CHAPTER XXII.
FROM CELLAR TO PALACE.
Meanwhile Pavel, Mme. Shubeyko, Masha, Mlle. Andronoff and her fiance,the near-sighted judge with the fluffy hair, went on with their plot. Aconsiderable sum was needed to bribe the warden, the head keeper (abustling little man who was known in the conspiracy as the Sparrow), andothers. The plotters had five thousand rubles, and in order to obtainthe rest without delay Pavel went so far as to take his mother into thesecret. The countess received his story with a thrill of gratitude andof a sense of adventure. After a visit to the bank, she handed him tenthousand rubles in crisp rainbow-coloured one hundred ruble notes. Shewas pale with emotion as she did so. Her heart was deeper in hismovement than he supposed. It was as if every barrier standing betweenher and her son had been removed. She was a comrade of his now.
"The only thing that worries me," she said for something to say, "isuncle's visits. He has not been here for some time, but if he comes, Ishan't be able to look him in the face. He is a very good man at heart,Pasha."
"Still, you had better make no haste about trying to convert him," Pavelanswered, with a smile, struggling with the pile of notes.
The bulk of the sum--eight thousand rubles--was to be paid by Mme.Shubeyko to the warden, half of it in advance and the other half uponthe carrying out of the project. Rodkevich pretended to receive the fourthousand rubles as a loan. He barred all frank discussion of the scheme,hinting that he was scarcely a master in his own prison and that all hecould do was to "overlook things under pressure of business at times."As a matter of fact, he scarcely incurred any risks.
Pavel missed Clara keenly. A feverish yearning feeling had settled inhim, often moving him to tears, but he fought it bravely. Once or twicehe went to the Beak and indulged in a feast of self-torture, butotherwise he worked literally day and night, seeing people,deliberating, scheming. The only manifestation of his nervousness was anexaggerated air of composure, and as this was lost on his fellowplotters, nothing was farther from their thoughts than that heexperienced a sensation as though his heart were withering within hisbreast and that the cause of it was Clara Yavner.
When he received word of her return he said to himself, in a turmoil ofjoy, terror and impatience, that he could not bear it any longer andthat he would tell her all the next time they were alone.
He saw her the very next day, at the trunk shop. Both blushed violently.The first minutes of their conversation were punctuated with nervouspauses, like the first talk of people who have been reconciled after along estrangement. He said to himself: "Now is the time," and vaguelyfelt confident of success, yet he was still in awe of her and all hemanaged to do was to turn the conversation upon his mother.
"I should like you to meet her," he said. "She has heard of you."
"Your mother?" she asked in shamefaced astonishment.
"She is a very good woman," Pavel observed, gravely. "She is in sympathywith the movement, you know, although it was only the other day Ibrought her the first few things to read. If it isn't asking too much Ishould like to introduce you to her, Clara Rodionovna. She would bedelighted."
He paused, but she maintained her air of respectful curiosity, so hewent on. "She is very enthusiastic. She would like to know some of theMiroslav radicals, and I took the liberty of telling her about you. Ineed not tell you that I spoke in a very, very general way about you."
* * * * *
One afternoon the Palace, which the trunk-dealer's daughter had knownall her life as a mysterious, awe-inspiring world whose threshold peopleof her class could never dream of crossing, the Palace threw open itsimposing doors to her, and she was escorted by Pavel up the immensestaircase and into the favorite room of Countess Anna NicolayevnaVaroff. As it was an unheard-of thing for a Jewish girl to visit thePalace, it was agreed, as a safeguard against the inquisitiveness of theservants, that she should be known to them by such a typically Russianname as Daria Ivanovna Morosoff (Morosova).
Barring the two great statues and an ancient cabinet inlaid with ivoryand mother-of-pearl, the room was rather below her undefinedanticipations. Her preconceived notion of the place soon wore off,however, under a growing sense of venerable solidity, of a quietmagnificence that was a revelation to her.
"I'm awfully glad to know you, Clara Rodionovna, awfully," the countesssaid when the first formalities of greeting were over, and they wereall seated. This Jewish girl was the first Nihilist she had ever met(indeed, Pavel was only "Pasha" after all), and she identified her inher mind with every revolutionary assassination and plot she had readabout. She was flushed with excitement and so put out that she wasplaying with Pavel's fingers as she spoke, as a mother will do withthose of her little boy. As to Clara, she had an oppressive feeling asthough the pair of big musty statues, graceful, silent, imposing, werehaughtily frowning on her presence under this roof. Pavel seemed to be adifferent young man. She scarcely seemed to be acquainted with him. Onlythe sight of Anna Nicolayevna fondling his fingers warmed her heart toboth. On the other hand, her own smile won the hostess.
The countess released Pavel's hand, moved over to the other end of thesofa and huddled herself into the corner, thrusting out her gracefulelbows and great pile of auburn hair. The presence of Pavel kept her illat ease. Finally she said: "I think you had better leave us two women toourselves, Pasha. We shall understand each other much better then, won'twe, Clara Rodionovna?"
"I hope so," Clara answered, awkwardly.
Pavel withdrew. In his absence their embarrassment only increased.
* * * * *
The next time Clara and Pavel met, in the trunk-shop, he asked her whenshe would call on his mother again.
"Oh, I don't know. The point is I don't know what to do with my handsthere," she said, with a laugh. "I can't seem to shake off the feelingthat I am in the house of--in 'the Palace,' don't you know."
It was a hot day, but the air in the basement was quite cool. Motl wassilently painting a trunk, and Pavel was conscious of the oppressivesmell of the paint and of the impact of the brush against the wood as heanswered, with pained stress in his voice.
"But my mother does not feel like a countess. She is above and beyondall such things."
"I know she is. Only I somehow don't manage to feel at home there."
"But it's only a matter of habit I am sure. You'll get over it. Youwon't feel that way next time. You must promise me to call to-morrow."It was as if Clara's was a superior position in life and as if thatsuperiority lay in this, that her home was a squalid trunk-shop, whilehis was a palace.
"If I do, my mind will be in a whirl again," she laughed.
"Oh, it isn't as bad as all that. You must promise me to call on her."
"Can't we put it off--indefinitely?"
"Clara Rodionovna!"
His imploring voice threatened to draw from him the great yearning pleathat was waiting to be heard, but this same entreating voice of histhrilled her so that she hastened to yield.
"Very well," she said.
"Will you come? Oh, it's so kind of you. I am ever so much obliged toyou--but I declare I am raving like a maniac," he interrupted himselfwith a queer smile that forthwith lapsed into an expression of rage."What I really want to say is that I love you."
The lines of her face hardened. Her rich complexion burst into flame.She looked gravely at nothing, as he proceeded:
"It seems to me as though I had felt that way ever since that Pievakinepisode, Clara Rodionovna. I owe so much to you. If it had not been foryou I might still be leading the life of a knave and an idiot. What youdid on that occasion served to open my eyes and showed me the differencebetween light and darkness. And now it seems to me that if you weremine, it would infuse great energy and courage into me. I have got soused to seeing you, I hate to think of being apart from you for a singlemoment. Oh, you are so dear to me, I am so happy to sit by your side, tobe allowed to say all this to you."
"You are dear to me,
too," she said in great embarrassment.
He grasped her hand in silence, his face a burning amorous red.
On their way to the Beak, after another outburst from him, she spoke inmeasured accents, firm and sad, like the voice of fate.
"I don't know where this will lead us, for either of us or both may bearrested at any time, and then this happiness would add so much poisonto the horrors of prison life. Besides, even if we are not arrested, aslong as present conditions prevail our love would have to remain hiddenunderground, like our dear movement----"
"My mother will know it. I want her to know it; and if it is possible totell your parents, too----"
"Oh, it would kill them. Theirs is an entirely different world."
"Then, for the present, let them be none the wiser for it. As to mymother, she likes you very, very much already and when she hears of itshe will love you to distraction, Clara Rodionovna. My friends of theparty will know it, too, of course, and what do we care for the rest ofthis wretched world? But oh, I do wish you could tell your mother, orcould I speak to her?"
"Oh, that's absolutely impossible," she said in a voice vibrant with asuggestion of tears and the music of love at once. "Your mother mayunderstand me. We can speak in the same language at least, but my poorparents--one might as well tell them I am dead. Well, when the Will ofthe People has scored its great victory and Russia is free, then, if weare alive, we shall announce it to my poor parents."
He picked up a stone and flung it with all his might. He was in a fidgetof suppressed exultation. Now that his suspense was over, they changedparts, as it were. The gnawing gloom which had tantalised him during thepast few weeks had suddenly burst forth in torrents of sunshine; whereasin her case the quiet light-hearted happiness which had been the colourof her love had given way to an infatuated heart filled with anguish.
* * * * *
He told his mother the news the very next morning. The explanation tookplace in the immense ball-room. It was a windy morning outside, and theywere marching up and down the parquette of polished light oak, arm inarm. Presently they paused at one of the windows facing the garden. Theycould faintly hear the soughing of the wind in the trees. They stoodgazing at the fluttering leaves, when he said, musingly:
"I have something to tell you, mother. I told Mlle. Yavner I loved herand I want you to congratulate me."
"Mlle. Yavner?" she asked, with a look of consternation.
"Yes, Mamma dear, I love her and she loves me and she is the dearestwoman in the world and you are not going to look upon it in a mannerunworthy of yourself, are you, dear little mamma mine?" He seized herfingers and fell to kissing them and murmuring: "My dear little mamma,my dear little mamma." His endearments were too much for her.
"Pasha, Pasha! What are you doing with yourself," she sobbed bitterly.
"Mamma darling! Mamma darling!" he shouted fiercely. "You are not goingto give way to idiotic, brutal, Asiatic notions that are not reallyyours. Another year or two, perhaps less, and all Russia will be freefrom them and from all her chains, and then one won't have to be shockedto hear that a man and a woman who love each other and belong to eachother are going to marry. Mamma dear, my darling little mamma! You arethe noblest woman to be found. You are not going to go back on your sonbecause he is trying to live like a real human being and not like ahypocrite and a brute."
She dared not cry any more.
When Clara came, the countess, turning pale, clasped her vehemently, asthough pleading for mercy. Clara felt bewildered and terror-stricken,and after some perfunctory kisses she loosened her arms, but the Gentilewoman detained her in an impetuous embrace, as she said: "Be good to me,both of you. He is all I have in the world." As she saw an embarrassedsmile on Clara's beautifully coloured face, she bent forward with asudden impulse and drew her to her bosom again, as though she had justmade the discovery that the Jewish girl was not unlike other girls afterall, that there was nothing preternatural about her person or speech.Whereupon Clara kissed her passionately and burst into tears.
The countess caressed her, poured out the innermost secrets of her heartto her. This Jewish girl whom she had only seen once before heard fromher the story of her past life, of her childhood, of her two unhappymarriages, of her thirst for comradeship with her son, of herconversion. The two women became intimate friends, although Clara spokecomparatively little.
Nevertheless, that night Anna Nicolayevna vainly courted sleep. Herheart was in her mouth. She wished she could implore her son to breakthe engagement, to sever connection with the movement, to abandon allhis perilous and unconventional pursuits. But she knew that she wouldnever have the courage to do so.
The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia Page 23
