The art of living is the ability to subordinate minor motives to major ones. And it is an unsatisfactory art. You must make up your mind what you want, and when you have made up your mind what you want, you might as well, for the difference it makes to you, have never had a mind to make up. For the consequences have a way of getting out of hand and laying out the motives indiscriminately. And then you with your intent and will seem rather in the way. That is the truth.… (But it would serve us right if we thought so!) Since childhood I had more or less earmarked my future, and the circumscription did not really take in Nina. I had in those early days conceived a novel that, oh! was to knock all existing novels flat. This novel was to be my goal in life, and then later on the novel was to follow my real life, a life of augmented splendour and achievement. Pending that achievement, there was, of course, that other life, essentially out of focus with the novel, not really life at all, a transitory, irritating phase not meriting attention. The novel was begun—invariably begun. The quite indefinably peculiar atmosphere of it seemed to defy the choice of language. For I happen to belong to that elusive class of people knowing several languages who, when challenged in one tongue, find it convenient to assure you that their knowledge is all in another. And I am one of those uncomfortable people whose national “atmosphere” had been somewhat knocked on the head—an Englishman brought up and schooled in Russia, and born there, incidentally, of British parents (with a mixed un-English name into the bargain!), and here I am. The war claimed me. And then, the war over, I looked at the novel. Heaven! How it had shrunk. I had contrived to overlook real life since it was out of focus with my novel, and now I found that it was just the novel that was out of focus with real life. Nothing more than that. But what a discovery! I had lived these years like an automaton, giving scarcely any heed to the life about me but vaguely cherishing the “masterpiece,” and I found that I had really lived unconsciously and was alive, while the “masterpiece” had stifled and was dead. It must have been at this point that the thought of Nina came to me identified with the idea of living as against recording. She would come to me in dreams. I was walking with some people, and she was walking with some other people. And then we met, and the people she was with stopped to talk to the people I was with, and she looked at me, a little bashful, “repentance” written on her face, as if to say, “I am waiting”—but never said a word. And in my sleep the “truth” would dawn on me: “So all this other … was mere whimsicality? Oh yes, of course! I should have understood her.”
And in my waking hours, that were like dreams, involuntarily I would find myself asking General Bologoevski, whom I always went to see in town, if he “understood her.” But the General understood nothing. “I know why you are always coming here,” he once remarked. “It is because I know her, because you want to talk to me of her.… And you have reason to. My God! what eyes! What calves! What ankles! Look here: why in the world don’t you marry her?”
I had come to his hotel a while ago, which he had chosen on account of the “nice little women there,” as he explained, and overtook him in the act of making amorous advances to the pretty chamber-maid who was giggling loudly in his bedroom. “English women,” he confided to me, “always let themselves go with foreigners. They’re somehow ashamed with their own countrymen. However.”
We went downstairs. “Yes,” he sighed, “things are getting a little difficult just now. All I’ve got is ten pounds. And when those are gone I won’t know where to turn to. And there’s that motor-cycle I’ve bought, and they are pressing me for payment. I give dem h-h-hell! But it is all a damrotten game, you know. The only consolation is that it really is a good motor-cycle—a fine big thing. But there seems no one I could borrow from.”
“But you will ride in taxis, General,” I gently reprimanded him.
“Well, what is ten pounds?” he asked. “Whether I ride in taxis or go by ’bus, it’s all one. It won’t last in any case. No: all my hope is in the claim I’ve lodged with the Russian Embassy. I understand it’s now only a question of the Allies recognizing General Wrangel before the claim is paid. But come, I’ll introduce you to that Russian Colonel there. He’s been to Vladivostok and knows your friends, no doubt—Nina. Come.”
We shook hands, and then compared experiences. “And do you remember that good-looking girl, Nina Bursanova?” at length I ventured.
The Colonel thought hard, and then said:
“No, I don’t remember.”
Silence. The subdued hum of London was like the burden note of a distant organ. Two other Russian Colonels and a Captain, all of the Denikin Army, sauntered up, and the General called the waiter and stood liqueurs and cigars all round. The faint sounds of a hidden orchestra reached our ears and set a match to the emotions stored away in my subconscious warehouse.… The tepid air within, surrounded by the cold outside, the shaded lights contrasted by the dark of night without, the easy atmosphere of crowded, dazzling excitement, enshrouded by the loneliness of space, and our intimate seclusion within this gay tumultuousness—these things spoke. And the soft music told me that life is, and that she was all this that it meant.…
No more novels! Life, I thought, was worth all the novels in the world. And life was Nina. And Nina was life. And, by contrast, the people I encountered seemed pretentious and insincere. The women in particular were unreal. They talked of things that did not interest them with an affected geniality. They pretended a silly superiority or else an unconvincing inferiority. They said “Really?” and “Indeed?” and “How fascinating!” and “How perfectly delightful!” Nina was not like that. My three sisters were not like that. They were real. They would laugh when they liked; they would say exactly what they thought; and they would say nothing if there was nothing to be said. Nina was so childish in her ways, and yet so very wise. She bit. She took water in her mouth and blew it out straight at your face, and threw herself on the sofa recklessly and stretched herself across, head downward.… She would never quite grow up. And by contrast, Oxford with its sham clubs and sham societies appeared a doll’s house, a thing stationary and extinct of life, while the world, the Outside World, was going by. And I asked myself: What am I waiting for?
In fine, it was Tristan pining for Isolde—with the important variation that Tristan journeyed to Isolde for the reason that Isolde failed to come to Tristan. One evening, very suddenly, I left England and set out back to the Far East.
II
I TRAVELLED WITH SIR HUGO AND THE RUSSIAN General, and we took the eastern route. I had recognized Sir Hugo’s gait as he came my way one day in crowded Piccadilly, but stopped in front of a shop window. And when I came up I saw Sir Hugo gazing at long rows of D.S.O.’s and O.B.E.’s displayed behind the window. He was going out as professional adviser—to Siam, I think, he said—or some such-like place, and we arranged to leave together. And then the General who was going out to Wrangel’s Army in Constantinople joined us. He was to get off at Port Said.
On board next morning I showed the General an alarming Reuter message from Constantinople. The French Government, it ran, had ordered the disbandment of General Wrangel’s Army, offering to transport the refugees back to Russia or to Brazil, but General Wrangel declined the offer, refused the invitation to go to Paris, and demanded the return of his arms and munitions which the French had already sold to Georgia, where they had fallen into Bolshevik hands. Money, gold and silver valuables and jewels had been stolen from the steamer in which General Wrangel was staying. Important military documents regarding the campaign in the Crimea had also been stolen.
“I know,” he said, “it is a most damrotten game, you know. I give dem h-h-hell, those damrotten Frenchmen. They are all damrotten Bolsheviks, they are.”
“Well,” I said quietly, “Kolchak has tried it. Denikin has tried it. Yudenich has tried it. I should give it a rest now.”
“Ah,” he laughed, “all this has merely been a little rehearsal. We shall begin seriously in a year or two. It’s the only way to stop
bloodshed.” He puffed at his heavy cigar and his eyes twitched in the smoke.
“A rehearsal.… Yes, I too intend to begin ‘seriously’ when I get to Vladivostok,” I laughed.
“Is it not rather an adventure in futility?” Sir Hugo asked.
“He has taken my advice at last.” The General kissed his finger-tips. “What eyes—!”
“What calves! What ankles!” I completed automatically.
Silence.
“The boat’s beginning to roll.”
“Where are all the passengers?” asked the General.
“I fear they must be indisposed,” Sir Hugo said, “in consequence of the heavy sea.”
The General paused a little, gazing down at the cause of the passengers’ indisposition. “Of course,” he said, “this rolling and pitching ought never to be.”
“Oh!” said Sir Hugo.
“It is entirely due to bad steering. Now on Russian ships when there is rolling or pitching the captain leaves his breakfast-table without a word, goes up to the man at the steering-wheel, beats him in the face the number of times he considers adequate (v mordoo, do you understand?)—”
Sir Hugo nodded to indicate that he understood.
“—and retires, without a word, to the saloon and continues his breakfast. And believe me, Sir Hugo, there is no more—ha, ha, ha—rolling or—ha, ha, ha—pitching! No more.”
“Hm,” said Sir Hugo. “Doesn’t the man at the steering-wheel ever … protest?”
“No,” said the General. “He knows what it’s for. The whole beauty of it is that the transaction is carried out swiftly, efficiently, quietly, without a sound … to everybody’s satisfaction.”
“This quietude of method, General, seems to have produced, to put it mildly, quite a stir recently?”
“Not carried out quietly enough,” explained the General, indicating the root of the trouble.
“The times are dead and over, anyhow.”
“They are dead and over,” sighed the General, as if mourning a dear relation.
Silence again. The wind full of that vigour of the sea swept across my face.
“Do you see that ship there, sir?”
“Which ship where?” came the answer.
“That ship there,” said I, pointing at the only vessel on the only sea.
Sir Hugo looked.
“It’s not a ship,” he said. “It’s a boat.”
“But, oh! sir,” I breathed in courteous remonstrance.
“Only His Majesty’s ships are ships,” came the dry rejoinder. “All other vessels are boats.… But to return to the question at issue, what were you going to say about the boat?”
“Well, I thought it was the Aquitania, but now I see it isn’t,” I said, looking down into the green-blue waves. “Do you remember the U-boat scare three years ago when we crossed to New York? It was a time when you felt that at any moment you might find yourself floating on the water owing to the disappearance of the boat.”
“The ship,” corrected Sir Hugo. “The Aquitania … I mean the boat … I beg your pardon, you’re right this time and I apologize. But why the devil didn’t you say so straight out instead of wasting my time and your time with … with … with such a rubbishy matter?”
Ominous silence.
Then said the General, “Perhaps we might go and have a drink?”
A week later we were entering the harbour of Port Said. We stood at the rail, balancing ourselves on our heels, as the liner, rolling heavily, turned into port.
“We’re already four days late,” Sir Hugo said.
“I know. I have never been on such a damrotten ship before,” remarked the General. “Now I remember on a Russian ship I once crossed the Pacific in, the captain promised to reach Yokohama by a certain date, but, as usual of course, failed to do so by a week or more. Well, all the passengers on board, officers and civilians, men and women, first-class passengers and even those who worked their passage, used to go up to the captain’s cabin every morning and beat him in the face (v mordoo, you understand?) until it had swollen to, oh—oh—” (he indicated the size of the captain’s face)—“immense proportions.”
“Hm,” said Sir Hugo, seemingly very interested. “I think I caught you, General, saying ‘first-class passengers and those who worked their passage.’ Now do you, or don’t you, purposely omit second-class passengers and such passengers as may, or may not, have been going steerage? Or am I putting words into your mouth? But let this matter drift: it is of no consequence. My sympathies in this incident, I hope you will forgive me, General, are all on the side of the captain.”
The General listened, but did not understand. We parted with him next morning, as we left Port Said.…
Then, one afternoon, armed with binoculars, we peered at the horizon to see if we could spot dry land. It was towards seven in the evening that the throbbing liner came into sight of Aden. She stole up carefully, and then lay still outside the harbour.
We could feel the Sahara breathe upon us, like an oven. I leaned across the rail and watched the sandy, ominous desert coast, the strange, almost pathetic stillness of the place, the malicious yellow water of the harbour.
I remember those disturbing, endless nights at Aden, when I fancied that the boat would never move again. I remember a kind of jeering look about that ancient liner (captured from the Germans in the war) as she broke down every now and then at God-forsaken places like Perim. I was in a hurry, but circumstances had conspired to make my journey inordinately slow.… But we were moving now at last. I gazed at the sombre, yellow water as the liner glided off the shark-infested coast of Aden in the heavy, stifling silence of the eastern night. And it seemed to me that from the surface to its depths the sea writhed in agony, and that the sun-scorched desert withered in its age-long weariness, all from a want of motive. And it seemed to me the stars had spent themselves in waiting.…
Then, one evening at Colombo, I parted with Sir Hugo, who was changing boats for Singapore. We shook hands warmly. “Thank you so much for all your splendid, excellent work,” he was saying; and we were both obviously touched. And though I did not know what the splendid, excellent work he was thanking me for really was, I now felt that it was enormous, overwhelming, but that I would gladly do it all again, and more if necessary: so sweet was it to be thanked! “Splendid! Splendid!” he repeated, as I helped him with his things. “Good. Very good. Thank you! Thank you again! Splendid! Splendid fellow! Splendid fellow! Thank you! Good-bye!” And as he settled in the throbbing motor-launch below that then took him ashore, he waved his hand to me and his lips seemed to be moving still and saying “Splendid!” Then he was gone … on his new mission of advice.
I was sorry to part with the old man. There was a quality about him that made him almost human. Later in the journey I had a letter from him. “We have had a good voyage, so far,” he wrote, “with only two days’ rough weather, when we were skirting a typhoon, or a similar storm.…”
And now I was alone on board the old ocean liner, as she steamed away carefully past the bright, foam-washed breakwaters of Colombo’s sunlit coast, and bulged into the open sea.
I was in bed on deck, on the point of going to sleep. Suddenly the dream of Nina, like a wave from nowhere, flowed upon my brain. I was still awake that second: I caught the dream as if with both my hands. I smiled broadly to myself. I had caught a dream!…
The sea was like a mirror of black glass. I listened to the nocturnal silence. Now and then a wilful dolphin would splash the surface of the water; then everything was still. The liner glided noiselessly across the sea.
Towards Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai.… I had vague fears of being “late.” In my emotional anxiety the East itself appeared emotionally coloured. The eastern night was veiled with sorrow. It was a night of Why? I discovered pathos in the animation of the Peking streets at night. Even as I write I can see Canton with its narrow, crowded streets sheltering beneath the dripping, overlapping roofs of shops, and feel the sombr
e enigmatic calm of their interior, the lethargic stare of Chinese merchants seated on the floor, and the thudding of the rain upon the roof; and I can see the dull and yellow water of the rivers, the swarming multitudes of lives upon the quays, the sampans crowding the canals; and I recall again the din of Mukden, the stretch of ancient muddy soil receding from my sight as I watched it from the window of the train, the fall of evening, and the melancholy of the ages. And I was made to feel that I was in another age, another world, that somewhere I must have dreamt this, or perhaps had known it ere I was born on earth, that deep in the recesses of my memory was an imprint of this peculiar light, this noise and din, this languid stillness of the East.
III
FINALLY I ARRIVED AT VLADIVOSTOK. THE MOMENT I set my foot on the platform I flew by well-known streets and curves and turnings to their house. I remember I felt in the manner of Tristan at the end of the last act: very sure, impatient, overwhelmed with love. I felt that I would just fly into the room and cry “Isolde!” and she would fly into my arms—“Tristan!” And then, immediately, we would get busy with the love duet.
I knocked at the window, and I felt that they should hear the throbbing of my heart. I knocked again, and then the blind behind the window was tampered with, and there was Sonia peering at me through the glass. Her frown developed into a radiant smile and her voice rang through the building:
“Andrei Andreiech!”
She ran away and then came to the door, half opened it, and said, “Andrei Andreiech, we aren’t dressed yet; but come into the drawing-room … wait, let me run away first.”
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