The Secret City Part 46

I was on the point of setting out for the English Prospect on Sat.u.r.day evening when there was a knock on my door, and to my surprise Nicholas Markovitch came in. He was in evening dress--rather quaint it seemed to me, with his pointed collar so high, his tail-coat so much too small, and his large-brimmed bowler hat. He explained to me confusedly that he wished to walk with me alone to the church... that he had things to tell me... that we should meet the others there. I saw at once two things, that he was very miserable, that he was a little drunk. His misery showed itself in his strange, pathetic, gleaming eyes, that looked so often as though they held unshed tears (this gave him an unfortunate ridiculous aspect), in his hollow pale cheeks and the droop of his mouth, not petulant nor peevish, simply unhappy in the way that animals or very young children express unhappiness. His drunkenness showed itself in quite another way. He was unsteady a little on his feet, and his hands trembled, his forehead was flushed, and he spoke thickly, sometimes running his words together. At the same time he was not very drunk, and was quite in control of his thoughts and intentions.

We went out together. It could not have been called a fine night--it was too cold, and there was a hint of rain in the air--and yet there is beauty, I believe, in every Russian Easter Eve. The day comes so wonderfully at the end of the long heavy winter. The white nights with their incredible, almost terrifying beauty are at hand, the ice is broken, the new world of sun and flowers is ready, at an instant's magic word, to be born. Nevertheless this year there was an incredible pathos in the wind. The soul of Petrograd was indeed stirring, but mournfully, ominously. There were not, for one thing, the rows of little fairy lamps that on this night always make the streets so gay. They hang in chains and cl.u.s.ters of light from street to street, blazing in the square, reflected star-like in the ca.n.a.ls, misty and golden-veiled in distance.

To-night only the churches had their lights; for the rest, the streets were black chasms of windy desolation, the ca.n.a.ls burdened with the breaking ice which moved restlessly against the dead barges. Very strong in the air was the smell of the sea; the heavy clouds that moved in a strange kind of ordered procession overhead seemed to carry that scent with them, and in the dim pale shadows of the evening glow one seemed to see at the end of every street mysterious cl.u.s.ters of masts, and to hear the clank of chains and the creak of restless boards. There were few people about and a great silence everywhere. The air was damp and thick, and smelt of rotten soil, as though dank gra.s.s was everywhere pus.h.i.+ng its way up through the cobbles and paving-stones.

As we walked Markovitch talked incessantly. It was only a very little the talk of a drunken man, scarcely disconnected at all, but every now and again running into sudden little wildnesses and extravagances. I cannot remember nearly all that he said. He came suddenly, as I expected him to do, to the subject of Semyonov.

"You know of course that Alexei Petrovitch is living with us now?"

"Yes. I know that."

"You can understand, Ivan Andreievitch, that when he came first and proposed it to me I was startled. I had other things--very serious things to think of just then. We weren't--we aren't--very happy at home just now... you know that... I didn't think he'd be very gay with us.

I told him that. He said he didn't expect to be gay anywhere at this time, but that he was lonely in his flat all by himself, and he thought for a week or two he'd like company. He didn't expect it would be for very long. No.... He said he was expecting 'something to happen.'

Something to himself, he said, that would alter his affairs. So, as it was only for a little time, well, it didn't seem to matter. Besides, he's a powerful man. He's difficult to resist--very difficult to resist...."

"Why have you given up your inventions, Nicolai Leontievitch?" I said to him, suddenly turning round upon him.

"My inventions?" he repeated, seeming very startled at that.

"Yes, your inventions."

"No, no.... Understand, I have no more use for them. There are other things now to think about--more important things."

"But you were getting on with them so well?"

"No--not really. I was deceiving myself as I have often deceived myself before. Alexei showed me that. He told me that they were no good--"

"But I thought that he encouraged you?"

"Yes--at first--only at first. Afterwards he saw into them more clearly; he changed his mind. I think he was only intending to be kind.

A strange man... a strange man...."

"A very strange man. Don't you let him influence you, Nicholas Markovitch."

"Influence me? Do you think he does that?" He suddenly came close to me, catching my arm.

"I don't know. I haven't seen you often together."

"Perhaps he does... _Mojet bweet_... You may be right. I don't know--I don't know what I feel about him at all. Sometimes he seems to me very kind; sometimes I'm frightened of him, sometimes"--here he dropped his voice--"he makes me very angry, so angry that I lose control of myself--a despicable thing... a despicable thing... just as I used to feel about the old man to whom I was secretary. I nearly murdered him once. In the middle of the night I thought suddenly of his stomach, all round and white and s.h.i.+ning. It was an irresistible temptation to plunge a knife into it. I was awake for hours thinking of it. Every man has such hours.... At the same time Alexei can be very kind."

"How do you mean--kind?" I asked.

"For instance he has some very good wine--fifty bottles at least--he has given it all to us. Then he insists on paying us for his food. He is a generous-spirited man. Money is nothing to us--"

"Don't you drink his wine," I said.

Nicholas was instantly offended.

"What do you mean, Ivan Andreievitch? Not drink his wine? Am I an infant? Can I not look after myself?--_Blagadaryoo Vas_.... I am more than ten years old." He took his hand away from my arm.

"No, I didn't mean that at all," I a.s.sured him. "Of course not--only you told me not long ago that you had given up wine altogether. That's why I said what I did."

"So I have! So I have!" he eagerly a.s.sured me. "But Easter's a time for rejoicing... Rejoicing!"--his voice rose suddenly shrill and scornful--"rejoicing with the world in the state that it is. Truly, Ivan Andreievitch, I don't wonder at Alexei's cynicism. I don't indeed. The world is a sad spectacle for an observant man." He suddenly put his hand through my arm, so close to me now that I could feel his beating heart.

"But you believe, don't you, Ivan Andreievitch, that Russia now has found herself?" His voice became desperately urgent and beseeching. "You must believe that. You don't agree with those fools who don't believe that she will make the best of all this? Fools? Scoundrels! Scoundrels!

That's what they are. I must believe in Russia now or I shall die. And so with all of us. If she does not rise now as one great country and lead the world, she will never do so. Our hearts must break. But she will... she will! No one who is watching events can doubt it. Only cynics like Alexei doubt--he doubts everything. And he cannot leave anything alone. He must smear everything with his dirty finger. But he must leave Russia alone... I tell him...."

He broke off. "If Russia fails now," he spoke very quietly, "my life is over. I have nothing left. I will die."

"Come, Nicolai Leontievitch," I said, "you mustn't let yourself go like that. Life isn't over because one is disappointed in one's country. And even though one is disappointed one does not love the less. What's friends.h.i.+p worth if every disappointment chills one's affection? One loves one's country because she is one's country, not because she's disappointing...." And so I went on with a number of amiable plat.i.tudes, struggling to comfort him somewhere, and knowing that I was not even beginning to touch the trouble of his soul.

He drew very close to me, his fingers gripping my sleeve--"I'll tell you, Ivan Andreievitch--but you mustn't tell anybody else. I'm afraid.

Yes, I am. Afraid of myself, afraid of this town, afraid of Alexei, although that must seem strange to you. Things are very bad with me, Ivan Andreievitch. Very bad, indeed. Oh! I have been disappointed! yes, I have. Not that I expected anything else. But now it has come at last, the blow that I have always feared has fallen--a very heavy blow. My own fault, perhaps, I don't know. But I'm afraid of myself. I don't know what I may do. I have such strange dreams--Why has Alexei come to stay with us?"

"I don't know," I said.

Then, thank G.o.d, we reached the church. It was only as we went up the steps that I realised that he had never once mentioned Vera.

VIII

And yet with all our worries thick upon us it was quite impossible to resist the sweetness and charm and mystery of that service.

I think that perhaps it is true, as many have said, that people did not crowd to the churches on that Easter as they had earlier ones, but our church was a small one, and it seemed to us to be crammed. We stumbled up the dark steps, and found ourselves at the far end of the very narrow nave. At the other end there was a pool of soft golden light in which dark figures were bathed mysteriously. At the very moment of our entering, the procession was pa.s.sing down the nave on its way round the outside of the church to look for the Body of Our Lord. Down the nave they came, the people standing on either side to let them pa.s.s, and then, many of them, falling in behind. Every one carried a lighted candle. First there were the singers, then men carrying the coloured banners, then the priest in stiff gorgeous raiment, then officials and dignitaries, finally the crowd. The singing, the forest of lighted candles, the sudden opening of the black door and the blowing in of the cold night wind, the pa.s.sing of the voices out into the air, the soft, dying away of the singing and then the hushed expectation of the waiting for the return--all this had in it something so elemental, so simple, and so true to the very heart of the mystery of life that all trouble and sorrow fell away and one was at peace.

How strange was that expectation! We knew so well what the word must be; we could tell exactly the moment of the knock of the door, the deep sound of the priest's voice, the embracings and dropping of wax over every one's clothes that would follow it--and yet every year it was the same! There _was_ truth in it, there was some deep response to the human dependence, some whispered promise of a future good. We waited there, our hearts beating, crowded against the dark walls. It was a very democratic a.s.sembly, bourgeoisie, workmen, soldiers, officers, women in evening dress and peasant women with shawls over their heads. No one spoke or whispered.

Suddenly there was a knock. The door was opened. The priest stood there, in his crimson and gold. "Christ is risen!" he cried, his voice vibrating as though he had indeed but just now, out there in the dark and wind, made the great discovery.

"He is risen indeed!" came the reply from us all. Markovitch embraced me. "Let us go," he whispered, "I can't bear it somehow to-night."

We went out. Everywhere the bells were ringing--the wonderful deep boom of St. Isaac's, and then all the other bells, jangling, singing, crying, chattering, answering from all over Petrograd. From the other side of the Neva came the report of the guns and the fainter, more distant echo of the guns near the sea. I could hear behind it all the incessant "chuck-chuck, chuck-chuck," of the ice colliding on the river.

It was very cold, and we hurried back to Anglisky Prospect. Markovitch was quite silent all the way.

When we arrived we found Vera and Uncle Ivan and Semyonov waiting for us (Bohun was with friends). On the table was the _paskha_, a sweet paste made of eggs and cream, curds and sugar, a huge ham, a large cake or rather, sweet bread called _kulich_, and a big bowl full of Easter eggs, as many-coloured as the rainbow. This would be the fare during the whole week, as there was to be no cooking until the following Sat.u.r.day--and very tired of the ham and the eggs one became before that day. There was also wine--some of Semyonov's gift, I supposed--and a tiny bottle of vodka.

We were not a very cheerful company. Uncle Ivan, who was really distinguished by his complete inability to perceive what was going on under his nose, was happy, and ate a great deal of the ham and certainly more of the _paskha_ than was good for him.

I do not know who was responsible for the final incident--Semyonov perhaps--but I have often wondered whether some word or other of mine precipitated it. We had finished our meal and were sitting quietly together, each occupied with his own thoughts. I had noticed that Markovitch had been drinking a great deal.

I was just thinking it was time for me to go when I heard Semyonov say:

"Well, what do you think of your Revolution now, Nicholas?"

"What do you mean--my Revolution?" he asked.

(The strange thing on looking back is that the whole of this scene seems to me to have pa.s.sed in a whisper, as though we were all terrified of somebody.)

"Well--do you remember how you talked to me?... about the saving of the world and all the rest of it that this was going to be? Doesn't seem to be quite turning out that way, does it, from all one hears? A good deal of quarrelling, isn't there? And what about the army--breaking up a bit, isn't it?"