The Secret City Part 23

"I don't know...." he said. "They're saying there's been some shooting up by the Nicholas Station--but that was last night. Some women had a procession about food.... _Tak oni gavoryat_--so they say.... But I don't know. People have just come out to see what they can see...."

And so they had--women, boys, old men, little children. I could see no signs of ill-temper anywhere, only a rather open-mouthed wonder and sense of expectation.

A large woman near me, with a shawl over her head and carrying a large basket, laughed a great deal. "No, I wouldn't go," she said. "You go and get it for yourself--I'm not coming. Not I, I was too clever for that."

Then she would turn, shrilly calling for some child who was apparently lost in the crowd. "Sacha!... Ah! Sacha!" she cried--and turning again, "Eh! look at the Cossack!... There's a fine Cossack!"

It was then that I noticed the Cossacks. They were lined up along the side of the pavement, and sometimes they would suddenly wheel and clatter along the pavement itself, to the great confusion of the crowd who would scatter in every direction.

They were fine-looking men, and their faces expressed childish and rather worried amiability. The crowd obviously feared them not at all, and I saw a woman standing with her hand on the neck of one of the horses, talking in a very friendly fas.h.i.+on to the soldier who rode it.

"That's strange," I thought to myself; "there's something queer here."

It was then, just at the entrance of the "Malaia Koniushennaia," that a strange little incident occurred. Some fellow--I could just see his s.h.a.ggy head, his pale face, and black beard--had been shouting something, and suddenly a little group of Cossacks moved towards him and he was surrounded. They turned off with him towards a yard close at hand. I could hear his voice shrilly protesting; the crowd also moved behind, murmuring. Suddenly a Cossack, laughing, said something. I could not hear his words, but every one near me laughed. The little Chinovnik at my side said to me, "That's right. They're not going to shoot, whatever happens--not on their brothers, they say. They'll let the fellow go in a moment. It's only just for discipline's sake. That's right. That's the spirit!"

"But what about the police?" I asked.

"Ah, the police!" His cheery, good-natured face was suddenly dark and scowling. "Let them try, that's all. It's Protopopoff who's our enemy--not the Cossacks."

And a woman near him repeated.

"Yes, yes, it's Protopopoff. Hurrah for the Cossacks!"

I was squeezed now into a corner, and the crowd swirled and eddied about me in a tangled stream, slow, smiling, confused, and excited. I pushed my way along, and at last tumbled down the dark stone steps into the "Cave de la Grave," a little restaurant patronised by the foreigners and certain middle-cla.s.s Russians. It was full, and every one was eating his or her meal very comfortably as though nothing at all were the matter. I sat down with a young American, an acquaintance of mine attached to the American Emba.s.sy.

"There's a tremendous crowd in the Nevski," I said.

"Guess I'm too hungry to trouble about it," he answered.

"Do you think there's going to be any trouble?" I asked.

"Course not. These folks are always wandering round. M. Protopopoff has it in hand all right."

"Yes, I suppose he has," I answered with a sigh.

"You seem to want trouble," he said, suddenly looking up at me.

"No, I don't want trouble," I answered. "But I'm sick of this mess, this mismanagement, thievery, lying--one's tempted to think that anything would be better--"

"Don't you believe it," he said brusquely. "Excuse me, Durward, I've been in this country five years. A revolution would mean G.o.d's own upset, and you've got a war on, haven't you?"

"They might fight better than ever," I argued.

"Fight!" he laughed. "They're dam sick of it all, that's what they are.

And a revolution would leave 'em like a lot of silly sheep wandering on to a precipice. But there won't be no revolution. Take my word."

It was at that moment that I saw Boris Grogoff come in. He stood in the doorway looking about him, and he had the strangest air of a man walking in his sleep, so bewildered, so rapt, so removed was he. He stared about him, looked straight at me, but did not recognise me; finally, when a waiter showed him a table, he sat down still gazing in front of him. The waiter had to speak to him twice before he ordered his meal, and then he spoke so strangely that the fellow looked at him in astonishment. "Guess that chap's seen the Millennium," remarked my American. "Or he's drunk, maybe."

This appearance had the oddest effect on me. It was as though I had been given a sudden conviction that after all there was something behind this disturbance. I saw, during the whole of the rest of that day, Grogoff's strange face with the exalted, bewildered eyes, the excited mouth, the body tense and strained as though waiting for a blow. And now, always when I look back I see Boris Grogoff standing in the doorway of the "Cave de la Grave" like a ghost from another world warning me.

In the afternoon I had a piece of business that took me across the river. I did my business and turned homewards. It was almost dark, and the ice of the Neva was coloured a faint green under the grey sky; the buildings rose out of it like black bubbles poised over a swamp. I was in that strange quarter of Petrograd where the river seems, like some sluggish octopus, to possess a thousand coils. Always you are turning upon a new bend of the ice, secretly stretching into darkness; strange bridges suddenly meet you, and then, where you had expected to find a solid ma.s.s of hideous flats, there will be a cl.u.s.ter of masts and the smell of tar, and little fierce red lights like the eyes of waiting beasts.

I seemed to stand with ice on every side of me, and so frail was my trembling wooden bridge that it seemed an easy thing for the ice, that appeared to press with tremendous weight against its banks, to grind the supports to fragments. There was complete silence on every side of me.

The street to my left was utterly deserted. I heard no cries nor calls--only the ice seemed once and again to quiver as though some submerged creature was moving beneath it. That vast crowd on the Nevski seemed to be a dream. I was in a world that had fallen into decay and desolation, and I could smell rotting wood, and could fancy that frozen blades of gra.s.s were pressing up through the very pavement stones.

Suddenly an Isvostchick stumbled along past me, down the empty street, and the b.u.mping rattle of the sledge on the snow woke me from my laziness. I started off homewards. When I had gone a little way and was approaching the bridge over the Neva some man pa.s.sed me, looked back, stopped and waited for me. When I came up to him I saw to my surprise that it was the Rat. He had his coat-collar turned over his ears and his dirty fur cap pulled down over his forehead. His nose was very red, and his thin hollow cheeks a dirty yellow colour.

"Good-evening, Barin," he said, grinning.

"Good-evening," I said. "Where are you slipping off to so secretly?"

"Slipping off?" He did not seem to understand my word. I repeated it.

"Oh, I'm not slipping off," he said almost indignantly. "No, indeed. I'm just out for a walk like your Honour, to see the town."

"What have they been doing this afternoon?" I asked. "There's been a fine fuss on the Nevski."

"Yes, there has...." he said, chuckling. "But it's nothing to the fuss there will be."

"Nonsense," I said. "The police have got it all in control already.

You'll see to-morrow...."

"And the soldiers, Barin?"

"Oh, the soldiers won't do anything. Talk's one thing--action's another."

He laughed to himself and seemed greatly amused. This irritated me.

"Well, what do you know?" I asked.

"I know nothing," he chuckled. "But remember, Barin, in a week's time, if you want me I'm your friend. Who knows? In a week I may be a rich man."

"Some one else's riches," I answered.

"Certainly," he said. "And why not? Why should he have things? Is he a better man than I? Possibly--but then it is easy for a rich man to keep within the law. And then Russia's meant for the poor man. However," he continued, with great contempt in his voice, "that's politics--dull stuff. While the others talk I act."

"And what about the Germans?" I asked him. "Does it occur to you that when you've collected your spoils the Germans will come in and take them?"

"Ah, you don't understand us, Barin," he said, laughing. "You're a good man and a kind man, but you don't understand us. What can the Germans do? They can't take the whole of Russia. Russia's a big country.... No, if the Germans come there'll be more for us to take."

We stood for a moment under a lamp-post. He put his hand on my arm and looked up at me with his queer ugly face, his sentimental dreary eyes, his red nose, and his hard, cruel little mouth.

"But no one shall touch you--unless it's myself if I'm very drunk. But you, knowing me, will understand afterwards that I was at least not malicious--"

I laughed. "And this mysticism that they tell us about in England. Are you mystical, Rat? Have you a beautiful soul?"

He sniffed and blew his nose with his hand.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Barin--I suppose you haven't a rouble or two on you?"

"No, I haven't," I answered. He looked up and down the bridge as though he were wondering whether an attack on me was worth while. He saw a policeman and decided that it wasn't.

"Well, good-night, Barin," he said cheerfully. He shuffled off. I looked at the vast Neva, pale green and dim grey, so silent under the bridges.