Futility

by William Gerhardie

  It was then that they decided to leave Petrograd for Siberia, and his families, dependents and hangers-on naturally all followed him. He travelled with Fanny Ivanovna, Sonia, Nina, Baron Wunderhausen, Kniaz, Eberheim and the book-keeper Stanitski. His wife was in the same train, but in a different carriage, and she insisted on having Vera with her, for she was not well, and Čečedek was merely a man. Eisenstein followed her. At times it seemed as if he had lost sight of them; but he invariably turned up by the next train in every town they halted. Eberheim was a great trouble. He suffered terribly. At several wayside stations they had to take him out and put him into hospital. Sometimes there was no hospital, only a doctor. Sometimes there was no doctor, and Zina’s father attended to him as best he could. Eisenstein too was helpful. On more than one occasion Zina’s family—the largest family of all—and Magda Nikolaevna’s party, had gone on not knowing that Nikolai Vasilievich’s party had remained behind; and Nikolai Vasilievich thought that he would never see them again. But they had discovered his absence and waited for him in the next town along the line, before proceeding farther. The two old grandfathers stood the journey very well on the whole, considering their advanced age and the hardships of the trip. What made it very unpleasant for Nikolai Vasilievich was that the various parties who were financially dependent on him were not on speaking terms with one another. He was besieged with notes requesting private interviews, and there were violent disputes which he was called upon to settle. When at length he had arrived at the headquarters of his gold-mines, he learnt that the Czecho-Slovak troops in their recent offensive against the Bolsheviks had recaptured the mines, shot the miners’ leaders, imprisoned many other miners, and then handed the mines back to his manager; whereon the miners killed the manager and refused to resume work. Mr. Thomson, his consulting-engineer, despairing of the situation, had returned to England. And Nikolai Vasilievich perceived that his recent scheme of purchasing the gold from the men had been completely knocked on the head.

  He was now considering another scheme that had been suggested to him by a number of financiers in the Far East, which involved the active co-operation of two influential generals—to organize and dispatch a punitive expedition to the gold-mines in order to compel the miners to restart work. This somewhat complicated scheme had necessitated a trip to Tokio to interest another Russian general who was there in the scheme; and all the families, no doubt thinking that he was trying to escape from his responsibilities, followed him to Tokio, thus unnecessarily increasing his expenses. He had had great difficulty in finding accommodation for his family in Vladivostok; but for Fanny Ivanovna, Sonia, Nina, Vera, Baron Wunderhausen and himself he had procured the ground floor of a little house. All the others had also settled down in Vladivostok. And the Baron would, no doubt, find it difficult to evade military service.

  “And how are you?” asked Nikolai Vasilievich. “I wondered if you would be coming with the Admiral. We half expected that you would. Well, what do you think of it?”

  “Think of it!” I said. “Why, we are the men of the hour. You should have seen the deputations, proclamations, speeches, hailing him as the new Lafayette. He said to-day, jokingly of course, that he would have to work out a time-table for seeing people. Dictators, say, from 7 to 10; supreme rulers between 10 and 1; prime ministers could be admitted between 2 and 5. Then till seven he would be free to cabinet ministers of the rank and file. Supreme commanders-in-chief could come from 8 to 1. And so forth, down to common general officers commanding. Yes, it was hardly an exaggeration.…”

  Nikolai Vasilievich smiled one of his kindly smiles. “Do you think it will be all right?” he asked.

  “Rather!” I replied irrelevantly. “It’s the climax of his career. He has been called upon by four joint deputations representing, I think, four separate All-Russia Governments whose heads conferred on him the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief of All the Armed Military and Naval Forces operating on the Territory of Russia,’ or something of this sort. And he made a speech to them; said that Foch was wrong and Douglas Haig was wrong, and all those muddle-headed politicians! The war was to be won on the Eastern Front.”

  “I too think it will be won on the Eastern Front,” said Nikolai Vasilievich. “It ought to, anyhow.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because the Eastern Front has unquestionably the greater resources in mineral wealth. The gold-mines ought to be cleared of the enemy before anything else if you want to win the war.”

  “Yes,” said I with an assumed and exaggerated pensiveness, “that is unquestionably the case.”

  We arranged to meet again to-morrow, as we descended arm in arm the shabby flight of steps, and it was decided that Nikolai Vasilievich should call for me and drive me home to see the family.

  The rain had ceased. We parted at the cross-roads.

  When I turned into my bedroom I beheld the Admiral and a little dark-haired man, aquiline featured, sitting on my bed and talking like two conspirators. The dark-haired little man then rose with the precision common to Russian officers, and shook hands. He was, I learnt afterwards, Admiral Kolchak.

  It was very late that night when I fell asleep. I was thinking of my meeting on the morrow with the family, with Nina. I pictured to myself her image as I last remembered it. And, interlacing with these thoughts, there was the thought of the gallant Admiral in the bedroom opposite, tucked away between his heavy blankets, his teeth in a glass of water on the table at his side—no presentable sight!—seeing visions of a Napoleonic ride athwart the great Siberian plain, at the head of his vast new armies marching onward to take their stand on the re-established Eastern Front.

  Then in the small hours of the morning he was wakened by the noise of a dog that ran through the half-open door of his bedroom in pursuit of a cat. I heard the Admiral strike a match, then jump out of bed and fumble with his stick under the bed and cupboards and chest of drawers, evidently looking for the animals. I went in to him and offered my services in the chase.

  “Can you see the dog?” came the Admiral’s sturdy voice from under a cupboard.

  “I’m looking for the cat, sir.”

  “Cat! Where did that come from?’

  “I saw it run into your room after a rat.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “I did, sir, and the dog ran in after the cat.”

  We fumbled with our sticks.

  “I don’t believe there was a rat,” said the Admiral.

  “There was, sir. I saw it myself.”

  “I don’t mind the dog so much. Cats I hate. But I can’t stick the rat. Why did you tell me?”

  I did not answer this.

  “Can’t find them, sir,” I said, rising.

  “They’ve gone, I hope,” said the Admiral.

  “They’ve hidden themselves somewhere, I think.”

  “Damn them! I shan’t be able to sleep all night.”

  “Good night, sir,” said I.

  The Admiral could not sleep. I heard him get out of bed and fumble with his stick beneath the furniture. I think the uncertainty of the whereabouts of the animals disturbed his peace of mind. Then I heard him creep into bed, and all was still. I could just hear the rain drum against the window-pane; and I thought that by now the cat had probably eaten up the rat.

  II

  NIKOLAI VASILIEVICH WAS TO CALL FOR ME AFTER lunch. At lunch there were many guests, and the conversation was necessarily political. I was impatient, for Nikolai Vasilievich might call at any moment; and the entire scheme of “Intervention” seemed to me, in my mood of acute expectancy, singularly unimportant. I watched the Admiral who in his serious, deliberate way looked straight into his principal guest’s eyes and listened very earnestly and nodded with approval, while the guest, a Russian General, was talking arrant nonsense. In that stiff and martial attitude common to a certain type of Russian officer (who assumes it as it were in proof of grim determination) the guest was saying: “All these complaints about arrests and executions by the
loyal troops—I decline to take them seriously. In the present wavering state of mind of the population you can’t guarantee that there won’t be people who will complain because the sun shines in the daytime only and not at night as well.”

  The Admiral gave an emphatic nod; and at a glance I could see that he had classed his guest as a “good fellow.” The Admiral, I may explain, divided the world into two big camps: the humanity that he called “good fellows,” and the humanity that he called “rotters”—and there you are! Simple. (As a matter of fact, he used a substitute for this last word, but I am afraid the original is unprintable.) But while the guest was being engaged by General Bologoevski, a quiet silver-haired British Colonel took the opportunity of telling the Admiral in his quiet silvery manner the conclusion he in his quiet silvery mind had quietly arrived at after interviewing for many months innumerable Russian officers. “I am afraid,” said he, “that whenever you come to examine very carefully a Russian officer’s scheme for the restoration and salvation of his country, it invariably boils down to giving him a job.”

  And at a glance I could see that the Admiral had classed the fellow as a “rotter.”

  I forget the substance of the conversation of that lunch, which stands out in my memory merely on account of its coincidence with the day on which I met the family; but I remember how a remark of General Bologoevski’s, that he understood the Bolshevik commissaries never washed, lit up the Admiral’s face with ominous glee, and one could guess at sight that he condemned the Bolshevik commissaries.

  About two o’clock Nikolai Vasilievich called for me. We drove uphill, the driver flogging his two horses with unwarranted zeal. The day was bright, but the roads were muddy from the flood overnight. As we arrived, another cab drove up at the porch, and from it emerged Fanny Ivanovna and Kniaz. Kniaz made an insincere attempt to pay the cab-fare; but when Fanny Ivanovna said “It’s all right, I have some money,” Kniaz said “Very well,” and replaced the empty purse in his pocket.…

  And for the next few minutes the three-roomed lodging of the little horse was the scene of a happy reunion.

  Nina alone was absent from the household. Fanny Ivanovna was much annoyed and tackled Sonia on the subject.

  “How do I know where she is?” Sonia remonstrated. Then she smiled and I felt that she knew all right; and then immediately she grew angry, and I felt that after all, perhaps, she did not know.

  “We have no means of knowing, Fanny Ivanovna,” said Baron Wunderhausen.

  “Pàv’l Pàvlch,” she said, “please don’t annoy me. You annoy me with your inconsequent talk, and I have asked you not to meddle … and to wash your neck.”

  “He’s like Uncle Kostia!” Vera cried. “Has a bath once a year—whether clean or dirty.” She was pretty, growing prettier.

  Baron Wunderhausen only shrugged his shoulders.

  Then the door opened and Nina slipped into the room. I was staggered by her looks. To my mind she was irresistible. When she saw me she stopped dead. “Where have you come from?” she asked.

  I explained confusedly, and a minute later she dismissed me and my arrival as a thing entirely commonplace, and turned to the others.

  “Nina,” said Fanny Ivanovna sternly, “where have you been? I insist on your telling me.”

  “And I won’t tell,” said Nina curtly.

  “Nina,” I took it up, jokingly but with a sneaking sense of secretive authority resting on our “engagement” of four years ago, “where have you been? I too insist on your telling me.”

  She looked at me with the expression that comes over people who are about to put out their tongue at you, and said:

  “And I won’t tell.”

  “And how do you find us?” Fanny Ivanovna asked. “Have we grown older? I think I have grown older. And Nikolai Vasilievich, too. And Kniaz.”

  “No,” I lied. And assuredly the lie pleased her.

  “And the children are just the same?”

  “The children are just the same,” I agreed. “A bouquet. Three pretty kittens.”

  Vera purred like one.

  “But you haven’t much room here, have you?” I observed.

  “What can we do?” she asked. “The town is packed with refugees. We can’t find anything better.”

  “À la guerre comme à la guerre,” remarked the Baron.

  “Still, it is more comfortable than living in an hotel. Sonia, Nina and Vera sleep here on the sofa and the bed we drag out from the other room. The adjoining room is Nikolai Vasilievich’s and mine. The third is Pàv’l Pàvlch’s, the Baron’s. The others have remained at the hotel—I mean Kniaz and Eberheim. I don’t care what Magda Nikolaevna does, but I think she has now found a house. And Uncle Kostia and the rest of them will probably settle at his sister’s, the Olenins. Kniaz comes here for his meals and spends the day with us … though lately”—she smiled—“he has been going out hunting.”

  “Hunting!” I exclaimed, looking at the Prince’s well-shaved chin.

  Kniaz passed his fingers between his skinny neck and his stiff collar in a nervous gesture and giggled feebly.

  “He’s bought a gun,” said Nina.

  “You should see the gun!” Vera cried.

  Fanny Ivanovna smiled; and as we settled down to tea Nikolai Vasilievich chaffed Kniaz in his timid, deferential manner. “I went out hunting with him once. It’s a comedy! We see a hare. Kniaz pulls the trigger once—misfire. Pulls at it again—misfire. Pulls at it a third time—and the gun misfires for the third time. When he had pulled the trigger a fourth time there was a terrible explosion; a blaze of fire burst forth from the muzzle; the butt end hit him violently in the shoulder. And when the smoke had gradually dispersed we saw that the hare had evidently escaped undamaged. His instrument of murder was the only victim; and there I saw Kniaz looking at his gun: the trigger and most of the front piece had blown off in the concussion. But there he stood, still holding the instrument in his hands, puzzled beyond words.”

  Nikolai Vasilievich looked at Kniaz and smiled kindly, as though to make up by it for any pain that his recital may have caused him.

  Nina stretched a plate of sweets to me.

  I looked at her interrogatively.

  “With your tea,” she said.

  “There is no sugar,” said Nikolai Vasilievich apologetically.

  “I want to speak to you very seriously,” said Baron Wunderhausen, “about transferring to the English Service.”

  “Now that Andrei Andreiech has arrived,” said Fanny Ivanovna gaily, “we shall be able to get sugar and everything from the English.”

  “The English are all right,” said Nikolai Vasilievich. “I always did have confidence in the English. If the English once begin a job you may be sure they’ll see it through. And if the first step is taken and the mining area is liberated, the war will soon be over.”

  “I want to speak to you about my special qualifications for transferring to the English Service. I was born and educated—”

  “Pàv’l Pàvlch,” cried Fanny Ivanovna, “please don’t interrupt. I want you, Andrei Andreiech, to translate an English letter Nikolai Vasilievich has received from his former mining-engineer, Mr. Thomson. Our English is not quite sufficient, though I’ve understood parts of it.”

  I took the letter. Mr. Thomson, writing from an obscure address in Scotland, stated that the after-war conditions prevailing in the west of Europe had frankly disappointed him, and solicited an invitation to be reinstated in his former post as consulting-engineer in Nikolai Vasilievich’s gold-mines.

  “It’s such a pity,” Fanny Ivanovna sighed. “Mr. Thomson is such a nice man. And now it seems he is so badly off. It must be terrible for his wife and children.”

  “Well,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “I say this: it’s no use Mr. Thomson coming out here at present, while the mines are still in Bolshevik hands. And I don’t want to hold out false hopes to Mr. Thomson, for one can never quite be sure what may happen in Siberia yet. But between ourselves
, I may tell you that now that the English have arrived and—well, that this punitive expedition to the mines has been arranged, we have good reason to feel optimistic.”

  “Well, let’s hope, let’s hope,” said Fanny Ivanovna.

  But the three sisters looked as if they didn’t care a hang about Mr. Thomson, the English, the mines or anybody else.

  “Are you going to the dance?” said Nina.

  “Which dance?”

  “The Russian one—at the Green School.”

  “But it will be Russian dances all the time.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Russian music, too.”

  “We can dance fox-trots to krokoviaks, one-steps to march music, slow waltzes to anything you like. You must come.”

  I knew I was going, but I liked to be asked, and I resisted lingeringly, to prolong the pleasure.

  Of course I was going. Who could have resisted this sliding sidelong look; this shining semicircle of white teeth that revealed itself with each full smile; this lithe, sylphine young body?

  The three sisters affected a stationary fox-trot.

  The passions were aroused.

  “Nikolai Vasilievich! Papa!”

  He was dragged, like a resisting malefactor, struggling, to the piano, and made to play his one and only waltz. The Baron claimed Vera. Nina came automatically into my arms. I recaptured some of her familiar fragrance, as we danced between the sofa and round the table, dodging sundry chairs. Sonia stood demurely at the wall, abandoned by her husband in favour of a younger sister, but affecting an unconvincing moue of mirth. Then, owing to the shortness and simplicity of the tune, Nikolai Vasilievich’s technique broke down.

  “I want to talk to you on this very serious question of transferring to the English Service.” The Baron had come up to me again. And I resorted to the classic answer of doubting whether there was “any vacancy.” “It doesn’t matter where,” he said. “In Persia, or perhaps in Mesopotamia. I can’t serve here any longer.”