"I am concerned here with one woman only--a young girl--the sister of your dead friend--Miss Haldin. Surely you can think a little of her.
What I meant from the first was that there is a situation which you cannot be expected to understand."
I listened to his unsteady footfalls by my side for the s.p.a.ce of several strides.
"I think that it may prepare the ground for your next interview with Miss Haldin if I tell you of it. I imagine that she might have had something of the kind in her mind when she left us together. I believe myself authorized to speak. The peculiar situation I have alluded to has arisen in the first grief and distress of Victor Haldin"s execution.
There was something peculiar in the circ.u.mstances of his arrest. You no doubt know the whole truth...."
I felt my arm seized above the elbow, and next instant found myself swung so as to face Mr. Razumov.
"You spring up from the ground before me with this talk. Who the devil are you? This is not to be borne! Why! What for? What do you know what is or is not peculiar? What have you to do with any confounded circ.u.mstances, or with anything that happens in Russia, anyway?"
He leaned on his stick with his other hand, heavily; and when he let go my arm, I was certain in my mind that he was hardly able to keep on his feet.
"Let us sit down at one of these vacant tables," I proposed, disregarding this display of unexpectedly profound emotion. It was not without its effect on me, I confess. I was sorry for him.
"What tables? What are you talking about? Oh--the empty tables? The tables there. Certainly. I will sit at one of the empty tables."
I led him away from the path to the very centre of the raft of deals before the _chalet_. The Swiss couple were gone by that time. We were alone on the raft, so to speak. Mr. Razumov dropped into a chair, let fall his stick, and propped on his elbows, his head between his hands, stared at me persistently, openly, and continuously, while I signalled the waiter and ordered some beer. I could not quarrel with this silent inspection very well, because, truth to tell, I felt somewhat guilty of having been sprung on him with some abruptness--of having "sprung from the ground," as he expressed it.
While waiting to be served I mentioned that, born from parents settled in St. Petersburg, I had acquired the language as a child. The town I did not remember, having left it for good as a boy of nine, but in later years I had renewed my acquaintance with the language. He listened, without as much as moving his eyes the least little bit. He had to change his position when the beer came, and the instant draining of his gla.s.s revived him. He leaned back in his chair and, folding his arms across his chest, continued to stare at me squarely. It occurred to me that his clean-shaven, almost swarthy face was really of the very mobile sort, and that the absolute stillness of it was the acquired habit of a revolutionist, of a conspirator everlastingly on his guard against self-betrayal in a world of secret spies.
"But you are an Englishman--a teacher of English literature," he murmured, in a voice that was no longer issuing from a parched throat.
"I have heard of you. People told me you have lived here for years."
"Quite true. More than twenty years. And I have been a.s.sisting Miss Haldin with her English studies."
"You have been reading English poetry with her," he said, immovable now, like another man altogether, a complete stranger to the man of the heavy and uncertain footfalls a little while ago--at my elbow.
"Yes, English poetry," I said. "But the trouble of which I speak was caused by an English newspaper."
He continued to stare at me. I don"t think he was aware that the story of the midnight arrest had been ferreted out by an English journalist and given to the world. When I explained this to him he muttered contemptuously, "It may have been altogether a lie."
"I should think you are the best judge of that," I retorted, a little disconcerted. "I must confess that to me it looks to be true in the main."
"How can you tell truth from lies?" he queried in his new, immovable manner.
"I don"t know how you do it in Russia," I began, rather nettled by his att.i.tude. He interrupted me.
"In Russia, and in general everywhere--in a newspaper, for instance. The colour of the ink and the shapes of the letters are the same."
"Well, there are other trifles one can go by. The character of the publication, the general verisimilitude of the news, the consideration of the motive, and so on. I don"t trust blindly the accuracy of special correspondents--but why should this one have gone to the trouble of concocting a circ.u.mstantial falsehood on a matter of no importance to the world?"
"That"s what it is," he grumbled. "What"s going on with us is of no importance--a mere sensational story to amuse the readers of the papers--the superior contemptuous Europe. It is hateful to think of. But let them wait a bit!"
He broke off on this sort of threat addressed to the western world.
Disregarding the anger in his stare, I pointed out that whether the journalist was well- or ill-informed, the concern of the friends of these ladies was with the effect the few lines of print in question had produced--the effect alone. And surely he must be counted as one of the friends--if only for the sake of his late comrade and intimate fellow-revolutionist. At that point I thought he was going to speak vehemently; but he only astounded me by the convulsive start of his whole body. He restrained himself, folded his loosened arms tighter across his chest, and sat back with a smile in which there was a twitch of scorn and malice.
"Yes, a comrade and an intimate.... Very well," he said.
"I ventured to speak to you on that a.s.sumption. And I cannot be mistaken. I was present when Peter Ivanovitch announced your arrival here to Miss Haldin, and I saw her relief and thankfulness when your name was mentioned. Afterwards she showed me her brother"s letter, and read out the few words in which he alludes to you. What else but a friend could you have been?"
"Obviously. That"s perfectly well known. A friend. Quite correct....
Go on. You were talking of some effect."
I said to myself: "He puts on the callousness of a stern revolutionist, the insensibility to common emotions of a man devoted to a destructive idea. He is young, and his sincerity a.s.sumes a pose before a stranger, a foreigner, an old man. Youth must a.s.sert itself...." As concisely as possible I exposed to him the state of mind poor Mrs. Haldin had been thrown into by the news of her son"s untimely end.
He listened--I felt it--with profound attention. His level stare deflected gradually downwards, left my face, and rested at last on the ground at his feet.
"You can enter into the sister"s feelings. As you said, I have only read a little English poetry with her, and I won"t make myself ridiculous in your eyes by trying to speak of her. But you have seen her. She is one of these rare human beings that do not want explaining. At least I think so. They had only that son, that brother, for a link with the wider world, with the future. The very groundwork of active existence for Nathalie Haldin is gone with him. Can you wonder then that she turns with eagerness to the only man her brother mentions in his letters. Your name is a sort of legacy."
"What could he have written of me?" he cried, in a low, exasperated tone.
"Only a few words. It is not for me to repeat them to you, Mr. Razumov; but you may believe my a.s.sertion that these words are forcible enough to make both his mother and his sister believe implicitly in the worth of your judgment and in the truth of anything you may have to say to them.
It"s impossible for you now to pa.s.s them by like strangers."
I paused, and for a moment sat listening to the footsteps of the few people pa.s.sing up and down the broad central walk. While I was speaking his head had sunk upon his breast above his folded arms. He raised it sharply.
"Must I go then and lie to that old woman!"
It was not anger; it was something else, something more poignant, and not so simple. I was aware of it sympathetically, while I was profoundly concerned at the nature of that exclamation.
"Dear me! Won"t the truth do, then? I hoped you could have told them something consoling. I am thinking of the poor mother now. Your Russia _is_ a cruel country."
He moved a little in his chair.
"Yes," I repeated. "I thought you would have had something authentic to tell."
The twitching of his lips before he spoke was curious.
"What if it is not worth telling?"
"Not worth--from what point of view? I don"t understand."
"From every point of view."
I spoke with some asperity.
"I should think that anything which could explain the circ.u.mstances of that midnight arrest...."
"Reported by a journalist for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the civilized Europe," he broke in scornfully.
"Yes, reported.... But aren"t they true? I can"t make out your att.i.tude in this? Either the man is a hero to you, or..."
He approached his face with fiercely distended nostrils close to mine so suddenly that I had the greatest difficulty in not starting back.
"You ask me! I suppose it amuses you, all this. Look here! I am a worker. I studied. Yes, I studied very hard. There is intelligence here." (He tapped his forehead with his finger-tips.) "Don"t you think a Russian may have sane ambitions? Yes--I had even prospects. Certainly! I had. And now you see me here, abroad, everything gone, lost, sacrificed.
You see me here--and you ask! You see me, don"t you?--sitting before you."
He threw himself back violently. I kept outwardly calm.