"Don"t, Uncle Alexei," I heard Vera whisper.
"What I said I still believe," Nicholas answered very quietly. "Leave Russia alone, Alexei--and leave me alone, too."
"I"m not touching you, Nicholas," Semyonov answered, laughing softly.
"Yes you are--you know that you are. I"m not angry--not yet. But it"s unwise of you--unwise...."
"Unwise--how?"
"Never mind. "Below the silent pools there lie hidden many devils."
Leave me alone. You are our guest."
"Indeed, Nicholas," said Semyonov, still laughing, "I mean you no harm.
Ask our friend Durward here whether I ever mean any one any harm. He will, I"m sure, give me the best of characters."
"No--no harm perhaps--but still you tease me.... I"m a fool to mind....
But then I am a fool--every one knows it."
All the time he was looking with his pathetic eyes and his pale face at Vera.
Vera said again, very low, almost in a whisper: "Uncle Alexei...
please."
"But really, Nicholas," Semyonov went on, "you under-rate yourself. You do indeed. n.o.body thinks you a fool. I think you a very lucky man. With your talents--"
"Talents!" said Nicholas softly, looking at Vera. "I have no talents."
"--And Vera"s love for you," went on Semyonov--
"Ah! that is over!" Nicholas said, so low that I scarcely heard it. I do not know what then exactly happened. I think that Vera put out her hand to cover Nicholas". At any rate I saw him draw his away, very gently. It lay on the table, and the only sound beside the voices was the tiny rattle of his nails as his hand trembled against the woodwork.
Vera said something that I did not catch.
"No..." Nicholas said. "No... We must be true with one another, Vera.
I have been drinking too much wine. My head is aching, and perhaps my words are not very clear. But it gives me courage to say what I have in my mind. I haven"t thought out yet what we must do. Perhaps you can help me. But I must tell you that I saw everything that happened here on that Thursday afternoon in the week of the Revolution--"
Vera made a little movement of distress
"Yes, you didn"t know--but I was in my room--where Alexei sleeps now, you know. I couldn"t help seeing. I"m very sorry."
"No, Nicholas, I"m very glad," Vera answered quietly.
"I would have told you in any case. I should have told you before. I love him and he loves me, just as you saw. I would like Ivan Andreievitch and Uncle Ivan and every one to know. There is nothing to conceal. I have never loved any one before, and I"m not ashamed of loving some one now.... It doesn"t alter our life, Nicholas. I care for you just as I did care, and I will do just as you tell me. I will never see him again if that"s what you wish, but I shall always love him."
"Ah, Vera--you are cruel." Nicholas gave a little cry like a hurt animal, then he went away from us, standing for a moment looking at us.
"We"ll have to consider what we must do. I don"t know. I can"t think to-night.... And you, Alexei, you leave me alone...."
He went stumbling away towards his bedroom.
Vera said nothing to any of us. She got up slowly, looked about her for a moment as though she were bewildered by the light and then went after Nicholas. I turned to Semyonov.
"You"d better go back to your own place," I said.
"Not yet, thank you," he answered, smiling.
IX
On the afternoon of Easter Monday I was reminded by Bohun of an engagement that I had made some weeks before to go that evening to a party at the house of a rich merchant, Rozanov 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 Bohun at Watkins"
bookshop in the Morskaia, 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 come," I said, shaking my head at the book-seller, who was anxious that I should buy the latest works of Mrs. Elinor Glyn 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 Bohun at the top of the English Prospect, and we decided to walk.
Rozanov 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 Benois, Somoff, Dobeijinsky, Yakofflyeff, and Lanceray. He had also two Serovs, a fine Vrubel, and several Ryepins. 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 Bohun. "And I"ll tell you frankly that I"m jolly glad not to be having a meal at home to-night. 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," Bohun said. "Everything goes on normally enough outwardly, but I suppose there"s been some tremendous row. Of course I don"t knew any-thing about that. After what you told me the other night though, I seem to see everything twice its natural size."
"What do you mean?" I asked him.
"You know when something queer"s 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 ca.n.a.ls; and don"t you notice what lots of queer fellows there are in the Nevski now, and Chinese and j.a.ps--all sorts of wild men. And last night I had a dream that all the lumps of ice in the Nevski turned into griffins and went marching through the Red Square eating every one up on their way...." Bohun laughed. "That"s because _I"d_ eaten something of course--too much _paskha_ 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 sports-man 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 reedy 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.