The Secret City Part 8

"I'll pay you for that," I heard him whisper.

She shrugged her shoulders. "He's tiresome, Boris...." she said, "I like your Englishman better."

We were ever gayer and gayer. There were now of course no cakes nor biscuits, but there was jam with our tea, and there were even some chocolates. I noticed that Vera and Lawrence were getting on together famously. They talked and laughed, and her eyes were full of pleasure.

Markovitch came up and stood behind them, watching them. His eyes devoured his wife.

"Vera!" he said suddenly.

"Yes!" she cried. She had not known that he was behind her; she was startled. She turned round and he came forward and kissed her hand. She let him do this, as she let him do everything, with the indulgence that one allows a child. He stood, afterwards, half in the shadow, watching her.

And now the moment for the event of the evening had arrived. The doors of Markovitch's little work-room were suddenly opened, and there--instead of the shabby untidy dark little hole--there was a splendid Christmas Tree blazing with a hundred candles. Coloured b.a.l.l.s and frosted silver and wooden figures of red and blue hung all about the tree--it was most beautifully done. On a table close at hand were presents. We all clapped our hands. We were childishly delighted. The old great-aunt cried with pleasure. Boris Grogoff suddenly looked like a happy boy of ten. Happiest and proudest of them all was Markovitch. He stood there, a large pair of scissors in his hand, waiting to cut the string round the parcels. We said again and again, "Marvellous!"

"Wonderful!" "Splendid!"... "But this year--however did you find it, Vera Michailovna?" "To take such trouble!..." "Splendid! Splendid!" Then we were given our presents. Vera, it was obvious had chosen them, for there was taste and discrimination in the choice of every one. Mine was a little old religious figure in beaten silver--Lawrence had a silver snuff-box.... Every one was delighted. We clapped our hands. We shouted.

Some one cried "Cheers for our host and hostess!"

We gave them, and in no half measure. We shouted. Boris Grogoff cried, "More cheers!"

It was then that I saw Markovitch's face that had been puckered with pleasure like the face of a delighted child suddenly stiffen, his hand moved forward, then dropped. I turned and found, standing in the doorway, quietly watching us, Alexei Petrovitch Semyonov.

XIII

I stared at him. I could not take my eyes away. I instantly forgot every one else, the room, the tree, the lights.... With a force, with a poignancy and pathos and brutality that were more cruel than I could have believed possible that other world came back to me. Ah! I could see now that all these months I had been running away from this very thing, seeking to pretend that it did not exist, that it had never existed. All in vain--utterly in vain. I saw Semyonov as I had just seen him, sitting on his horse outside the shining white house at O----. Then Semyonov operating in a stinking room, under a red light, his arms bathed in blood; then Semyonov and Trenchard; then Semyonov speaking to Marie Ivanovna, her eyes searching his face; then that day when I woke from my dream in the orchard to find his eyes staring at me through the bright green trees, and afterwards when we went in to look at her dead; then worst of all that ride back to the "Stab" with my hand on his thick, throbbing arm.... Semyonov in the Forest, working, sneering, hating us, despising us, carrying his tragedy in his eyes and defying us to care; Semyonov that last time of all, vanishing into the darkness with his "Nothing!" that lingering echo of a defiant desperate soul that had stayed with me, against my bidding, ever since I had heard it.

What a fool had I been to know these people! I had felt from the first to what it must lead, and I might have avoided it and I would not. I looked at him, I faced him, I smiled. He was the same as he had been. A little stouter, perhaps, his pale hair and square-cut beard looking as though it had been carved from some pale honey-coloured wood, the thick stolidity of his long body and short legs, the squareness of his head, the coldness of his eyes and the violent red of his lips, all were just as they had been--the same man, save that now he was in civilian clothes, in a black suit with a black bow tie. There was a smile on his lips, that same smile half sneer half friendliness that I knew so well.

His eyes were veiled....

He was, I believe, as violently surprised to see me as I had been to see him, but he held himself in complete control!

He said, "Why, Durward!... Ivan Andreievitch!" Then he greeted the others.

I was able, now, to notice the general effect of his arrival. It was as though a cold wind had suddenly burst through the windows, blown out all the candles upon the tree and plunged the place into darkness. Those who did not know him felt that, with his entrance, the gaiety was gone.

Markovitch's face was pale, he was looking at Vera who, for an instant, had stood, quite silently, staring at her uncle, then, recovering herself, moved forward.

"Why, Uncle Alexei!" she cried, holding out her hand. "You're too late for the tree! Why didn't you tell us? Then you could have come to dinner... and now it is all over. Why didn't you tell us?"

He took her hand, and, very solemnly, bent down and kissed it.

"I didn't know myself, dear Vera Michailovna. I only arrived in Petrograd yesterday; and then in my house everything was wrong, and I've been busy all day. But I felt that I must run in and give you the greetings of the season.... Ah, Nicholas, how are you? And you, Ivan?...

I telephoned to you.... Nina, my dear...." And so on. He went round and shook hands with them all. He was introduced to Bohun and Lawrence.

He was very genial, praising the tree, laughing, shouting in the ears of the great-aunt. But no one responded. As so frequently happens in Russia the atmosphere was suddenly changed. No one had anything to say. The candles on the tree were blown out. Of course, the evening was not nearly ended. There would be tea and games, perhaps--at any rate every one would sit and sit until three or four if, for no other reason, simply because it demanded too much energy to rise and make farewells.

But the spirit of the party was utterly dead....

The samovar hissed at the end of the table. Vera Michailovna sat there making tea for every one. Semyonov (I should now in the heart of his relations, have thought of him as Alexei Petrovitch, but so long had he been Semyonov to me that Semyonov he must remain) was next to her, and I saw that he took trouble, talking to her, smiling, his stiff strong white fingers now and then stroking his thick beard, his red lips parting a little, then closing so firmly that it seemed that they would never open again.

I noticed that his eyes often wandered towards me. He was uneasy about my presence there, I thought, and that disturbed me. I felt as I looked at him the same confusion as I had always felt. I did not hate him. His strength of character, his fearlessness, these things in a country famous for neither quality I was driven to admire and to respect. And I could not hate what I admired.

And yet my fear gathered and gathered in volume as I watched him. What would he do with these people? What plans had he? What purpose? What secret, selfish ambitions was he out now to secure?

Markovitch was silent, drinking his tea, watching his wife, watching us all with his nervous frowning expression.

I rose to go and then, when I had said farewell to every one and went towards the door, Semyonov joined me.

"Well, Ivan Andreievitch," he said. "So we have not finished with one another yet."

He looked at me with his steady unswerving eyes; he smiled.

I also smiled as I found my coat and hat in the little hall. Sacha helped me into my Shuba. He stood, his lips a little apart, watching me.

"What have you been doing all this time?" he asked me.

"I've been ill," I answered.

"Not had, I hope."

"No, not had. But enough to keep me very idle."

"As much of an optimist as ever?"

"Was I an optimist?"

"Why, surely. A charming one. Do you love Russia as truly as ever?"

I laughed, my hand on the door. "That's my affair, Alexei Petrovitch," I answered.

"Certainly," he said, smiling. "You're looking older, you know."

"You too," I said.

"Yes, perhaps. Would I still think you sentimental, do you suppose?"

"It is of no importance, Alexei Petrovitch," I said. "I'm sure you have other better things to do. Are you remaining in Petrograd?"

He looked at me then very seriously, his eyes staring straight into mine.

"I hope so."

"You will work at your practice?"

"Perhaps." He nodded to me. "Strange to find you here...." he said. "We shall meet again. Good-night."

He closed the door behind me.

XIV