to the captain. In short, when we arrived at Salonika, what I had suspected was confirmed, and it became clear that this girl was being carried off under false pretences.
‘I found the girl appealing, and I resolved to rescue her from the danger menacing her, to take her back to Russia and not to start off again for Ceylon until I had arranged something for her.
‘We left the boat together at Salonika and the same day boarded another which was returning to Constantinople. As soon as we arrived I wished to send her back to her home, but it turned out that she had no one to whom she could go. That is why I have been delayed here.
‘Her history is rather unusual. She is Polish, born in the Volyne province, and as a child lived not far from Rovno, on the estate of a certain count for whom her father was superintendent. There were two brothers and two sisters in the family. The mother died when they were all quite young and they were brought up by an old aunt. When this girl, Vitvitskaia, was fourteen and her sister sixteen, their father died.
‘At that time one brother was studying somewhere in Italy, preparing for the Catholic priesthood. The other had turned out to be a great scoundrel. He had run away from college the year before, and was in hiding, so it was rumoured, somewhere in Odessa.
‘At the death of the father, the two sisters and their aunt were compelled to leave the estate since a new superintendent had been taken on. They moved to Rovno. Shortly afterwards, the old aunt also died. The situation of the sisters became difficult. On the advice of a distant relative, they sold their belongings and moved to Odessa, where they entered a vocational school to learn to be dressmakers.
‘Vitvitskaïa was very beautiful and, in contrast to her elder sister, frivolous. She had a great many admirers, among them a commercial traveller who seduced her and took her off to St. Petersburg. As she had quarrelled with her sister, she took with her her share of their heritage. In St. Petersburg the commercial traveller robbed and deserted her, and she found herself penniless in a strange city.
‘After many struggles and misfortunes, she finally became the mistress of an old senator; but he soon became jealous of some young student and turned her out. She then got into the “respectable” family of a certain doctor, who trained her to extend hi
s practice by a very original method.
‘The doctor’s wife had met her in the garden in front of the Alexandra theatre, had sat down beside her, and had persuaded her to come and live with them. She then taught her the following manoeuvre:
‘She was to walk along the Nevski and when accosted by a man she was not to put him off, but allow him to accompany her home, give him diplomatic encouragement and leave him at the door. He would of course ask the porter about her and would be told that she was the companion of a certain doctor’s wife. As a result of this procedure the doctor would acquire new patients, who invented some kind of ailment merely to get into his apartment in the hope of a pleasant meeting.
‘In so far as I have had time to study the nature of Vitvitskaïa,’ observed the prince with conviction, ‘she must have been subconsciously depressed all the time by such a life, and only dire need could have constrained her to resort to it.
‘One day, when she was walking on the Nevski for the purpose of picking up patients, she quite unexpectedly met her younger brother, whom she had not seen for several years. He was very well dressed and gave the impression of being rich. This meeting with her brother brought a ray of light into her cheerless life. It appeared that he had some kind of business in Odessa and abroad. When he learned that she was not particularly well off, he proposed that she should come to Odessa, where he had many connections and could arrange something good for her. She consented. On her arrival in Odessa her brother found her a very good situation with excellent prospects—governess in the family of the Russian consul in Alexandria.
‘Several days later her brother introduced her to a very distinguished-looking old man, who happened to be going to Alexandria and who agreed to accompany her. And so, one fine day, accompanied by this apparently reliable gentleman, she went on board the boat and started on her way.
‘What followed, you know....’
The prince told me he believed that only circumstances and the unhappy conditions of her family life had brought her to the brink of ruin, that her nature was unspoiled and that she had many excellent qualities. He had therefore decided to interest himself in her life and put her on the right path. ‘For this,’ said the prince, ‘I must first of all send the unfortunate girl to my sister on my estate in the Tambov province, so that she may have a good rest, and after that we will see....’
Knowing the prince’s idealism and kindness, I took a very sceptical attitude toward his project and considered that in this case his efforts would be in vain. I even thought then: ‘What falls from the wagon is lost!’
Without having even set eyes on Vitvitskaïa, there arose in me, for some reason or other, something like hatred for her; but I could not refuse the prince, and with a reluctant heart consented to accompany this, as I then thought, worthless woman.
I first saw her several days later when we boarded the boat. She was above middle height, very beautiful, with a good figure and brown hair. She had kind, honest eyes, which sometimes became diabolically cunning. It seems to me that the Thaïs of history must have been of the same type. At the first sight of her, she aroused in me a dual feeling towards her—now of hate, now of pity.
And so I went with her to the Tambov province. She stayed with the prince’s sister, who became very fond of her and took her abroad where they lived for long periods, particularly in Italy. Little by little, under the influence of the prince’s sister and the prince himself, she grew interested in their ideas, which soon became an integral part of her essence. She began to work on herself in earnest, and anyone who met her, even if only once, could feel the result of that work.
After I had taken her to Russia, I did not see her again for a long time. It was, it seems to me, at least four years later that I met her, quite by chance, with the sister of Prince Yuri Lubovedsky in Italy in the following peculiar circumstances:
Once I was in Rome, as always pursuing my aim, and since my money was fast running out, I followed the advice of two young Aisors whose acquaintance I had made there, and with their help began to shine shoes on the street.
It could not be said that my business went very well at first, and so, to increase my income, I decided to run it on new and original lines. For this purpose I ordered a special armchair under which, hidden from onlookers, I placed an Edison phonograph. To this I attached a rubber tube with ear-pieces on the end, in such a way that whoever sat in the armchair could put them to his ears, and I would then unnoticeably set the machine in motion. In this way my clients could listen to the ‘Marseillaise’ or an operatic air while I shined their shoes. In addition to this, I fastened to the right arm of the chair a little tray of my own make, on which I put a glass, a decanter of water, vermouth, and some illustrated magazines. Thanks to this, my business became more than successful, and lire, not centesimi, began to pour in. Rich young tourists paid particularly well.
Curious gapers would stand round me all day long, most of them waiting for their turn to sit in the armchair so that, while I shined their shoes, they could enjoy something never before seen or heard of, and incidentally show themselves off to the others who hung round all day, the same conceited fools as themselves.
In this crowd I often noticed a certain young lady. She attracted my attention because she seemed quite familiar to me, but for lack of time I did not look at her closely. One day I happened to hear her voice as she said in Russian to the elderly woman with her, ‘I bet it is he’, and I became so intrigued that, managing somehow to get free of my clients, I went straight up to her and asked her in Russian: ‘Tell me please, who are you? It seems to me that I have seen you somewhere.’
‘I am the person,’ she replied, ‘whom you once so hated that the flies which came into the sphere of the radiations of your hate perished. If you recall Prince Lubovedsky, then perhaps you will also recall the unfortunate girl you accompanied from Constantinople to Russia.’
I then immediately recognized her and also the elderly woman with her, the prince’s sister. From that day until they left for Monte Carlo, I spent every evening with them at their hotel.
A year and a half after this meeting, accompanied by Professor Skridlov, Vitvitskaia came to the meeting place for one of our big expeditions, and from then on was a permanent member of our itinerant band.
To illustrate the character of the inner world of Vitvitskaïa—this woman who had stood on the brink of moral ruin and who later, thanks to the aid of persons with ideas who chanced to cross the path of her life, became, I may boldly say, such as might serve as an ideal for every woman—I will confine myself here to telling about only one aspect of her many-sided inner life.
Among other interests she was particularly drawn to the science of music. The seriousness of her attitude towards this science may be shown clearly by a conversation we had during one of the expeditions of our group.
On this journey through the centre of Turkestan, thanks to special introductions, we stayed for three days in a certain monastery not accessible to everyone. The morning we left this monastery, Vitvitskaïa was as pale as death, and her arm, for some reason or other, was in a sling. For a long time she could not mount her horse by herself, and another comrade and I had to help her.
When the whole caravan was under way, I rode beside Vitvitskaia, a little behind all the others. I very much wanted to know what had happened to her and questioned her insistently. I thought that perhaps one of our comrades had acted the brute and had dared in some way to insult her—a woman who had become sacred for us all—and I wished to find out who the scoundrel was, in order, without dismounting and without words, to shoot him down like a partridge.
To my questions Vitvitskaïa finally replied that the cause of her state was, as she expressed it, that ‘damned music’, and she asked me if I remembered the music of the night before last.
I did indeed remember how all of us, sitting in some corner of the monastery, had almost sobbed, listening to the monotonous music performed by the brethren during one of their ce
remonies. And although we had talked about it afterwards for a long time, none of us could explain the reason for it.
After a little pause Vitvitskaia began to talk of her own accord, and what she said about the cause of her strange state took the form of a long story. I do not know whether it was because the scenery through which we were riding that morning was indescribably glorious or whether there was some other reason, but what she then told me with such sincerity, I still remember almost word for word even after all these years. Each of her words was so strongly imprinted on my brain that it seems to me I hear her at this moment.
She began as follows:
‘I do not remember whether there was anything in music that touched me inwardly when I was still quite young, but I do remember very well how I thought about it. Like everybody else I did not wish to appear ignorant and, in praising or criticizing a piece of music, I judged it only with my mind. Even when I was quite indifferent to the music I heard, if my opinion was asked about it, I expressed a view, for or against, according to the circumstances.
‘Sometimes when everyone praised it I spoke against it, using all the technical words I knew, so that people should think I was not just anyone, but an educated person who could discriminate in everything. And sometimes I condemned it in unison with others, because I thought that, if they criticized it, there was doubtless something in it which I did not know about, for which it should be criticized. But if I praised a piece of music, it was because I assumed that the composer, whoever he might be, having been occupied with this matter all his life, would not let any composition see the light if it did not deserve it. In short, in either praising or blaming, I was always insincere with myself and with others, and for this I felt no remorse of conscience.
Meetings With Remarkable Men Page 14