VI
I have said already, I think, that the instinctive motive of Vera's lifewas her independent pride. Cling to that, and however the world mightrock and toss around her she could not be wrecked. Imagine, then, whatshe must have suffered during the weeks that followed her surrender toLawrence. Not that for a moment she intended to go back on hersurrender, which was, indeed, the proudest moment of her whole life.She never looked back for one second after that embrace, she neverdoubted herself or him or the supreme importance of love itself; but therest of her--her tenderness, her fidelity, her loyalty, herself-respect--this was all tortured now by the things that she seemedcompelled to do. It must have appeared to her as though Fate, havingwatched that complete abandonment, intended to deprive her of everythingupon which she had depended. She was, I think, a woman of very simpleinstincts. The things that had been in her life--her love for Nina, hermaternal tenderness for Nicholas, her sense of duty--remained with heras strongly after that tremendous Thursday afternoon as they had beenbefore it. She did not see why they need be changed. She did not loveNina any the less because she loved Lawrence; indeed, she had neverloved Nina so intensely as on the night when she had realised her lovefor Lawrence to the full, that night when they had sheltered thepoliceman. And she had never pretended to love Nicholas. She had alwaystold him that she did not love him. She had been absolutely honest withhim always, and he had often said to her, "If ever real love comes intoyour life, Vera, you will leave me," and she had always answered him,"No, Nicholas, why should I? I will never change. Why should I?"
She honestly thought that her love for Lawrence need not alter things.She would tell Nicholas, of course, and then she would act as he wished.If she were not to see Lawrence she would not see him--that would makeno difference to her love for him. What she did not realise--and thatwas strange after living with him for so long--was that he was alwayshoping that her tender kindliness towards him would, one day, changeinto something more passionate. I think that, subconsciously, she didrealise it, and that was why she was, during those weeks before theRevolution, so often uneasy and unhappy. But I am sure that definitelyshe never admitted it.
The great fact was that, as soon as possible, she must tell Nicholasall about it. And the days went by, and she did not. She did not, partlybecause she had now some one else as well as herself to consider. Ibelieve that in those weeks between that Thursday and Easter Day shenever had one moment alone with Lawrence. He came, as Bohun had told me,to see them; he sat there and looked at her, and listened and waited.She herself, I expect, prevented their being alone. She was waiting forsomething to happen. Then Nina's flight overwhelmed everything. Thatmust have been the most awful thing. She never liked Grogoff, nevertrusted him, and had a very clear idea of his character. But more awfulto her than his weakness was her knowledge that Nina did not love him.What could have driven her to do such a thing? She knew of her affectionfor Lawrence, but she had, perhaps, never taken that seriously. Howcould Nina really love Lawrence when he, so obviously, cared nothing atall for her? She reasoned then, as every one always does, on the linesof her own character. She herself could never have cared seriously forany one had there been no return. Her pride would not have allowedher....
But Nina had been the charge of her life. Before Nicholas, before herown life, before everything. Nina was her duty, her sacred cause--andnow she was betraying her trust! Something must be done--but what? butwhat? She knew Nina well enough to realise that a false step would onlyplunge her farther than ever into the business. It must have seemed toher indeed that because of her own initial disloyalty the whole worldwas falling away from her.
Then there came Semyonov; I did not at this time at all sufficientlyrealise that her hatred of her uncle--for it _was_ hatred, more, muchmore than mere dislike--had been with her all her life. Many monthsafterwards she told me that she could never remember a time when she hadnot hated him. He had teased her when she was a very little girl,laughing at her naive honesty, throwing doubts on her independence,cynically ridiculing her loyalty. There had been one horrible wintermonth (then ten or eleven years of age) when she had been sent to staywith him in Moscow.
He had a fine house near the Arbat, and he was living (although she didnot of course know anything about that at the time) with one of hisgaudiest mistresses. Her mother and father being dead she had noprotection. She was defenceless. I don't think that he in any wayperverted her innocence. I except that he was especially careful toshield her from his own manner of life (he had always his own queertradition of honour which he effected indeed to despise), but she feltmore than she perceived. The house was garish, over-scented andover-lighted. There were many gilt chairs and large pictures of nakedwomen and numbers of coloured cushions. She was desperately lonely. Shehated the woman of the house, who tried, I have no doubt, to be kind toher, and after the first week she was left to herself.
One night, long after she had gone to bed there was a row downstairs,one of the scenes common enough between Semyonov and his women.Terrified, she went to the head of the stairs and heard the smash offalling glass and her uncle's voice raised in a scream of rage andvituperation. A great naked woman in a gold frame swung and leered ather in the lighted passage. She fled back to her dark room and lay, forthe rest of that night, trembling and quivering with her head beneaththe bed-clothes.
From that moment she feared her uncle as much as she hated him. Longafterwards came his influence over Nicholas. No one had so muchinfluence over Nicholas as he. Nicholas himself admitted it. He wasalternately charmed and frightened, beguiled and disgusted, attractedand repulsed. Before the war Semyonov had, for a time, seen a good dealof them, and Nicholas steadily degenerated. Then Semyonov was bored withit all and went off after other game more worthy of his doughty spear.Then came the war, and Vera devoutedly hoped that her dear uncle wouldmeet his death at the hands of some patriotic Austrian. He did indeedfor a time disappear from their lives, and it seemed that he might nevercome back again. Then on that fateful Christmas Day he did return, andVera's worst fears were realised. She hated him all the more because ofher impotence. She could do nothing against him at all. She was neververy subtle in her dealings with people, and her own natural honestymade her often stupid about men's motives. But the thing for which shefeared her uncle most was his, as it seemed to her, supernaturalpenetration into the thoughts of others.
She of course greatly exaggerated his gifts in that direction simplybecause they were in no way her gifts, and he, equally of course,discovered very early in their acquaintance that this was the way toimpress her. He played tricks with her exactly as a conjurer produces arabbit out of a hat....
When he announced his intention of coming to live in the flat she wasliterally paralyzed with fright. Had it been any one else she would havefought, but in her uncle's drawing gradually nearer and nearer to thecentre of all their lives, coming as it seemed to her so silently andmysteriously, without obvious motive, and yet with so stealthy a plan,against this man she could do nothing....
Nevertheless she determined to fight for Nicholas to the last--to fightfor Nicholas, to bring back Nina, these were now the two great aims ofher life; and whilst they were being realised her love for Lawrence mustbe passive, passive as a deep passionate flame beats with unwaveringforce in the heart of the lamp....
They had made me promise long before that I would spend Easter Eve withthem and go with them to our church on the Quay. I wondered now whetherall the troubles of the last weeks would not negative that invitation,and I had privately determined that if I did not hear from them again Iwould slip off with Lawrence somewhere. But on Good Friday Markovitch,meeting me in the Morskaia, reminded me that I was coming.
It is very difficult to give any clear picture of the atmosphere of thetown between Revolution week and this Easter Eve, and yet all the seedsof the later crop of horrors were sewn during that period. Its spiritualmentality corresponded almost exactly with the physical thaw thataccompanied it--mist, then vapour dripping
of rain, the fading away ofone clear world into another that was indistinct, ghostly, ominous. Ifind written in my Diary of Easter Day--exactly five weeks after theoutbreak of the Revolution--these words: "From long talks with K. andothers I see quite clearly that Russians have gone mad for the timebeing. It's heartbreaking to see them holding meetings everywhere,arguing at every street corner as to how they intend to arrange ademocratic peace for Europe, when meanwhile the Germans are gatheringevery moment force upon the frontiers."
Pretty quick, isn't it, to change from Utopia to threatenings of theworst sort of Communism? But the great point for us in all this--thegreat point for our private personal histories as well as the publicone--was that it was during these weeks that the real gulf betweenRussia and the Western world showed itself! Yes, for more than threeyears we had been pretending that a week's sentiment and a hurriedlyproclaimed Idealism could bridge a separation which centuries of magicand blood and bones had gone to build. For three years we trickedourselves (I am not sure that the Russians were ever really deceived)... but we liked the ballet, we liked Tolstoi and Dostoieffsky (wetranslated their inborn mysticism into the weakest kind ofsentimentality), we liked the theory of inexhaustible numbers, we likedthe picture of their pounding, steam-roller like, to Berlin... wetricked ourselves, and in the space of a night our trick was exposed.
Plain enough the reasons for these mistakes that we in England have madeover that same Revolution, mistakes made by none more emphatically thanby our own Social Democrats. Those who hailed the Revolution as thefulfilment of all their dearest hopes, those who cursed it as thebeginning of the damnation of the world--all equally in the wrong. TheRevolution had no thought for _them_. Russian extremists might shout asthey pleased about their leading the fight for the democracies of theworld--they never even began to understand the other democracies.Whatever Russia may do, through repercussion, for the rest of the world,she remains finally alone--isolated in her Government, in her ideals, inher ambitions, in her abnegations. For a moment the world-politics ofher foreign rulers seemed to draw her into the Western whirlpool. For amoment only she remained there. She has slipped back again behind herveil of mist and shadow. We may trade with her, plunge into herpolitics, steal from her Art, emphasise her religion--she remains alone,apart, mysterious....
I think it was with a kind of gulping surprise, as after a sudden plungeinto icy cold water, that we English became conscious of this. It cameto us first in the form that to us the war was everything--to theRussian, by the side of an idea the war was nothing at all. How was I,for instance, to recognise the men who took a leading part in the eventsof this extraordinary year as the same men who fought with bare hands,with fanatical bravery through all the Galician campaign of two yearsbefore?
Had I not realised sufficiently at that time that Russia moves alwaysaccording to the Idea that governs her--and that when that Idea changesthe world, _his_ world changes with it....
Well, to return to Markovitch....
The Secret City Page 42
