The Secret City Part 35

They stood close to one another in the middle of the room, and talked in whispers.

"What are we going to do?"

"We can only wait!"

"They'll never dare to search your room, Vera."

"One doesn't know now... everything's so different."

"Vera, you _are_ brave. Forgive me what I said just now.... I'll help you if you want--"

"Hush, Nina dear. Not that now. We've got to think--what's best...."

They kissed very quietly, and then they sat down by the table and waited. There was simply nothing else to do.

Vera said that, during that pause, she could see the little policeman everywhere. In every part of the room she found him, with his fat legs and dirty, streaky face and open collar. The flat was heavy, portentous with his presence, as though it stood with a self-important finger on its lips saying, "I've got a secret in here. _Such_ a secret. You don't know what _I've_ got...."

They discussed in whispers as to who would come in first. Nicholas or Uncle Ivan or Bohun or Sacha? And supposing one of them came in while the soldiers were there? Who would be the most dangerous? Sacha? She would scream and give everything away. Suppose they had seen him enter and were simply waiting, on the cat-and-mouse plan, to catch him? That was an intolerable thought.

"I think," said Nina, "I must go and see whether there's any one outside."

But there was no need for her to do that. Even as she spoke they heard the steps on the stairs; and instantly afterwards there came the loud knocking on their door. Vera pressed Nina's hand and went into the hall.

"_Kto tam_... Who's there?" she asked.

"Open the door!... The Workmen and Soldiers' Committee demand entrance in the name of the Revolution."

She opened the door at once. During those first days of the Revolution they cherished certain melodramatic displays.

Whether consciously or no they built on all the old French Revolution traditions, or perhaps it is that every Revolution produces of necessity the same clothing with which to cover its nakedness. A strange mixture of farce and terror were those detachments of so-called justice. At their head there was, as a rule, a student, often smiling and bespectacled. The soldiers themselves, from one of the Petrograd regiments, were frankly out for a good time and enjoyed themselves thoroughly, but, as is the Slavonic way, playfulness could pa.s.s with surprising suddenness to dead earnest--with, indeed, so dramatic a precipitance that the actors themselves were afterwards amazed. Of these "little, regrettable mistakes" there had already, during the week, been several examples. To Vera, with the knowledge of the contents of her linen-cupboard, the men seemed terrifying enough. Their leader was a fat and beaming student--quite a boy. He was very polite, saying "_Zdrastvuite,"_ and taking off his cap. The men behind him--hulking men from one of the Guards regiments--pushed about in the little hall like a lot of puppies, joking with one another, holding their rifles upside down, and making sudden efforts at a seriousness that they could not possibly sustain.

Only one of them, an older man with a thick black beard, was intensely grave, and looked at Vera with beseeching eyes, as though he longed to tell her the secret of his life.

"What can I do for you?" she asked the student.

"_Prosteete_... Forgive us." He smiled and blinked at her, then put on his cap, clicked his heels, gave a salute, and took his cap off again.

"We wish to be in no way an inconvenience to you. We are simply obeying orders. We have instructions that a policeman is hiding in one of these flats.... We know, of course, that he cannot possibly be here.

Nevertheless we are compelled... _Prosteete_.... What nice pictures you have!" he ended suddenly. It was then that Vera discovered that they were by this time in the dining-room, crowded together near the door and gazing at Nina with interested eyes.

"There's no one here, of course," said Vera, very quietly. "No one at all."

"_Tak Tochno_ (quite so)," said the black-bearded soldier, for no particular reason, suddenly.

"You will allow me to sit down?" said the student, very politely. "I must, I am afraid, ask a few questions."

"Certainly," said Vera quietly. "Anything you like."

She had moved over to Nina, and they stood side by side. But she could not think of Nina, she could not think even of the policeman in the cupboard.... She could think only of that other house on the Quay where, perhaps even now, this same scene was being enacted. They had found Wilderling.... They had dragged him out.... Lawrence was beside him....

They were condemned together.... Oh! love had come to her at last in a wild, surging flood! Of all the steps she had been led until at last, only half an hour before in that scene with Nina, the curtains had been flung aside and the whole view revealed to her. She felt such a strength, such a pride, such a defiance, as she had not known belonged to human power. She had, for many weeks, been hesitating before the gates. Now, suddenly, she had swept through. His death now was not the terror that it had been only an hour before. Nina's accusation had shown her, as a flash of lightning flings the mountains into view, that now she could never lose him, were he with her or no, and that beside that truth nothing mattered.

Something of her bravery and grandeur and beauty must have been felt by them all at that moment. Nina realised it.... She told me that her own fear left her altogether when she saw how Vera was facing them. She was suddenly calm and quiet and very amused.

The student officer seemed now to be quite at home. He had taken a great many notes down in a little book, and looked very important as he did so. His chubby face expressed great self-satisfaction. He talked half to himself and half to Vera. "Yes... Yes... quite so. Exactly. And your husband is not yet at home, Madame Markovitch.... _Nu da...._ Of course these are very troublesome times, and as you say things have to move in a hurry.

"You've heard perhaps that Nicholas Romanoff has abdicated entirely--and refused to allow his son to succeed. Makes things simpler.... Yes....

Very pleasant pictures you have--and Ostroffsky--six volumes. Very agreeable. I have myself acted in Ostroffsky at different times. I find his plays very enjoyable. I am sure you will forgive us, Madame, if we walk through your charming flat."

But indeed by this time the soldiers themselves had begun to roam about on their own account. Nina remembers one soldier in especial--a large dirty fellow with ragged moustache--who quite frankly terrified her. He seemed to regard her with particular satisfaction, staring at her, and, as it were, licking his lips over her. He wandered about the room fingering things, and seemed to be immensely interested in Nicholas's little den, peering through the gla.s.s window that there was in the door and rubbing the gla.s.s with his finger. He presently pushed the door open and soon they were all in there.

Then a characteristic thing occurred. Apparently Nicholas's inventions--his little pieces of wood and bark and cloth, his gla.s.s bottles, and tubes--seemed to them highly suspicious. There was laughter at first, and then sudden silence. Nina could see part of the room through the open door and she watched them as they gathered round the little table, talking together in excited whispers. The tall, rough-looking fellow who had frightened her before picked up one of the tubes, and then, whether by accident or intention, let it fall, and the tinkling smash of the gla.s.s frightened them all so precipitately that they came tumbling out into the larger room. The big fellow whispered something to the student, who at once became more self-important than ever, and said very seriously to Vera:

"That is your husband's room, Madame, I understand?"

"Yes," said Vera quietly, "he does his work in there."

"What kind of work?"

"He is an inventor."

"An inventor of what?"

"Various things.... He is working at present on something to do with the making of cloth."

Unfortunately this serious view of Nicholas's inventions suddenly seemed to Nina so ridiculous that she t.i.ttered. She could have done nothing more regrettable. The student obviously felt that his dignity was threatened. He looked at her very severely:

"This is no laughing matter," he said. He himself then got up and went into the inner room. He was there for some time, and they could hear him fingering the tubes and treading on the broken gla.s.s. He came out again at last.

He was seriously offended.

"You should have told us your husband was an inventor."

"I didn't think it was of importance," said Vera.

"Everything is of importance," he answered. The atmosphere was now entirely changed. The soldiers were angry--they had, it seemed, been deceived and treated like children. The melancholy fellow with the black beard looked at Vera with eyes of deep reproach.

"When will your husband return?" asked the student.

"I am afraid I don't know," said Vera. She realised that the situation was now serious, but she could not keep her mind upon it. In that house on the Quay what was happening? What had, perhaps, already happened?...

"Where has he gone?"

"I don't know."

"Why didn't he tell you where he was going?"

"He often does not tell me."

"Ah, that is wrong. In these days one should always say where one is going."