LAWRENCE
I
Of some of the events that I am now about to relate it is obvious that Icould not have been an eye-witness--and yet, looking back from thestrange isolation that is now my world I find it incredibly difficult torealise what I saw and what I did not. Was I with Nina and Vera on thatTuesday night when they stood face to face with one another for thefirst time? Was I with Markovitch during his walk through thatmarvellous new world that he seemed himself to have created? I know thatI shared none of these things..., and yet it seems to me that I was atthe heart of them all. I may have been told many things by the actors inthose events--I may not. I cannot now in retrospect see any of it saveas my own personal experience, and as my own personal experience I mustrelate it; but, as I have already said at the beginning of this book, noone is compelled to believe either my tale or my interpretation. Everyman would, I suppose, like to tell his story in the manner of some otherman. I can conceive the events of this part of my narration beinginterpreted in the spirit of the wildest farce, of the genteelestcomedy, of the most humorous satire--"Other men, Other gifts." I am adull and pompous fellow, as Semyonov often tells me; and I hope that Inever allowed him to see how deeply I felt the truth of his words.
Meanwhile I will begin with a small adventure of Henry Bohun's.Apparently, one evening soon after Nina's party, he found himself abouthalf-past ten in the evening, lonely and unhappy, walking down theNevski. Gay and happy crowds wandered by him, brushing him aside,refusing to look at him, showing in fact no kind of interest in hisexistence. He was suddenly frightened, the distances seemed terrific andthe Nevski was so hard and bright and shining--that it had no use at allfor any lonely young man. He decided suddenly that he would go and seeme. He found an Isvostchick, but when they reached the EkaterinsgofskyCanal the surly coachman refused to drive further, saying that his horsehad gone lame, and that this was as far as he had bargained to go.
Henry was forced to leave the cab, and then found himself outside thelittle people's cinema, where he had once been with Vera and myself.
He knew that my rooms were not far away, and he started off beside thewhite and silent canal, wondering why he had come, and wishing he wereback in bed.
There was still a great deal of the baby in Henry, and ghosts and giantsand scaly-headed monsters were not incredibilities to his youngimagination. As he left the main thoroughfare and turned down past thewidening docks, he suddenly knew that he was terrified. There had beenstories of wild attacks on rich strangers, sand-bagging and the rest,often enough, but it was not of that kind of thing that he was afraid.He told me afterwards that he expected to see "long thick crawlingcreatures" creeping towards him over the ice. He continually turnedround to see whether some one were following him. When he crossed thetumbledown bridge that led to my island it seemed that he was absolutelyalone in the whole world. The masts of the ships dim through the coldmist were like tangled spiders' webs. A strange hard red moon peeredover the towers and chimneys of the distant dockyard. The ice waslimitless, and of a dirty grey pallor, with black shadows streaking it.My island must have looked desolate enough, with its dirty snow-heaps,old boards and scrap-iron and tumbledown cottages.
Again, as on his first arrival in Petrograd, Henry was faced by thesolemn fact that events are so often romantic in retrospect, but grimlyrealistic in experience. He reached my lodging and found the door open.He climbed the dark rickety stairs and entered my sitting-room. Theblinds were not drawn, and the red moon peered through on to the greyshadows that the ice beyond always flung. The stove was not burning, theroom was cold and deserted. Henry called my name and there was noanswer. He went into my bedroom and there was no one there. He came backand stood there listening.
He could hear the creaking of some bar beyond the window and themelancholy whistle of a distant train.
He was held there, as though spellbound. Suddenly he thought that heheard some one climbing the stairs. He gave a cry, and that was answeredby a movement so close to him that it was almost at his elbow.
"Who's there?" he cried. He saw a shadow pass between the moon andhimself. In a panic of terror he cried out, and at the same time strucka match. Some one came towards him, and he saw that it was Markovitch.
He was so relieved to find that it was a friend that he did not stop towonder what Markovitch should be doing hiding in my room. It afterwardsstruck him that Markovitch looked odd. "Like a kind of conspirator, inold shabby Shuba with the collar turned up. He looked jolly ill anddirty, as though he hadn't slept or washed. He didn't seem a bitsurprised at seeing me there, and I think he scarcely realised that it_was_ me. He was thinking of something else so hard that he couldn'ttake me in."
"Oh, Bohun!" he said in a confused way.
"Hullo, Nicolai Leontievitch," Bohun said, trying to be unconcerned."What are you doing here?"
"Came to see Ivan Andreievitch," he said. "Wasn't here; I was going towrite to him."
Bohun then lit a candle and discovered that the place was in a veryconsiderable mess. Some one had been sifting my desk, and papers andletters were lying about the floor. The drawers of my table were open,and one chair was over-turned. Markovitch stood back near the window,looking at Bohun suspiciously. They must have been a curious couple forsuch a position. There was an awkward pause, and then Bohun, trying tospeak easily, said:
"Well, it seems that Durward isn't coming. He's out dining somewhere Iexpect."
"Probably," said Markovitch drily.
There was another pause, then Markovitch broke out with: "I suppose youthink I've been here trying to steal something."
"Oh no--oh no--no--" stammered Bohun.
"But I have," said Markovitch. "You can look round and see. There it ison every side of you. I've been trying to find a letter."
"Oh yes," said Bohun nervously.
"Well, that seems to you terrible," went on Markovitch, growing everfiercer. "Of course it seems to you perfect Englishmen a dreadful thing.But why heed it?... You all do things just as bad, only you arehypocrites."
"Oh yes, certainly," said Bohun.
"And now," said Markovitch with a snarl. "I'm sure you will not think mea proper person for you to lodge with any longer--and you will be right.I am not a proper person. I have no sense of decency, thank God, and noRussian has any sense of decency, and that is why we are beaten anddespised by the whole world, and yet are finer than them all--so you'dbetter not lodge with us any more."
"But of course," said Bohun, disliking more and more this uncomfortablescene--"of course I shall continue to stay with you. You are my friends,and one doesn't mind what one's friends do. One's friends are one'sfriends."
Suddenly, then, Markovitch jerked himself forward, "just as though,"Bohun afterwards described it to me, "he had shot himself out of acatapault."
"Tell me," he said, "is your English friend in love with my wife?"
What Bohun wanted to do then was to run out of the room, down the darkstairs, and away as fast as his legs would carry him. He had not been inRussia so long that he had lost his English dislike of scenes, and hewas seriously afraid that Markovitch was, as he put it, "bang off hishead."
But at this critical moment, he remembered, it seems, my injunction tohim, "to be kind to Markovitch--to make a friend of him." That hadalways seemed to him before impossible enough, but now, at the verymoment when Markovitch was at his queerest, he was also at his mostpathetic, looking there in the mist and shadows too untidy and dirty andmiserable to be really alarming. Henry then took courage. "That's allnonsense, Markovitch," he said. "I suppose by 'your English friend' youmean Lawrence. He thinks the world of your wife, of course, as we alldo, but he's not the fellow to be in love. I don't suppose he's everbeen really in love with a woman in his life. He's a kindly good-heartedchap, Lawrence, and he wouldn't do harm to a fly."
Markovitch peered into Bohun's face. "What did you come here for, any ofyou?" he asked. "What's Russia over-run with foreigners for? We'll clearthe lot of you out, all of you...."
Then he broke off, with a patheticlittle gesture, his hand up to his head. "But I don't know what I'msaying--I don't mean it, really. Only things are so difficult, and theyslip away from one so.
"I love Russia and I love my wife, Mr. Bohun--and they've both left me.But you aren't interested in that. Why should you be? Only remember whenyou're inclined to laugh at me that I'm like a man in a cockle-shellboat--and it isn't my fault. I was put in it."
"But I'm never inclined to laugh," said Bohun eagerly. "I may be youngand only an Englishman--but I shouldn't wonder if I don't understandbetter than you think. You try and see.... And I'll tell you anotherthing, Nicolai Leontievitch, I loved your wife myself--loved hermadly--and she was so good to me and so far above me, that I saw that itwas like loving one of the angels. That's what we all feel, NicolaiLeontievitch, so that you needn't have any fear--she's too far above allof us. And I only want to be your friend and hers, and to help you inany way I can."
(I can see Bohun saying this, very sincere, his cheeks flushed, eager.)
Markovitch held out both his hands.
"You're right," he cried. "She's above us all. It's true that she's anangel, and we are all her servants. You have helped me by saying whatyou have, and I won't forget it. You are right; I am wasting my timewith ridiculous suspicions when I ought to be working. Concentration,that's what I want, and perhaps you will give it me."
He suddenly came forward and kissed Bohun on both cheeks. He smelt,Bohun thought, of vodka. Bohun didn't like the embrace, of course, buthe accepted it gracefully.
"Now we'll go away," said Markovitch.
"We ought to put things straight," said Bohun.
"No; I shall leave things as they are," said Markovitch, "so that heshall see exactly what I've done. I'll write a note."
He scribbled a note to me in pencil. I have it still. It ran:
Dear Ivan Andreievitch--I looked for a letter from my wife to you. Indoing so I was I suppose contemptible. But no matter. At least you seeme as I am. I clasp your hand, N. Markovitch.
They went away together.
The Secret City Page 23
