II
That Thursday was March 15. I was conscious of my existence again onSunday, April 1st. I opened my eyes and saw that there was a thaw. Thatwas the first thing of which I was aware--that water was apparentlydripping on every side of me. It is a strange sensation to lie on yourbed very weak, and very indifferent, and to feel the world turning tomoisture all about you.... My ramshackle habitation had never been avery strong defence against the outside world. It seemed now to havedefinitely decided to abandon the struggle. The water streamed down thepanes of my window opposite my bed. One patch of my ceiling (just abovemy only bookcase, confound it!) was coloured a mouldy grey, and fromthis huge drops like elephant's tears, splashed monotonously. (Already_The Spirit of Man_ was disfigured by a long grey streak, and the greenback of Galleon's _Roads_ was splotched with stains.) Some one hadplaced a bucket near the door to catch a perpetual stream flowing fromthe corner of the room. Down into the bucket it pattered with a hasty,giggling, hysterical jiggle. I rather liked the companionship of it. Ididn't mind it at all. I really minded nothing whatever.... I sighed myappreciation of my return to life. My sigh brought some one from thecorner of my room and that some one was, of course, the inevitable Eat.He came up to my bed in his stealthy, furtive fashion, and looked at mereproachfully. I asked him, my voice sounding to myself strange and veryfar away, what he was doing there. He answered that if it had not beenfor him I should be dead. He had come early one morning and found melying in my bed and no one in the place at all. No one--because the oldwoman had vanished. Yes, the neighbours had told him. Apparently on thatvery Thursday she had decided that the Revolution had given her herfreedom, and that she was never going to work for anybody ever again.She had told a woman-neighbour that she heard that the land now wasgoing to be given back to everybody, and she was returning therefore toher village somewhere in the Moscow Province. She had not been backthere for twenty years. And first, to celebrate her liberty, she wouldget magnificently drunk on furniture polish.
"I did not see her of course," said the Rat. "No. When I came, early inthe morning, no one was here. I thought that you were dead, Barin, and Ibegan collecting your property, so that no one else should take it. Thenyou made a movement, and I saw that you were alive--so I got somecabbage soup and gave it you. That certainly saved you.... I'm going tostay with you now."
I did not care in the least whether he went or stayed. He chattered on.By staying with me he would inevitably neglect his public duties.Perhaps I didn't know that he had public duties? Yes, he was now anAnarchist, and I should be astonished very shortly, by the things theAnarchists would do. All the same, they had their own discipline. Theyhad their own processions, too, like any one else. Only four days ago hehad marched all over Petrograd carrying a black flag. He must confessthat he was rather sick of it. But they must have processions.... Eventhe prostitutes had marched down the Nevski the other day demandingshorter hours.
But of course I cannot remember all that he said. During the next fewdays I slowly pulled myself out of the misty dead world in which I hadbeen lying. Pain came back to me, leaping upon me and then receding,finally, on the third day suddenly leaving me altogether. The Rat fed meon cabbage soup and glasses of tea and caviare and biscuits. Duringthose three days he never left me, and indeed tended me like a woman. Hewould sit by my bed and with his rough hand stroke my hair, while hepoured into my ears ghastly stories of the many crimes that he hadcommitted. I noticed that he was cleaner and more civilised. His beardwas clipped and he smelt of cabbage and straw--a rather healthy smell.One morning he suddenly took the pail, filled it with water and washedhimself in front of my windows. He scrubbed himself until I should havethought that he had no skin left.
"You're a fine big man, Rat," I said.
He was delighted with that, and came quite near my bed, stretching hisnaked body, his arms and legs and chest, like a pleased animal.
"Yes, I'm a fine man, Barin," he said; "many women have loved me, andmany will again..." Then he went back, and producing clean drawers andvest from somewhere (I suspect that they were mine but I was too weak tocare), put them on.
On the second and third days I felt much better. The thaw was lessviolent, the wood crackled in my stove. On the morning of WednesdayApril 14 I got up, dressed, and sat in front of my window. The ice wasstill there, but over it lay a faint, a very faint, filmy sheen ofwater. It was a day of gleams, the sun flashing in and out of theclouds. Just beneath my window a tree was pushing into bud. Pools ofwater lay thick on the dirty melting snow. I got the Rat to bring alittle table and put some books on it. I had near me _The Spirit ofMan_, Keats's _Letters_, _The Roads_, Beddoes, and _Pride andPrejudice_. A consciousness of the outer world crept, like warmth,through my bones.
"Rat," I said, "who's been to see me?"
"No one," said he.
I felt suddenly a ridiculous affront.
"No one?" I asked, incredulous.
"No one," he answered. "They've all forgotten you, Barin," he addedmaliciously, knowing that that would hurt me.
It was strange how deeply I cared. Here was I who, only a short whilebefore, had declared myself done with the world for ever, and now I wasalmost crying because no one had been to see me! Indeed, I believe in myweakness and distress I actually did cry. No one at all? Not Vera norNina nor Jeremy nor Bohun? Not young Bohun even...? And then slowly mybrain realised that there was now a new world. None of the oldconditions held any longer.
We had been the victims of an earthquake. Now it was--every man forhimself! Quickly then there came upon me an eager desire to know whathad happened in the Markovitch family. What of Jerry and Vera? What ofNicholas? What of Semyonov...?
"Rat," I said, "this afternoon I am going out!"
"Very well, Barin," he said, "I, too, have an engagement."
In the afternoon I crept out like an old sick man. I felt strangely shyand nervous. When I reached the corner of Ekateringofsky Canal and theEnglish Prospect I decided not to go in and see the Markovitches. Forone thing I shrank from the thought of their compassion. I had notshaved for many days. I was that dull sickly yellow colour that offendsthe taste of all healthy vigorous people. I did not want their pity.No.... I would wait until I was stronger.
My interest in life was reviving with every step that I took. I don'tknow what I had expected the outside world to be. This was April 14. Itwas nearly a month since the outburst of the Revolution, and surelythere should be signs in the streets of the results of such a cataclysm.There were, on the surface, no signs. There was the same little cinemaon the canal with its gaudy coloured posters, there was the old womansitting at the foot of the little bridge with her basket of apples andbootlaces, there was the same wooden hut with the sweets and the fruit,the same figures of peasant women, soldiers, boys hurrying across thebridge, the same slow, sleepy Isvostchick stumbling along carelessly.One sign there was. Exactly opposite the little cinema, on the otherside of the canal, was a high grey block of flats. This now was starredand sprayed with the white marks of bullets. It was like a man markedfor life with smallpox. That building alone was witness to me that I hadnot dreamt the events of that week.
The thaw made walking very difficult. The water poured down the sides ofthe houses and gurgled in floods through the pipes. The snow wasslippery under the film of gleaming wet, and there were huge pools atevery step. Across the middle of the English Prospect, near the Baths,there was quite a deep lake....
I wandered slowly along, enjoying the chill warmth of the soft springsun. The winter was nearly over! Thank God for that! What had happenedduring my month of illness? Perhaps a great Revolutionary army had beenformed, and a mighty, free, and united Russia was going out to save theworld! Oh, I did hope that it was so! Surely that wonderful white weekwas a good omen. No Revolution in history had started so well as thisone....
I found my way at last very slowly to the end of the Quay, and the sightof the round towers of my favourite church was like the reassuring smileof an old friend. The sun was
dropping low over the Neva. The whole vastexpanse of the river was coloured very faintly pink. Here, too, therewas the film of the water above the ice; the water caught the colour,but the ice below it was grey and still. Clouds of crimson and orangeand faint gold streamed away in great waves of light from the sun. Thelong line of buildings and towers on the farther side was jet-black; themasts of the ships clustering against the Quay were touched at theirtips with bright gold. It was all utterly still, not a sound nor amovement anywhere; only one figure, that of a woman, was coming slowlytowards me. I felt, as one always does at the beginning of a Russianspring, a strange sense of expectation. Spring in Russia is so suddenand so swift that it gives an overwhelming impression of a powerfulorganising Power behind it. Suddenly the shutters are pulled back andthe sun floods the world! Upon this afternoon one could feel the urgentbusiness of preparation pushing forward, arrogantly, ruthlessly. I don'tthink that I had ever before realised the power of the Neva at suchclose quarters. I was almost ashamed at the contrast of its strugglewith my own feebleness.
I saw then that the figure coming towards me was Nina.
The Secret City Page 38
