The Secret City Part 48

Have you ever noticed how some chairs will creak in a room, just as though some one were sitting down or getting up? It always, in ordinary times, makes you jump, but when you're strung up about something--!

There's a chair in the Markovitches' dining-room just like that. It creaks more like a human being than anything you ever heard, and to-night I could have sworn Semyonov got up out of it. It was just like his heavy slow movement. However, there wasn't any one there. Do you think all this silly?" he asked.

"No, indeed I don't," I answered.

"Then there's a picture. You know that awful painting of a mid-Victorian ancestor of Vera's--a horrible old man with bushy eyebrows and a high, rather dirty-looking stock?"

"Yes, I know it," I said.

"It's one of those pictures with eyes that follow you all round the room. At least it has now. I usen't to notice them. Now they stare at you as though they'd eat you, and I know that Markovitch feels them because he keeps looking up at the beastly thing. Then there's--But no, I'm not going to talk any more about it. It isn't any good. One gets thinking of anything these days. One's nerves are all on edge. And that flat's too full of people any way."

"Yes, it is," I agreed.

We arrived at Rozanov's house, and went up in a very elegant heavily-gilt lift. Once in the flat we were enveloped in a cloud of men and women, tobacco smoke, and so many pictures that it was like tumbling into an art-dealer's. Where there weren't pictures there was gilt, and where there wasn't gilt there was naked statuary, and where there wasn't naked statuary there was Rozanov, very red and stout and smiling, gay in a tightly fitting black-tail coat, white waistcoat and black trousers.

Who all the people were I haven't the least idea. There was a great many. A number of Jews and Jewesses, amiable, prosperous, and kindly, an artist or two, a novelist, a lady pianist, two or three actors. I noticed these. Then there was an old maid, a Mlle. Finisterre, famous in Petrograd society for her bitterness and acrimony, and in appearance an exact copy of Balzac's Sophie Gamond.

I noticed several of those charming, quiet, wise women of whom Russia is so prodigal, a man or two whom I had met at different times, especially one officer, one of the finest, bravest, and truest men I have ever known; some of the inevitable giggling girls--and then suddenly, standing quite alone, Nina!

Her loneliness was the first thing that struck me. She stood back against the wall underneath the shining frames, looking about her with a nervous, timid smile. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in the old way that she used to do when she was trying to imitate Vera, and I don't know why but that seemed to me a good omen, as though she were already on her way back to us. She was wearing a very simple white frock.

In spite of her smile she looked unhappy, and I could see that during this last week experience had not been kind to her, because there was an air of shyness and uncertainty which had never been there before. I was just going over to speak to her when two of the giggling girls surrounded her and carried her off.

I carried the little picture of her in my mind all through the noisy, strident meal that followed. I couldn't see her from where I sat, nor did I once catch the tones of her voice, although I listened. Only a month ago there would have been no party at which Nina was present where her voice would not have risen above all others.

No one watching us would have believed any stories about food shortage in Petrograd. I daresay at this very moment in Berlin they are having just such meals. Until the last echo of the last Trump has died away in the fastnesses of the advancing mountains the rich will be getting from somewhere the things that they desire! I have no memory of what we had to eat that night, but I know that it was all very magnificent and noisy, kind-hearted and generous and vulgar. A great deal of wine was drunk, and by the end of the meal every one was talking as loudly as possible. I had for companion the beautiful Mlle. Finisterre. She had lived all her life in Petrograd, and she had a contempt for the citizens of that fine town worthy of Semyonov himself. Opposite us sat a stout, good-natured Jewess, who was very happily enjoying her food. She was certainly the most harmless being in creation, and was probably guilty of a thousand generosities and kindnesses in her private life.

Nevertheless, Mlle. Finisterre had for her a dark and sinister hatred, and the remarks that she made about her, in her bitter and piercing voice, must have reached their victim. She also abused her host very roundly, beginning to tell me in the fullest detail the history of an especially unpleasant scandal in which he had notoriously figured. I stopped her at last.

"It seems to me," I said, "that it would be better not to say these things about him while you're eating his bread and salt."

She laughed shrilly, and tapped me on the arm with a bony finger.

"Oh, you English!... always so moral and strict about the proprieties...

and always so hypercritical too. Oh, you amuse me! I'm French, you see--not Russian at all; these poor people see through nothing--but we French!"

After dinner there was a strange scene. We all moved into the long, over-decorated drawing-room. We sat about, admired the pictures (a beautiful one by Somoff I especially remember--an autumn scene with eighteenth-century figures and colours so soft and deep that the effect was inexpressibly delicate and mysterious), talked and then fell into one of those Russian silences that haunt every Russian party. I call those silences "Russian," because I know nothing like them in any other part of the world. It is as though the souls of the whole company suddenly vanished through the windows, leaving only the bodies and clothes. Every one sits, eyes half closed, mouths shut, hands motionless, host and hostess, desperately abandoning every attempt at rescue, gaze about them in despair.

The mood may easily last well into the morning, when the guests, still silent, will depart, a.s.suring everybody that they have enjoyed themselves immensely, and really believing that they have; or it may happen that some remark will suddenly be made, and instantly back through the windows the souls will come, eagerly catching up their bodies again, and a babel will arise, deafening, baffling, stupefying.

Or it may happen that a Russian will speak with sudden authority, almost like a prophet, and will continue for half an hour and more, pouring out his soul, and no one will dream of thinking it an improper exhibition.

In fine, anything can happen at a Russian party. What happened on this occasion was this. The silence had lasted for some minutes, and I was wondering for how much longer I could endure it (I had one eye on Nina somewhere in the background, and the other on Bohun restlessly kicking his patent-leather shoes one against the other), when suddenly a quiet, ordinary little woman seated near me said:

"The thing for Russia to do now is to abandon all resistance and so shame the world." She was a mild, pleasant-looking woman, with the eyes of a very gentle cow, and spoke exactly as though she were still pursuing her own private thoughts. It was enough; the windows flew open, the souls came flooding in, and such a torrent of sound poured over the carpet that the naked statuary itself seemed to shiver at the threatened deluge. Every one talked; every one, even, shouted. Just as, during the last weeks, the streets had echoed to the words "Liberty," "Democracy,"

"Socialism," "Brotherhood," "Anti-annexation," "Peace of the world," so now the art gallery echoed. The very pictures shook in their frames.

One old man in a white beard continued to cry, over and over again, "Firearms are not our weapons... bullets are not our weapons. It's the Peace of G.o.d, the Peace of G.o.d that we need."

One lady (a handsome Jewess) jumped up from her chair, and standing before us all recited a kind of chant, of which I only caught sentences once, and again:

"Russia must redeem the world from its sin... this slaughter must be slayed... Russia the Saviour of the world... this slaughter must be slayed."

I had for some time been watching Bohun. He had travelled a long journey since that original departure from England in December; but I was not sure whether he had travelled far enough to forget his English terror of making a fool of himself. Apparently he had.... He said, his voice shaking a little, blushing as he spoke:

"What about Germany?"

The lady in the middle of the floor turned upon him furiously:

"Germany! Germany will learn her lesson from us. When we lay down our arms her people, too, will lay down theirs."

"Supposing she doesn't?"

The interest of the room was now centred on him, and every one else was silent.

"That is not our fault. We shall have made our example."

A little hum of applause followed this reply, and that irritated Bohun.

He raised his voice:

"Yes, and what about your allies, England and France, are you going to betray them?"

Several voices took him up now. A man continued:

"It is not betrayal. We are not betraying the proletariat of England and France. They are our friends. But the alliance with the French and English Capitalistic Governments was made not by us but by our own Capitalistic Government, which is now destroyed."

"Very well, then," said Bohun. "But when the war began did you not--all of you, not only your Government, but you people now sitting in this room--did you not all beg and pray England to come in? During those days before England's intervention, did you not threaten to call us cowards and traitors if we did not come in? _Pomnite_?"

There was a storm of answers to this. I could not distinguish much of what it was. I was fixed by Mlle. Finisterre's eagle eye, gleaming at the thought of the storm that was rising.

"That's not our affair.... That's not our affair," I heard voices crying. "We did support you. For years we supported you. We lost millions of men in your service.... Now this terrible slaughter must cease, and Russia show the way to peace."

Bohun's moment then came upon him. He sprang to his feet, his face crimson, his body quivering; so desperate was his voice, so urgent his distress that the whole room was held.

"What has happened to you all? Don't you see, don't you see what you are doing? What has come to you, you who were the most modest people in Europe and are now suddenly the most conceited? What do you hope to do by this surrender?

"Do you know, in the first place, what you will do? You will deliver the peoples of three-quarters of the globe into hopeless slavery; you will lose, perhaps for ever, the opportunity of democracy; you will establish the grossest kind of militarism for all time. Why do you think Germany is going to listen to you? What sign has she ever shown that she would?

When have her people ever turned away or shown horror at any of the beastly things her rulers have been doing in this war?... What about your own Revolution? Do you believe in it? Do you treasure it? Do you want it to last? Do you suppose for a moment that, if you bow to Germany, she won't instantly trample out your Revolution and give you hack your monarchy? How can she afford to have a revolutionary republic close to her own gates? What is she doing at this moment? Piling up armies with which to invade you, and conquer you, and lead you into slavery. What have you done so far by your Revolutionary orders? What have you done by relaxing discipline in the army? What good have you done to any one or anything? Is any one the happier? Isn't there disorder everywhere--aren't all your works stopping and your industries failing? What about the eighty million peasants who have been liberated in the course of a night? Who's going to lead them if you are not? This thing has happened by its own force, and you are sitting down under it, doing nothing. Why did it succeed? Simply because there was nothing to oppose it. Authority depended on the army, not on the Czar, and the army was the people. So it is with the other armies of the world. Do you think that the other armies couldn't do just as you did if they wished.

They could, in half an hour. They hate the war as much as you do, but they have also patriotism. They see that their country must be made strong first before other countries will listen to its ideas. But where is your patriotism? Has the word Russia been mentioned once by you since the Revolution? Never once.... 'Democracy,' 'Brotherhood'--but how are Democracy and Brotherhood to be secured unless other countries respect you.... Oh, I tell you it's absurd!... It's more than absurd, it's wicked, it's rotten...."

Poor boy, he was very near tears. He sat down suddenly, staring blankly in front of him, his hands clenched.

Rozanov answered him, Rozanov flushed, his fat body swollen with food and drink, a little unsteady on his legs, and the light of the true mystic in his pig-like eyes. He came forward into the middle of the circle.

"That's perhaps true what you say," he cried; "it's very English, very honest, and, if you will forgive me, young man, very simple. You say that we Russians are conceited. No, we are not conceited, but we see farther than the rest of the world. Is that our curse? Perhaps it is, but equally, perhaps, we may save the world by it. Now look at me! Am I a fine man? No, I am not. Every one knows I am not. No man could look at my face and say that I am a fine man. I have done disgraceful things all my life. All present know some of the things I have done, and there are some worse things which n.o.body knows save myself. Well, then.... Am I going to stop doing such things? Am I now, at fifty-five, about to become instantly a saint? Indeed not. I shall continue to do the things that I have already done, and I shall drop into a beastly old age. I know it.

"So, young man, I am a fair witness. You may trust me to speak the truth as I see it. I believe in Christ. I believe in the Christ-life, the Christ-soul. If I could, I would stop my beastliness and become Christlike. I have tried on several occasions, and failed, because I have no character. But does that mean that I do not believe in it when I see it? Not at all. I believe in it more than ever. And so with Russia--you don't see far enough, young man, neither you nor any of your countrymen. It is one of your greatest failings that you do not care for ideas. How is this war going to end? By the victory of Germany?

Perhaps.... Perhaps even it may be that Russia by her weakness will help to that victory. But is that the end? No.... If Russia has an Idea and because of her faith in that Idea, she will sacrifice everything, will be buffeted on both cheeks, will be led into slavery, will deliver up her land and her people, will be mocked at by all the world... perhaps that is her destiny.... She will endure all that in order that her Idea may persist. And her Idea will persist. Are not the Germans and Austrians human like ourselves? Slowly, perhaps very slowly, they will say to themselves: 'There is Russia who believes in the peace of the world, in the brotherhood of man, and she will sacrifice everything for it, she will go out, as Christ did, and be tortured and be crucified--and then on the third day she will rise again.' Is not that the history of every triumphant Idea?... You say that meanwhile Germany will triumph. Perhaps for a time she may, but our Idea will not die.

"The further Germany goes, the deeper will that Idea penetrate into her heart. At the end she will die of it, and a new Germany will be born into a new world.... I tell you I am an evil man, but I believe in G.o.d and in the righteousness of G.o.d."

What do I remember after those words of Rozanov? It was like a voice speaking to me across a great gulf of waters--but that voice was honest.

I do not know what happened after his speech. I think there was a lot of talk. I cannot remember.