XV
Suddenly I was better. I quite recovered from my fever and only lay still on my bed, weak, and very hungry. I was happy, happy as I had not been since I came to Petrograd. I felt all the luxury of convalescence creeping into my bones. All that I need do was to lie there and let people feed me and read a little if it did not make my head ache. I had a watercolour painted by Alexander Benois on the wall opposite me, a night in the Caucasus, with a heavy sweep of black hill, a deep blue steady sky, and a thin grey road running into endless distance. A pleasing picture, with no finality in its appeal—intimate too, so that it was one’s own road and one’s own hill. I had bought it extravagantly, at last year’s Mir Eskoustva, and now I was pleased at my extravagance.
Marfa was very good to me, feeding me, and being cross with me to make me take an interest in things, and acting with wonderful judgement about my visitors. Numbers of people, English and Russian, came to see me—I had not known that I had so many friends. I felt amiable to all the world, and hopeful about it, too. I looked back on the period before my illness as a bad dream.
People told me I was foolish to live out in this wretched place of mine, where it was cold and wild and lonely. And then when they came again they were not so sure, and they looked out on the ice that shone in waves and shadows of light under the sun, and thought that perhaps they too would try. But of course, I knew well that they would not. …
As I grew stronger I felt an intense and burning interest in the history that had been developing when I fell ill. I heard that Vera Michailovna and Nina had called many times. Markovitch had been, and Henry Bohun and Lawrence.
Then, one sunny afternoon, Henry Bohun came in and I was surprised at my pleasure at the sight of him. He was shocked at the change in me, and was too young to conceal it.
“Oh, you do look bad!” were his first words as he sat down by my bed. “I say, are you comfortable here? Wouldn’t you rather be somewhere with conveniences—telephone and lifts and things?”
“Not at all!” I answered. “I’ve got a telephone. I’m very happy where I am.”
“It is a queer place,” he said. “Isn’t it awfully unhealthy?”
“Quite the reverse—with the sea in front of it! About the healthiest spot in Petrograd!”
“But I should get the blues here. So lonely and quiet. Petrograd is a strange town! Most people don’t dream there’s a queer place like this.”
“That’s why I like it,” I said. “I expect there are lots of queer places in Petrograd if you only knew.”
He wandered about the room, looking at my few pictures and my books and my writing-table. At last he sat down again by my bed.
“Now tell me all the news,” I said.
“News?” he asked. He looked uncomfortable, and I saw at once that he had come to confide something in me. “What sort of news? Political?”
“Anything.”
“Well, politics are about the same. They say there’s going to be an awful row in February when the Duma meets—but then other people say there won’t be a row at all until the war is over.”
“What else do they say?”
“They say Protopopoff is up to all sorts of tricks. That he says prayers with the Empress and they summon Rasputin’s ghost. … That’s all rot of course. But he does just what the Empress tells him, and they’re going to enslave the whole country and hand it over to Germany.”
“What will they do that for?” I asked.
“Why, then, the Czarevitch will have it—under Germany. They say that none of the munitions are going to the Front, and Protopopoff’s keeping them all to blow up the people here with.”
“What else?” I asked sarcastically.
“No, but really, there’s something in it, I expect.” Henry looked serious and important. “Then on the other hand, Clutton-Davies says the Czar’s absolutely all right, dead keen on the war and hates Germany … I don’t know—but Clutton-Davies sees him nearly every day.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Oh, food’s worse than ever! Going up every day, and the bread queues are longer and longer. The Germans have spies in the queues, women who go up and down telling people it’s all England’s fault.”
“And people are just the same?”
“Just the same; Donons’ and the Bear are crowded every day. You can’t get a table. So are the cinematographs and the theatres. I went to the Ballet last night.”
“What was it?”
“La Fille Mal Gardée—Karsavina dancing divinely. Everyone was there.”
This closed the strain of public information. I led him further.
“Well, Bohun, what about our friends the Markovitches?” I asked. “How are you getting on there?”
He blushed and looked at his boots.
“All right,” he said. “They’re very decent.”
Then he burst out with: “I say, Durward, what do you think of this uncle that’s turned up, the doctor chap?”
“Nothing particular. Why?”
“You were with him at the Front, weren’t you?”
“I was.”
“Was he a good doctor?”
“Excellent.”
“He had a love affair at the Front, hadn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And she was killed?”
“Yes.”
“Poor devil. …” Then he added: “Did he mind very much?”
“Very much.”
“Funny thing, you wouldn’t think he would.”
“Why not,” I asked.
“Oh, he looks a hard sort of fellow—as though he’d stand anything. I wouldn’t like to have a row with him.”
“Has he been to the Markovitches much lately?”
“Yes—almost every evening.”
“What does he do there?”
“Oh, just sits and talks. Markovitch can’t bear him. You can see that easily enough. He teases him.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Oh, he laughs at him all the time, at his inventions and that kind of thing. Markovitch gets awfully wild. He is bit of an ass, isn’t he?”
“Do you like Semyonov?” I asked.
“I do rather,” said Henry. “He’s very decent to me. I had a walk with him one afternoon. He said you were awfully brave at the Front.”
“Thank him for nothing,” I said.
“And he said you didn’t like him—don’t you?”
“Ah, that’s too old a story,” I answered. “We know what we feel about one another.”
“Well, Lawrence simply hates him,” continued Bohun. “He says he’s the most thundering cad, and as bad as you make them. I don’t see how he can tell.”
This interested me extremely. “When did he tell you this?” I asked.
“Yesterday. I asked him what he had to judge by and he said instinct. I said he’d no right to go only by that.”
“Has Lawrence been much to the Markovitches?”
“Yes—once or twice. He just sits there and never opens his mouth.”
“Very wise of him if he hasn’t got anything to say.”
“No, but really—do you think so? It doesn’t make him popular.”
“Why, who doesn’t like him?”
“Nobody,” answered Henry ungrammatically. “None of the English anyway. They can’t stand him at the Embassy or the Mission. They say he’s fearfully stuck-up and thinks about nothing but himself. … I don’t agree, of course—all the same, he might make himself more agreeable to people.”
“What nonsense!” I answered hotly. “Lawrence is one of the best fellows that ever breathed. The Markovitches don’t dislike him, do they?”
“No, he’s quite different with them. Vera Michailovna likes him I know.”
It was the first time that he had mentioned her name to me. He turned towards me now, his face crimson. “I say—that’s really what I came to talk about, Durward. I care for her madly! … I’d die for her. I would really. I love her, Durward. I see now I’ve never loved anybody before.”
“Well, what will you do about it?”
“Do about it? … Why nothing, of course. It’s all perfectly hopeless. In the first place, there’s Markovitch.”
“Yes. There’s Markovitch,” I agreed.
“She doesn’t care for him—does she? You know that—” He waited, eagerly staring into my face.
I had a temptation to laugh. He was so very young, so very helpless, and yet—that sense of his youth had pathos in it too, and I suddenly liked young Bohun—for the first time.
“Look here, Bohun,” I said, trying to speak with a proper solemnity. “Don’t be a young ass. You know that it’s hopeless, any feeling of that kind. She does care for her husband. She could never care for you in that way, and you’d only make trouble for them all if you went on with it. … On the other hand, she needs a friend badly. You can do that for her. Be her pal. See that things are all right in the house. Make a friend of Markovitch himself. Look after him!”
“Look after Markovitch!” Bohun exclaimed.
“Yes … I don’t want to be melodramatic, but there’s trouble coming there; and if you’re the friend of them all, you can help—more than you know. Only none of the other business—”
Bohun flushed. “She doesn’t know—she never will. I only want to be a friend of hers, as you put it. Anything else is hopeless, of course. I’m not the kind of fellow she’d ever look at, even if Markovitch wasn’t there. But if I can do anything … I’d be awfully glad. What kind of trouble do you mean?” he asked.
“Probably nothing,” I said; “only she wants a friend. And Markovitch wants one too.”
There was a pause—then Bohun said, “I say, Durward—what an awful ass I was.”
“What about?” I asked.
“About my poetry—and all that. Thinking it so important.”
“Yes,” I said, “you were.”
“I’ve written some poetry to her and I tore it up,” he ended.
“That’s a good thing,” said I.
“I’m glad I told you,” he said. He got up to go. “I say, Durward—”
“Well,” I asked.
“You’re an awfully funny chap. Not a bit what you look—”
“That’s all right,” I said; “I know what you mean.”
“Well, good night,” he said, and went.