The White Terror and The Red Part 14

Orlovsky leaped up from his samovar, a fishy look in his eye, and grasping Pavel's hand he pressed it hard and long. Pavel felt in the presence of the most provincial Nihilism he had ever come across.

Other members of the Circle came. They all knew the governor's nephew by sight. Also that he was "a sympathiser," yet his presence here was a stirring surprise to most of them, although they strove to conceal it.

One man, Orlovsky's immediate superior in office, shook Pavel's hand with a grimace which seemed to say: "You're Prince Boulatoff and I am only an ordinary government official, but then all t.i.tles and ranks will soon go to smash." A Jewish gymnasium boy with two bubbling beads for eyes made Pavel's acquaintance with a preoccupied air, as if in a hurry to get down to more important business. His small, deep-seated eyes spurted either merriment or gloom. Elkin had said there was not enough of them to make one decent-sized eye, and dubbed him "Cyclops," which had since been the boy's revolutionary nickname.

Orlovsky's superior had a vast snow-white forehead that gave his face a luminous, aureole-lit effect, but he was an incurable liar. He was one of the most devoted members of the Circle, however, and recently he had sold all his real estate, turning over the proceeds to the party. As he seated himself a telegraph operator in a dazzling uniform sat down by his side, saying, in a whisper:

"That was an affected look of yours a moment ago."

"When? What are you talking about?" the man with the sainted forehead asked, colouring.

"You know what. You made a face as if you were not glad to see Boulatoff. You know you were, weren't you, now?"

"I confess I was."

"Now I like you, old boy. All that is necessary is to take one's self in hand. Nothing like self-chastis.e.m.e.nt."

"Cyclops" bent over to an army captain with a pair of grandiose side-whiskers and said something in order to hear himself address a Gentile and an army officer in the familiar "thou." Another young Jew, a red-headed gymnasium boy named Ginsburg, sat close to the lamp, reading a book with near-sighted eyes, the yellow light playing on his short-clipped red hair. His father was a notorious usurer and the chief go-between in the governor's bribe-taking and money-lending transactions. Young Ginsburg robbed his father industriously, dedicating the spoils to the socialist movement.

The expectation that that hazy, featureless image which had resided in his mind for the past five years would soon stand forth in the flesh and with the mist lifted made Pavel restless. When a girl with short hair and very spa.r.s.e teeth told him that Clara Yavner was sure to be around in less than fifteen minutes, his heart began to throb. The girl's name was Olga Alexandrovna Andronova (Andronoff). She was accompanied by her fiance, a local judge--a middle-aged man with a ma.s.s of fluffy hair. The judge was perceptibly near-sighted, like Ginsburg, only when he screwed up his eyes he looked angry, whereas the short-sightedness of the red-headed young man had a beseeching effect. The two girls were great friends, and Olga spoke of her chum in terms of persuasive enthusiasm.

That Boulatoff had special reasons to be interested in Clara Yavner she was not aware.

"What has become of her?" she said, looking at the door impatiently.

"You are adding fuel to my curiosity, Olga Alexandrovna," Pavel said. "I am beginning to feel somewhat as I once did in the opera, when I was waiting to see Patti for the first time."

"And when she came out you were not disappointed, were you?" Olga asked, exposing her spa.r.s.e teeth in a broad, honest smile.

"No," he laughed.

"Well, neither will you be this time."

Pavel said to himself humorously: "I am so excited I am afraid I shall fall in love with that girl. But then predictions seldom come true."

Then he added: "And now that I predict it won't, it will."

When she came at last he said inwardly: "That's what she looks like, then! She certainly does not seem to be a fool whatever else she may be." That was what people usually said upon their first meeting with her: "She seems to be no fool." She was a fair-complexioned Jewish girl of good height. To those unfamiliar with the many types of her race she might have looked Teutonic. To her own people her face was characteristically Jewish, of the blond, hazel-eyed variety. It was a rather small face, round and with a slightly flattened effect between eyes and mouth that aroused interest. Her good looks were due to a peculiar impression of intelligence and character to which this effect contributed and to the picturesqueness of her colouring--healthy white flesh, clear and firm, set off by an ample crown of fair hair and illuminated by the brown light of intense hazel eyes. She had with her a two-year-old little girl, her sister's, and accompanying the two was Elkin, from whose manner as he entered the crowded room it was easy to see, first, that he had told Mlle. Yavner of the revolutionary "general"

he was going to introduce her to; second, that he was the leader of the Circle and the connecting link between it and revolutionary generals.

"I tried to steal away from her," she said to Olga, meaning the little girl, "but she ran after us and filled the streets with her cries." She smiled--an embarra.s.sed smile which made her intelligent face look still more intelligent.

When Boulatoff was introduced to her, by Elkin, she blushed slightly. He watched her with keen curiosity. At the same time the judge's fiancee was watching him, in the fond hope that he would indorse her opinion of her friend. When Clara averted her face, while speaking to somebody, her features became blurred in Pavel's mind, and he sought another look at her. Whether Elkin had told her of the effect her "speech" during the Pievakin scene had had on him he had no knowledge.

Some of the men in the gathering made a point of ignoring the little privileges of the s.e.x, treating the girls "as human beings, not as dolls," but Clara and Olga made a joke of it. When Orlovsky offered the judge's fiancee a chair next to Clara's she thanked him much as an "unemanc.i.p.ated" girl would have done; whereupon Mlle. Yavner shook her finger at her, saying merrily:

"You're getting conservative, Olga. You had better look out."

The Circle was a loose, informal organisation. There were no fixed rules or ceremonies for the admission of members nor anything like regularly elected officers. Nor, indeed, did the members practise formal communism among themselves, although the property of one was to a considerable extent the property of all.

The gathering to-night was naturally larger than usual, owing to the great news of the day. No one except Pavel knew anything about the arrested man, each wondering whether the others did. To betray inquisitiveness, however, would have been unconspiratorlike, so as they sat about, whispering, in twos or threes, they were at once trying to suppress their curiosity and to draw each other out.

The telegraph operator and Orlovsky's superior left early in the evening, but there soon came two other members, a sergeant of the captain's command and a gawky seminarist with a trick of drawing in his neck and throwing out his Adam's apple when he laughed.

The sergeant took a seat beside his officer and the two fell into conversation about their regiment, while the theological student at once set to plying Pavel with questions. Elkin, in an embroidered Little-Russian shirt, sat smoking a pipe and smiling non-committally.

Every little while he would remove the pipe from his mouth, take a grave look at the theologian and resume his pipe and his smile.

The little girl sat on the captain's lap, quietly playing with his sword until she fell asleep. When Clara beheld the officer struggling to keep his luxurious side-whiskers from waking the child, she took her niece in her arms and carried her, with noiseless kisses, toward the door.

"I'll soon be back. It isn't far," she whispered to Orlovsky, declining his a.s.sistance.

The men followed her out of the room with fond glances. More than half of them were in love with her.

When she got back, somewhat short of breath, Boulatoff was describing the general feeling in the universities and among working people. His talk was vague. His rolling baritone rang dry. And now his grip on the subject was weakened still further by the reappearance of the girl in whom, during the first few minutes, he instinctively felt a rival centre of interest. No sooner, however, had the seminarist attacked the party press than the prince became furious and made a favourable impression.

Once or twice he fell into Zachar's manner and even used several of his arguments. The seminarist urged his objections chiefly because he wanted to prove to himself and to the others that he was a man of convictions and not one to quail before a revolutionary "general." But Pavel took him seriously. Once when the seminarist attempted to interrupt him, Clara said, forlornly:

"He's bound to be right. He's just bound to be right."

"Don't cry," said Cyclops. Several of the men laughed, and when Clara joined them their eyes betrayed her power over them. Nothing betrays your feelings toward another person more surely than the way you take his merriment.

The most important topic of the evening was a circular letter from the Executive Committee of the Will of the People, as Pavel's party was called, as to the "preparatory work" that was to pave the way to a final uprising. The discussion was left to the judge, Elkin and Pavel. The gawky seminarist was silent, with an angry air which implied that the arguments one was compelled to follow here were exasperatingly beneath one's criticism. The others listened spellbound, though some of them scarcely felt convinced. Ingrained in the consciousness of these was the idea of an abstract elemental giant, tremendous and immutable as the northern winter, of which the blind forces of the army were only a personified detail. That this giant should some day, in the near future, cease to be did not clearly appeal to their imagination. The boldness, therefore, with which the judge and Pavel spoke of these things greatly enhanced the fascination of their speeches.

Cyclops, a huge slice of rye bread in his hand, evidently had something to say, but did not know how. He was quoting history, blushing, sputtering, swallowing his own tongue, and finally he lost himself in a jumble of words. Elkin was just the reverse. He was so calm, so glib and so lucid of phrase that as long as his speech lasted one was involuntarily nodding a.s.sent; yet when it was over one did not seem to know exactly what he had said or whether he had had anything to say at all. At one point he and the judge locked horns and fought long and hard without clearly understanding each other, until they proved to be arguing on the same side of the issue. Orlovsky, who took it for granted that the theoretical discussion was beyond his mental powers, looked on with stupid admiration. "Here is a bunch of cracks for you!" his beaming face seemed to say.

In the course of a pause Clara whispered something to Olga.

"Why don't you ask it then?" the short-haired girl answered, aloud.

Clara turned pale, as she began to speak. She went straight to the point, however, and presently cast off all restraint.

"All this is very well," she said, referring to a certain pa.s.sage in the circular letter, "provided the local authorities really desert the throne. But suppose they don't, suppose they prove to be hardened conservatives, devoted slaves of the crown? It seems to me as if we were inclined to take things for granted--counting without the host, as it were."

"Devoted to the crown!" said the gawky theologian. "The fact is that the high officials are a mere lot of self-seeking curs."

"Exactly," Pavel thundered, bringing his hands together enthusiastically.

Elkin removed the pipe from his mouth and bawled out: "Rats rather than curs, I should say; rats that are sure to forsake the ship of state the moment it shows signs of danger."

The seminarist was annoyed at this attempt to steal the applause from him, but Boulatoff did not like Elkin's manner and offered him no encouragement. This disarmed the seminarist's opposition. From this moment on he listened to Pavel with friendly nods, as who should say: "Now you are hitting it; now you are talking sense!"

"Of course," Pavel resumed, "the pamphlet means we should keep agitating until we are sure of our ground. There is a large liberal-minded cla.s.s that does not stir merely because it is made up of a lot of cowards.

These fellows will rally around our banner the moment the government begins to totter. As to the bureaucracy, it is so decayed, so worm-eaten, that all it knows at present is how to bend double for an increase of salary or promotion in rank. A lot of back-boneless flunkeys, that's what they are. You don't actually think they serve the Czar from principle?" he asked, addressing himself to Mlle. Yavner.

"The only principle they care for," Elkin interposed, "is, 'To the devil with all principles!'"

"Exactly," Pavel a.s.sented, with some irritation.