 Part 3 Chapter 9 of The Secret City On the afternoon of Easter Monday I was reminded by Bohen of an engagement that I had made some weeks before to go that evening to a party at the house of a rich merchant, Rosenov, by name. I have, I think, mentioned him earlier in this book. I cannot conceive why I had ever made the promise, and in the afternoon, meeting Bohen at Watkins Bookshop in the Morskaya, I told him that I couldn't go. Oh come along, he said, it's your duty. Why my duty? They're all talking as hard as they can about saving the world by turning the other cheek and so on. And a few practical facts about Germany from you will do a world of good. Oh, your propaganda, I said. No, it isn't my propaganda, he answered. It's a matter of life and death to get these people to go on with the war, and every little helps. Well, I'll calm, I said, shaking my head at the bookseller, who was anxious that I should buy the latest works of Mrs. Eleanor Glenn and Miss Ethel Dell. I had, in fact, reflected that a short excursion into other worlds would be good for me. During these weeks I had been living in the very heart of the Markovitches, and it would be healthy to escape for a moment. But I was not to escape. I met Bohen at the top of the English prospect, and we decided to walk. Rosenov lived in the street behind the Kazan Cathedral. I did not know very much about him, except that he was a very wealthy merchant who had made his money by selling cheap sweets to the peasant. He lived, I knew, an immoral and self-indulgent life, and his hobby was the quite indiscriminate collection of modern Russian paintings, his walls being plastered with innumerable works by Benoit, Somov, Dubejensky, Yakov Liev, and Lanceret. He had also two Serovs, a fine Rubel, and several ripens. He had also a fine private collection of indecent drawings. I really don't know what on earth we're going to this man for, I said discontentedly. I was weak this afternoon. No, you weren't, said Bohen, and I'll tell you frankly that I'm jolly glad not to be having a meal at home tonight. Do you know, I don't believe I can stick that flat much longer. Why, are things worse, I asked? It's getting so jolly creepy, Bohen said. Everything goes on normally enough outwardly, but I suppose there's been some tremendous row. Of course I don't know anything about that. After what you told me the other night though, I seemed to see everything twice, it's a natural size. What do you mean, I asked him? You know, when something queer is going on inside a house, you seem to notice the furniture of the rooms much more than you ordinarily do. I remember once a fellow's piano making me quite sick whenever I looked at it. I didn't know why. I don't know why now, but the funny thing is that another man who knew him once said exactly the same thing to me about it. He felt it too. Of course we're none of us quite normal just now. The whole town seems to be turning upside down. I'm always imagining there are animals in the canals, and don't you notice what lots of queer fellows there are in the Nevsky now? And Chinese, and Japs, all sorts of wild men. And last night I had a dream that all the lumps of ice in the Nevsky turned into griffins and went marching through the Red Square, eating everyone up on their way. Boen laughed. That's because I'd eaten something, of course. Too much pasca, probably. But seriously, I came in this evening at five o'clock, and the first thing I noticed was that little red lacquer musical box of Semyonov's, you know it, the one with a sportsman in a top hat and a horse and a dog on the lid. He brought it with some other little things when he moved in. It's a jolly thing to look at, but it's got two most irritating tunes. One's like the Blue Bells of Scotland. You said yourself the other day it would drive you mad if you heard it often. Well, there it was, jangling away in its self-sufficient wheezy voice. Semyonov was sitting in the armchair reading the newspaper. Markovitch was standing behind the chair with the strangest look on his face. Suddenly, just as I came in, he bent down, and I heard him say, won't you stop the beastly thing? Certainly, said Semyonov, and he went across in his heavy, plodding kind of way and stopped it. I went off to my room, and then, upon my word, five minutes after, I heard it begin again, thin and greedy through the walls. But when I came back into the dining room, there was no one there. You can't think how that tune irritated me, and I tried to stop it. I went up to it, but I couldn't find the hinge or the key. So on it went, over and over again. Then there's another thing. Have you ever noticed how some chairs will creak in a room, just as though someone were sitting down or getting up? It always, in ordinary times, makes you jump, but when you're strung up about something. There's a chair in the Markovitch's dining room just like that. It creaks more like a human being than anything you ever heard, and tonight I could have sworn Semyonov got up out of it. It was just like his heavy, slow movement. However, there wasn't anyone there. Do you think all this silly, he asked? No, indeed I don't, I answered. Then there's a picture. You know that awful painting of a mid-Victorian ancestor of Vera's, a horrible old man with bushy eyebrows and a high, rather dirty looking stock. Yes, I know what I said. It's one of those pictures with eyes that follow you all around the room. At least it has now. I use it to notice them. Now they stare at you as though they'd eat you, and I know that Markovitch feels them because he keeps looking up at the beastly thing. Then there's, but no, I'm not going to talk any more about it. It isn't any good. One gets thinking of anything these days. One's nerves are all on edge, and that flat's too full of people anyway. Yes, it is, I agreed. We arrived at Rosenov's house and went up into a very elegant, heavily gilt lift. Once in the flat we were enveloped in a cloud of men and women, tobacco smoke, and so many pictures that it was like tumbling into an art dealer's. Where there weren't pictures there was guilt, and where there wasn't guilt there was naked statuary, and where there wasn't naked statuary there was Rosenov, very red and stout and smiling, gay in a tightly fitting black tailcoat, white waistcoat, and black trousers. Who all the people were, I haven't the least idea. There were a great many, a number of Jews and Jewishes, amiable, prosperous, and kindly. An artist or two, a novelist, a lady pianist, two or three actors, I noticed these. Then there was an old maid, a madame was El Finister, famous in Petrograd society for her bitterness and acrimony, and in appearance an exact copy of Balzac's Sophie Gamond. I noticed several of those charming, quiet, wise women of whom Russia is so prodigal. A man or two whom I had met at different times, especially one officer, one of the finest, bravest, and truest men I have ever known. Some of the inevitable giggling girls, and then suddenly, standing quite alone, Nina. Her loneliness was the first thing that struck me. She stood back against the wall, underneath the shining frames, looking about her with a nervous, timid smile. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in the old way that she used to do when she was trying to imitate Vera, and I don't know why, but that seemed to me a good omen, as though she were already on her way back to us. She was wearing a very simple white frock. In spite of her smile she looked unhappy, and I could see that during this last week experience had not been kind to her, because there was an air of shyness and uncertainty which had never been there before. I was just going over to speak to her when two of the giggling girls surrounded her and carried her off. I carried the little picture of her in my mind, all through the noisy, strident meal that followed. I couldn't see her from where I sat, nor did I once catch the tones of her voice, although I listened. Only a month ago there would have been no party at which Nina was present where her voice would not have risen above all others. No one watching us would have believed any stories about food shortage in Petrograd. I dare say at this very moment in Berlin they are having just such meals. Until the last echo of the last trump has died away in the fastnesses of the advancing mountains, the rich will be getting from somewhere the things that they desire. I have no memory of what we had to eat that night, but I know that it was all very magnificent and noisy, kind-hearted and generous and vulgar. A great deal of wine was drunk, and by the end of the meal everyone was talking as loudly as possible. I had, for companion, the beautiful mademoiselle Finisterre. She had lived all her life in Petrograd, and she had a contempt for the citizens of that fine town worthy of Semyonov himself. Opposita sat a stout, good-natured Jewess who was very happily enjoying her food. She was certainly the most harmless being in creation, and was probably guilty of a thousand generosity and kindnesses in her private life. Nevertheless, mademoiselle Finisterre had for her a dark and sinister hatred, and the remarks that she made about her in her bitter and piercing voice must have reached their victim. She also abused her host very roundly, beginning to tell me in the fullest detail the history of an especially unpleasant scandal in which he had notoriously figured. I stopped her at last. It seems to me, I said, that it would be better not to say these things about him while you're eating his bread and salt. She laughed shrilly and tapped me on the arm with a bony finger. Oh, you English, always so moral and strict about the proprieties, and always so hypocritical too. Oh, you amuse me. I'm French, you see, not Russian at all. These poor people see through nothing, but we French. After dinner there was a strange scene. We all moved into the long over-decorated drawing room. We sat about, admired the pictures, a beautiful one by Somov, I especially remember, an autumn scene with 18th-century figures and colors so soft and deep that the effect was inexpressibly delicate and mysterious, talked, and then fell into one of those Russian silences that haunt every Russian party. I call those silences Russian because I know nothing like them in any other part of the world. It is as though the souls of the whole company suddenly vanished through the windows, leaving only the bodies enclosed. Everyone sits, eyes half closed, mouths shut, hands motionless, host and hostess desperately abandoning every attempt at rescue, gaze about them in despair. The mood may easily last well into the morning when the guests still silent will depart, assuring everybody that they have enjoyed themselves immensely and really believing that they have. Or it may happen that some remark will suddenly be made and instantly back through the windows the souls will come, eagerly catching up their bodies again, and a babble will arise deafening, baffling, stupefying. Or it may happen that a Russian will speak with sudden authority almost like a prophet and will continue for half an hour and more, pouring out his soul, and no one will dream of thinking it an improper exhibition. In time anything can happen at a Russian party. What happened on this occasion was this. The silence had lasted for some minutes, and I was wondering for how much longer I could endure it. I had one eye on Nina somewhere in the background, and the other on Bohen, restlessly kicking his patent leather shoes one against the other, when suddenly a quiet, ordinary little woman seated near me said, The thing for Russia to do now is to abandon all resistance and so shame the world. She was a mild, pleasant-looking woman with the eyes of a very gentle cow, and spoke exactly as though she was still pursuing her own private thoughts. It was enough. The windows flew open, the souls came flooding in, and such a torrent of sound poured over the carpet that the naked statuary itself seemed to shiver at the threatened deluge. Everyone talked, everyone even shouted. Just as during the last weeks, the streets had echoed to the words liberty, democracy, socialism, brotherhood, anti-annexation, peace of the world. So now the art gallery echoed. The very pictures shook in their frames. One old man and a white beard continued to cry over and over again. Firearms are not our weapons, bullets are not our weapons, it's the peace of God, the peace of God that we need. One lady, a handsome Jewish, jumped up from her chair and standing before us all, recited a kind of chant of which I only caught sentences once and again. Russia must redeem the world from its sin. This slaughter must be slayed. Russia, the savior of the world, this slaughter must be slayed. I had for some time been watching Bohen. He had traveled a long journey since that original departure from England in December. But I was not sure whether he had traveled far enough to forget his English terror of making a fool of himself. Apparently he had. He said, his voice shaking a little, blushing as he spoke, what about Germany? The lady in the middle of the floor turned upon him furiously. Germany, Germany will learn her lesson from us. When we lay down our arms, her people too will lay down theirs. Supposing she doesn't, the interest of the room was now centered on him and everyone else was silent. This is not our fault. We shall have made our example. A little hum of applause followed this reply and that irritated Bohen. He raised his voice. Yes, and what about your allies, England and France? Are you going to betray them? Several voices took him up now. A man continued, It is not betrayal. We are not betraying the proletariat of England and France. They are our friends. But the alliance with the French and English capitalistic governments was made not by us, but by our own capitalistic government, which is now destroyed. Very well then, said Bohen. But when the war began, did you not, all of you, not only your government, but you people now sitting in this room, did you not all beg and pray England to come in? During those days before England's intervention, did you not threaten to call us cowards and traitors if we did not come in? There was a storm of answers to this. I could not distinguish much of what it was. I was fixed by mademoiselle Finisterre's eagle eye, gleaming at the thought of the storm that was rising. That's not our affair. That's not our affair, I heard voices crying. We did support you. For years we supported you. We lost millions of men in your service. Now this terrible slaughter must cease, and Russia show the way to peace. Bohen's moment then came upon him. He sprang to his feet. His face crimson. His body quivering. So desperate was his voice. So urgent his distress that the whole room was held. What has happened to you all? Don't you see? Don't you see what you are doing? What has come to you? You who were the most modest people in Europe and are now suddenly the most conceited. What do you hope to do by this surrender? Do you know in the first place what you will do? You will deliver the peoples of three-quarters of the globe into hopeless slavery. You will lose, perhaps forever, the opportunity of democracy. You will establish the grossest kind of militarism for all time. Why do you think Germany is going to listen to you? What sign has she ever shown that she would? When have her people ever turned away, or shown horror at any of the beastly things her rulers have been doing in this war? What about your own revolution? Do you believe in it? Do you treasure it? Do you want it to last? Do you suppose for a moment that, if you bow to Germany, she won't instantly trample out your revolution and give you back your monarchy? How can she afford to have a revolutionary republic close to her own gates? What is she doing at this moment, piling up armies with which to invade you and conquer you and lead you into slavery? What have you done so far by your revolutionary orders? What have you done by relaxing discipline in the army? What good have you done to anyone or anything? Is anyone the happier? Isn't their disorder everywhere? Aren't all your works stopping and your industry's failing? What about the 80 million peasants who have been liberated in the course of a night, who is going to lead them if you are not? This thing has happened by its own force, and you are sitting down under it, doing nothing. Why did it succeed? Simply because there was nothing to oppose it. Authority depended on the army, not on the Tsar, and the army was the people. So it is with the other armies of the world. Do you think that the other armies couldn't do it, just as you did, if they wished? They could, in half an hour. They hate the war as much as you do, but they have also patriotism. They see that their country must be made strong first before other countries will listen to its ideas. But where is your patriotism? Has the word Russia been mentioned once by you since the revolution? Never once. Democracy. Brotherhood. But how are democracy and brotherhood to be secured unless other countries respect you? Oh, I tell you it's absurd. It's more than absurd. It's wicked. It's rotten. Poor boy. He was very near tears. He sat down suddenly, staring blankly in front of him. His hands clenched. Rosenov answered him. Rosenov flushed his fat body, swollen with food and drink, a little unsteady on his legs, and the light of the true mystic in his pig-like eyes. He came forward into the middle of the circle. That's perhaps true what you say, he cried. It's very English, very honest, and, if you will forgive me, young man, very simple. You say that we Russians are conceited? No, we are not conceited, but we see father than the rest of the world. Is that our curse? Perhaps it is, but equally perhaps we may save the world by it. Now look at me. Am I a fine man? No, I am not. Everyone knows I am not. No man could look at my face and say that I am a fine man. I have done disgraceful things all my life. All present know some of the things I have done, and there are some worse things which nobody knows save myself. Well then, am I going to stop doing such things? Am I now at fifty-five about to become instantly a saint? Indeed not. I shall continue to do the things that I have already done, and I shall drop into a beastly old age. I know it. So young man, I am a fair witness. You may trust me to speak the truth as I see it. I believe in Christ. I believe in the Christ life, the Christ soul. If I could, I would stop my beastliness and become Christ-like. I have tried on several occasions and failed, because I have no character. But does that mean that I do not believe in it when I see it? Not at all. I believe in it more than ever. And so with Russia. You don't see far enough young man, neither you nor any of your countrymen. It is one of your greatest failings that you do not care for ideas. How is this war going to end by the victory of Germany? Perhaps. Perhaps even it may be that Russia, by her weakness, will help to that victory. But is that the end? No. If Russia has an idea, and because of her faith in that idea, she will sacrifice everything, will be buffeted on both cheeks, will be led into slavery, will deliver up her land and her people, will be mocked at by all the world. Perhaps that is her destiny. She will endure all that, in order that her idea may persist, and her idea will persist. Are not the Germans and Austrians human like ourselves? Slowly, perhaps very slowly, they will say to themselves, there is Russia who believes in the peace of the world, in the brotherhood of man, and she will sacrifice everything for it. She will go out, as Christ did, and be tortured and be crucified, and then on the third day she will rise again. Is not that the history of every triumphant idea? You say that meanwhile Germany will triumph. Perhaps for a time she may, but our idea will not die. The further Germany goes, the deeper will that idea penetrate into her heart. At the end she will die of it, and a new Germany will be born into a new world. I tell you I am an evil man, but I believe in God, and in the righteousness of God. What do I remember after those words of Rosenhoff? It was like a voice speaking to me across a great gulf of waters, but that voice was honest. I do not know what happened after his speech. I think there was a lot of talk. I cannot remember. Only just before I was going, I was near Nina for a moment. She looked up at me, just as she used to do. Dirtles, is Vera all right? She is miserable, Nina, because you're not there. Come back to us. But she shook her head. No, no, I can't. Give her my— Then she stopped. No, tell her nothing. Can I tell her you're happy, I asked? Oh, I'm all right. She answered roughly, turning away from me. End of Part 3, Chapter 9. Part 3, Chapter 10 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. Part 3, Markovich and Semyonov. Chapter 10. But the adventures of that Easter Monday night were not yet over. I had walked away with Bohan. He was very silent, depressed, poor boy, and shy with the reaction of his outburst. I made the most awful fool of myself, he said. No, you didn't, I answered. The trouble of it is, he said slowly, that neither you nor I sit the humorous side of it all strongly enough. We take it too seriously. It's got a funny side, all right? Maybe you're right, I said, but you must remember that the Markovich situation isn't exactly funny just now, and we're both in the middle of it. Oh, if only I could find Nina back home and Semyonov away, I believe the strain would lift. But I'm frightened that something's going to happen. I've grown very fond of these people, you know, Bohan. Vera and Nina and Nicholas? Isn't it odd how one gets to love Russians more than one's own people? The more stupid things they do, the more you love them. Whereas with one's own people it's quite the other way. Oh, I do want Vera and Nina and Nicholas to be happy. Isn't a town queer tonight? said Bohan, suddenly stopping. We were just at the entrance to the Murinsky Square. Yes, I said. I think these days between the Thaw and the White Knights are in some ways the strangest of all. There seems to be so much going on that one can't quite see. Yes, over there, at the other end of the Square. There's a kind of mist, a sort of water mist. It comes from the canal. And do you see a figure like an old bent man with red lantern? Do you see what I mean, that red light? And those shadows on the farther wall, like riders passing with silver tipped spears. Isn't it? There they go. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. Oh, still, the Square is. Do you see those three windows all alight? Isn't there a dance going on? Don't you hear the music? No, it's the wind. No, surely, that's a flute. And then violins. Listen, those are fiddles for certain. How still, how still it is. We stood and listened whilst the white mist gathered and grew over the cobbles. Certainly there was a strain of music, very faint and dim, threading through the air. Well, I must go on, Sid Bohan. You go up to the left, don't you? Good night. I watched Bohan's figure cross the Square. The light was wonderful, like fold on fold of gauze, but opaque so that buildings showed with sharp outline behind it. The moon was full and quite red. I turned to go home and ran straight into Lawrence. Good heavens, I cried. Are you a ghost too? He didn't seem to feel any surprise at meeting me. He was plainly in a state of tremendous excitement. He spoke breathlessly. You're exactly the man. You must come back with me. My diggings now are only a yard away from here. It's very late, I began, and… Things were desperate, he said. I don't know. He broke off. Oh, come and help me, Derward, for God's sake. I went with him, and we did not exchange another word until we were in his rooms. He began hurriedly taking off his clothes. There, sit on the bed. Different from winterlings, isn't it? Poor devil, I'm going to have a bath if you don't mind. I've got to clear my head. He dragged out a tin bath from under his bed, then a big can of water from a corner. Stripped, he looked so thick and so strong, with his short neck and his bulldog build, that I couldn't help saying, You don't look a day older than the last time you played rugger for Cambridge. I am, though. He sluiced the cold water over his head, grunting, not near so fit, getting fat too. Rugger days are over, wish all my other days were over too. He got out of the bath, wiped himself, put on pajamas, brushed his teeth, then his hair, took out a pipe, and then sat beside me on the bed. Look here, Derward, he said. I am desperate, old man. We're all in a hell of a mess. I know, I said. He puffed furiously at his pipe. You know, if I'm not careful, I shall go a bit queer in the head. Get so angry, you know, he added simply. Angry with whom, I asked. With myself, mostly, for being such a bloody fool, but not only myself, with civilization, Derward Oldcock, and also with that swine summoning off. Ah, I thought you'd come to him, I said. Now the points are these, he went on, counting on his thick, stubbly fingers. First, I love Vera, and when I say love, I mean love. Never been in love before, you know, honest engine. Never. Never had affairs with the tobacconist daughters at Cambridge. Never had an affair with a woman in my life. No, never. Used to wonder what was the matter with me, why I wasn't like other chaps. Now I know. I was waiting for Vera. Quite simple. I shall never love anyone again. Never. I'm not a kid, you know, like a young bullhunt. I love Vera once and for all, and that's that. Yes, I said. And the next point? The next point is that Vera loves me. No need to go into that, but she does. Yes, she does, I said. Third point, she's married, and although she doesn't love her man, she's sorry for him. Fourth point, he loves her. Fifth point, there's a damned swine hanging around called Alexei Petrovich Samionov. Well then, there you have it. He considered scratching his head. I waited, then he went on. Now it would be simpler if she didn't want to be kind to Nicholas, if Nicholas didn't love her, if a thousand things were different. But they must be as they are, I suppose. I've just been with her, and she's nearly out of her mind with worry. He paused, puffing furtiously at his pipe, then he went on. She's worrying about me, about Nina, and about Nicholas, and especially about Nicholas. There's something wrong with him. He knows about my kissing her in the flat. Well, that's all right, I meant him to know. Everything's just got to be above board. But Samionov knows too, and that devil's been ragging him about it, and Nicholas is just like a blooming kid. That's got to stop. I'll ring that feather's neck. But even that wouldn't help matters much. Virus's Nicholas is not to be hurt, whatever happens. Never mind us, she says. We're strong and can stand it. But he can't. He's weak, and she says he's just going off his dot. And it's got to be stopped. It just got to be stopped. There's only one way to stop it. He stayed. Suddenly he put his heavy hand on my knee. What do you mean? I asked. I've got to clear out. That's what I mean. Right away out. Back to England. I didn't speak. That's it, he went on. But now as though he were talking to himself. That's what you've got to do, old son. She says so, and she's right. Can't alter love, you know? Nothing changes that. We've got to hold on. Otto have cleared out before. Suddenly he turned. He almost flung himself upon me. He gripped my arms so that I would have cried out if the agony in his eyes hadn't held me. Here he muttered, Let me alone for a moment. I must hold on. I'm pretty well beat. I'm just about done. For what seemed hours we sat there, I believe it was, in reality, only a few minutes. He sat facing me, his eyes staring at me, but not seeing me, his body close against me, and I could see the sweat glistening on his chest through the open pajamas. He was rigid as though he had been struck into stone. He suddenly relaxed. That's right, he said. Thanks, old man. I'm better now. It's a bit late, I expect, but stay on awhile. He got into bed. I sat beside him, gripped his hand, and ten minutes later he was asleep. Next day, Tuesday, was stormy with wind and rain. It was strange to see from my window the whirlpool of ice-encumbered waters. The rain fell in slanting, hissing sheets upon the ice, and the ice in lumps and sheets and blocks tossed and heaved and spun. At times it was as though all the ice was driven by some strong movement in one direction. Then it was like the whole pavement of the world, slipping down the side of the firmament into space. Suddenly it would be checked, and with a kind of quiver, station itself and hang, chattering and clutching, until the sweep would begin in the opposite direction. I could see only dimly through the mist, but it was not difficult to imagine that, in very truth, the days of the flood had returned. Nothing could be seen but the tossing, heaving, welter of waters with the ice, grim and gray through the shadows, like ships and monsters, sea serpents and mermaids, to quote galleons, Spanish knights. Of course the water came in through my own roof, and it was on that very afternoon that I decided, once and for all, to leave this abode of mine. Romantic it might be, I felt it was time for a little comfortable realism. My old woman brought me the usual cutlets, macaroni and tea for lunch. Then I rode to a friend in England, and finally about four o'clock, after one more look at the hissing waters, drew my curtains, lit my candles, and sat down near my stove to finish that favorite of mine, already mentioned in these pages, de la maire's The Return. I read on with absorbed attention. I did not hear the dripping on the roof, nor the patter-patter of the drops from the ceiling, nor the beating of the storm against the glass. My candles blew in the draft, and shadows crossed and recrossed the page. Do you remember the book's closing words? Once, like Loughard in the darkness at Witterstone, he glanced up sharply across the lamplight at his fantasmagorical shadowy companion. Heard the steady surge of multitudinous raindrops, like the roar of Time's winged chariot harrying near. Then he, too, with spectacles awry, bobbled on in his chair, a weary old sentinel on the outskirts of his friend's denuded battlefield. Shadowy companion, multitudinous raindrops, a weary old sentinel, his friend's denuded battlefield. The words echoed like little muffled bells in my brain, and it was, I suppose, to their chiming that I fell into dreamless sleep. From this I was suddenly roused by the sharp noise of knocking, and starting up, my book clattering to the floor, I saw a facing me in the doorway, Semyonov. Twice before he had come to me just like this, out of the heart of a dreamless sleep, once in the orchard near Buchach, on a hot summer afternoon, once in this same room on a moonlit night. Some strange consciousness rising, it seemed, deep out of my sleep, told me that this would be the last time that I would so receive him. May I come in, he said. If you must, you must, I answered. I am not physically strong enough to prevent you. He laughed. He was dripping wet. He took off his hat and overcoat, sat down near the stove, bending forward, holding his cloak in his hands, and watching the steam rise from it. I moved away and stood watching. I was not going to give him any possible illusion as to my welcoming him. He turned round and looked at me. Truly, Ivan Andreevich, he said, You are a fine host. This is a miserable greeting. There can be no greetings between us ever again, I answered him. You are a blackard. I hope that this is our last meeting. But it is, he answered, looking at me with friendliness. That is precisely why I have come. I have come to say goodbye. Goodbye? I repeated with astonishment. This chimed in so strangely with my premonition. I never was more delighted to hear it. I hope you are going a long distance from us all. That says maybe, he answered. I can't tell you definitely. When are you going? I asked. That, I can't tell you either. But I have a premonition that it will be soon. Oh, a premonition, I said, disappointed. Is nothing settled? No, not definitely. It depends on others. Have you told Vera and Nicholas? No. In fact, only last night Vera begged me to go away. And I told her that I would love to do anything to oblige her. But this time I was afraid that I couldn't help her. I would be compelled alas, to stay on indefinitely. Look here, Semyonov, I said, stop that eternal fooling. Tell me honestly, are you going or not? Going away from where, he asked, laughing. From the Markovitches, from all of us, from Petrograd. Yes, I have told you already, he answered. I have come to say goodbye. Then what did you mean by telling Vera, never you mind, Ivan Andreevich, don't worry your poor old head with things that are too complicated for you, a habit of yours, I'm afraid. Just believe me when I say that I've come to say goodbye. I have an intuition that we shall never talk together again. I may be wrong, but my intuitions are generally correct. I noticed then that his face was haggard, his eyes dark, the light in them exhausted, as though he had not slept. I had never before seen him show positive physical distress. Let his soul be what it might. His body seemed always triumphant. Whether your intuition is right or no, I said, this is the last time. I never intend to speak to you again if I can help it. The day that I hear that you have really left us, never to return, will be one of the happiest days of my life. Semyonov gave me a strange look, humorous, ironical, and upon my word almost affectionate. That's very sad what you say, Ivan Andreevich, if you mean it. And I suppose you mean it, because you English always do mean what you say. But it's sad because, truly, I have friendly feelings towards you, and you're almost the only man in the world of whom I could say that. You speak as though your friendship were an honor, I said hotly. It's a degradation. He smiled. Now that's melodrama, straight out of your worst English plays. And how bad they can be. But you hadn't always this vehement hatred. What's changed your mind? I don't know that I have changed my mind, I answered. I think I've always disliked you. But there at the front and in the forest, you were brave and extraordinarily competent. You treated trench art abominably, of course, but he rather asked for it in some ways. Here you've been nothing but the meanest skunk and sneak. You've set out deliberately to poison the lives of some of the best-hearted and most helpless people on this earth. You deserve hanging if any murderer ever did. He looked at me so mildly and with such genuine interest that I was compelled to feel my indignation a wit melodramatic. If you are going, I said more calmly, for heaven's sake, go. It can't be any pleasure to you, clever and talented as you are, to bait such harmless people as Vera and Nicholas. You've done harm enough. Leave them, and I forgive you everything. Ah, of course your forgiveness is of the first importance to me, he said, with ironic gravity. But it's true enough, you're going to be bothered with me. I do seem a worry to you, don't I? For only a few days more. And how's it going to end, do you think? Who's going to finish me off? Nicholas or Vera? Or perhaps our English Byron, Lawrence? Or even yourself? Have you your revolver with you? I shall offer no resistance, I promise you. Suddenly he changed. He came closer to me. His weary, exhausted eyes gazed straight into mine. Ivan Andrejevich, never mind about the rest. Never mind whether you do or don't hate me. That matters to nobody. What I tell you is the truth. I have come to you, as I have always come to you, like the moth to the flame. Why am I always pursuing you? Is it for the charm and fascination of your society? Your wit? Your beauty? I won't flatter you. No, no. It's because you alone, of all these fools here, knew her. You knew her as no one else alive knew her. She liked you, God knows why. At least I do know why. It was because of her youth and innocence and simplicity, because she didn't know a wise man from a fool and trusted all alike. But you knew her, you knew her. You remember her and can talk of her. Ah, how I've hungered, hungered to talk to you about her. Sometimes I've come all this way and then turned back at the door. How I've prayed that it might have been some other who knew her. Some real man. Not a sentimental, gloomy old woman like yourself, Yvonne Andreevich. And yet you have your points. You have in you the things that she saw. You are honest, you are brave. You are like a good English clergyman. But she, I should have had someone with wit, with humor, with a sense of life about her. All the things, all the little things. The way she walked, her clothes, her smile when she was cross. Ah, she was divine when she was cross. Yvonne Andreevich, be kind to me. Think for a moment less of your morals, less of your principles. And talk to me of her. Talk to me of her. He had drawn quite close to me. He looked like a madman. I have no doubt that at that moment he was one. I can't. I won't, I answered, drawing away. She is the most sacred memory I have in my life. I hate to think of her with you. And that because you smirch everything you touch, I have no feeling of jealousy. You, jealousy, he said, looking at me scornfully. Why should you be jealous? I loved her too, I said. He looked at me. In spite of myself, the color flooded my face. He looked at me from head to foot, my plainness, my miserable physique, my lameness, my feeble frame. Everything was comprehended in the scorn of that glance. No, I said, you need not suppose that she ever realized. She did not. I would have died rather than have spoken of it. But I will not talk about her. I will not. He drew away from me. His face was grave. The mockery had left it. Oh, you English, how strange you are. Intrusting, yes. But the things you miss. I understand now many things. I give up my desire. You shan't smirch your precious memories. And you too must understand that there has been all this time a link that has bound us. Well, that link has snapped. I must go. Meanwhile, after I am gone, remember that there is more in life, Ivan Andrejevich, than you will ever understand. Who am I? Rather ask, what am I? I am a desire, a purpose, a pursuit, what you like. If another suffer for that, I cannot help it. And if human nature is so weak, so stupid, it is right that it should suffer. But perhaps I am not myself at all, Ivan Andrejevich. Perhaps this is a ghost that you see. What if the town has changed in the night and strange souls have slipped into our old bodies? Isn't there a stir about the town? Is it I that pursue Nicholas? Or is it my ghost that pursues myself? Is it Nicholas that I pursue? Is not Nicholas dead? And is it not my hope of release that I follow? Don't be so sure of your ground, Ivan Andrejevich. You know the proverb. There's a secret city in every man's heart. It is at that city's altars that the true prayers are offered. There has been more than one revolution in the last two months. He came up to me. Do not think too badly of me, Ivan Andrejevich, afterwards. I'm a haunted man, you know. He bent forward and kissed me on the lips. A moment later he was gone. End of Part 3, Chapter 11. Part 3, Chapter 12 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 Butros. The Secret City by Hugh Wellpole. Part 3, Chapter 12. That Tuesday night, poor young Bowen will remember to his grave and beyond it, I expect. He came in from his work about six in the evening and found Markovitch and Semyonov sitting in the dining room. Everything was ordinary enough. Semyonov was in the armchair reading a newspaper. Markovitch was walking very quietly up and down the farther end of the room. He wore faded blue carpet slippers. He had taken to them lately. Everything was the same as it had always been. The storm that had raged all day had now died down and a very pale evening sun struck little patches of color on the big table with the fading tablecloth, on the old brown carpet, on the picture of the old gentleman with bushy eyebrows, on Semyonov's musical box, on the old knick-knacks and the untidy shelf of books. Bowen looked especially to see whether the music box was still there. It was there, on a little side table. Bowen, tired with his long days' efforts to shove the glories of the British Empire down the reluctant throats of the indifferent Russians, dropped into the other armchair with a tattered copy of Turgenev's House of Gentle Folks and soon sank into a state of half slumber. He roused himself from this to hear Semyonov reading extracts from the newspaper. He caught at first only portions of sentences. I am writing this, of course, from Bowen's account of it, and I cannot therefore quote the actual words, but they were incidents of disorder at the front. There, Semyonov would say, pausing. Now, Nicholas, what do you say to that? A nice state of things. The Colonel was murdered, of course, although our friend The Wretch doesn't put it quite so bluntly. The Noviya Jezhn, of course, highly approves. Here's another. This went on for some ten minutes, and the only sound besides Semyonov's voice was Markovic's padding steps. Ah, here's another bit. Now, what about that, my fine upholder of the Russian Revolution? See what they've been doing, Nyoriga. It says, can't you leave it alone, Alexei? Keep your paper to yourself. These words came in so strange a note, a tone so different from Markovic's ordinary voice, that they were, to Bowen, like a warning blow on the shoulder. There's gratitude when I'm trying to interest you. How childish, too, not to face the real situation. Do you think you're going to improve things by pretending that anarchy doesn't exist? So soon, too, after your beautiful revelation, how long is it? Let me see. March, April? Yes, just about six weeks. Well, well. Leave me alone, Alexei. Leave me alone. Bowen had with that such a sense of a superhuman effort at control behind the words that the pain of it was almost intolerable. He wanted, there and then, to have left the room. It would have been better for him had he done so. But some force held him back. But some force held him in his chair. And as the scene developed, he felt as though his sudden departure would have laid too emphatic a stress on the discomfort of it. He hoped that in a moment Vera or Uncle Ivan would come and the scene would end. Semyonov, meanwhile, continued, What are those words you used to mean not so long ago? Something about free Russia, I think. Russia moving like one man to save the world. Russia with an unbroken front. Too optimistic, weren't you? The padding feet stopped in a whisper that seemed too bowen to fill the room with echoing sound Markovich said. You have tempted me for weeks now, Alexei. I don't know why you hate me so, nor why you pursue me. Go back to your own place. If I am an unfortunate man and by my own fault, that should be nothing to you who are more fortunate. Torment you, I, my dear Nicholas, never, but you are so childish in your ideas. And are you unfortunate? I didn't know it. Is it about your inventions that you are speaking? Well, they were never very happy, were they? You praised them to me. Did I, my foolish kindness of heart, I'm afraid, to tell the truth, I was thankful when you saw things as they were. You took them away from me. I took them away, what nonsense. It was your own wish? Vera's wish, too? Yes, you persuaded both Vera and Nina that they were no good. They believed in them before you came. You flatter me, Nicholas. I have in such power over Vera's opinions, I'm afraid. If I tell her anything, she believes at once the opposite. You must have seen that yourself. You took her belief away from me. You took her love away from me. Semyonov laughed. That laugh seemed to rouse Markovich too frenzy. He screamed out, You have taken everything from me. You will not leave me alone. You must be careful. You are in danger, I tell you. Semyonov sprang up from his chair, and the two men, advancing towards one another, came into Bohen's vision. Markovich was like a madman, his hands raised, his eyes staring from his head, his body trembling. Semyonov was quiet, motionless, smiling, standing very close to the other. Well, what are you going to do? he asked. Markovich stood for a moment, his hands raised, then his whole body seemed to collapse. He moved away, muttering something which Bohen could not hear. With shuffling feet, his head lowered, he went out of the room. Semyonov returned to his seat. To Bohen and innocent youth, with very simple and amiable ideas about life, the whole thing seemed beastly beyond words. I saw a man torture a dog once, he told me. He didn't do much to it really, tied it up to a tree and dug into it with a pen knife. I went home and was sick. Well, I felt sick this time too. Nevertheless, his own sickness was not the principle of fair. The point was the sense of danger that seemed now to tinge with its own faint stain every article in the room. Bohen's hatred of Semyonov was so strong that he felt as though he would never be able to speak to him again. But it was not really of Semyonov that he was thinking. His thoughts were all centered round Markovich. You must remember that for a long time now he had considered himself Markovich's protector. This sense of his protection had developed in him an affection for the man that he would not otherwise have felt. He did not, of course, know of any of Markovich's deepest troubles. He could only guess at his relations with Vera and he did not understand the passionate importance that he attached to his Russian idea. But he knew enough to be aware of his childishness, his simplicity, his naivety, and his essential goodness. He's an awfully decent sort, really. He used to say in a kind of apologetic defense. The very fact of Semyonov's strength made his brutality seem now the more revolting. Like hitting a fellow half your size. He saw that things in that flat were approaching a climax and he knew enough now of Russian impetuosity to realize that climaxes in that country are, very often, no ordinary affairs. It was just as though there were an evil smell in the flat he explained to me. It seemed to hang over everything. Things looked the same and yet they weren't the same at all. His main impression that something would very soon happen if he didn't look out, drove everything else from his mind. But he didn't quite see what to do. Speak to Vera, to Nicholas, to Semyonov. He didn't feel qualified to do any of these things. He went to bed that night early, about ten o'clock. He couldn't sleep. His door was not quite closed and he could hear first Vera, then Uncle Ivan. Lastly, Markovich, go to bed. He lay awake then with that exaggerated sense of hearing that one has in the middle of the night when one is compelled, as it were, against one's will to listen for sounds. He heard the dripping of the tap in the bathroom, the creaking of some door in the wind. The storm had risen again. And all the thousand and one little uncertainties, like the agitated beating of innumerable hearts that penetrate the folds and curtains of the night. As he lay there, he thought of what he could do, did Markovich really go off his head? He had a revolver, he knew. He had seen it in his hand. And then what was Semyonov after? My explanation had seemed at first so fantastic and impossible that Bohen had dismissed it. But now, after the conversation that he had just overheard, it did not seem impossible at all, especially in the middle of the night. His mind travelled back to his own first arrival in Petrograd, that first sleep at the france with the dripping water and the crawling rats, the plunge into the Kazan Cathedral, and everything that followed. He did not see, of course, his own progress since that day, or the many things that Russia had already done for him. But he did feel that such situations as the one he was now sharing were, today, much more in the natural order of things than they would have been four months before. He dozed off, and then was awakened sharply, abruptly, by the sound of Markovich's padded feet. There could be no mistaking them. Very softly they went past Bohen's door, down the passage towards the dining-room. He sat up in bed, and all the other sounds of the night seemed suddenly to be accentuated. The dripping of the tap, the blowing of the wind, and even the heavy breathing of old Sasha, who always slept in a sort of cupboard near the kitchen, with her legs hanging out into the passage. Suddenly, no sound. The house was still, and with that, the sense of danger and peril were redoubled, as though the house were holding its breath as it watched. Bohen could endure it no longer. He got up, put on his dressing gown, and bedroom slippers, and went out. When he got as far as the dining-room door, he saw that Markovich was standing in the middle of the room with a lighted candle in his hand. The glimmer of the candle flung a circle, outside which all was dusk. Within the glimmer there was Markovich, his hair rough and strangely like a wig, his face pale yellow, and wearing an old quilted bed jacket of a purple-green color. He was in a nightdress, and his naked legs were like sticks of tallow. He stood there, the candle shaking in his hand, as though he were uncertain as to what he would do next. He was saying something to himself Bohen thought. At any rate, his lips were moving. Then he put his hand into the pocket of his bedcoat, and took out a revolver. Bohen saw it gleam in the candlelight. He held it up close to his eyes, as though he were shortsighted and seemed to sniff at it. Then, clumsily Bohen said, he opened it to see whether it were loaded, I suppose, and closed it again. After that, very softly indeed, he shuffled off towards the door of Semyonov's room, the room that had once been the sanctuary of his inventions. All this time young Bohen was paralyzed. He said that all his life now, in spite of his having done quite decently in France, he would doubt his capacity in a crisis, because during the hull of this affair he never stirred. But that was because it was all exactly like a dream. I was in the dream, you know, as well as the other fellows. You know those dreams when you're doing your very damnness to wake up, when you struggle and sweat, and know you'll die if something doesn't happen. Well, it was like that, except that I didn't struggle and swear, but just stood there like a painted picture, watching. Markovitch had nearly reached Semyonov's door. You remember that there was a little square window of glass in the upper part of it. When he did a funny thing, he stopped dead as though someone had wrapped him on the shoulder. He stopped and looked round, then very slowly as though he were compelled, gazed with his nervous blinking eyes up at the portrait of the old gentleman with the bushy eyebrows. Bohen looked up to and saw. It was probably a trick of the faltering candlelight, that the old man was not looking at him at all, but steadfastly, and of course, ironically, at Markovitch. The two regarded one another for a while. Then, Markovitch, still moving with the greatest caution, slipped the revolver back into his pocket, got a chair, climbed onto it, and lifted the picture down from its nail. He looked at it for a moment, staring into the cracked and roughened paint, then hung it deliberately back on its nail again, but with its face to the wall. As he did this, his bare skinny legs were trembling so on the chair that, at every moment, he threatened to topple over. He climbed down at last, put the chair back in its place, and then once more turned towards Semyonov's door. When he reached it, he stopped, and again took out the revolver, opened it, looked into it, and closed it. Then he put his hand on the doorknob. It was then that Bohen had, as one has in dreams, a sudden impulse to scream, Look out! Look out! Look out! Although heaven knows, he had no desire to protect Semyonov from anything. But it was just then that the oddest conviction came over him, namely an assurance that Semyonov was standing on the other side of the door, looking through the little window and waiting. He could not have told any more than one can ever tell in dreams how he was so certain of this. He could only see the little window as the dimmest and darkest square of shadow behind Markovich's candle, but he was sure that this was so. He could even see Semyonov standing there, in his shirt with his thick legs, his head a little raised, listening. For what seemed an endless time, Markovich did not move. He also seemed to be listening. Was it possible that he heard Semyonov's breathing? But of course I have never had any actual knowledge that Semyonov was there. This was simply Bohin's idea. Then Markovich began very slowly, bending a little, as though it were stiff and difficult to turn the handle. I don't know what then Bohin would have done. He must, I think, have moved, shouted, screamed, done something or other. There was another interruption. He heard a quick, soft step behind him. He moved into the shadow. It was Vera in her nightdress, her hair down her back. She came forward into the room and whispered very quietly, Nicholas. He turned at once. He did not seem to be startled or surprised. He had dropped the revolver at once back into his pocket. He came up to her. She bent down and kissed him, then put her arm round him and led him away. When they had gone Bohin also went back to bed. The house was very still and peaceful. Suddenly he remembered the picture. It would never do, he thought, if in the morning it were found by Sasha or Uncle Ivan with its face to the wall. After hesitating he lit his own candle, got out of bed again, and went down the passage. The funny thing was, he said, that I really expected to find it just as it always was, face outwards, as though the whole thing really had been a dream. But it wasn't. It had its face to the wall all right. I got a chair, turned it round, and went back to bed again. End of Part 3, Chapter 12. Part 3, Chapter 13 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 Butros. The Secret City by Hugh Walpole. Part 3, Chapter 13. That night, whether as a result of my interview with Semyonov I do not know, my old enemy leapt upon me once again. I had, during the next three days, one of the worst bouts of pain that it has ever been my fortune to experience. For twenty-four hours I thought it more than any man could bear, and I hid my head and prayed for death. During the next twenty-four I slowly rose with a dim, far away sense of deliverance. On the third day I could hear in the veiled distance the growls of my defeated foe. Through it all, behind the wall of pain, my thoughts knocked and thudded, urging me to do something. It was not until the Friday or the Saturday that I could think consecutively. My first thought was driven in on me by the old curmudgeon of a doctor, as his deliberate opinion that it was simply insanity to stay on in those damp rooms when I suffered from my complaint, that I was only asking for what I got, and that he, on his part, had no sympathy for me. I told him that I entirely agreed with him, that I had determined several weeks ago to leave these rooms, and that I thought that I had found some others in a different, more populated part of the town. He grunted his approval, and forbidding me to go out for at least a week left me. At least a week? No, I must be out long before that. Now that the pain had left me, weak though I was, I was wildly impatient to return to the Markovitches. Through all these last days' torments I had been conscious of Semyonov, seeing his hair and his mouth and his beard and his square solidity and his tired, exhausted eyes, and strangely, at the end of it all, felt the touch of his lips on mine. Oddly I did not hate Semyonov, I saw quite clearly that I had never hated him, something too impersonal about him, some sense, too, of an outside power driving him. No, I did not hate him, but God, how I feared him. Feared him not for my own sake, but for the sake of those who had, was this too arrogant, been given as it seemed to me, into my charge. I remembered that Monday was the 30th of April, and that on that evening, there was to be a big allied meeting at the Burse, at which our Ambassador Sir George Buchanan, the Belgian Consul, and others were to speak. I had promised to take Vera to this. Tuesday, the 1st of May, was to see a great demonstration by all the workmen's and soldiers' committees. It was to correspond with the labour demonstrations arranged to take place on that day all over Europe, and the Russian date had been altered to the new style in order to provide for this. Many people considered that the day would be the cause of much rioting, of definite hostility to the provisional government, of anti-foreign demonstrations, and so on. Others, idealistic Russians, believed that all the soldiers the world over would on that day throw down their arms and proclaim a universal peace. I, for my part, believed that it would mark the ending of the first phase of the revolution and the beginning of the second, and that for Russia at any rate, it would mean the changing from a war of nations into a war of class. In other words, that it would mean the rising up of the Russian peasant as a definite positive factor in the world's affairs. But all that political business was only remotely at that moment my concern. What I wanted to know was what was happening to Nicholas, to Vera, to Lawrence, and the others. Even whilst I was restlessly wondering what I could do to put myself into touch with them, my old woman entered with a letter which she said had been brought by hand. The letter was from Markovitch. I give this odd document here exactly as I received it. I do not attempt to emphasize or explain or comment in any way. I would only add that no Russian is so mad as he seems to any Englishman, and no Englishman so foolish as he seems to any Russian. I must have received this letter, I think, late on Sunday afternoon, because I was, I remember, up and dressed and walking about my room. It was written on flimsy gray paper in pencil which made it difficult to read. There were sentences unfinished, words misspelled, and the whole of it in the worst of Russian handwritings. Certain passages I am, even now, quite unable to interpret. It ran as follows. Dear Ivan Andreevich, Vera tells me that you are ill again. She has been round to inquire, I think. I did not come because I knew that if I did, I should only talk about my own troubles, the same as you've always listened to, and what kind of food is that for a sick man. All the same, that is just what I am doing now, but reading a letter is not like talking to a man. You can always stop and tear the paper when perhaps it would not be polite to ask a man to go. But I hope, nevertheless, that you won't do that with this, not because of any desire I may have to interest you in myself, but because of something of much more importance than either of us, something I want you to believe, something you must believe, don't think me mad. I am quite sane sitting here in my room writing, everyone is asleep, everyone, but not everything. I've been queer now and again lately, off and on. Do you know how it comes? When the inside of the world goes further and further within, dragging you after it, until at last you are in the bowels of darkness choking. I've known such moods all my life. Haven't you known them? Lately, of course, I've been drinking again. I tell you, but I wouldn't own it to most people. But they all know, I suppose. Alexi made me start again. But it's foolish to put everything on to him. If I weren't a weak man, he wouldn't be able to do anything with me, would he? Do you believe in God? And don't you think that he intended the weak to have some compensation somewhere, because it isn't their fault that they're weak, is it? They can struggle and struggle, but it's like being in a net. Well, one must just make a hole in the net, large enough to get out of, that's all. And now, ever since two days ago, when I resolved to make that hole, I've been quite calm. I'm as calm as anything now, writing to you. Two days ago, Vera told me that he was going back to England. Oh, she was so good to me that day, Ivan Andreyevich. We sat together all alone in the flat, and she had her hand in mine, just as we used to do in the old days, when I pretended to myself that she loved me. Now I know that she did not. But the warmer and more marvelous was her kindness to me, her goodness and nobility. Do you not think, Ivan Andreyevich, that if you go deep enough in every human heart, there is this kernel of goodness, this fidelity to some ideal? Do you know we have a proverb? In each man's heart there is a secret town at whose altars the true prayers are offered. Even perhaps with a lexie it is so. Only there you must go very deep, and there is no time. But I must tell you about Vera. She told me so kindly that he was going to England, and that now her whole life would be led in Nina and myself. I held her hand very close in mine and asked her, was it really true that she loved him? And she said, yes, she did, but that that she could not help. She said that she had spoken with him, and that they had decided that it would be best for him to go away. Then she begged my forgiveness for many things, because she had been harsh or cross. I don't know what things. Oh, Ivan Andreevich, she to beg forgiveness of me. But I held her hand closer and closer, because I knew that it was the last time that I would be able so truly to hold it. How could she not see that now everything was over, everything, quite everything? Am I one to hold her, to chain her down, to keep her when she has already escaped? Is that the way to prove my fidelity to her? Of course I did not speak to her of this, but for the first time in all our years together I felt older than her and wiser. But of course Alexei saw it. How he heard I do not know, but that same day he came to me, and he seemed to be very kind. I don't know what he said, but he explained that Vera would always be unhappy now, always longing and waiting and hoping. Keep him here in Russia, he whispered to me. She will get tired of him then. They will tire of one another. But if you send him away… Oh, he is a devil, Ivan Andreevich. And why has he persecuted me so? What have I ever done to him? Nothing. But for weeks now he has pursued me and destroyed my inventions and flung Russia in my face and made Nina, dear Nina, laugh at me. And now, when the other things are finished, he shows me that Vera will be unhappy so long as I am alive. What have I ever done, Ivan Andreevich? I am so unimportant. Why has he taken such a trouble? Today I gave him his last chance, or last night. It is four in the morning now, and the bells are already ringing for the early mass. I said to him, Will you go away? Leave us all forever. Will you promise never to return? He said in that dreadful, quiet, sure way of his, No, I will never go away until you make me. Vera hates him. I cannot leave her alone with him, can I? Here there are three lines of illegible writing. So I will think again and again of that last time when we sat together and all the good things that she said. What greatness of soul. What goodness. What splendor. And perhaps after all I am a fortunate man to be allowed to be faithful to so fine a grandeur. Many men have poor ambitions, and God bestows his gifts with strange blindness I often think. But I am tired, and you too will be tired. Perhaps you have not got so far. I must thank you for your friendship to me. I am very grateful for it. And you, if afterwards you ever think of me, think that I always wish to. No. Why should you think of me at all? But think of Russia. That is why I write this. You love Russia, and I believe that you will continue to love Russia, whatever she will do. Never forget that it is because she cares so passionately for the good of the world that she makes so many mistakes. She sees farther than other countries, and she cares more. But she is also more ignorant. She has never been allowed to learn anything. Or to try to do anything for herself. You are all too impatient, too strongly aware of your own conditions, too ignorant of hers. Of course there are wicked men here, and many idle men, but every country has such. You must not judge her by that, nor by all the talk you hear. We talk like blind men on a dark road. Do you believe that there are no patriots here? Ah, how bitterly I have been disappointed during these last weeks. It has broken my heart, but do not let your heart be broken. You can wait. You are young. Believe in Russian patriotism. Believe in Russian future. Believe in Russian soul. Try to be patient, and understand that she is blindfolded, ignorant, stumbling. But the glory will come. I can see it shining far away. It is not for me, but for you, and for Vera, for Vera, Vera. Here the letter ended, only scrolled very roughly across the paper, the letters N, M. End of Part 3, Chapter 13. Part 3, Chapter 14 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 Butros. The Secret City, by Hugh Walpole. Part 3, Chapter 14. As soon as I had finished reading the letter, I went to the telephone and rang up the Markovitch's flat. Bowen spoke to me. I asked him whether Nicholas was there. He said, Yes, fast asleep in the armchair. Was Semyonov there? No, he was dining out that night. I asked him to remind Vera that I was expecting to take her to the meeting next day and rang off. There was nothing more to be done just then. Two minutes later, there was a knock on my door and Vera came in. Why, I cried. I've just been ringing up to tell you that, of course, I was coming on Monday. That is partly what I wanted to know, she said, smiling, and also I thought that you'd fancied we'd all deserted you. No, I answered. I don't expect you round here every time I'm ill. That would be absurd. You'll be glad to know at any rate that I've decided to give up these ridiculous rooms. I deserve all the illness I get so long as I'm here. Yes, that's good, she answered. How you could have stayed so long! She dropped into a chair, closed her eyes, and lay back. Oh, Ivan Andreevich, but I'm tired. She looked, lying there, white-faced, her eyelids like gray shadows, utterly exhausted. I waited in silence. After a time she opened her eyes and said suddenly, We all come and talk to you, don't we? I, Nina, Nicholas, Shari, she meant Lawrence, even Uncle Alexi. I wonder why we do, because we never take your advice, you know. Perhaps it's because you seem right outside everything. I colored a little at that. Did I hurt you? I'm sorry. No, I don't know that I am. I don't mind now whether I hurt anyone. You know that he's going back to England. I nodded my head. He told you himself? Yes, I said. She lay back in her chair and was silent for a long time. You think I'm a noble woman, don't you? Oh, yes you do. I can see you just thirsting for my nobility. It's what Uncle Alexi always says about you, that you have learned from Dostoevsky how to be noble, and it's become a habit with you. If you're going to believe, I began angrily. Oh, I hate him. I listen to nothing that he says. All the same, Dirtles. This passion for nobility on your part is very irritating. I can see you now making up the most magnificent picture of my nobility. I'm sure if you were ever to write a book about us all, you'd write of me something like this. Vera Migalovna had won her victory. She had achieved her destiny. Having surrendered her lover, she was as fine as a Greek statue. Something like that. Oh, I can see you at it. You don't understand, I began. Oh, but I do, she answered. I've watched your attitude to me from the first. You wanted to make poor Nina noble, and then Nicholas, and then, because they wouldn't either of them do, you had to fall back upon me. Memories of that marvelous woman at the front, Marie someone or other, have stirred up your romantic soul until it's all whipped cream and jam. Mulberry jam, you know, so as to have the proper dark color. Why all this attack on me, I asked. What have I done? You've done nothing, she cried. We all love you, Dirtles, because you're such a baby, because you dream such dreams, see nothing as it is. And perhaps after all, you're right. Your vision is as good as another. But this time you've made me restless. You're never to see me as a noble woman again, Ivan Andreevich. See me as I am, just for five minutes. I haven't a drop of noble feeling in my soul. You've just given him up, I said. You've sent him back to England, although you adore him, because your duty is with your husband. You're breaking your heart. Yes, I am breaking my heart, she said quietly. I'm a dead woman without him. And it's my weakness, my cowardice, that is sending him away. What would a French woman or an English woman have done? Given up the world for their lover, given up a thousand Nicholases, sacrificed a hundred Ninas, that's real life. That's real, I tell you. What feeling is there in my soul that counts for a moment beside my feeling for Sherry? I say and I feel, and I know that I would die for him, die with him happily, gladly. Those are no empty words. I, who have never been in love before, I am devoured by it now, until there is nothing left of me, nothing. And yet I remain. It is our weakness, our national idleness. I haven't the strength to leave Nicholas. I am soft, sentimental about his unhappiness. Pa, how I despise myself. I am capable of living on here for years with husband and lover, going from one to another, weeping for both of them. Already I am pleading with Sherry that he should remain here. We will see what will happen. We will see what will happen. Ah, my contempt for myself. Without bones, without energy, without character. But this is life, Ivan Andreevich. I stay here. I send him away, because I cannot bear to see Nicholas suffer. And I do not care for Nicholas. Do you understand that? I never loved him. And now I have a contempt for him, in spite of myself. Uncle Alexei has done that. Oh, yes. He has made a fool of Nicholas for months, and although I have hated him for doing that, I have seen also what a fool Nicholas is. But he is a hero too. Make him as noble as you like, Ivan Andreevich. You cannot color it too high. He is the real thing, and I am the sham. But, oh, I do not want to live with him anymore. I am tired of him, his experiments, his lamentations, his weakness, his lack of humor. Tired of him, sick of him. And yet, I cannot leave him, because I am soft, soft without bones, like my country, Ivan Andreevich. My lover is strong. Nothing can change his will. He will go, will leave me, until he knows that I am free. Then he will never leave me again. Perhaps I will get tired of his strength one day. It may be. Just as now I am tired of Nicholas's weakness. Everything has its end. But no, he has humor, and he sees life as it is. I shall be able always to tell him the truth. With Nicholas it is always lies. She suddenly sprang up and stood before me. Now do you think me noble, she cried? Yes, I answered. Ah, you are incorrigible. You have drunk Dostoevsky until you can see nothing but God and the Muzik. But I am alive, Ivan Andreevich, not a heroine in a book. Alive, alive, alive. Not one of your Lisa's or Anna's or Natasha's. I am alive enough to shoot Uncle Alexi and poison Nicholas. But I am soft too, soft so that I cannot bear to see a rabbit killed. And yet I love Sherry, so that I am blind for him, and deaf for him, and dead for him, when he is not there. My love, the only one of my life, the first and the last. She flung out her arms. Life, now, before it is too late. I want it. I want him. I want happiness. She stood thus for a moment, staring out to sea. Then her arms dropped. She laughed, fastening her cloak. There's your nobility, Ivan Andreevich, theatrical, all of it. I know what I am, and I know what I shall do. Nicholas will live to 80. I also. I shall hate him. But I shall be in an agony when he cuts his finger. I shall never see Sherry again. Later he will marry a fresh English girl, like an apple. I, because I am weak, soft putty. I have made it so. She turned away from me, staring desperately at the wall. When she looked back to me, her face was gray. She smiled. What a baby you are. But take care of yourself. Don't come on Monday if it's bad weather. Goodbye. She went. After a bad sleepless night, and a morning during which I dozed in a nightmarish kind of way, I got up early in the afternoon, had some tea, and about six o'clock started out. It was a lovely evening. The spring light was in the air. The tufted trees beside the canal were pink against the pale sky. And thin layers of ice, like fragments of jade, broke the soft blue of the water. How pleasant to feel the cobbles firm beneath one's feet, to know that the snow was gone for many months, and that light now would flood the streets and squares. Nevertheless, my foreboding was not raised, and the veils of color hung from house to house, and from street to street, could not change the realities of the scene. I climbed the stairs to the flat, and found Vera waiting for me. She was with Uncle Ivan, who I found to my disappointment, was coming with us. We started off. We can walk across to the burst, she said. It's such a lovely evening, and we're a little early. We talked of nothing but the most ordinary things Uncle Ivan's company prevented anything else. To say that I cursed him is to put it very mildly. He had been, I believe, oblivious of all the scenes that had occurred during the last weeks. If the last judgment occurred under his very nose, and he had had a cozy meal in front of him, he would have noticed nothing. The revolution had had no effect on him at all. It did not seem strange to him that Semyonov should come to live with them. He had indeed fancied that Nicholas had not been very well lately, but then Nicholas had always been an odd and cantankerous fellow. And he, as he told me, never paid too much attention to his moods. His one anxiety was less Sasha should be hindered from her usual shopping on the morrow, it being May Day, when there would be processions and other tiresome things. He hoped that there was enough food in the house. There will be cold cutlets and cheese, Vera said. He told me that he really didn't know why he was going to this meeting. He took no interest in politics, and he hated speeches, but he would like to see our ambassador. He had heard that he was always excellently dressed. Vera said very little. Her troubles that evening must have been accumulating upon her with terrible force. I did not know at that time about her night scene with Nicholas. She was very quiet, and just as we entered the building, she whispered to me, once over tomorrow. I did not catch the rest. People pressed behind us, and for a moment we were separated. We were not alone again. I have wondered since what she meant by that, whether she had a foreboding or some more definite warning, or whether she simply referred to the danger of riots and general lawlessness I shall never know now. I had expected a crowded meeting, but I was not prepared for the multitude that I found. We entered by a side door, and then passed up a narrow passage which led us to the reserved seats at the side of the platform. I had secured these some days before. In the dark passage one could realize nothing. Important gentlemen in frock coats, officers, and one or two soldiers were hurrying to and fro with an air of having a great deal to do, and not knowing at all how to do it. Beyond the darkness there was a steady hum, like the distant whir of a great machine. There was a very faint smell in the air of boots and human flesh. A stout gentleman with a rosette in his buttonhole showed us to our seats. Vera sat between Uncle Yvonne and myself. When I looked about me I was amazed. The huge hall was packed so tightly with human beings that one could see nothing but wave on wave of faces, or rather the same face, repeated again and again and again. The face of a baby, of a child, of a crudulous cynical dreamer, a face the kindest, the naivest, the cruelest, the most friendly, the most human, the most savage, the most eastern, and the most western in the world. That vast presentation of that reiterated visage seemed suddenly to explain everything to me. I felt at once the stupidity of any appeal and the instant necessity for every kind of appeal. I felt the negation, the sudden slipping into insignificant unimportance of the whole of the western world. And at the same time the dismissal of the east. No longer my masters, a voice seemed to cry from the very heart of that multitude. No longer will we halt at your command. No longer will your words be wisdom to us. No longer shall we smile with pleasure at your stories and cringe with fear at your displeasure. You may hate our defection. You may lament our disloyalty. You may bribe us and smile upon us. You may preach to us and bewail our sins. We are no longer yours. We are our own. Salute a new world, for it is nothing less that you see before you. And yet never were their forces more unconscious of their destiny, utterly unselfconscious as animals, babies, the flowers of the field, still there to be driven, perhaps to be persuaded, to be whipped, to be cajoled, to be blinded, to be tricked and deceived, drugged and deafened. But not for long, the end of that old world had come. The new world was at hand. Life begins tomorrow. The dignitaries came upon the platform, and beyond them all, in distinction, nobility, wisdom, was our own ambassador. This is no place for a record of the discretion intact and forbearance that he had shown during those last two years. To him had fallen, perhaps, the most difficult work of all in the war. It might seem that on broad grounds the Allies had failed with Russia. But the end was not yet, and in years to come, when England reaps unexpected fruit from her Russian alliance, let her remember to whom she owed it. No one could see him there that night without realizing that there stood before Russia as England's representative, not only a great courtier and statesman, but a great gentleman who had bonds of courage and endurance that linked him to the meanest soldier there. I have emphasized this because he gave the note to the whole meeting. Again and again, once eyes came back to him, and always that high brow, that unflinching carriage of the head, the nobility and breeding of every movement gave one reassurance and courage. One's own troubles seemed small beside that example, and the tangled morality of that vex time seemed to be tested by a simpler and higher standard. It was altogether a strange affair. At first it lacked interest, some member of the Italian embassy spoke, I think, and then someone from Serbia. The audience was apathetic. All those bodies, so tightly wedged together that arms and legs were held in an iron vise, stayed motionless. And once and again there would be a short burst of applause or a sibilant whisper, but it would be something mechanical and uninspired. I could see one soldier in the front row behind the barrier, a stout fellow with a face of supreme good humor, down whose forehead the sweat began to trickle. He was patient for a while, then he tried to raise his hand. He could not move without sending a ripple down the whole front line. Heads were turned indignantly in his direction. He submitted, then the sweat trickled into his eyes. He made a superhuman effort and half raised his arm. The crowd pushed again and his arm fell. His face wore an expression of ludicrous despair. The hall got hotter and hotter. Soldiers seemed to be still pressing in at the back. The Italian gentlemen screamed and waved his arms, but the faces turned up to his were blank and amably expressionless. It is indeed terribly hot, said Uncle Ivan. Then came a sailor from the Black Sea Fleet who had made himself famous during these weeks by his impassioned oratory. He was a thin, dark-eyed fellow, and he obviously knew his business. He threw himself at once into the thick of it all, paying no attention to the stout, frock-coated gentleman who sat on the platform dealing out no compliments, whether to the audience or the speakers, wasting no time at all. He told them all that they had debts to pay, that their honor was at stake, and that Europe was watching them. I don't know that that face that stared at him cared very greatly for Europe, but it is certain that a breath of emotion passed across it, that there was a star, a movement, a response. He sat down. There was a roar of applause. He regarded them contemptuously. At that moment I caught sight of Boris Grogov. I had been on the watch for him. I had thought it very likely that he would be there. Well, there he was, at the back of the crowd, listening with a contemptuous sneer on his face, and a long golden curl poking out from under his cap. And then something else occurred, something really strange. I was conscious, as one sometimes is in a crowd, that I was being stared at by someone deliberately. I looked about me, and then, led by the attraction of the other's gaze, I saw quite close to me, on the edge of the crowd, nearest to the platform, the rat. He was dressed rather jauntly in a dark suit, with his cap set on one side, and his hair shining and curled. His face glittered with soap, and he was smiling in his usual friendly way. He gazed at me, quite steadily. My lips moved very slightly in recognition. He smiled, and I fancy, winked. Then, as though he had actually spoken to me, I seemed to hear him say, Well, goodbye, I'm never coming to you again. Goodbye, goodbye. It was as definite a farewell as you can have from a man, more definite than you will have from most, as though further, he said, I'm gone for good and all. I have other company and more profitable plunder. On the back of our glorious revolution, I rise from crime to crime. Goodbye. I was, in sober truth, never to speak to him again. I cannot but regret that on the last occasion, when I should have a real opportunity of looking him full in the face, he was to offer me a countenance of friendly good humor and amiable rascality. I shall have until I die a feeling of tenderness. I was recalled for my observation of Grogov and the Rat by the sensation that the waters of emotion were rising higher around me. I raised my eyes and saw that the Belgian consul was addressing the meeting. He was a stout little man, with eyeglasses and a face of no importance. But it was quite obvious at once that he was most terribly in earnest. Because he did not know the Russian language, he was under the unhappy necessity of having a translator, a thin and amiable Russian who suffered from short sight and a nervous stammer. He could not therefore have spoken under heavier disadvantages, and my heart ached for him. It need not have done so. He started in a low voice and they shouted to him to speak up. At the end of his first paragraph, the amiable Russian began his translation, sticking his nose into the paper, losing the place and stuttering over his sentences. There was a restless movement in the hall, and the poor Belgian consul seemed lost. He was made, however, of no means stuff. Before the Russian had finished his translation, the little man had begun again. This time he had stepped forward, waving his glasses and his head and his hand, bending forward and backward. His voice rising and rising. At the end of his next paragraph he paused, and because the Russian was slow and stammering once again, went forward on his own account. Soon he forgot himself, his audience, his translator, everything except his own dear Belgium. His voice rose and rose. He pleaded with a marvelous rhythm of eloquence, her history, her fate, her shameful devastation. He appealed on behalf of her murdered children, her ravished women, her slaughtered men. He appealed on behalf of her arts, her cathedrals, and libraries ruined. Her towns plundered. He told a story, very quietly, of an old grandfather and grandmother murdered, and their daughter ravished, before the eyes of her tiny children. Here he himself began to shed tears. He tried to brush them back. He paused and wiped his eyes. Finally, breaking down altogether, he turned away and hid his face. I do not suppose that there were more than a dozen persons in that hall who understood anything of the language in which he spoke. Certainly it was the merest gibberish to that whole army of listening men. Nevertheless, with every word that he uttered, the emotion grew tenser. Cries, little sharp cries, like the bark of a puppy, broke out here and there. Verno, verno, verno! True, true, true! Movements, like the swift finger of the wind on the sea, hovered, wavered, and vanished. He turned back to them, his voice broken with sobs, and he could only cry the one word, belgea, belgea, belgea. To that they responded. They began to shout, to cry aloud. The screams of verno, verno! rose until it seemed that the roof would rise with them. The air was filled with shouts, bravo for the allies! Soyuzniky, Soyuzniky! Men raised their caps and waved them, smiled upon one another as though they had suddenly heard wonderful news, shouted and shouted and shouted. And in the midst of it all, the little rotund Belgian consul stood, bowing and wiping his eyes. How pleased we all were! I whispered to Vera, you see, they do care, their hearts are touched, we can do anything with them now. Even Uncle Ivan was moved, and murmured to himself, poor belgium, poor belgium! How delighted, too, were the gentlemen on the platform, smiling, they whispered to one another, and I saw several shake hands. A great moment. The little consul bowed finally and sat down. Never shall I forget the applause that followed. Like one man, the thousands shouted, tears raining down their cheeks, shaking hands, even embracing. A vast movement, as though the wind had caught them and driven them forward, rose lifted them so that they swayed like bending corn towards the platform. For an instant, we were all caught up together. There was one great cry, belgium! The sound rose, fell, sunk into a muttering whisper, died to give way to the breathless attention that awaited the next speaker. I whispered to Vera, I shall never forget that, I'm going to leave on that, it's good enough for me. Yes, she said, we'll go. What a pity, whispered Uncle Ivan, that they didn't understand what they were shouting about. We slipped out behind the platform, turned down the dark long passage, hearing the new speaker's voice like a bell ringing beyond thick walls, and found our way into the open. The evening was wonderfully fresh and clear. The neva lay before us like a blue scarf, and the air faded into colorless beauty above the dark purple of the towers and domes. Vera caught my arm. Look, she whispered, there's Boris. I knew that she had on several occasions tried to force her way into his flat, that she had written every day to Nina. Letters, as it afterwards appeared, that Boris kept from her. I was afraid that she would do something violent. Wait, I whispered, perhaps Nina is here somewhere. Grogov was standing with another man on a small improvised platform, just outside the gates of the borse. As the soldiers came out, many of them were leaving now on the full tide of their recent emotions. Grogov and his friend caught them, held them, and proceeded to instruct their minds. I caught some of Grogov's sentences. Tovrisci, I heard him cry. Comrades, listen to me. Don't allow your feelings to carry you away. You have serious responsibilities now, and the thing for you to do is not to permit sentiment to make you foolish. Who brought you into this war? Your leaders? No, your old masters. They bled you and robbed you and slaughtered you to fill their own pockets. Who is ruling the world now? The people to whom the world truly belongs? No, the capitalists, the money grubbers, the old thieves like Nicholas, who is now under lock and key. Capitalists, England, France, thieves, robbers, Belgium. What is Belgium to you? Did you swear to protect her people? Does England, who pretend such loving care for Belgium, does she look after Ireland? What about her persecution of South Africa? Belgium, have you heard what she did in the Congo? As the men came, talking, smiling, wiping their eyes, they were caught by Grogov's voice. They stood there and listened. Soon they began to nod their heads. I heard them muttering that good old word, verno, verno again. The crowd grew. The men began to shout their approval. I, it's true, I heard a soldier near me mutter. The English are thieves. And another, Belgium. After all, I could not understand a word of what that little fat man said. I heard no more, but I did not wonder now at the floods that were rising and rising soon to engulf the whole of this great country. The end of this stage of our story was approaching for all of us. We three had stood back, a little in the shadow, gazing about to see whether we could hail a cab. As we waited, I took my last look at Grogov, his stout figure against the purple sky, the mass of the ships, the pale tumbling river, the black line of the farther shore. He stood, his arms waving, his mouth open, the personification of the disease from which Russia was suffering. A cab arrived. I turned, said, as it were, my farewell to Grogov and everything for which he stood, and went. We drove home almost in silence, Vera staring in front of her, her face proud and reserved, building up a wall of her own thoughts. Come in for a moment, won't you? She asked me rather reluctantly, I thought. But I accepted, climbed the stairs, and followed Uncle Ivan's stubby self-satisfied progress into the flat. I heard Vera cry. I hurried after her, and found, standing close together in the middle of the room, Henry Bohan and Nina. With a little sob of joy and shame too, Nina was locked in Vera's arms.