The Secret City Part 13

"Do you want the Germans to rule Russia?" I asked.

"Why not?" she said, laughing. "We can't do it ourselves. We don't care who does it. The English can do it if they like, only they're too lazy to bother. The German's aren't lazy, and if they were here we'd have lots of theatres and cinematographs."

"Don't you love your country?" I asked.

"This isn't our country," she answered. "It just belongs to the Empress and Protopopoff."

"Supposing it became your country and the Emperor went?"

"Oh, then it would belong to a million different people, and in the end no one would have anything. Can't you see how they'd fight?"... She burst out laughing: "Boris and Nicholas and Uncle Alexei and all the others!"

Then she was suddenly serious.

"I know, Durdles, you consider that I'm so young and frivolous that I don't think of anything serious. But I can see things like any one else.

Can't you see that we're all so disappointed with ourselves that nothing matters? We thought the war was going to be so fine--but now it's just like the j.a.panese one, all robbery and lies--and we can't do anything to stop it."

"Perhaps some day some one will," I said.

"Oh yes!" she answered scornfully, "men like Boris."

After that she refused to be grave for a moment, danced about the room, singing, and finally vanished, a whirlwind of blue silk.

A week later I was out in the world again. That curious sense of excitement that had first come to me during the early days of my illness burnt now more fiercely than ever. I cannot say what it was exactly that I thought was going to happen. I have often looked back, as many other people must have done, to those days in February and wondered whether I foresaw anything of what was to come, and what were the things that might have seemed to me significant if I had noticed them. And here I am deliberately speaking of both public and private affairs. I cannot quite frankly dissever the two. At the Front, a year and a half before, I had discovered how intermingled the souls of individuals and the souls of countries were, and how permanent private history seemed to me and how transient public events; but whether that was true or no before, it was now most certain that it was the story of certain individuals that I was to record,--the history that was being made behind them could at its best be only a background.

I seemed to step into a city ablaze with a sinister glory. If that appears melodramatic I can only say that the dazzling winter weather of those weeks was melodramatic. Never before had I seen the huge buildings tower so high, never before felt the shadows so vast, the squares and streets so limitless in their capacity for swallowing light and colour.

The sky was a bitter changeless blue; the buildings black; the snow and ice, glittering with purple and gold, swept by vast swinging shadows as though huge doors opened and shut in heaven, or monstrous birds hovered, their wings spread, motionless in the limitless s.p.a.ce.

And all this had, as ever, nothing to do with human life. The little courtyards with their woodstacks and their coloured houses, carts and the cobbled squares and the little stumpy trees that bordered the ca.n.a.ls and the little wooden huts beside the bridges with their candles and fruit--these were human and friendly and good, but they had their precarious condition like the rest of us.

On the first afternoon of my new liberty I found myself in the Nevski Prospect, bewildered by the crowds and the talk and trams and motors and carts that pa.s.sed in unending sequence up and down the long street.

Standing at the corner of the Sadovia and the Nevski one was carried straight to the point of the golden spire that guarded the farther end of the great street. All was gold, the surface of the road was like a golden stream, the ca.n.a.l was gold, the thin spire caught into its piercing line all the colour of the swiftly fading afternoon; the wheels of the carriages gleamed, the flower-baskets of the women glittered like shining foam, the snow flung its crystal colour into the air like thin fire dim before the sun. The street seemed to have gathered on to its pavements the citizens of every country under the sun. Tartars, Mongols, Little Russians, Chinamen, j.a.panese, French officers, British officers, peasants and fashionable women, schoolboys, officials, actors and artists and business men and priests and sailors and beggars and hawkers and, guarding them all, friendly, urbane, filled with a pleasant self-importance that seemed at that hour the simplest and easiest of att.i.tudes, the Police. "Rum--rum--rum--whirr--whirr--whirr--whirr"--like the regular beat of a shuttle the hum rose and fell, as the sun faded into rosy mist and white vapours stole above the still ca.n.a.ls.

I turned to go home and felt some one touch my elbow.

I swung round and there, his broad face ruddy with the cold, was Jerry Lawrence.

I was delighted to see him and told him so.

"Well, I'm d.a.m.ned glad," he said gruffly. "I thought you might have a grudge against me."

"A grudge?" I said. "Why?"

"Haven't been to see you. Heard you were ill, but didn't think you'd want me hanging round."

"Why this modesty?" I asked.

"No--well--you know what I mean." He shuffled his feet. "No good in a sick-room."

"Mine wasn't exactly a sick-room," I said. "But I heard that you did come."

"Yes. I came twice," he answered, looking at me shyly. "Your old woman wouldn't let me see you."

"Never mind that," I said; "let's have an evening together soon."

"Yes--as soon as you like." He looked up and down the street. "There are some things I'd like to ask your advice about."

"Certainly," I said.

"What do you say to coming and dining at my place? Ever met Wilderling?"

"Wilderling?" I could not remember for the moment the name.

"Yes--the old josser I live with. Fine old man--got a point of view of his own!"

"Delighted," I said.

"To-morrow. Eight o'clock. Don't dress."

He was just going off when he turned again.

"Awfully glad you're better," he said. He cleared his throat, looked at me in a very friendly way, then smiled.

"_Awfully_ glad you're better," he repeated, then went off, rolling his broad figure into the evening mist.

I turned towards home.

XVIII

I arrived at the Baron's punctually at eight o'clock. His flat was in a small side street off the English Quay. I paused for a moment, before turning into its dark recesses, to gather in the vast expanse of the frozen river and the long white quay. It was as though I had found my way behind a towering wall that now closed me in with a smile of contemptuous derision. There was no sound in the shining air and the only figure was a guard who moved monotonously up and down outside the Winter Palace.

I rang the bell and the "Schwitzer," bowing very ceremoniously, told me the flat was on the second floor. I went up a broad stone staircase and found a heavy oak door with bra.s.s nails confronting me. When this slowly swung open I discovered a very old man with white hair bowing before me.

He was a splendid figure in a uniform of dark blue, his tall thin figure straight and slim, his white moustaches so neat and fierce that they seemed to keep guard over the rest of his face as though they warned him that they would stand no nonsense. There was an air of hushed splendour behind him, and I could hear the heavy, solemn ticking of a clock keeping guard over all the austere sanct.i.ties of the place. When I had taken off my Shuba and goloshes I was ushered into a magnificent room with a high gold clock on the mantlepiece, gilt chairs, heavy dark carpets and large portraits frowning from the grey walls. The whole room was bitterly silent, save for the tick of the clock. There was no fire in the fireplace, but a large gleaming white stove flung out a close scented heat from the further corner of the room. There were two long gla.s.s bookcases, some little tables with gilt legs, and a fine j.a.panese screen of dull gold. The only other piece of furniture was a huge grand piano near the window.

I sat down and was instantly caught into the solemn silence. There was something threatening in the hush of it all. "We do what we're told,"

the clock seemed to say, "and so must you." I thought of the ice and snow beyond the windows, and, in spite of myself, shivered.

Then the door opened and the Baron came in. He stood for a moment by the door, staring in front of him as though he could not penetrate the heavy and dusky air, and seen thus, under the height and s.p.a.ce of the room, he seemed so small as to be almost ridiculous. But he was not ridiculous for long. As he approached one was struck at once by the immaculate efficiency that followed him like a protecting shadow. In himself he was a scrupulously neat old man with weary and dissipated eyes, but behind the weariness, the neatness, and dissipation was a spirit of indomitable determination and resolution. He wore a little white Imperial and a long white moustache. His hair was brushed back and his forehead shone like marble. He wore a black suit, white spats, and long, pointed, black patent-leather shoes. He had the smallest feet I have ever seen on any man.

He greeted me with great courtesy. His voice was soft, and he spoke perfect English, save for a very slight accent that was rather charming; this gave his words a certain navete. He rubbed his hands and smiled in a gentle but determined way, as though he meant no harm by it, but had decided that it was a necessary thing to do. I forget of what we talked, but I know that I surrendered myself at once to an atmosphere that had been strange to me for so long that I had almost forgotten its character--an atmosphere of discipline, order, comfort, and above all, of security. My mind flew to the Markovitches, and I smiled to myself at the thought of the contrast.

Then, strangely, when I had once thought of the Markovitch flat the picture haunted me for the rest of the evening. I could see the Baron's gilt chairs and gold clock, his little Imperial and shining shoes only through the cloudy disorder of the Markovitch tables and chairs. There was poor Markovitch in his dark little room perched on his chair with his boots, with his hands, with his hair... and there was poor Uncle and there poor Vera.... Why was I pitying them? I gloried in them. That is Russia... This is....

"Allow me to introduce you to my wife," the Baron said, bending forward, the very points of his toes expressing amiability.