 Part 1 Chapter 1 of The Secret City. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Secret City by U-Wallpole. Part 1 Chapter 1. Vera and Nina. In the eastern quarter dawn breaks, the stars flicker pale. The morning cock at Junan mounts the wall and crows. The songs are over, the clock runs down, but still the feast is set. The moon grows dim and the stars are few. Morning has come to the world. At a thousand gates and ten thousand doors, the fish-shaped keys turn. They surround the palace and up by the castle the crows and magpies are flying. Cock crow song. Anonymous. First century BC. There are certain things that I feel as I look through this bundle of manuscript that I must say. The first is that of course no writer ever has fulfilled his intention and no writer ever will. Secondly, that there was when I began another intention than that of dealing with my subject adequately. Namely that of keeping myself outside the whole of it. I was to be in the most abstract and immaterial sense of the word, a voice. And that simply because this business of seeing Russian psychology through English eyes has no excuse except that it is English. That is, it's only interest, it's only atmosphere, it's only motive. And if you were going to tell me that any aspect of Russian psychological, mystical, practical, or commercial seen through an English medium is either Russia as she really is, or Russia as Russians see her. I say to you without hesitation that you don't know what you're talking. Of Russia and the Russians I know nothing, but of the effect upon myself and my ideas of life that Russia and the Russians have made during these last three years I know something. You are perfectly free to say that neither myself nor my ideas of life are of the slightest importance to anyone. To that I would say that anyone's ideas about life are of importance and that anyone's ideas about Russian life are of interest. And beyond that, I have simply been compelled to write. I've not been able to help myself and all the faults and any virtues in this story come from that. The facts are true, the inferences, absolutely my own, so that you may reject them at any moment and substitute others. It is true that I have known Vera Makalovna, Nina, Alexei Petrovich, Henry, Jerry, and the rest, some of them intimately. And many of the conversations here recorded I have heard myself. Nevertheless, the inferences are my own. And I think that there is no Russian who were he to read this book would not say that those inferences were wrong. In an earlier record, to which this is in some ways a sequel, my inferences were almost without exception wrong. And there is no Russian alive for whom this book can have any kind of value except as a happy example of the mistakes that the Englishman can make about the Russian. But it is over those very mistakes that the two souls, Russian and English, so different, so similar, so friendly, so hostile, may meet. In any case, the thing has been too strong for me. I have no other defense. For one's interest in life is stronger. God knows how much stronger than one's discretion and one's love of life than one's wisdom and one's curiosity in life than one's ability to record it. At least, as I have said, I have endeavored to keep my own history, my own desires, my own temperament out of this as much as is humanly possible. And the facts are true. End of Part 1, Chapter 1. Part 1, Chapter 2 of The Secret City. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Secret City by Hugh Walpole. Part 1, Chapter 2. They had been traveling for a week and had quite definitely decided that they had nothing whatever in common. As they stood there lost and desolate on the Grami platform of the Finland station, this same thought must have been paramount in their minds. Thank God we shouldn't have to talk to one another any longer. Whatever else may happen in this strange place, that at least were spared. They were probably quite unconscious of a contrast they presented. Unconscious because at this time young Bohen never I should imagine visualized himself as anything more definite than absolutely right. And Lawrence simply never thought about himself at all. But they were perfectly aware of their mutual dissatisfaction. Although they were of course absolutely polite. I heard of it afterwards from both sides and I will say quite frankly that my sympathy was all with Lawrence. Young Bohen can have been no fun as a traveling companion at that time. If you had looked at him there standing on the Finland station platform and staring haughtily about for porters, you must have thought him the most self-satisfied of mortals. That fellow wants kicking you would have said. Good looking, thin, tall, large black eyes, black eyelashes, clean and neat and right at the end of his journey as he had been at the beginning of it. Just foreign looking enough with his black hair and power to make him interesting. He was certainly arresting. But it was the self-satisfaction that would have struck anyone. And he had reason he was at that very moment experiencing the most triumphant moment of his life. He was only 23 and was already, as it seemed to the youthfully limited circle of his vision, famous. Before the war he had been, as he quite frankly admitted to myself and all his friends, nothing but ambitious. Of course I edit the Granta for a year, you would say. And I don't think I did it badly, but that wasn't very much. No, it really wasn't a great deal and we couldn't tell him that it was. He had always intended, however, to be a great man. The Granta was simply a stepping stone. He was already during his second year at Cambridge, casting about as to the best way to penetrate swiftly and securely the fastnesses of London journalism. Then the war came and he had an impulse of perfectly honest and selfless patriotism. Not quite selfless perhaps, because he certainly saw himself as a mighty hero, winning VCs and saving forlorn hopes. Found the receipt by his native village under an archway of flags and mottos, the local postmaster, who had never treated him very properly, would make this speech a welcome. The reality did him some good, but not very much, because when he had been in France only a fortnight, he was gassed and sent home with a weak heart. His heart remained weak, which made him interesting to women and allowed time for his poetry. He was given an easy post in the foreign office and in the autumn of 1916 he published discipline, sonnets and poems. This appeared at a very fortunate moment when the more serious of British idealists were searching for signs of a general improvement, through the stress of war of poor humanity. Thank God there are our young poets, they said. The little book had excellent notices in the papers and one poem in special, how God spoke to Jones at breakfast time, was selected for a special prize because of its admirable realism and force. One paper said that the British breakfast table lived in that poem, in all its tiniest, most insignificant details, as no breakfast table, say possibly that of Major Pendennis at the beginning of Pendennis, had lived before. One paper said Mr. Bowen merits that much abused word genius. The young author carried these notices about with him, and I have seen them all. But there was more than this. Bowen had been for the last four years cultivating Russian. He had been led into this through a real, genuine interest. He read the novelist and set himself to learn the Russian language, that as anyone who has tried it will know it is no easy business, but Henry Bowen was no fool, and the Russian refugee who taught him was no fool. After Henry's return from France he continued his lessons, by the spring of 1916 he could read easily, write fairly and speak atrociously. He then adopted Russia, an easy thing to do, because his supposed mastery of the language gave him a tremendous advantage over his friends. I assure you that's not so, he would say, you can't judge Chekhov till you've read him in the original, wait till you can read him in Russian. No, I don't think the Russian characters are like that, he would declare. It's a queer thing, but you'd almost think I had some Russian blood in me. I sympathize so. He followed closely the books that emphasize the more sentimental side of the Russian character, being of course grossly sentimental himself at heart. He saw Russia glittering with fire and color and Russian's large, warm and simple, willing to be patronized, eagerly confessing their sins, rushing forward to make him happy, entertaining him forever and ever with a free and glorious hospitality. I really think I do understand Russia, he would say modestly. He said it to me when he had been in Russia two days. Then in addition to the success of his poems and the general interest that he himself aroused, the final ambition of a young heart was realized. The Foreign Office decided to send him to Petrograd to help in the great work of British propaganda. He sailed from Newcastle on December 2, 1916. End of Part 1, Chapter 2. Part 1, Chapter 3 of The Secret City. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Secret City by Hugh Walpole. Part 1, Chapter 3. At this point I am inevitably reminded of that other Englishman who two years earlier than Bohen had arrived in Russia with his own pack of dreams and expectations. But John Trencher, whose life and death I have tried elsewhere to say something, was young Bohen's opposite. I do not think that the strange unexpectedness of Russia can be exemplified more strongly than by the similarity of appeal that she could make to two so various characters. John would shy, self-doubting, humble, brave, and a gentleman. Bohen was brave and a gentleman, but the rest had yet to be added to him, how he would have patronized Trencher if he had known him. In the edit heart they were not perhaps so dissimilar. At the end of my story it will be apparent, I think, that they were not. The journey from Newcastle to Bergen, from Bergen to Torneo, from Torneo to Petrograd is a tiresome business. There is much waiting at custom houses, disarrangement of trains and horses and meals, long weary some hours of stuffy carriages, and grimy windowpains. Bohen, I suspect, suffered too from that sudden sharp precipitance into a world that knew not discipline and wrecked nothing of the granta. Obviously none of the passengers on the boat from Newcastle had ever heard of discipline. They clutched in their hands the work of Mr. Oppenheim, Mr. Compton McKenzie, and Mr. O'Henry, and looked at Bohen, I imagine, with indifferent superiority. He had been told at the Foreign Office that his special traveling companion was to be Jerry Lawrence. If he had hoped for anything from this direction, one glance at Jerry's brick-red face and stalwart figure would have undeceived him. Jerry, although he was now 32 years of age, looked still very much the undergraduate. My slight acquaintance with him had been in those earlier Cambridge years through a queer mutual friend, Dune, who at that time seemed to promise so magnificently, who afterwards disappeared so mysteriously. You would never have supposed that Lawrence, captain of the University Ruger during his last two years, captain of the English team through all the internationals of the season 1913-1914, could have had anything in common except football with Dune, artist and poet, if there ever was one. But on the few occasions when I saw them together, it struck me that football was the very least part of their common ground. And that was the first occasion on which I suspected that Jerry Lawrence was not quite what he seemed. I can imagine Lawrence standing strataways on the deck of the Jupiter, his short, thick legs wide apart, his broad back indifferent to anything in everybody, his rather plump, ugly, good-natured face staring out to the sea as though he saw not being at all. He always gave the oppression of being half asleep. He had a way of suddenly lurching on his legs as though in another moment his desire for slumber would be too strong for him and would send him crashing to the ground. He would be smoking an ancient briar and his thick red hands would be clasped behind his back. No encouraging figure for Bowen's aestheticism. I can see as though I had been present Bowen's approach to him, his patronizing introduction, his kindly suggesting that they should eat their meals together, Jerry smiling lazy acquiescence. I can imagine how Bowen decided to himself that he must make the best of this chap. After all, it was a long tiresome journey and anything was better than having no one to talk to. But Jerry, unfortunately, was in a bad temper at the start. He did not want to go out to Russia at all. His father, old Stephen Lawrence, had been for many years the manager of some works in Petrograd. In the first fifteen years of Jerry's life had been spent in Russia. I did not at that time when I made Jerry's acquaintance at Cambridge know this. Had I realized it, I would have understood many things about and which puzzled me. He never alluded to Russia, never apparently thought of it, never read a Russian book, had it seen no connection of any kind with any living soul in that country. Oh, Lawrence retired and took a fine large ugly palace and clappered and his days in. Suddenly, after Lawrence had been in France for two years, had won the military cross there and as he put it was just settling into a skin, the authorities realized his Russian language and decided to transfer him to the British military mission in Petrograd. His anger when he was sent back to London and informed of this was extreme. He had at the least desire to return to Russia. He was very happy where he was. He had forgotten all his Russian. I can see him saying very little, looking like a sulky child and kicking his heel up and down across the carpet. Just the man we want out there, Lawrence, he told me someone said to him, keep them in order. Keep them in order. That tickled his sense of humor. He was to laugh frequently afterwards when he thought of it. He always chewed a joke as a cow chews the cud. So that he was in no pleasant temper when he meant bowing on the decks of the Jupiter. The journey must have had its humorous for any observer who knew the two men. During the first half of it I imagine that Bowen talked and Lawrence slumbered. Bowen patronized, was kind and indulgent and showed very plainly that he thought his companion the dullest and heaviest of mortals. Then he told Lawrence about Russia. He explained everything to him, the moral, psychology, fighting quality, strengths and weaknesses. The climax arrived when he announced, but it's the mysticism of the Russian peasant which will save the world. That adoration of God brought interrupt at Lawrence. Bowen was indignant, of course if you know better, he said. I do, said Lawrence. I lived there for fifteen years. I asked my old governor about the mysticism of the Russian peasant. He'll tell you. Bowen felt that he was justified in his annoyance. As he said to me afterward, the fellow had simply been laughing at me. He might have told me about his having been there. At that time, to Bowen, the most terrible thing in the world was to be laughed at. After that Bowen asked Jerry questions, but Jerry refused to give himself away. I don't know, he said. I've forgotten at all. I don't suppose I ever did know much about it. At Haparanda, most unfortunately, Bowen was insulted. The Swedish customs officer there, tired at the constant appearance of self-satisfied gentlemen with red passports, decided that Bowen was carrying medicine in his private bags. Bowen refused to open his portmando simply because he was a courier and wasn't going to be insulted by a dirty foreigner. Nevertheless, the dirty foreigner had his way and Bowen looked rather a fool. Jerry had not sympathized sufficiently with Bowen in this affair. He only grinned, Bowen told me indignantly afterwards. No sense of patriotism at all. After all, Englishmen ought to stick together. Finally Bowen tested Jerry's literary knowledge. Jerry seemed to have none. He liked fielding, and a man called Farnall in Jack London. He never read poetry, but a strange thing. He was interested in Greek. He had bought the works of Euripides and Escalus in the Loeb Library, and he thought them thundering good. He had never read a word of any Russian author. Never Anna, never War and Peace, never Karazma's off, never Chekhov? No, never. Bowen gave him up. End of Part 1 Chapter 3 Part 1 Chapter 4 of The Secret City This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Secret City by Hugh Walpole Part 1 Chapter 4 It should be obvious enough then that they hailed their approaching separation with relief. Bowen had been promised by one of the secretaries at the Embassy that rooms would be found for him. Jerry intended to hang out at one of the hotels. The Astoria was, he believed, the right place. I shall go to the France for tonight, Bowen declared, having lived it would seem, and petrogrod all his days. Look me up, old man, won't you? Jerry smiled his slow smile. I will, he said, so long. We will now follow the adventures of Henry. He had in him, I know, a tiny, tiny creature with sharp, sharp, ironical eyes and pointed spring feet who watched his poses, his sentimentalities and heroics with affectionate scorn. The same creature watched him now as he waited to collect his bags and stood on the gleaming steps of the station, whilst the port is fetched in Anne Ivozczyk and the rain fell and long, thundering lines of steel upon the bare and desolate streets. You're very miserable and lonely, the creature said. You didn't expect this. No, Henry had not expected this, and he had also not expected that his Ivozczyk would demand eight roubles for his fare to the France. Henry knew that this was the barest extortion, and he had sworn to himself long ago that he would allow no one to do him. He looked at the rain and submitted. After all, it's wartime he whispered to the creature. He huddled himself into the cab, his baggage piled all about him, and tried by pulling at the hood to protect himself from the elements. He has told me that he felt that the rain was laughing at him. The cab was so slow that he seemed to be sitting in the middle of pools and melting snow. He was dirty, tired, hungry, and really not far from tears. Poor Henry was very, very young. He scarcely looked at the Neva as he crossed the bridge. All the length of the key he saw only the hunched heavy back of the old cab men and the spurting jumping rain, the vast stone grave-like buildings in the high-grazed sky. He rode through the red square that swung in the rain. He was thinking about the eight roubles. He pulled up with a jerk outside the France Hotel. Here he tried, I am sure, to recover his dignity. But he was met by a large stout eastern-looking gentleman with peacock feathers in his round cap, smile gently when he heard about the eight roubles, and ushered Henry into the dark hall with a kindly patronage that admitted of no reply. The France is a good hotel, and a toast is one of the kindest of mortals, but it is, in many ways, Russian rather than continental in its atmosphere. That ought to have pleased an excited, so sympathetic, as all this Henry. I am afraid that this moment of his arrival was the first realization in his life of that stern truth, that which seems romantic and retrospect is only too often unpleasantly realistic in its actual experience. He stepped into the dark hall, damp like a well, with a whirring snarling clock on the wall and a heavy glass door pulled by a rope swinging and shifting, the walls and door and rack with a letter shifting too. In this rocking world there seemed to be no stable thing. He was dirty and tired and humiliated. He explained to his host who smiled but seemed to be thinking of other things that he wanted a bath in a room and a meal. He was promised these things, but there was no conviction abroad that the France had gone up in the world since Henry Bohen had crossed its threshold. An old man with a gray beard and the fixed and glittering eye of the ancient mariner told him to follow him. How well I know those strange cold winding passages of the France creeping in and out across boards that shiver and shake with walls pressing in upon you so thin and rocky that the wind whistles and screams and the paper makes ghostly shadows and signs as though unseen fingers moved in. There is that smell too which a Russian hotel alone of all the hostilities in the world can produce. A smell of damp and cabbage soup of sunflower seeds and cigarette hens of drainage and patchouli of in some odd way the sea and fish in wet pavements. It is a smell that will until I die be presented to me by those dark half-hidden passages, warrens of intricate fumbling ways with boards suddenly rising like little mountains in the path. Behind the wainscote one hears the scuttling of innumerable rats. The ancient mariner showed Henry to his room and left him. Henry was depressed at what he saw. His room was a slip cut out of other rooms and its one window was faced by a high black wall down whose surface gleaming water trickled. The bare boards showed large and gaping cracks. There was a wash stand, a bed, a chest of drawers and a faded padded armchair with a hole in it. In the corner near the window was an icon of tinsel and wood. A little round marble-topped table offered a dusty carafe of water. The heavy red-plushed bell-robe tapped the wall. He sat down in the faded armchair and instantly fell asleep. Was the room hypnotic? Why not? There are stranger things than that in Petrograd. I myself am aware of what walls and streets and rivers engaged in their own secret life and that most secret of towns can do to the mere mortals who interfere with their stealthy concerns. Henry dreamt. He was never afterwards able to tell me of what he dreamt, but it had been a long heavy cobwebby affair in which the walls of the hotel seemed to open and close, black little figures moving like ants up and down across the winding ways. He saw innumerable carafs and basins and beds, the wallpaper whistling, the rat scuttling and lines of cigarette ends, black and yellow moving in trails like worms across the boards. All men like worms, like ants, like rats, and the gleaming water trickling and terminally down the high black wall. Of course he was tired after his long journey, hungry too, and depressed. He awoke to find the ancient mariner watching him. He screamed. The mariner reassured him with a toothless smile, gripped him by the arm and showed him the bathroom. Pajaluista said the mariner, although Henry had learned Russian, so unexpected was the pronunciation of this familiar word that it was as though the old man had said, Open Sesame. End of Part 1 Chapter 4. Part 1 Chapter 5 of The Secret City. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Secret City by You All Poem. Part 1 Chapter 5. He felt happy and consoled after a bath, a shave, and breakfast. Always I should think he reacted very quickly to his own physical sensations, and he was as yet too young to know that you cannot lay ghost by the simple brushing of your hair and sponging your face. After his breakfast he lay down on the bed and again fell asleep. It was time not to dream. He slept like a Britain, dreamless, healthy, and clean. He awoke as sure of himself as ever. The first incantation had not, you see, been enough. He plunged into the city. It was raining with that thick dark rain that seems to have mud in it before it is falling. The town was veiled and then missed, figures appearing and disappearing, trambels ringing, wild cries in the Russian tongue that seem it, once first hearing so romantic and startling, rising sharply and yet lazily in the air. He plunged along and found himself in the Nevsky Prospect. He could not mistake its breadth and assurance, dull though it seemed in the mud and rain. But he was, above all things, a romantic and sentimental youth, and he was determined to see this country as he had expected to see it. He added on his coat collar up, British obstancy in his eyes and a little excited flutter in his heart whenever a bright color in eastern face, the street peddler, a bunched up high-backed coachman, anything or anything or any one unusual, presented itself. He saw on his right a great church. It stood back from the street, having in front of it desolate little arrangement of bushes and public seats and winding paths. The church itself was approached by flights of steps that disappeared under the shadow of a high dome supported by vast stone pillars. Letters in gold flamed across the building, above the pillars. Henry passed the intervening ground and climbed the steps. Under the pillars, before the heavy swinging doors, were two rows of beggars. They were dirtier, more tazzled and tangled, fiercer and more ironically falsely submissive than any beggars that he had ever seen. He described one fellow to me, a fierce brigand with a high black hat of feathers, a soiled, caustic coat and tall dirty red leather boots. His eyes were fire, as Henry said. At any rate, that is what Henry liked to think they were. There was a woman with no legs and a man with neither nose nor ears. I'm sure that they watched Henry with supplicating hostility. He entered the church and was instantly swallowed up by a vast multitude. He described to me afterwards that it was as though he had been pushed by the eager fingers of the beggars, no doubt, into deep water. He rose with a gasp and was first conscious of a strange smell of dirt and tallow and something that he did not know, but was afterwards to recognize as the scent of sunflower seed. He was pushed upon, pressed and pulled, fingered and crushed. He did not mind. He was glad this was what he wanted. He looked about him and found that he and all the people around him were swimming in a hazy golden mist flung into the air from the thousands of lighted candles that danced in the breeze blowing through the building. The whole vast shining floor was covered with peasants, pressed, packed together. Peasants, men and women, he did not see a single member of the middle class. In front of him, under the altar, there was a blaze of light and figures moved in the blaze uncertainly, indistinctly, now and then a sudden quiver passed across the throng as the wind blows through the corn. Here and there men and women knelt, but for the most part they stood steadfast, motionless, staring in front of them. He looked at them and discovered that they had the faces of children, simple, trustful, unintelligent, unhumorous children, and eyes always kindlier than any he had seen in any other human beings. They stood there gravely with no signs of religious fervor, with no marks of impatience or weariness, and also with no evidence of any special interest in what was occurring. It might have been a vast concourse of sleepwalkers. He saw that three soldiers near to him were holding hands. From the lighted altars came the echoing whisper of a monotonous chant. The sound rose and fell, scarcely a voice, scarcely an appeal, something rising from the place itself and sinking back into it again without human agency. After a time he saw a strange movement that at first he could not understand. Then watching he found the unlit candles were being passed from line to line, one man leaning forward and tapping the man in front of them with the candle. The man in front passing it in his turn forward and so on until at last it reached the altar where it was lighted and fastened into its sconce. This tapping with the candles happened incessantly throughout the vast crowd. Henry himself was tapped and felt suddenly as though he had been admitted a member of some secret society. He felt the tap again and again, and soon he seemed to be hypnotized by the low chant at the altar and the motionless silent crowd in the dim golden mist. He stood not thinking, not living, away, away, questioning nothing, wanting nothing. He must of course finish with his romantic notion. People pushed around him, struggling to get out. He turned to go and was faced, he told me with a remarkable figure. His description, romantic and sentimental, though he tried to make it, resolved itself into nothing more than a sketch of an ordinary peasant, tall, broad, black-bearded, neatly clad in blue shirt, black trousers and high boots. This fellow stood apparently away from the crowd apart and watched it all, as you so often may see the Russian peasant doing with indifferent gaze in his mild blue eyes, bowing fancy that he saw all kinds of things, power, wisdom, prophecy, a figure apart and symbolic. But how easy in Russia it is to see symbols and often these symbols fail to justify themselves. Well, I let Bohan have his fancies. I should know that man anywhere again, he declared. It was as though he knew what was going to happen and was ready for it. Then I suppose he saw my smile for he broke off and said no more. And here for a moment I leave him and his adventures. End of Part 1 Chapter 5 I must speak for a moment of myself. Throughout the autumn and winter of 1914 and the spring and summer of 1915 I was with the Russian Red Cross on the Polish and Galician fronts. During the summer and early autumn of 1915 I shared with the 9th Army the retreat through Galicia. Never very strong physically owing to a lameness of the left hip from which I have suffered from birth the difficulties of the retreat and the loss of my two greatest friends gave opportunities to my arch-enemy, sciatica, to do what he wished with me. And in October 1915 I was forced to leave the front and return to Petrograd. I was an invalid throughout the whole of that winter and only gradually during the spring of 1916 was I able to pull myself back to an old shadow of my former vigor and energy. I saw that I would never be good for the front again but I minded that less now in that the events of the summer of 1915 had left me without heart or desire the mere spectator of life passive, I cynically believed, indifferent. I was nothing to anyone nor was anyone anything to me. The desire of my heart had slipped like a laughing ghost away from my ken. Men of my slow warmth and cautious suspicion do not easily admit a new guest. Moreover, during the spring of 1916 Petrograd, against my knowledge wove webs about my feet. I had never shared the common belief that Moscow was the only town in Russia. I had always known that Petrograd had its own grace and beauty but it was not until sore and sick at heart lonely and bitter against fate haunted always by the face and laughter of one whom I would never see again. I wandered about the canals and quays and deserted byways of the city that I began to understand its spirit. I took to the derision of my new friends two tumbledown rooms on Pilots Island at the far end of Ekaterinkovsky Prospect. Here amongst tangled grass old deserted boats stranded ruined cottages and abraded piers I hung above the sea. Not indeed the sea of my Glebcher memories. This was a sluggish tideless sea but in the winter one sheet of ice stretching far beyond the barrier of the eye catching into its frosted heart every color of the sky and air. The lights of the town the lamps of imprisoned barges the moon, the sun, the stars the purple sunsets and the strange mysterious lights that flash from the shadows of the hovering snow clouds. My rooms were desolate perhaps bareboards with holes an old cracked mirror a stove, a bookcase, a photograph and a sketch a Raphael Cove. My friends looked and shivered I staring from my window onto the entrance into the waterways of the city felt that any magic might come out of that strange desolation and silence a shadow like the sweeping of the wing of a great bird would hover above the ice a bell from some boat would ring then the church bells of the city would answer it the shadow would pass and the moon would rise deep gold and lie hard and sharp against the thick and bending air the shadow would pass and the stars would come out breaking with an almost audible crack through the stuff of the sky and only five minutes away the shop lights were glittering the bus chicks crying to clear the road the tram bells clanging the boys shouting the news around and about me marvelous silence in the early autumn of 1916 I met at a dinner party Nikolai Leon Tevich Markovic in the course of a conversation I informed him that I had been a year with the 9th Army in Galicia and he had then asked me whether I had met his wife's uncle Alexei Petrovich Semyonov who was also with the 9th Army it happened that I had known Alexei Petrovich very well and the sound of his name brought back to me so vividly events and persons with whom we had both been connected that I had difficulty in controlling my sudden emotion Markovic invited me to his house he lived he told me with his wife in a flat in the Anglesky Prospect his sister-in-law and another of his wife's uncles a brother of Alexei Petrovich also lived with them I said that I would be very glad to come it is impossible to describe how deeply in the days that followed I struggled against the attraction that this invitation presented to me I had succeeded during all these months in avoiding any contact with the incidents or characters of the preceding year I had written no letters and had received none I had resolutely avoided meeting any members of my old atriad when they had come to the town but now I succumbed perhaps something of my old vitality and curiosity was already creeping back into my bones perhaps time was already dimming my memories at any rate on an evening early in October I paid my call Alexei Petrovich was not present he was on the Galician front in Tarnopol I found Markovic, his wife Vera Mikhailovna his sister-in-law Nina Mikhailovna his wife's uncle Ivan Petrovich and a young man Boris Nikolayevich Grogov Markovic himself was a thin loose untidy man with pale yellow hair thinning on top a ragged pale beard a nose with a tendency to redden at any sudden insult or unkind word in an expression perpetually anxious Vera Mikhailovna, on the other hand, was a fine young woman and it must have been the first thought of all who met them as to why she had married him she gave an impression of great strength her figure tall and her bosom full her dark eyes large and clear she had black hair, a vast quantity of it piled upon her head her face was finely molded her lips strong, red, sharply marked she looked like a woman who had already made up her mind upon all things in life and could face them all her expression was often stern and almost insolently scornful but also she could be tender and her heart would shine from her eyes she moved slowly and gracefully and quite without self-consciousness a strange contrast was her sister Nina Mikhailovna a girl still, it seemed in childhood pretty with brown hair laughing eyes and a trembling mouth that seemed ever on the edge of laughter her body was soft and plump she had lovely hands, of which she was obviously very proud Vera dressed sternly, often in black with a soft white collar, almost like a nurse or none Nina was always in gay colors she wore clothes, as it seemed to me, in very bad taste colors clashing, strange bows and ribbons a lace that had nothing to do with the dress to which they were attached she was always eating sweets laughed a great deal had a shrill, piercing voice and was never still Ivan Petrovich, the uncle, was very different from my Semianov he was short, fat, and dressed with great neatness and taste he had a short black mustache a head nearly bald and a round, chubby face with small, smiling eyes he was a chinovnik and held his position in some government office with great pride and solemnity it was his chief aim, I found, to be considered cosmopolitan and when he discovered the feeble quality of my French he insisted in speaking always to me in his strange confused English a language quite of his own with sudden startling phrases which he had snatched, as he expressed it from Shakespeare and the Bible he was the kindest soul alive and all he asked was that he should be left alone and that no one should quarrel with him he confided to me that he hated quarrels and that it was an eternal sorrow to him that the Russian people should enjoy so greatly that pastime I discovered that he was terrified of his brother, Alexei and at that I was not surprised his weakness was that he was impenetrably stupid and it was quite impossible to make him understand anything that was not immediately in line with his own experience unusual obtuseness in a Russian he was vain about his clothes, especially his shoes which he had always made in London he was sentimental and very easily hurt very different again was the young man Boris Nikolaevich Grogov no relation of the family he seemed to spend most of his time in the Markovitch flat a handsome young man, strongly built with the head of untidy, curly yellow hair blue eyes, high cheekbones long hands with which he was forever gesticulating Grogov was an internationalist, socialist and expressed his opinions at the top of his voice whenever he could find an occasion he would sit for hours staring moodily at the floor or glaring fiercely upon the company then suddenly he would burst out walking about, flinging up his arms, shouting I saw at once that Markovitch did not like him and that he despised Markovitch he did not seem to me a very wise young man but I liked his energy, his kindness his sudden generosity and honesty I could not see his reason for being so much in this company during the autumn of 1916 I spent more and more time with the Markovitches I cannot tell you what was exactly the reason Vera Mukailovna, perhaps although let no one imagine that I fell in love with her or ever thought of doing so no, my time for that was over but I felt from the first that she was a fine understanding creature that she sympathized with me without pitying me that she would be a good and loyal friend and that I, on my side could give her comprehension and fidelity they made me feel at home with them there had been as yet no house in Petrograd whether I could go easily and without ceremony which I could leave at any moment that I wished soon they did not notice whether I were there or no they continued their ordinary lives and Nina, to whom I was old, plain and feeble treated me with a friendly indifference that did not hurt as it might have done in England Boris Groovov patronized and laughed at me but would give me anything in the way of help property or opinions did I need it I was in fact by Christmas time a member of the family they nicknamed me Dirtles after many jokes about my surname and reminiscences of Edwin Drude my Russian name was Ivan Andreevich we had married times in spite of the troubles and distresses now crowding upon Russia and now I come to the first of the links in my story it was with this family that Henry Bohun was to lodge End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of The Secret City this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org 7 some three years before when Ivan Petrovich had gone to live with the Markovitches it had occurred to them that they had two empty rooms and that these would accommodate one or two paying guests it seemed to them still more attractive that these guests should be English and I expect it was Ivan Petrovich who emphasized this the British consulate was asked to assist them and after a few inconspicuous clerks and young businessmen they entertained for a whole six months the Honourable Charles Strafford one of the junior secretaries at the Embassy at the end of those six months the Honourable Charles, burdened with debt and weakened by little sleep much liquor was removed to a less exciting atmosphere with all his faults he left faithful friends in the Markovitch flat and he, on his side, gave so enthusiastic an account of Madame Markovitch's attempts to strain and modify his impetuosities that the Embassy recommended her care and guidance to other young secretaries the war came Vera Mikhailovna declared that she could have lodgers no longer and a terrible blow this was to Ivan Petrovich then suddenly towards the end of 1916 she changed her mind and announced to the Embassy that she was ready for anyone whom they could send her Henry Bohun was offered, accepted and prepared for Ivan Petrovich was a happy man once more I never discovered that Markovitch was much consulted in these affairs Vera Mikhailovna ran the flat financially industrially and spiritually Markovitch, meanwhile, was busy with his inventions I have, as yet, said nothing about Nikolai Leontievich's inventions I hesitate indeed to speak of them although they are so essential and indeed important part of my story I hesitate simply because I do not wish this narrative to be at all fantastic but that it should stick quite honestly and obviously to the truth it is certain moreover that what is naked truth to one man seems the falsest fantasy to another and after all I have from beginning to end only my own conscience to satisfy the history of the human soul and its relation to divinity which is, I think, the only history worth any man's pursuit must push its way again and again through this same tangled territory which infests the region lying between truth and fantasy one passes suddenly into a world that seems pure falsehood so obscure, so twisted, and colored is it one is through, one looks back and it lies behind one as the clearest truth such as experience makes one tender to other men's fancies and less impatient of the vague and half-defined traveller's tales than other men tell Child Roland is not the only traveller who has challenged the dark tower In the Middle Ages, Nikolai Leontievich Markovich would have been called, I suppose, a magician a very half-hearted and unsatisfactory one he would always have been and he would have been most certainly burnt at the stake before he had accomplished any magic worthy of the name his inventions, so far as I saw anything of them were innocent and simple enough it was the man himself rather than his inventions that arrested the attention about the time of Bohun's arrival upon the scene it was a new kind of ink that he had discovered and for many weeks the Markovich flat dripped ink from every pore he had no laboratory, no scientific materials nor, I think, any profound knowledge the room where he worked was a small, box-like place off a living room a cheerless enough abode with a little high barred window in it as in a prison cell cardboard boxes piled high with feminine garments a sewing machine, old dusty books and a broken-down perambulator occupying most of the space I could never understand why the perambulator was there as the Markoviches had no children Nikolai Lyantiyevich sat at a table under the little window and his favorite position was to sit with the chair perched on one leg and so rocking in this insecure position he brooded over his bottles and glasses and trays this room was so dark even in the middle of the day that he was often compelled to use a lamp there he hovered with his ragged beard, his ink-stained fingers and his red-rimmed eyes making strange noises to himself and involving from his materials continual little explosions that caused him infinite satisfaction he did not mind interruptions nor did he ever complain of the noise in the other room terrific though it often was he would be absorbed in a trance lost in another world and surely amiable and harmless enough and yet not entirely amiable his eyes would close to little spots of dull, lifeless color the only thing alive about him seemed to be his hands that moved and stirred as though they did not belong to his body at all but had an independent existence of their own and his heels protruding from under his chair were like horrid little animals waiting malevolently on guard his inventions were of course never successful and he contributed therefore nothing to the maintenance of his household Vera Mikhailovna had means of her own and there were also the paying guests but he suffered no sense of distress at his impeccuniosity I discovered very quickly that Vera Mikhailovna kept the family purse and one of the earliest sources of family trouble was I fancy his constant demands for money before the war he had I believe been drunk whenever it was possible because drink was difficult to obtain and in a flood of patriotism roused by the enthusiasm of the early days of the war he declared himself a teetotaler and marvelously he kept his vows this abstinence was now one of his greatest prides and he liked to tell you about it nevertheless he needed money as badly as ever he borrowed whenever he could one of the first things that Vera Mikhailovna told me was that I was on no account to open my purse to him I was not always able to keep my promise on this particular evening of Bohun's arrival I came by invitation to supper they had told me about their Englishmen had asked me indeed to help the first awkward half hour over the style it might seem strange that the British Embassy should have chosen so uncouth a host as Nikolay Leontiejevich for their innocent secretaries but it was only the more enterprising of the young men who preferred to live in a Russian family most of them inhabited elegant flats of their own ornamented with coloured stuffs and gaily decorated cups and bright trays from the Jews market together with English comforts and luxuries dragged all the way from London however Markovich figured very slightly in the consciousness of his guests and the rest of the flat was roomy and clean and light it was, like most of the homes of the Russian intelligentsia overburdened with family history amazing the things that Russians will gather together and keep one must suppose only because they are too lethargic to do away with them on the walls of the Markovich dining room all kinds of pictures were hung old family photographs yellow and dusty old calendars, prints of ships at sea and young men hanging over styles and old ladies having tea photographs of the Kremlin and the Lavra et Kif copies of Ivan and his murdered son and Serov's portrait of Shalyapin as Boris Godunov bookcases were there with tattered editions of Pushkin and Lermontov the middle of the living room was occupied with an enormous table covered by a dark red cloth and this table was the centre of the life of the family a large clock wheezed and grown against the wall and various chairs of different shapes and sizes filled up most of the remaining space nevertheless, although everything in the room looked old except the white and gleaming stove Vera Mikhailovna spread over the place the impress of her strong and active personality it was not a sluggish room nor was it untidy as so many Russian rooms are around the table everybody sat it seemed that at all hours of the day and night some kind of meal was in progress there and it was almost certain that from half past two in the afternoon until half past two on the following morning the Samovar would be found there presiding with sleepy dignity over the whole family and caring nothing for anybody I can smell now that a special smell of tea and radishes and salted fish and can hear the wheeze of the clock the hum of the Samovar Nina's shrill laugh and Boris's deep voice I owe that room a great deal it was from there that I was taken out of myself and memories that fared no better for their perpetual resurrection that room called me back to life on this evening there was to be in honor of young Bohun and especially fine dinner a message had come from him that he would appear with his boxes at half past seven when I arrived Vera was busy in the kitchen and Nina adding in her bedroom extra ribbons and laces to her costume Boris Nikolayevich was not present Nikolay Leon Tyevich was working in his den I went through to him he did not look up as I came in the room was darker than usual the green shade over the lamp was tilted wickedly as though it were cocking its eye and Markovitch's vain hopes and there was the man himself one cheek a ghastly green his hair on end and his chair precariously balanced I heard him say as though he repeated an incantation new vote, new vote, new vote Zdrasti Nikolay Leon Tyevich I said then I did not disturb him but sat down on the rickety chair and waited ink dripped from his table onto the floor one bottle lay on its side the ink oozing out other bottles stood some filled, some half empty, some empty aha! he cried and there was a little explosion a cork spurred it out and struck the ceiling there was smoke and the crackling of glass he turned around and faced me a smudge of ink on one of his cheeks and that customary, nervous, unhappy smile on his lips well, how goes it? I asked well enough he touched his cheek and then sucked his fingers I must wash we have a guest tonight and the news, what's the latest? he always asked me this question having apparently the firm conviction that an Englishman must know more about the war than a man of any other nationality but he didn't pause for an answer news, but of course there is none what can you expect from this Russia of ours? and the rest? it's all too far away for any of us to know anything about it only Germany's close at hand yes, remember that you forget it sometimes in England she's very near indeed we've got a guest coming from the English Embassy his name's Boone and a funny name too you don't know him, do you? no, I don't know him, I laughed why should he think I always knew everybody? I, who kept to myself so the English always stick together that's more than can be said for us Russians we're a rotten lot well, I must go and wash then, whether by a sudden chance of light and shade or if you like to have it by a sudden revelation on the part of the beneficent providence he really did look malevolent standing in the middle of the dirty little room malevolent and pathetic too like a cross, sick bird Vera's got a good dinner ready that's one thing, Ivan Andreevich, she said and vodka, a little bottle we got it from a friend but I don't drink now, you know he went off and I, going into the other room found Vera Mikhailovna giving last touches to the table I sat and watched with pleasure her calm, assured movements she really was splendid, I thought with the fine carriage of her head her large, mild eyes her firm, strong hands all ready for the guest, Vera Mikhailovna, I asked yes, she answered, smiling at me I hope so he won't be very particular, will he because we aren't princes I can't answer for him, I replied smiling back at her but he can't be more particular than the honourable Charles and he was a great success the honourable Charles was a standing legend in the family and we always laughed when we mentioned him I don't know, she stopped her work at the table and stood with her hand up to her brow as though she would shade her eyes from the light I wish she wasn't coming the new Englishman, I mean better perhaps as we were Nicholas she stopped short oh, I don't know their difficult times, Ivan Andreevich the door opened and Uncle Ivan came in he was dressed very smartly with a clean white shirt and a black bow tie and black patent leather shoes and his round face shown as the sun ah, Mr. Derwood he said trotting forward good health to you what excellent weather we're sharing so we are Mr. Semyonov, I answered him although it did rain most of yesterday, you know but weather of the soul perhaps you mean in that case I'm very glad to hear that you are well ah, of the soul he always spoke his words very carefully clipping and completing them and then standing back to look at them as though they were China ornaments arranged on a shining table no, my soul today is not of the first rank, I'm afraid it was obvious that he was in a state of the very greatest excitement he could not keep still but walked up and down beside the long table fingering the knives and forks then Nina burst in upon us in one of her frantic rages her tempers were famous both for their ferocity and the swiftness of their passing in the course of them she was like some impassioned bird of brilliant plumages tossing her feathers fluttering behind the bars of her cage an impertinent teasing passerby she looked there now in the doorway gesticulating with her hands no, t'naz nai eshto Mikhail Andreev Alexandrovich has put me off says he is busy all night at the office he busy all night don't I know the business he's after and it's the third time I won't see him again, no I won't he, good evening, Nina Mikhailovna I said smiling, she turned to me Dirtles, Mr. Dirtles suddenly, listen, it was all arranged for tonight, the Parisian and then we were to come straight back but your guest, I began however the torment continued the door opened and Boris Grogov came in instantly she turned upon him there's your fine friend, she cried Mikhail Alexandrovich isn't coming put me off at the last moment and it's the third time and I might have gone to musical Naya drama well why not Grogov interrupted calmly if he had something better to do then she turned upon him screaming and in a moment they were at it tooth and nail, heaping up old scores producing fact after fact to prove the one to the other false friendship lying manners deceitful promises perjured records Vera tried to interrupt Markovich said something I began to remonstrance in a moment we were all at it in the tempest it was only I who heard the door open I turned and saw Henry Bohun standing there I smile now when I think of that moment of his arrival so appropriate a symbol of what was to come Bohun was beautifully dressed spotlessly neat in a bowler hat a little to one side a light blue silk scarf a dark blue overcoat his face wore an expression of dignified it was as though he stood there breathing blessings on the house that he had sanctified by his arrival he looked too with it all such a boy that my heart was touched and there was something good and honest about his eyes he may have spoken but certainly no one heard him in the confusion I just caught Nina's shrill voice listen all of you there you are you hear what he says that I told him it was to be Tuesday when everybody knows Verochka he says then she paused I caught her amazed glance at the door her gasp a scream of stifled laughter and behold she was gone then they all saw there was an instant silence a terrible pause and then Bohun's polite gentle voice is this where Mr. Markovich lives I beg your pardon great awkwardness followed it is quite an illusion to suppose that Russians are easy affable hosts I know of no people in the world who are so unable to put you at your ease if there is something unfortunate in the air they have few easy social graces and they are inclined to abandon at once a situation if it is made difficult for them if it needs an effort to make a guest happy they leave him alone and trust to a providence in whose powers however they entirely disbelieve Bohun was led to his room his bags were carried by old Sasha the Markovich's servant and the Dvornik the bags I remember were very splendid and I saw the eyes of Uncle Ivan grow large as he watched their progress then with a sigh he drew a chair up to the table and began eating zakuska putting saltfish and radishes and sausage onto his plate and eating them with a fork Dya-Dya Ivan Vera said reproachfully not yet we haven't begun Ivan Andreevich what do you think will he want hot water the evening thus unfortunately begun was not happily continued there was a blight upon us all I did my best but I was inconsiderable pain and very tired moreover I was not favorably impressed with my first sight of young Bohun he seemed to me foolish and conceded Uncle Ivan was afraid of him he made only one attack it was a very fruitful journey that you had sir I hope I beg your pardon said Bohun a very fruitful journey not some nor extravagant oh all right thanks Bohun answered trying unsuccessfully to show that he was not surprised at my friend's choice of words but Uncle Ivan saw that he had not been successful and his lip trembled Markovich was silent and Boris Nikolayevich sulked only once towards the end of the meal Bohun interested me I wonder he asked me whether you know a fellow called Lawrence he traveled from England with me not Jerry Lawrence the international I said surely he can't have come out here of course it was the same I was interested and strangely pleased the thought of Lawrence's square back and cheery smile was extremely agreeable just then oh I'm very glad I answered I must get him to come and see me I knew him pretty well at one time where's he to be found Bohun with an air of rather gentle surprise as though he could not help thinking it's strange that anyone should take interest in Lawrence's movements told me where he was lodging and I hope you will also find your way to me sometime I added it's an out of place grimy spot I'm afraid you might bring Lawrence round one evening soon after that feeling that I could do no more towards retrieving an evening definitely lost I departed at the last I caught Markovich's eye he seemed to be watching for something a new invention perhaps he was certainly an unhappy man end of chapter 7 recording by Violet Blue Albertville chapter 8 of The Secret City this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Secret City by Hugh Walpole chapter 8 I was to meet Jerry Lawrence sooner than I had expected and it was in this way two days after the evening that I have just described I was driven to go and see Vera Mikolayevna I was driven partly by my curiosity partly by my depression and partly by my loneliness this same loneliness was I believe at this time beginning to affect us all I should be considered perhaps to be speaking with exaggeration if I were to borrow the title of one of Mrs. Olefant's old fashioned and charming novels and to speak of Petrograd already a beleaguered city beleaguered moreover in very much the same sense as that other old city was from the very beginning of the war Petrograd was isolated isolated not by the facts of the war its geographical position or any of the obvious causes but simply by the contempt and hatred with which it was regarded from very old days it was spoken of as a German town if you want to know Russia don't go to Petrograd but in town like any other a smaller Berlin and so on and so on this sense of outside contempt influenced its own attitude to the world it was always at war with Moscow it showed you when you first arrived it's Nevsky it's ordered squares, it's official buildings as though it would say I suppose you will take the same view as the rest if you don't wish to look any deeper here you are I'm not going to help you it lost whatever gaiety and humor it had after the fall of Warsaw the attitude of the Russian people in general became fatalistic much nonsense was talked in the foreign press about Russia coming back again and again Russia the harder she was pressed the harder she resisted and the ghost of Napoleon retreating from Moscow was presented to every home in Europe but the plain truth was that after Warsaw the temper of the people changed things were going wrong once more it was gone wrong in Russian history and as they always would go wrong then followed bewilderment what to do, whose fault was it all shall we blame our blood or our rulers our rulers certainly as we always with justice have blamed them our blood too perhaps from the fall of Warsaw in spite of momentary flashes of splendor and courage the Russians were of blindfolded naked people fighting a nation fully armed now Europe was vast continents away and only Germany that old Germany whose soul was hateful whose practical spirit was terribly admirable was close at hand the Russian people turned hither and thither first to its Tsar then to its generals then to its democratic spirit then to its idealism and there was no hope anywhere they appealed for liberty in the autumn of 1916 a great prayer from the whole country went up that the bandage might be taken from its eyes and soon when the light did at last come the eyes should be so unused to it that they should see nothing Nicholas had his opportunity the greatest opportunity perhaps ever offered to man he refused it from that moment the easiest way was closed and only a most perilous rocky path remained with every week of that winter of 1916 Petrograd stepped deeper and deeper into the darkness its strangeness grew and grew upon me days filed through I wondered whether my illness and the troubles of the preceding year made me see everything at an impossible angle or was it perhaps my isolated lodging my crumbling rooms with the great expanse of sea and sky in front of them that was responsible whatever it was Petrograd soon came to me a place with the most terrible secret life of its own there is an old poem of Pushkin's that Alexandra Benoit has most marvelously illustrated which has for its theme the rising of the river Neva in November 1824 on that occasion the splendid animal devoured the town and in Pushkin's poem you can feel the devastating power of the beast and in Benoit's pictures you can see it licking its lips as it swallowed down pillars and bridges and streets and squares with poor little fragments of humanity clutching and crying and fruitlessly appealing this poem only emphasized for me the suspicion that I had originally had that the great river and the marshy swamp around it despised contemptuously the buildings that man had raised beside and upon it and that even the buildings in their turn despised the human beings who thronged them it could only be some sense of this kind that could make one so repeatedly conscious that one's feet were treading ancient ground the town, raised all of a peace by Peter the Great, could claim no ancient history at all but through every stick and stone the spirit and soul of the ground so that out of one of the sluggish canals one might expect at any moment to see the horrid and scaly head of some paleolithic monster with dead and greedy eyes slowly push its way up then it might gaze at the little black hurrying atoms as they crossed and recross the gray bridge there are many places in Petrograd where life is utterly dead where some building half completed has fallen into red and green decay where the water lies under iridescent scum and thick clotted reeds seem to stand at bay concealing in their depths some terrible monster at such a spot I have often fancied that the eyes of countless inhabitants of that earlier world are watching me and that not far away the waters of Niva are gathering, gathering gathering their mighty momentum for some instant when with a great heave and swell they will toss the whole fabric of brick and mortar from their shoulders squares and then sink tranquilly back into great sheets of unruffled waters marked only with the reeds and the sharp cry of some travelling bird all this may be fantastic enough I only know that it was sufficiently real to me during the winter of 1916 to be ever at the back of my mind and I believe that some sense of that kind had in all sober reality something to do with that strange weight of uneasy anticipation that we all of us, yes unimaginative amongst us felt at this time upon this afternoon when I went to pay my call on Vera Mikhailovna the real snow began to fall we had had the false preliminary attempt a fortnight before now in the quiet persistent determination the solid soft resilience beneath one's feet and the patient acquiescence of roofs and bridges and cobbles one knew that the real winter had come already although it was only four o'clock in the afternoon there was darkness with the strange almost metallic glow as of the light from an inverted looking glass that snow makes upon the air I had not far to go but the long stretch of the Ekaterinovsky canal was black and gloomy and desolate repeating here and there the pale yellow reflection of some lamp but for the most part dim and dead with the hulks of barges lying like sleeping monsters on its surface as I turned into an anglisky prospect I found stretched like a black dotto far down the street against the wall a queue of waiting women they would be there until the early morning many of them and it was possible that then the bread would not be sufficient and this not from any real lack but simply from the mistakes of the bungling peculating government no wonder that one's heart was heavy I found Vera Mikhailovna to my relief alone when Sasha brought me into the room she was doing what I think I had never seen her do before sitting unoccupied her eyes staring in front of her her hands folded on her lap I don't believe that I've ever caught you idle before Vera Mikhailovna I said oh I'm glad you've come she caught my hand with an eagerness very different from her usual calm quiet greeting sit down it's an extraordinary thing at that very moment I was wishing for you what is it I can do for you I ask you know that I would do anything for you yes I know that you would but well you can't help me because I don't know what's the matter with me that's very unlike you I said yes I know it is and perhaps that's why I'm frightened it's so vague and you know I long ago determined that if I couldn't define a trouble and have it there in front of me so that I can strangle it I wouldn't bother about it but those things are so easy to say she got up and began to walk up and down the room that again was really unlike her and altogether I seem to be seeing this afternoon some quite new Vera Mikhailovna someone more intimate more personal more appealing I realized suddenly that she had never before and any period of our friendship asked for my help not even for my sympathy she was so strong and reliant and independent cared so little for the opinion of others and shut down so closely upon herself her private life that I could not have imagined her asking anyone and of the two of us she was the man the strong determined soul the brave and self-reliant character it seemed to me ludicrous that she should ask for my help nevertheless I was greatly touched I would do anything for you I said she turned to me a splendid figure her head with its crown of black hair lifted her hands on her hips her eyes gravely regarding me there are three things she said perhaps all of them nothing and yet all of them disturbing first my husband he's beginning to drink again drink I said where can he get it from I don't know I must discover but it isn't the actual drinking everyone in our country drinks if he can only what has made my husband break his resolve he was so proud of it you know how proud he was and he lies about it he says he's not drinking he never used to lie about anything that was not one of his faults perhaps his inventions I suggested his inventions you know better than that Ivan Andreevich no no it is something he's not himself well then secondly there's Nina the other night did you notice anything only that she lost her temper but she's always doing that no it's more than that she's unhappy and I don't like the life she's leading always out of cinematographs and theaters and restaurants and with a lot of boys who mean no harm I know but they're idiotic they're no good now when the wars like this and the suffering to be always at the cinematograph but I've lost my authority over her Ivan Andreevich she doesn't care any longer what I say to her once and not so long ago I meant so much to her she's changed she's harder more careless more selfish you know Ivan Andreevich that Nina's simply everything to me I don't talk about myself do I but at least I can say that since oh many many years she's been the whole world and more than the whole world to me our mother and father were killed in a railway accident coming up from Odessa when Nina was very small and since then Nina's been mine all mine she said that word with sudden passion flinging it at me with a fierce gesture of her hands do you know what it is to want that something should belong to you belong entirely to you and to no one else I've been too proud to say but I've wanted that terribly all my life I haven't had children although I prayed for them and perhaps now it is as well but Nina she's known she was mine and until now she's loved to know it but now she's escaping from me and she knows that too and is ashamed I think I could bear anything but that sense that she herself has that she's being wrong I hate her to be ashamed perhaps I suggested it's time that she went out into the world and worked there are a thousand things that a woman can do no not Nina I've spoiled her perhaps I don't know I'll always like to feel that she needed my help I didn't want to make her too self-reliant that was wrong of me and I shall be punished for it speak to her I said she loves you so much that one word from you to her will be enough no Vera Mikhailovna said slowly it won't be enough now a year ago yes now she's escaping as fast as she can perhaps she's in love with someone I suggested no I should have seen at once if it had been that I would rather it were that I think she would come back to me then no I suppose that this had to happen I was foolish to think that it would not but it leaves one alone it she pulled herself up at that regarding me with sudden shyness as though she would forbid me to hint that she had shown the slightest emotion may an appeal for pity I was silent then I said and the third thing Vera Mikhailovna Uncle Alexei is coming back that startled me I felt my heart give one frantic leap Alexei Petrovich I cried when how soon I don't know I've had a letter she felt in her dress found the letter and read it through soon perhaps he's leaving the front for good he's disgusted with it all he says he's going to take up his petrograd practice again will he live with you no God forbid she felt then perhaps that her cry had revealed more than she intended because she smiled and trying to speak slightly said no we're old enemies my uncle and I we don't get on he thinks me sentimental and I think him but never mind what I think him he has a bad effect on my husband a bad effect I repeated yes he irritates him he laughs at his intentions you know I nodded my head yes with my earlier experience of him I could understand that he would do that he's a cynical and bitter man I said he believes in nothing and in nobody and yet he has his fine side no he has no fine side she interrupted me fiercely none he is a bad man I've known him all my life and I'm not to be deceived then in a softer quieter tone she continued but tell me Ivan Andreevich I've wanted before to ask you you were with him on the front last year we have heard that he had a great love affair there and that the sister whom he loved was killed is that true yes I said that is true was he very much in love with her I believe terribly and it hurt him deeply when she was killed desperately deeply but what kind of woman was she what type it's so strange to me uncle Alexey with his love affairs I looked up smiling she was your very opposite Vera Mikhailovna in everything like a child with no knowledge no experience no self-reliance nothing she was wonderful in her ignorance and bravery we all thought her wonderful and she loved him yes she loved him how strange perhaps there is some good in him somewhere but to us at any rate he always brings trouble this affair may have changed him they say he is very different perhaps she broke out then into a cry I want to get away Ivan Andreevich to get away to escape to leave Russia and everything in it behind me to escape it was just then that Sasha knocked on the door she came in to say that there was an Englishman in the hall inquiring for the other Englishman who had come yesterday that he wanted to know when he would be back perhaps I can help I said I went out into the hall and there I found Jerry Lawrence he stood there in the dusk of the little hall looking as resolute and unconcerned as an Englishman in a strange and uncertain world is expected to look not that he ever considered the attitudes fitting to adopt on certain occasions he would tell you if you inquired that he couldn't stand those fellows who looked into every glass they passed his brow were a simple and innocent frown like that of a healthy baby presented for the first time with a strange and alarming rattle it was only later arrived at some faint conception of Lawrence's marvelous acceptance of anything that might happen to turn up vice cruelty unsuspected beauty terror remorse hatred and ignorance he accepted them all once they were there in front of him he sometimes as I shall on a later occasion show allowed himself a free expression of his views in the company of those whom he could trust but they were never the views of a suspicious or disappointed man it was not that he had great faith in human nature he had I think very little nor was he without curiosity far from it but once a thing was really there he wasted no time over exclamations as to the horror or beauty or abomination of its actual presence there was once explained to me precious little time to waste those who thought him a dull silent fellow and they were many made of course an almost ludicrous mistake but most people in life are I take it too deeply occupied with their own personal history to do more than estimate at its surface value the appearance of others but after all such a dispensation makes in all probability for the general happiness on this present occasion Jerry Lawrence stood there exactly as I had seen him stand many times on the football field waiting for the referee's whistle his thick short body held together his mouth shut and his eyes on guard he did not at first recognize me you've forgotten me I said I beg your pardon he answered in a husky good natured voice like the rumble of an amiable bulldog my name is Derward I said holding out my hand and years ago we had a mutual friend in Olva Dune that pleased him he gripped my hand very hardly and smiled a big ugly smile why yes he said of course how are you feeling fit Dan long ago all that was isn't it hope you're really fit oh I'm all right I answered I was never a Hercules you know I heard that you were here from Bohun I was going to write you but it's excellent that we should meet like this I was after young Bohun he explained but it's pleasant to find there's another fellow in the town one knows I've been a bit at sea these two days to tell you the truth I never wanted to come I heard a rumble in his throat that sounded like silly blighters come in I said you must meet Madame Markovitch with whom Bohun is staying and then wait a bit he won't be long I expect the idea of this seemed to fill Jerry with alarm he turned back toward the door oh I don't think she won't want better another time his mouth was filled with indistinct rumblings nonsense I caught his arm she is delightful you must make yourself at home here they'll be only too glad does she speak English he asked no I answered but that's all right he backed again towards the door my Russian so slow he said never been here since I was a kid I'd rather not really however I dragged him in and introduced him I had quite a fatherly desire as I watched him that he should make good but I'm afraid that the first interview was not a great success Vera Mikhailovna was strange that afternoon excited and disturbed as I had never known her and I could see that it was only with the greatest difficulty that she could bring herself to think about Jerry at all and Jerry himself was so unresponsive that I could have beaten him why you used to be I thought to myself and wondered how I could have suspected in those days subtle depths and mysterious incomprehensions Vera Mikhailovna asked him questions about France and London but quite obviously did not listen to his answers after ten minutes he pulled himself up slowly from his chair well I must be going he said tell young Bohun I shall be waiting for him tonight seven thirty Astoria he turned to Vera Mikhailovna to say goodbye and then suddenly the surprise met they seemed to strike some unexpected chord of sympathy it took both of them I think by surprise for a moment they stared at one another please come whenever you want to see your friend she said we shall be delighted thank you he answered simply and went when he had gone she said to me I like that man one could trust him yes one could I answered her end of chapter 8 recording by Violet Bleu of Albertville part one chapter nine of the secret city this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Rita Boutros the secret city by Hugh Walpole part one chapter nine I must return now to young Henry Bohun I would like to arouse your sympathy for him but sympathy is a dangerous medicine for the young who are only too ready so far as their self confidence goes to take a mile if you give them an inch but with Bohun it was simply a case of re-delivering piece by piece the mile that he had had no possible right to imagine in his possession and at the end of his relinquishment he was as naked and impoverished as soul as any life with youth and health on its side can manage to sustain he was very miserable during these first weeks and then it must be remembered that Petrograd was at this time no very happy place for anybody Bohun was not a coward he would have stood the worst things in France without flinching but he was neither old enough nor young enough to face without a tremor the queer world of nerves and unfulfilled expectation in which he found himself in the first place Petrograd was so very different from anything that he had expected its size and space its power of reducing the human figure to a sudden speck of insignificance its strange lights and shadows its waste spaces and cold empty moonlit squares its jumble of modern and medieval civilization above all its supreme indifference to all and sundry these things cowed and humiliated him he was sharp enough to realize that here he was nobody at all then he had not expected to be so absolutely cut off from all that he had known the western world simply did not seem to exist the papers came so slowly that on their arrival it was not worth reading he had not told his friends in England to send his letters through the embassy bag with the result that they would not he was informed reach him for months of his work I do not intend here to speak it does not come into this story but he found that it was most complicated and difficult and kicks rather than half-pence would be the certain reward and Bohan hated kicks finally he could not be said to be happy in the Markovitch flat he had poor boy heard so much about Russian hospitality and had formed from the reading of the books of Mr. Stephen Graham and others delightful pictures of the warmest hearts in the world holding out the warmest hands before the warmest Samovars in its spirit that was true enough but it was not true that Bohan expected it the Markovitches during those first weeks left him to look after himself because they quite honestly believed that that was the thing that he would prefer Uncle Ivan tried to entertain him but Bohan found him a bore and with the ruthless intolerance of the very young showed him so the family did not put itself out to please him in any way he had his room and his latch-key there was always coffee in the morning dinner at half past six and the Samovar from half past nine onwards but the Markovitch family life was not turned from its normal course why should it be and then he was laughed at Nina laughed at him everything about him seemed to Nina ridiculous his cold bath in the morning his trouser press the little silver-topped bottles on his table the crease in his trousers his shining neat hair the pearl pin in his black tie his precise and careful speech the way that he said nutac spesibo gavorite garyachi she was never tired of imitating him and very soon he caught her strutting about the dining room with a man's cap on her head twisting a cane this last because only the evening before he had told them with great pride of his cleverness in that a special direction the fun was good-natured enough but it was, as Russian chaff generally is, quite regardless of sensitive feelings Nina chaffed everybody and nobody minded but Bowen did not know this and minded very much indeed he showed during dinner that evening that he was hurt and sat over his cabbage soup very dignified and silent this made everyone uncomfortable although Vera told me afterwards that she found it difficult not to laugh the family did not make themselves especially pleasant as Henry felt they ought to have done they continued the even tenor of their way he was met by one of those sudden cold, horrible waves which it pleases Russia sometimes to overwhelm one the snow was falling the town was settling into a suspicious ominous quiet there was no light in the sky and horrible winds blew round the corners of abandoned streets Henry was desperately homesick he would have cut and run had there been any possible means of doing it he did not remember the wild joy with which he had heard in a few weeks before that he was to come to Petrograd he had forgotten even the splendors of discipline he only knew that he was lonely and frightened and homesick he seemed to be without a friend in the world but he was proud he confided in nobody he went about with his head up and everyone thought him the most conceded young puppy who had ever trotted the Petrograd streets and although he never owned it even to himself Jerry Lawrence seemed to him now the one friendly soul in all the world you could be sure that Lawrence would be always the same he would not laugh at you behind your back if he disliked something he would say so you knew where you were with him and in the uncertain world in which poor Bohen found himself that simply was everything Bohen would have denied it vehemently if you told him that he had once looked down on Lawrence or despised him for his inartistic mind Lawrence was a fine fellow he might seem a little slow at first but you wait and you will see what kind of a chap he is nevertheless Bohen was not able to be forever in his company work separated them and then Lawrence lodged with Baron Wilderling Admiralty Key a long way from an anglisky prospect therefore at the end of three weeks Henry Bohen discovered himself to be profoundly wretched there seemed to be no hope anywhere even the artist in him was disappointed he went to the ballet and saw Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake but bearing Diagolev's splendors in front of him and knowing nothing about the technique of dancing he was bored and cross and contemptuous he went to Eugene Onyagin and enjoyed it because there was still a great deal of the school girl in him but after that he was flung on to Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmila and this seemed to him quite interminable and to have nothing to do with the gentleman and lady mentioned in the title it was he saw by Andreiyev whose art he had told many people in England he admired but now he mixed him up in his mind with Kupren and the play was all about a circus very confused and gloomy as for literature he purchased some new poems by Belmont some essays by Mereczkowski and Andrei Bieli's St. Petersburg but the first of these he found pretentious and the second dull and the third quite impossibly obscure he did not confess to himself that it might perhaps be his ignorance of the Russian language that was at fault he went to the Hermitage and the Alexander Galleries and purchased colored postcards of the works of Samov, Benoit Dubojinsky, Lanceret and Astroimova all the quite obvious people he wrote home to his mother that from what he could see of Russian art it seemed to him to have a real future in front of it and he bought little painted wooden animals and figures at the peasants workshops and stuck them up on the front of his stove I like them because they are so essentially Russian he said to me pointing out a red-spotted cow and a green giraffe no other country could have been responsible for them poor boy, I had not the heart to tell him that they had been made in Germany however as I have said in spite of his painted toys and his operas he was at the end of three weeks a miserable man anybody could see that he was miserable and Vera Mikhailovna saw it she took him in hand and at once his life was changed I was present at the beginning of the change it was the evening of Sputen's murder the town of course talked of nothing else it had been talking without cessation since two o'clock that afternoon the dirty sinister figure of the monk with his magnetic eyes his greasy beard his robe, his girdle and all his other properties brooded gigantic over all of us he was brought into immediate personal relationship with the humblest, most significant creature in the city and with him incredible shadows and shapes from Dostoevsky, from Gogol from Lermentov from Negrasov from whom you please all the shadows of whom one is eternally subconsciously aware in Russia faced us and reminded us that they were not shadows but realities the details of his murder were not accurately known for that at last after so many false rumors of attempted assassination he was truly gone and this world would be bothered by his evil presence no longer pictures formed in one's mind as one listened the day was fiercely cold and this seemed to add to the horror of it all to the Hoffman-esque fantasy of the party the lights, the supper and the women the horror of religion and superstition and melodrama the body flung out at last so easily and swiftly onto the frozen river how many souls must have asked themselves that day why if this is so easy do we not proceed further a man dies more simply than you thought only resolution only resolution I know that that evening I found it impossible to remain in my lonely rooms I went round to the Markovitch flat I found Vera Mikhailovna and Bohen preparing to go out they were alone in the flat he looked at me apprehensively I think that I appeared to him at that time a queer, moody, ill-disposed fellow who was too old to understand the true character of young men's impetuous souls it may be that he was right will you come with us Ivan Andreevich Vera Mikhailovna asked me we're going to the little cinema on Ekateringovsky a piece of local color for Mr Bohen I'll come anywhere with you I said and we'll talk about Rasputin Bohen was only too ready the affair seemed to his romantic soul too good to be true because we none of us knew at that time what had really happened the fine field was offered for every rumor and conjecture Bohen had collected some wonderful stories I saw that, apart from Rasputin he was a new man something had happened to him it was not long before I discovered that what had happened was that Vera Mikhailovna had been kind to him Vera's most beautiful quality was her motherliness I do not intend that much abused word in any sentimental fashion she did not shed tears over a dirty baby in the street nor did she drag decrepit old men into the flat to give them milk and 50 copax but let someone appeal to the strength and bravery in her and she responded magnificently I believe that to be true of very many Russian women who are always their most natural selves when something appeals to the best in them Vera Mikhailovna had a strength and a security in her protection of souls weaker than her own that had about it nothing forced or pretentious or self-conscious it was simply the natural woman acting as she was made to act she saw that Bohen was lonely and miserable and now that the first awkwardness was passed and he was no longer a stranger she was able gently and responsibly to show him that she was his friend I think that she had not liked him at first but if you want a Russian to like you the thing to do is to show him that you need him it is amazing to watch their readiness to receive dependent souls whom they are in no kind of way qualified to protect but they do their best and although the result is invariably bad for everybody's character a great deal of affection is created as we walk to the cinema she asked him very gently and rather shyly about his home and his people and English life she must have asked all her English guests the same questions but Bohen I fancy gave her rather original answers he let himself go and became very young and rather absurd but also sympathetic we were all three of us gay and silly as one very often suddenly is in Russia in the middle of even disastrous situations it had been a day of most beautiful weather the mud was frozen the streets clean the sky deep blue the air harshly sweet the night blazed with stars that seemed to swing through the haze of the frost like a curtain moved very gently by the wind Komsky canal was blue with the stars lying like scraps of quick silver all about it and the trees and houses were deep black in outline above it I could feel that the people in the street were happy the murder of Rasputin was a sign a symbol his figure had been behind the scenes so long that it had become mythical something beyond human power and now behold there was not beyond human power at all but was there like a dead stinking fish I could see the thought in their minds as they hurried along ah he is gone the dirty fellow Slava Bogu the war will soon be over I myself felt the influence perhaps now the war would go better perhaps stunner and proto pop-off and the rest of them would be dismissed and clean men it was still time for the Tsar and I heard Bohan in his funny slow childish Russian but you understand Vera Mikhailovna that my father knows nothing about writing nothing at all so that it wouldn't matter very much what he said yes he's military been in the army always along the canal the little trees that in the spring would be green flames were touched and now very faintly by silver frost a huge barge lay black against the blue water in the middle of it the rain had left a pool that was not frozen and under the light of a street lamp blazed gold very strange the sudden gleam we passed the little wooden shelter where an old man in a high furry cap kept oranges and apples and nuts and sweets in paper one candle illuminated his little store he looked out from the darkness behind him like an old prehistoric man his shed was peaked like a cock-tat an old fat woman sat beside him knitting and drinking a glass of tea I'm sorry Vera Mikhailovna that you can't read English Bohan's careful voice was explaining only wells and lock and Jack London I heard Vera Mikhailovna's voice then Bohan again no, I write very slowly yes, I correct an awful lot we stumbled amongst the darkness of the cobbles where pools had been the ice crackled beneath our feet then the snow scrunched I loved the sound the sharp clear scent of the air the pools of stars in the sky the pools of ice at our feet the blue like the thinnest glass stretched across the sky I felt the poignancy of my age of the country where I was of Bohan's youth and confidence of the war of disease and death but behind it all happiness at the strange sense that I had tonight that came to me sometimes from I knew not where that the undercurrent of the river of life was stronger than the eddies and whirlpools on its surface that it knew whether it was speeding and that the purpose behind its force was strong and true and good oh, I heard Bohan say I'm not really very young Vera Mikhailovna after all, it's what you've done rather than your actual years you're older than you'll ever be again Bohan if that's any consolation to you I said we had arrived the cinema door blazed with light and around it was gathered a group of soldiers and women and children peering in at a soldier's band which placed on benches in a corner of the room played away for its very life outside around the door were large bills announcing the woman without a soul drama in four parts and there were fine pictures of women falling over precipices men shot in bedrooms and parties in which all the guests shrank back in extreme horror from the heroine we went inside and were overwhelmed by the band so that we could not hear one another speak the floor was covered with sunflower seeds and there was a strong smell of soldiers boots and bad cigarettes and urine we bought tickets from an old Jewess behind the pigeon hall and then pushing the curtain aside stumbled into darkness here the smell was different being quite simply that of human flesh not very carefully washed although as we stumbled to some seats at the back we could feel that we were alone it had the impression that multitudes of people pressed in upon us and when the lights did go up we found that the little hall was indeed packed to its extremist limit no one could have denied that it was a cheerful scene soldiers, sailors, peasants women and children crowded together upon the narrow benches there was a great consumption of sunflower seeds and the narrow passage down the middle of the room was littered with fragments two stout and elaborate policemen leaned against the wall surveying the public with a friendly if superior air there was a tremendous amount of noise mingled with the strains of the band beyond the curtain were cries and calls and loud roars of laughter the soldiers embraced the girls and the children, their fingers in their mouths wandered from bench to bench and a mangy dog begged wherever he thought that he saw a kindly face all the faces were kindly kindly ignorant and astoundingly young as I felt that youth I felt also separation between me and my like could emphasize as we pleased the goodness, mysticism even of these people but we were walking in a country of darkness I caught a laugh the glance of some women the voice of a young soldier I felt behind us watching us the thick heavy figure of Rasputin I smelt the eastern scent of the sunflower seeds I looked back and glanced at the impenetrable policeman and I laughed at myself for the knowledge that I thought I had for the security upon which I thought that I rested for the familiarity with which I had fancied I could approach my neighbors I was not wise I was not secure I had no claim to familiarity the lights were down and we were shown pictures of Paris because the cinema was a little one and all the films were faded and torn so that the opera and the plaster la Concorde and the Louvre and the Sen danced and wriggled and broke before our eyes they looked strange enough to us and only accented our isolation and the odd semi-civilization in which we were living there were comments all around the room in exactly the spirit of children before a conjurer at a party the smell grew steadily stronger and stronger my head swam a little and I seemed to see Rasputin swelling in his black robe catching us all into its folds sweeping us up into the starlight sky we were under the flare of the light again I caught Bohen's happy face he was talking eagerly to Vera Mikolovna not removing his eyes from her face she had conquered him I fancied as I looked at her that her thoughts were elsewhere there followed a vaudeville entertainment a woman and a man in peasants dress came and laughed rockously without meaning their eyes narrowly searching the depths of the house then they stamped their feet and whirled around struck one another, laughed again and vanished the applause was half-hearted a black eyed tartar with four very miserable little fox terriers who shivered and trembled and jumped reluctantly through hoops the audience liked this and cried and shouted and threw paper pellets at the dogs a stout perspiring Jew in a shabby evening coat came forward and begged for decorum then there appeared a stout little man in a top hat who wished to recite verses of and gathered a violent indecency I was uncomfortable about Vera Mikolovna but I need not have been the indecency was of no importance to her and she was interested in the human tragedy of the performer tragedy it was the man was hungry and dirty and not far from tears he forgot his verses and glanced nervously into the wings as though he expected to be beaten by the perspiring Jew he stammered his mouth wobbled he covered it with a dirty hand he could not continue the audience was sympathetic they listened in encouraging silence then they clapped then they shouted friendly words to him you could feel throughout the room an intense desire that he should succeed he responded a little to the encouragement but could not remember his verses struggled, struggled did a hurried little breakdown dance bowed and vanished into the wings to be beaten I have no doubt by the Jewish gentleman we watched a little of the drama of the woman without a soul but the sense of being in a large vat filled with boiling human flesh into whose depths we were pressed ever more and more deeply was at last too much for us and we stumbled our way into the open air the black shadow of the barge the jagged outline of the huddled buildings against the sky the black tower at the end of the canal all these swam in the crystal air we took deep breaths of the freshness and purity cheerful noises were on every side of us the band and laughter a church bell with its deep note and silver tinkle the snow was vast and deep and hard all about us we walked back very happily to anglisky prospect Vera Mikolovna said good night to me and went in before he followed her Bohen turned round to me isn't she splendid he whispered by God Derward I do anything for her do you think she likes me why not I asked I want her to frightfully I do anything for her do you think she'd like to learn English I don't know I said ask her he disappeared as I walked home I felt about me the new interaction of human lives and souls ambitions hopes youth and the crisis behind these of the world's history made up as it was of the same interactions of human and divine the fortunes and adventures of the soul on its journey towards its own country its hopes and fears struggles and despairs its rejections and joy and rewards its death and destruction all this in terms of human life and the silly blundering conditions of this splendid glorious earth here was Vera Mikolovna and her husband Nina and Boris Grogov Bohen and Lawrence myself and Semyonov a jumbled lot with all our pitiful self-important little histories our crimes and virtues so insignificant and so quickly over and behind them the fine stuff of the human and divine soul pushing on through all railery and incongruity to its goal why I had caught up once more that interest in life that I had I thought so utterly lost I stopped for a moment by the frozen canal and laughed to myself the drama of life was after all too strong for my weekend difference I felt that night as though I had stepped into a new house with lighted rooms and fires and friends waiting for me afterwards I was so closely stirred by this sense of impending events that I could not sleep but sat at my window watching the faint lights of the sky shift and waver over the frozen ice end of part one chapter nine