The White Terror and The Red: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia
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CHAPTER XLI.
PAVEL BECOMES "ILLEGAL."
A month had elapsed. Clara was in a train, bound for Moscow, where herlover was awaiting her arrival. The nearer she drew to her destinationthe more vivid grew his features in her mind and the more violent washer fidget. "I am madly in love with him," she said to herself, and thevery sound of these words in her mind were sweet to her. The few weeksof separation seemed to have convinced her that the power of his loveover her was far greater than she had supposed. Things that had preyedupon her mind before now glanced off her imagination. She wept over thefate of Hessia and her prison-born child, yet she felt that if Pavelasked her to marry him at once she would not have the strength to resisthim. Nay, to marry him was what her heart coveted above all else in theworld.
Being an "illegal," she had to slip into the big ancient city quietly.As she passed through the streets, alone on a droshky, she made a mentalnote of the difference in general pictorial effect between Moscow andSt. Petersburg, but she was too excited to give her mind to anything inparticular.
Her first meeting with Pavel took place in a large cafe, built somethinglike a theatre, with two tiers of stalls, a gigantic music box sendingup great waves of subdued sound from the main floor below. He waitedfor her in front of the building. When she came they just shook handssmilingly, and he led the way up one flight of stairs to one of thestalls--a fair-sized, oblong private room, its walls covered with redplush, with upholstered benching to match.
"I am simply crazy, Clanya!" he whispered, pressing her to himtremulously.
At first they both experienced a sense of desuetude and awkwardness, sothat in spite of his stormy demonstrations he could not look her full inthe face. But this soon wore off. They were overflowing with joy in oneanother.
A waiter, all in white, suave and hearty as only Great-Russian waitersknow how to be, brought in "a portion of tea," served in attractiveteapots of silver, with a glass for the man and a cup for the lady, andretired, shutting the door behind him, which subdued the metallic melodythat filled the room still further and added to the sense of mysterythat came from it. They talked desultorily and brokenly, of her parentsand of the revolutionists gathered in Moscow. The subject of theMiroslav riot was tactfully broached by Clara herself, but she strove togive this part of their incoherent conversation the tone in which peopleusually discuss some sad but long-forgotten event, and she passed tosome other topic as quickly and imperceptibly as she could. That he hadseen that riot he did not tell her, though he once caught himself on thepoint of blurting it all out.
When she asked him about the general state of the movement he graduallywarmed up. The outlook was brilliant, he said.
Urie, the tall blond nobleman with the strikingly Great-Russianfeatures, who had played the part of cheesemonger on Little GardenStreet, St. Petersburg, was in Moscow now, mending the shatteredorganisation. He was the centre of a busy group of revolutionists, Jewsas well as Slavs. Several well-known veterans of both nationalities, whohad been living in foreign countries during the past year or two, wereexpected to return to Russia. Everybody was bubbling with enthusiasm andactivity.
"And your fiery imagination is not inclined to view things in a ratherroseate light, is it?" she asked, beaming amorously.
"Not a bit," he replied irascibly. "Wait till you have seen it all foryourself. The reports from the provinces are all of the most cheerfulcharacter. New men are springing up everywhere. The revolution is ahydra-headed giant, Clanya."
"But who says it isn't?" she asked, with a laugh.
She got up, shot out her arms, saying:
"Now for something to do. I feel like turning mountains upside down.Indeed, the revolution is a hydra-headed giant, indeed it is. And youare a little dear," she added, bending over him and pressing her cheekagainst his.
* * * * *
They had been married less than a month when he learned from a cipheredletter from Masha Safonoff that the gendarmes were looking for him.
"Well, Clanya," he said facetiously, as he entered their apartment oneafternoon, "you are a princess no longer."
Her face fell.
"Look at her! Look at her! She is grieving over the loss of her title."
"Oh, do stop those silly jokes of yours, Pasha. Must you becomeillegal?"
"Yes, ma'am. I am of the same rank as you. That puts a stop to the airsyou have been giving yourself." It was in the course of the sameconversation that he told her of his trip to Miroslav and of all thathad happened to him there.
They were known here as brother and sister, his legal residence being inanother place, but now both these residences were abandoned, and theymoved into a new apartment, in another section of the town, which hetook great pains to put in tasteful shape. Indeed, so elaborately fittedup was it that he fought shy of letting any of his fellow Nihilists knowtheir new address. A table against one wall was piled with drawings,while standing in a conspicuous corner on the floor were a drawing-boardand a huge portfolio--accessories of the role of a russified Germanartist which he played before the janitor of the house. Before he lether see it he had put a vase of fresh roses in the centre of the table.
When he and Clara entered their new home, he said in French, with agallant gesture:
"Madame, permit me to introduce you."
He helped her off with her things and slid into the next room, where hebusied himself with the samovar. She had with her a fresh copy of the_Will of the People_--a sixteen page publication of the size of theaverage weekly printed on fine, smooth paper; so she took it up eagerly.Its front page was in mourning for President Garfield. An editorialnotice signed by the revolutionary executive committee tendered anexpression of grief and sympathy to the bereaved republic, condemning invigorous language acts of violence in a land "where the free will of thepeople determines not only the law but also the person of the ruler.""In such a land," the Nihilist Executive Committee went on to explain,"a deed of this sort is a manifestation of that spirit of despotism theeffacement of which in Russia is the aim of our movement. Violence isnot to be justified unless it be directed against violence."
The declaration made an exceedingly pleasant impression on Clara.
"Bravo! Bravo!" she called out to her husband, as she peered into theinside pages of the paper.
"What's the matter?" he asked her from the next room, distractedly,choking with the smoke of his freshly lit samovar.
She made no answer. The same issue of her party's organ devoted severalcolumns to the anti-Jewish riots. She began to read these with acutemisgivings, and, sure enough, they were permeated by a spirit ofanti-Semitism as puerile as it was heartless. A bitter sense ofresentment filled her heart. "As long as it does not concern the Jewsthey have all the human sympathy and tact in the world," she thought."The moment there is a Jew in the case they become cruel, short-sightedand stupid--everything that is bad and ridiculous."
"What's that you said, Clanya?" Pavel demanded again.
She had difficulty in answering him. "He is a Gentile after all," shesaid to herself. "There is a strain of anti-Semitism in the best ofthem." She was in despair. "What is to be done, then?" she askedherself. "Is there no way out of it?" The answer was: "I will bear thecross," and once again the formula had a soothing effect on her frame ofmind. And because it had, the cross gradually ceased to be a cross.
She warmed to her husband with a sense of her own forgiveness, of thesacrifices she was making. She felt a new glow of tenderness for him.And then, by degrees, things appeared in milder light. Pavel's raptureover her was so genuine, his devotion so profound, and the generalrelations between Jew and Gentile in the movement were marked byintimacies and attachments so sincere, that the anti-Semitic articlecould not have sprung from any personal taste or sentiment in theauthor. It was evidently a mere matter of revolutionary theory. Justlyor unjustly, the fact was there: in the popular mind the Jewsrepresented the idea of economic oppression. Now, if the masses hadrisen in arms against
them, did not that mean that they were beginningto attack those they considered their enemies? In the depth of her heartthere had always lurked some doubt as to whether the submissive, stolidRussian masses had it in them ever to rise against anybody. Yet herethey had! Misguided or not, they had risen against an element of thepopulation which they were accustomed to regard as parasites. Was notthat the sign of revolutionary awakening she had fervently been prayingfor?
She went so far as to charge herself with relapsing into racialpredilections, with letting her feelings as a Jewess get the better ofher devotion to the cause of humanity. She was rapidly arguing herselfinto the absurd, inhuman position into which her party had been put bythe editor of its official organ.
And to prove to herself that her views were deep-rooted and unshakable,she said to herself: "If they think in Miroslav I am the only person whocould restore harmony to their circle, I ought to go there and try topersuade Elkin to give up those foolish notions of his." What they weresaying about her in that town flattered her vanity. The thought ofappearing in her revolutionary alma mater, in the teeth of the localgendarmes and police, an "illegal" known to underground fame, wasirresistible. Her thirst of adventure in this connection was aroused tothe highest pitch.
* * * * *
At eight o'clock the next morning she sat in a chair, looking at herhusband, who was still in bed, sleeping peacefully. He had an earlyappointment, but she could not bring herself to wake him. She was goingto do so a minute or two later, she pleaded with herself, and then theywould have tea together. The samovar was singing softly in the nextroom. It was of her love and of her happiness it seemed to be singing.Her joy in her honeymoon swelled her heart and rose to her throat. "I amtoo happy," she thought. As she remembered her determination to go toher native place, she added: "Yes, I am too happy, while Sophia is inher grave and Hessia is pining away in her cell. I may be arrested atany moment in Miroslav, but I am going to do my duty. I must keep Elkinand the others from abandoning the revolution."