Virgin Soil Part 51

That is what these fine phrases are for!"

"We sympathise with you," Sipiagin continued reproachfully, "and you hate us."

"Fine sympathy! To Siberia and hard labour with us; that is your sympathy. Oh, let me alone! let me alone! for Heaven's sake!"

Markelov lowered his head.

He was agitated at heart, though externally calm. He was most of all tortured by the fact that he had been betrayed--and by whom? By Eremy of Goloplok! That same Eremy whom he had trusted so much! That Mendely the sulky had not followed him, had really not surprised him. Mendely was drunk and was consequently afraid. But Eremy! For Markelov, Eremy stood in some way as the personification of the whole Russian people, and Eremy had deceived him! Had he been mistaken about the thing he was striving for? Was Kisliakov a liar? And were Va.s.sily Nikolaevitch's orders all stupid? And all the articles, books, works of socialists and thinkers, every letter of which had seemed to him invincible truth, were they all nonsense too? Was it really so? And the beautiful simile of the abscess awaiting the p.r.i.c.k of the lancet--was that, too, nothing more than a phrase? "No! no!" he whispered to himself, and the colour spread faintly over his bronze-coloured face; "no! All these things are true, true... only I am to blame. I did not know how to do things, did not put things in the right way! I ought simply to have given orders, and if anyone had tried to hinder, or object--put a bullet through his head!

there is nothing else to be done! He who is against us has no right to live. Don't they kill spies like dogs, worse than dogs?"

All the details of his capture rose up in Markelov's mind. First the silence, the leers, then the shrieks from the back of the crowd...

someone coming up sideways as if bowing to him, then that sudden rush, when he was knocked down. His own cries of "What are you doing, my boys?" and their shouts, "A belt! A belt! tie him up!" Then the rattling of his bones... unspeakable rage... filth in his mouth, his nostrils...

"Shove him in the cart! shove him in the cart!" someone roared with laughter..

"I didn't go about it in the right way..." That was the thing that most tormented him. That he had fallen under the wheel was his personal misfortune and had nothing to do with the cause--it was possible to bear that... but Eremy! Eremy!!

While Markelov was standing with his head sunk on his breast, Sipiagin drew the governor aside and began talking to him in undertones. He flourished two fingers across his forehead, as though he would suggest that the unfortunate man was not quite right in his head, in order to arouse if not sympathy, at any rate indulgence towards the madman. The governor shrugged his shoulders, opened and shut his eyes, regretted his inability to do anything, but made some sort of promise in the end.

"Tous les egards... certainement, tous les egards," the soft, pleasant words flowed through his scented moustache. "But you know the law, my boy!"

"Of course I do!" Sipiagin responded with a sort of submissive severity.

While they were talking in the corner, Kollomietzev could scarcely stand still in one spot. He walked up and down, hummed and hawed, showed every sign of impatience. At last he went up to Sipiagin, saying hastily, "Vous...o...b..ier l'autre!"

"Oh, yes!" Sipiagin exclaimed loudly. "Merci de me l'avoir rappele. Your excellency," he said, turning to the governor (he purposely addressed his friend Voldemar in this formal way, so as not to compromise the prestige of authority in Markelov's presence), "I must draw your attention to the fact that my brother-in-law's mad attempt has certain ramifications, and one of these branches, that is to say, one of the suspected persons, is to be found not very far from here, in this town.

I've brought another with me," he added in a whisper, "he's in the drawing-room. Have him brought in here."

"What a man!" the governor thought with admiration, gazing respectfully at Sipiagin. He gave the order and a minute later Sila Paklin stood before him.

Paklin bowed very low to the governor as he came in, but catching sight of Markelov before he had time to raise himself, remained as he was, half bent down, fidgetting with his cap. Markelov looked at him vacantly, but could hardly have recognised him, as he withdrew into his own thoughts.

"Is this the branch?" the governor asked, pointing to Paklin with a long white finger adorned with a turquoise ring.

"Oh, no!" Sipiagin exclaimed with a slight smile. "However, who knows!"

he added after a moment's thought. "Your excellency," he said aloud, "the gentleman before you is Mr. Paklin. He comes from St. Petersburg and is a close friend of a certain person who for a time held the position of tutor in my house and who ran away, taking with him a certain young girl who, I blush to say, is my niece.

"Ah! oui, oui," the governor mumbled, shaking his head, "I heard the story... The princess told me--"

Sipiagin raised his voice.

"That person is a certain Mr. Nejdanov, whom I strongly suspect of dangerous ideas and theories--"

"Un rouge a tous crins," Kollomietzev put in.

"Yes, dangerous ideas and theories," Sipiagin repeated more emphatically. "He must certainly know something about this propaganda.

He is... in hiding, as I have been informed by Mr. Paklin, in the merchant Falyaeva's factory--"

At these words Markelov threw another glance at Paklin and gave a slow, indifferent smile.

"Excuse me, excuse me, your excellency," Paklin cried, "and you, Mr.

Sipiagin, I never... never--"

"Did you say the merchant Falyaeva?" the governor asked, turning to Sipiagin and merely shaking his fingers in Paklin's direction, as much as to say, "Gently, my good man, gently." "What is coming over our respectable, bearded merchants? Only yesterday one was arrested in connection with this affair. You may have heard of him--Golushkin, a very rich man. But he's harmless enough. He won't make revolutions; he's grovelling on his knees already."

"The merchant Falyaeva has nothing whatever to do with it," Sipiagin began; "I know nothing of his ideas; I was only talking of his factory where Mr. Nejdanov is to be found at this very moment, as Mr. Paklin says--"

"I said nothing of the kind!" Paklin cried; "you said it yourself!"

"Excuse me, Mr. Paklin," Sipiagin p.r.o.nounced with the same relentless precision, "I admire that feeling of friends.h.i.+p which prompts you to deny it." ("A regular Guizot, upon my word!" the governor thought to himself.) "But take example by me. Do you suppose that the feeling of kins.h.i.+p is less strong in me than your feeling of friends.h.i.+p? But there is another feeling, my dear sir, yet stronger still, which guides all our deeds and actions, and that is duty!"

"Le sentiment du devoir," Kollomietzev explained.

Markelov took both the speakers in at a glance.

"Your excellency!" he exclaimed, "I ask you a second time; please have me removed out of sight of these babblers."

But there the governor lost patience a little.

"Mr. Markelov!" he p.r.o.nounced severely, "I would advise you, in your present position, to be a little more careful of your tongue, and to show a little more respect to your elders, especially when they give expression to such patriotic sentiments as those you have just heard from the lips of your beau-frere! I shall be delighted, my dear Boris,"

he added, turning to Sipiagin, "to tell the minister of your n.o.ble action. But with whom is this Nejdanov staying at the factory?"

Sipiagin frowned.

"With a certain Mr. Solomin, the chief engineer there, Mr. Paklin says."

It seemed to afford Sipiagin some peculiar pleasure in tormenting poor Sila. He made him pay dearly for the cigar he had given him and the playful familiarity of his behaviour.

"This Solomin," Kollomietzev put in, "is an out-and-out radical and republican. It would be a good thing if your excellency were to turn your attention to him too."

"Do you know these gentlemen... Solomin, and what's his name. ..

Nejdanov?" the governor asked Markelov, somewhat authoritatively.

Markelov distended his nostrils malignantly.

"Do you know Confucius and t.i.tus Livius, your excellency?"

The governor turned away.

"Il n'y a pas moyen de causer avec cette homme," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Baron, come here, please."

The adjutant went up to him quickly and Paklin seized the opportunity of limping over to Sipiagin.

"What are you doing?" he asked in a whisper. "Why do you want to ruin your niece? Why, she's with him, with Nejdanov!"

"I am not ruining any one, my dear sir," Sipiagin said loudly, "I am only doing what my conscience bids me do, and--"

"And what your wife, my sister, bids you do; you dare not stand up against her!" Markelov exclaimed just as loudly.

Sipiagin took no notice of the remark; it was too much beneath him!