Secret City — Part II Chapter 12
XII
So much for the way that one Russian saw it.
There were others.
For instance Vera....
I suppose that the motive of Vera's life was her pride.
Quite early, I should imagine, she had adopted that as the sort of talisman that would save her from every kind of ill.
She told me once that when she was a little girl, the story of the witch who lured two children into the wood and then roasted them in her oven had terrified her beyond all control, and she would lie awake and shiver for hours because of it.
It became a symbol of life to her--the Forest was there and the Oven and the Witch--and so clever and subtle was the Witch that the only way to outwit her was by pride.
Then there was also her maternal tenderness; it was through that that Markovitch won her.
She had not of course loved him--she had never pretended to herself that she had--but she had seen that he wanted caring for, and then, having taken the decisive step, her pride had come to her aid, had shown her a glimpse of the Witch waiting in the Forest darkness, and had proved to her that here was her great opportunity.
She had then, with the easy superiority of a young girl, ignorant of life, dismissed love as of something that others might care for but that would, in no case, concern herself.
Did Love for a moment smile at her or beckon to her Pride came to her and showed her Nina and Nicholas, and that was enough.
But Love knows its power.
He suddenly put forth his strength and Vera was utterly helpless--far more helpless than a Western girl with her conventional code and traditional training would have been.
Vera had no convention and no tradition.
She had only her pride and her maternal instinct and these, for a time, fought a battle for her...
then they suddenly deserted her.
I imagine that they really deserted her on the night of Nina's birthday-party, but she would not admit defeat so readily, and fought on for a little.
On this eventful week when the world, as we knew it, was tumbling about our ears, she had told herself that the only thing to which she must give a thought was her fixed loyalty to Nina and Nicholas.
She would not think of Lawrence....
She would not think of him.
And so resolving, thought of him all the more.
By Wednesday morning her nerves were exhausted.
The excitements of this week came as a climax to many months of strain.
With the exception of her visit to the Astoria she had been out scarcely at all and, although the view from her flat was peaceful enough she could imagine every kind of horror beyond the boundaries of the Prospect--and in every horror Lawrence figured.
There occurred that morning a strange little conversation between Vera, Semyonov, Nicholas Markovitch, and myself.
I arrived about ten o'clock to see how they were and to hear the news.
I found Vera sitting quietly at the table sewing.
Markovitch stood near to her, his anxious eyes and trembling mouth perched on the top of his sharp peaky collar and his hands rubbing nervously one within another.
He was obviously in a state of very great excitement.
Semyonov sat opposite Vera, leaning his thick body on his arms, his eyes watching his niece and every once and again his firm pale hand stroking his beard.
When I joined them he said to me: "Well, Ivan Andreievitch, what's the latest news of your splendid Revolution?"
"Why my Revolution?"
I asked.
I felt an especial dislike this morning of his sneering eyes and his thick pale honey-coloured beard.
"Whose ever it was he should be proud of it.
To see thousands of people who've been hungry for months wandering about as I've seen them this morning and none of them touching a thing--it's stupendous!"
Semyonov smiled but said nothing.
His smile irritated me.
"Oh, of course you sneer at the whole thing, Alexei Petrovitch!"
I said.
"Anything fine in human nature excites your contempt as I know of old."
I think that that was the first time that Vera had heard me speak to him in that way, and she looked up at me with sudden surprise and I think gratitude.
Semyonov treated me with complete contempt.
He answered me slowly: "No, Ivan Andreievitch, I don't wish to deprive you of any kind of happiness.
I wouldn't for worlds.
But do you know our people, that's the question?
You haven't been here very long; you came loaded up with romantic notions, some of which you've discarded but only that you may pick up others....
I don't want to insult you at all, but you simply don't know that the Christian virtues that you are admiring just now so extravagantly are simply cowardice and apathy....
Wait a little!
Wait a little!
and then tell me whether I've not been right."
There was a moment's pause like the hush before the storm, and then Markovitch broke in upon us.
I can see and hear him now, standing there behind Vera with his ridiculous collar and his anxious eyes.
The words simply pouring from him in a torrent, his voice now rising into a shrill scream, now sinking into a funny broken bass like the growl of a young baby tiger.
And yet he was never ridiculous.
I've known other mortals, and myself one of the foremost, who, under the impulse of some sudden anger, enthusiasm, or regret, have been simply figures of fun....
Markovitch was never that.
He was like a dying man fighting for possession of the last plank.
I can't at this distance of time remember all that he said.
He talked a great deal about Russia; while he spoke I noticed that he avoided Semyonov's eyes, which never for a single instant left his face.
"Oh, don't you see, don't you see?"
he cried.
"Russia's chance has come back to her?
We can fight now a holy, patriotic war.
We can fight, not because we are told to by our masters, but because we, of our own free will, wish to defend the soil of our sacred country.
_Our_ country!
No one has thought of Russia for the last two years--we have thought only of ourselves, our privations, our losses--but now--now.
O God!
the world may be set free again because Russia is at last free!"
"Yes," said Semyonov quietly (his eyes covered Markovitch's face as a searchlight finds out the running figure of a man).
"And who has spoken of Russia during the last few days?
Russia!
Why, I haven't heard the word mentioned once.
I may have been unlucky, I don't know.
I've been out and about the streets a good deal...
I've listened to a great many conversations....
Democracy, yes, and Brotherhood and Equality and Fraternity and Bread and Land and Peace and Idleness--but Russia!
Not a sound...."
"It will come!
It will come!"
Markovitch urged.
"It _must_ come!
You didn't walk, Alexei, as I did last night, through the streets, and see the people and hear their voices and see their faces....
Oh!
I believe that at last that good has come to the world, and happiness and peace;
and it is Russia who will lead the way....
Thank God!
Thank God!"
Even as he spoke some instinct in me urged me to try and prevent him.
I felt that Semyonov would not forget a word of this, and would make his own use of it in the time to come.
I could see the purpose in Semyonov's eyes.
I almost called out to Nicholas, "Look out!
Look out!"
just as though a man were standing behind him with a raised weapon....
"You really mean this?"
asked Semyonov.
"Of course I mean it!"
cried Markovitch.
"Do I not sound as though I did?"
"I will remind you of it one day," said Semyonov.
I saw that Markovitch was trembling with excitement from head to foot.
He sat down at the table near Vera and put one hand on the tablecloth to steady himself.
Vera suddenly covered his hand with hers as though she were protecting him.
His excitement seemed to stream away from him, as though Semyonov were drawing it out of him.
He suddenly said: "You'd like to take my happiness away from me if you could, Alexei.
You don't want me to be happy."
"What nonsense!"
Semyonov said, laughing.
"Only I like the truth--I simply don't see the thing as you do.
I have my view of us Russians.
I
have watched since the beginning of the war.
I think our people lazy and selfish--think you must drive them with a whip to make them do anything.
I think they would be ideal under German rule, which is what they'll get if their Revolution lasts long enough...
that's all."
I saw that Markovitch wanted to reply, but he was trembling so that he could not.
He said at last: "You leave me alone, Alexei; let me go my own way."
"I have never tried to prevent you," said Semyonov.
There was a moment's silence.
Then, in quite another tone, he remarked to me: "By the way, Ivan Andreievitch, what about your friend Mr. Lawrence?
He's in a position of very considerable danger where he is with Wilderling.
They tell me Wilderling may be murdered at any moment."
Some force stronger than my will drove me to look at Vera.
I saw that Nicolai Leontievitch also was looking at her.
She raised her eyes for an instant, her lips moved as though she were going to speak, then she looked down again at her sewing.
Semyonov watched us all.
"Oh, he'll be all right," I answered.
"If any one in the world can look after himself it's Lawrence."
"That's all very well," said Semyonov, still looking at Markovitch.
"But to be in Wilderling's company this week is a very unhealthy thing for any one.
And that type of Englishman is not noted for cowardice."
"I tell you that Lawrence can look after himself," I insisted angrily.
Semyonov knew and Markovitch knew that I was speaking to Vera.
No one then said a word.
There was a long pause.
At last Semyonov saw fit to go.
"I'm off to the Duma," he said.
"There's a split, I believe.
And I want to hear whether it's true that the Czar's abdicated."
"I believe you'd rather he hadn't, Alexei Petrovitch," Markovitch broke in fiercely.
He laughed at us all and said, "Whose interests am I studying?
My own?...
Holy Russia's?...
Yours?...
When will you learn, Nicholas my friend, that I am a spectator, not a participator?"
Vera was alone during most of that day; and even now, after the time that has passed, I cannot bear to think of what she suffered.
She realised quite definitely and now, with no chance whatever of self-deception, that she loved Lawrence with a force that no denial or sacrifice on her part could alter.
She told me afterwards that she walked up and down that room for hours, telling herself again and again that she must not go and see whether he were safe.
She did not dare even to leave the room.
She felt that if she entered her bedroom the sight of her hat and coat there would break down her resolution, that if she went to the head of the stairs and listened she must then go farther and then farther again.
She knew quite well that to go to him now would mean complete surrender.
She had no illusions about that.
The whole of her body was quivering with desire for his embrace, for the warm strength of his body, for the kindness in his eyes, and the compelling mastery of his hands.
She had never loved a man before; but it seemed to her now that she had known all these sensations always, and that she was now, at last, her real self, and that the earlier Vera had been a ghost.
And what ghosts were Nina and Markovitch!
She told me afterwards that, on looking back, this seemed to her the most horrible part of the horrible afternoon.
These two, who had been for so many years the very centre of her life, whom she had forced to hold up, as it were, the whole foundation of her existence, now simply were not real at all.
She might call to them, and their voices were like far echoes or the wind.
She gazed at them, and the colours of the room and the street seemed to shine through them....
She fought for their reality.
She forced herself to recall all the many things that they had done together, Nina's little ways, the quarrels with Nicholas, the reconciliations, the times when he had been ill, the times when they had gone to the country, to the theatre...
and through it all she heard Semyonov's voice, "By the way, what about your friend Lawrence?...
He's in a position of very considerable danger...
considerable danger...
considerable danger..."
By the evening she was almost frantic.
Nina had been with a girl friend in the Vassily Ostrov all day.
She would perhaps stay there all night if there were any signs of trouble.
No one returned.
Only the clock ticked on.
Old Sacha asked whether she might go out for an hour.
Vera nodded her head.
She was then quite alone in the flat.
Suddenly, about seven o'clock, Nina came in.
She was tired, nervous, and unhappy.
The Revolution had not come to _her_ as anything but a sudden crumbling of all the life that she had known and believed in.
She had had, that afternoon, to run down a side street to avoid a machine-gun, and afterwards on the Morskaia she had come upon a dead man huddled up in the snow like a piece of offal.
These things terrified her and she did not care about the larger issues.
Her life had been always intensely personal--not selfish so much as vividly egoistic through her vitality.
And now she was miserable, not because she was afraid for her own safety, but because she was face to face, for the first time, with the unknown and the uncertain.
She came in, sat down at the table, put her head into her arms and burst into tears.
She must have looked a very pathetic figure with her little fur hat askew, her hair tumbled--like a child whose doll is suddenly broken.
Vera was at her side in a moment.
She put her arms around her.
"Nina, dear, what is it?...
Has somebody hurt you?
Has something happened?
Is anybody--killed?"
"No!"
Nina sobbed.
"Nobody--nothing--only--I'm frightened.
It all looks so strange.
The streets are so funny, and--there was--a dead man on the Morskaia."
"You shouldn't have gone out, dear.
I oughtn't to have let you.
But now we can just be cosy together.
Sacha's gone out.
There's no one here but ourselves.
We'll have supper and make ourselves comfortable."
Nina looked up, staring about her.
"Has Sacha gone out?
Oh, I wish she hadn't!...
Supposing somebody came."
"No one will come.
Who could?
No one wants to hurt _us!
_ I've been here all the afternoon, and no one's come near the flat.
If anybody did come we've only got to telephone to Nicholas.
He's with Rozanov all the afternoon."
"Nicholas!"
Nina repeated scornfully.
"As though he could help anybody."
She looked up.
Vera told me afterwards that it was at that moment, when Nina looked such a baby with her tumbled hair and her flushed cheeks stained with tears, that she realised her love for her with a fierceness that for a moment seemed to drown even her love for Lawrence.
She caught her to her and hugged her, kissing her again and again.
But Nina was suspicious.
There were many things that had to be settled between Vera and herself.
She did not respond, and Vera let her go.
She went into her room, to take off her things.
Afterwards they lit the samovar and boiled some eggs and put the caviare and sausage and salt fish and jam on the table.
At first they were silent, and then Nina began to recover a little.
"You know, Vera, I've had an extraordinary day.
There were no trams running, of course, and I had to walk all the distance.
When I got there I found Katerina Ivanovna in a terrible way because their Masha--whom they've had for years, you know--went to a Revolutionary meeting last evening, and was out all night, and she came in this morning and said she wasn't going to work for them any more, that every one was equal now, and that they must do things for themselves.
Just fancy!
When she's been with them for years and they've been so good to her.
It upset Katerina Ivanovna terribly, because of course they couldn't get any one else, and there was no food in the house."
"Perhaps Sacha won't come back again."
"Oh, she must!
_She's_ not like that...
and we've been so good to her.
_Nu...
Patom_, some soldiers came early in the afternoon and they said that some policeman had been firing from Katya's windows and they must search the flat.
They were very polite--quite a young student was in charge of them, he was rather like Boris--and they went all over everything.
They were very polite, but it wasn't nice seeing them stand there with their rifles in the middle of the dining-room.
Katya offered them some wine.
But they wouldn't touch it.
They said they had been told not to, and they looked quite angry with her for offering it.
They couldn't find the policeman anywhere of course, but they told Katya they might have to burn the house down if they didn't find him.
I think they just said it to amuse themselves.
But Katya believed it, and was in a terrible way and began collecting all her china in the middle of the floor, and then Ivan came in and told her not to be silly."
"Weren't you frightened to come home?"
asked Vera.
"Ivan wanted to come with me but I wouldn't let him.
I felt quite brave in the flat, as though I'd face anybody.
And then every step I took outside I got more and more frightened.
It was so strange, so quiet with the trams not running and the shops all shut.
The streets are quite deserted except that in the distance you see crowds, and sometimes there were shots and people running....
Then suddenly I began to run.
I felt as though there were animals in the canals and things crawling about on the ships.
And then, just as I thought I was getting home, I saw a man, dead on the snow....
I'm not going out alone again until it's over.
I'm so glad I'm back, Vera darling.
We'll have a lovely evening."
They both discovered then how hungry they were, and they had an enormous meal.
It was very cosy with the curtains drawn and the wood crackling in the stove and the samovar chuckling.
There was a plateful of chocolates, and Nina ate them all.
She was quite happy now, and sang and danced about as they cleared away most of the supper, leaving the samovar and the bread and the jam and the sausage for Nicholas and Bohun when they came in.
At last Vera sat down in the old red arm-chair that had the holes and the places where it suddenly went flat, and Nina piled up some cushions and sat at her feet.
For a time they were happy, saying very little, Vera softly stroking Nina's hair.
Then, as Vera afterwards described it to me, "Some fright or sudden dread of loneliness came into the room.
It was exactly as though the door had opened and some one had joined us...
and, do you know, I looked up and expected to see Uncle Alexei."
However, of course, there was no one there; but Nina moved away a little, and then Vera, wanting to comfort her, tried to draw her closer, and then of course, Nina (because she was like that) with a little peevish shrug of the shoulders drew even farther away.
There was, after that, silence between them, an awkward ugly silence, piling up and up with discomfort until the whole room seemed to be eloquent with it.
Both their minds were, of course, occupied in the same direction, and suddenly Nina, who moved always on impulse and had no restraint, burst out: "I must know how Andrey Stepanovitch (their name for Lawrence, because Jeremy had no Russian equivalent) is--I'm going to telephone."
"You can't," Vera said quietly.
"It isn't working--I tried an hour ago to get on to Nicholas."
"Well then, I shall go off and find out," said Nina, knowing very well that she would not.
"Oh, Nina, of course you mustn't....
You know you can't. Perhaps when Nicholas comes in he will have some news for us."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"You know why not.
What would he think?
Besides, you're not going out into the town again to-night."
"Oh, aren't I?
And who's going to stop me?"
"I am," said Vera.
Nina sprang to her feet.
In her later account to me of this quarrel she said, "You know, Durdles, I don't believe I ever loved Vera more than I did just then.
In spite of her gravity she looked so helpless and as though she wanted loving so terribly.
I could just have flung my arms round her and hugged her to death at the very moment that I was screaming at her.
Why are we like that?"
At any rate Nina stood up there and stamped her foot, her hair hanging all about her face and her body quivering.
"Oh, you're going to keep me, are you?
What right have you got over me?
Can't I go and leave the flat at any moment if I wish, or am I to consider myself your prisoner?...
_Tzuineeto, pajalueesta_...
I didn't know.
I can only eat my meals with your permission, I suppose.
I have to ask your leave before going to see my friends....
Thank you, I know now.
But I'm not going to stand it.
I
shall do just as I please.
I'm grown up.
No one can stop me...."
Vera, her eyes full of distress looked helplessly about her.
She never could deal with Nina when she was in these storms of rage, and to-day she felt especially helpless.
