The Secret City Part 52

"You took her belief away from me. You took her love away from me."

Semyonov laughed. That laugh seemed to rouse Markovitch to 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 Bohun's vision.

Markovitch 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.

Markovitch stood for a moment, his hands raised, then his whole body seemed to collapse. He moved away, muttering something which Bohun could not hear. With shuffling feet, his head lowered, he went out of the room. Semyonov returned to his seat.

To Bohun, an 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 princ.i.p.al affair. The point was the sense of danger that seemed now to tinge with its own faint stain every article in the room. Bohun'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 centred round Markovitch. You must remember that for a long time now he had considered himself Markovitch'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 Markovitch's deepest troubles. He could only guess at his relations with Vera, and he did not understand the pa.s.sionate importance that he attached to his Russian idea. But he knew enough to be aware of his childishness, his simplicity, his _navete_, and his essential goodness. "He's an awfully decent sort, really," he used to say in a kind of apologetic defence. 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 realise 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 Markovitch 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 would do did Markovitch 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 Bohun 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, to-day, 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 Markovitch's padded feet. There could be no mistaking them; very softly they went past Bohun's door, down the pa.s.sage 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 Sacha, who always slept in a sort of cupboard near the kitchen, with her legs hanging out into the pa.s.sage.

Suddenly no sound! The house was still, and, with that, the sense of danger and peril was redoubled, as though the house were holding its breath as it watched....

Bohun 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 Markovitch 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 Markovitch, his hair rough and strangely like a wig, his face pale yellow, and wearing an old quilted bed-jacket of a purple green colour. He was in a night-dress, 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, Bohun thought.

At any rate his lips were moving. Then he put his hand into the pocket of his bed-coat and took out a revolver. Bohun saw it gleam in the candle-light. He held it up close to his eyes as though he were short-sighted and seemed to sniff at it. Then, clumsily, Bohun 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 Bohun was paralysed. 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 whole 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 d.a.m.nedest 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 gla.s.s in the upper part of it) when he did a funny thing. He stopped dead as though some one had rapped 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. Bohun looked up too and saw (it was probably a trick of the faltering candle-light) 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 on to 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 door-k.n.o.b.

It was then that Bohun 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 a.s.surance 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 Markovitch's candle, but he was sure that this was so. He could even see Semyonov standing there, in his s.h.i.+rt, with his thick legs, his head a little raised, listening...

For what seemed an endless time Markovitch 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. That was simply Bohun's idea....

Then Markovitch began very slowly, bending a little, as though it were stiff and difficult, to turn the handle. I don't know what then Bohun 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 night-dress, 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 Bohun 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 Sacha 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 pa.s.sage.

"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."

XIII

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 Sat.u.r.day 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, seen 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 G.o.d! 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 Bourse, at which our Amba.s.sador, 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 cla.s.s--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 doc.u.ment here exactly as I received it. I do not attempt to emphasise 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 grey paper in pencil, which made it difficult to read. There were sentences unfinished, words misspelt, and the whole of it in the worst of Russian handwritings. Certain pa.s.sages, I am, even now, quite unable to interpret:

It ran as follows:

Dear Ivan Andreievitch--Vera tells me that you are ill again. She has been round to enquire, 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.... Every one is asleep. Every one 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.... Alexei 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 G.o.d, 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 Andreievitch. 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 marvellous was her kindness to me, her goodness, and n.o.bility. Do you not think, Ivan Andreievitch, 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 Alexei 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 Andreievitch, _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 Andreievitch, 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 Andreievitch? I am so unimportant, why has he taken such a trouble? To-day 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 Ma.s.s. I said to him: