Part + 

III + 

Intervening in Siberia + 

I + 

Certain fragments of scene and speech come back to me with a peculiar insistence, as I write this third portion of my book. I have no hesitation in setting them down as I do, I think accurately enough, if not word for word. I remember them well because they had impressed me. That is the secret of memory. I have forgotten much, but there are scenes I cannot forget, fragments of speech that still ring in my ear, and I shall remember them always; at least, till I have finally pinned them to paper. + 

The Admiral and I, and a few others⁠—interesting types, I can assure you⁠—travelled to Siberia, where we engaged in a series of comic opera attempts to wipe out the Russian revolution. By now, “Intervention” has been relegated to the shelf of history. But I cannot but remember it, not merely as an adventure in futility, as admittedly it was, but as an ever-shifting, changing sense of being alive. For the experience of love is inseparable from its background. Alone it does not exist. It is a modulation of impressions, an interplay of “atmospheres,” a quickening of the fibres of that background into throbbing tissues of an elusive, half-apprehended beauty. + 

It was raining heavily when we arrived in Vladivostok, and the port, as we surveyed it from the boat, looked grey and hopeless, like the Russian situation. A flat had been allotted us, a bare, unfurnished flat in a deserted house standing in a grim and desolate by-street; and there the Admiral made his temporary headquarters. It poured all day long, and it seemed, indeed, as though the rain, playing havoc with the town, would never cease, even as the misery and blundering in Russia would never cease, and that our efforts were not wanted and could do no good. + 

That night I entertained General Bologoevski at dinner at the famous restaurant Zolotoy Rog⁠—nicknamed by British sailors the “Solitary Dog.” He had travelled with us all the way from England, seemingly under vague instructions from some Allied War Office, and had attached himself to our party of his own accord. As we sat down, the head waiter came up to us and respectfully informed the General that by order of the Commander-in-Chief Russian officers were not admitted into restaurants. The General protested feebly, stressing his hunger as a reason for remaining, whereon the head waiter suggested, in an undertone, that the obvious alternative was to remove the epaulets. + 

“What! Remove my epaulets! I, a Russian officer? Never!” he protested. + 

Whereon a brainwave struck him. “I know,” said he, looking round the restaurant. It was nearly empty. And instantly he compromised by putting on his mackintosh. “Now,” said he, “in my English Burberry they will take me for an English officer. Ah!” he smiled, and then added his invariable English phrase: “It is a damrotten game, you know.” And, after a momentary contemplation: “I give dem h‑h‑hell!” + 

I ordered chicken soup. The General talked loosely about the Siberian situation. About five minutes after I had ordered soup the waiter returned without being called and very amiably volunteered the information that the soup would be served immediately. When, three-quarters of an hour later, I asked the waiter about the soup, he repeated “Immediately,” but the word now somehow failed to inspire in us the same confidence. The General talked of the Siberian situation for about an hour and a quarter, when we observed that the soup had not been served. I again called the waiter. + 

“What about that soup?” I asked. + 

“I am afraid, sir,” said the waiter, “you will have to wait a while, for soup is a troublesome thing to prepare nowadays.” + 

“How long?” + 

“About three-quarters of an hour.” + 

General Bologoevski then continued about the situation. I gathered that there was a General Horvat who had formed an All-Russia Government, and that there was also a Siberian Government, defying General Horvat on the one hand and the Bolsheviks on the other, and that there were various officer organizations grouped about this or the other government, and some rather inclined to be on their own, all looking forward to a possible intervention by the Allies. After an hour or so had elapsed I interrupted General Bologoevski by observing that the soup had not yet been served, and I called a waiter who was passing and told him to fetch the waiter who had been serving us. + 

“He has gone to bed,” came the answer, “and I am on the night shift.” + 

“Oh!” And I inquired about the soup. + 

“Soup?” said the new waiter, evidently disowning all responsibility for his predecessor, and after some hesitation he promised us some soup in about three-quarters of an hour. General Bologoevski then continued about the situation. He spoke for an intolerably long time, stopping only once or twice to inquire about the soup and whether it was coming. The clock in the corner chimed midnight, and then one. I was now devilishly hungry, and the General looked misused and maltreated. I shouted for the waiter, who with eyes closed slumbered in a standing posture in the distant corner of the room. “What about that soup?” I repeated in excited tones when the waiter showed signs of recovering consciousness. + 

“Soup?” he asked. “Well, you see you can’t have soup nowadays⁠ ⁠… unless you choose to wait⁠—” + 

“Wait!” I said. + 

“Three-quarters of an hour or so,” he said. + 

Whereupon the General rose. He rose in a threatening manner. It seemed to me that the General’s manner of rising was deliberately remonstrative, a protest undisguised. + 

“General!” I shouted, as he ran across to his hat and sword. “Come back and have something. A chicken cutlet. General!” + 

But he was gone. I sat alone at my table and waited for the cutlet. As I looked before me I observed sitting at a distant table a man with a familiar face. I could not believe it. My heart leapt within me. I dashed from my chair. + 

“Nikolai Vasilievich!” + 

“Andrei Andreiech!” + 

“Is it possible? Is it really you?” + 

Nikolai Vasilievich was kissing me on both cheeks, in confirmation of his identity. + 

“Well, I never thought that you were here! I never thought that you could be here, Nikolai Vasilievich.” + 

“I am here,” said Nikolai Vasilievich sadly. + 

“And who else is here, who else, Nikolai Vasilievich?” + 

“All,” sighed Nikolai Vasilievich. + 

“All! How do you mean all?” + 

“All.” + 

“Fanny Ivanovna here?” + 

“Yes, she is here.” + 

“Nina?” + 

“Yes, she is here.” + 

“And Pàvel Pàvlovich?” + 

“Yes, both Pàvel Pàvlovichi are here.” + 

“And Eberheim?” + 

“Yes, he is here too⁠ ⁠… they’re all here.” + 

“You don’t say so!⁠ ⁠… And Čečedek?” + 

“All here⁠—all.” + 

“And Vera?” + 

“Yes.” + 

“And Sonia?⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Yes, all⁠—my wife and all.” + 

“Which wife, Nikolai Vasilievich?” + 

“How do you mean? I only have one⁠—Magda Nikolaevna.” + 

“Oh, you haven’t married Zina then?” + 

“No, but she is here. They are all here⁠—all her family⁠ ⁠… Uncle Kostia⁠ ⁠… all.” + 

“How are they all? Tell me, Nikolai Vasilievich⁠ ⁠… the grandfathers dead, I suppose?” + 

“Oh no, both here. But I don’t think⁠—nobody thinks⁠—they can last very long now, either of them.” + 

“Oh, they’re alive. That’s good.⁠ ⁠… And so Magda Nikolaevna is here too⁠—with Čečedek, of course.” + 

“Yes, and Eisenstein.” + 

“She has married Čečedek?” + 

“No, she has married no one⁠—except me, of course. But I expect it won’t be very long now till I get a divorce.” + 

My voice dropped to a confidential whisper. “Why are they all here, Nikolai Vasilievich?” I asked. + 

“Andrei Andreiech, don’t ask me. Why is it that they followed me here all the way from Petrograd? And when I had to go over to Japan just for a fortnight on a matter of business⁠ ⁠… well, they all followed me there⁠ ⁠… all⁠ ⁠… every one of them!⁠ ⁠… You see, they are, so to speak, economically dependent on me. That is why I suppose they follow me about wherever I go. We are inseparable⁠—financially. We are a chain. Russia being what she is today⁠—disjointed, with neither railway nor postal communication that you can rely on, they simply have to be where I am if they are to get money out of me. I quite understand their position. So they follow me, you see.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Nikolai Vasilievich!” And I shook him long and warmly by the hand. + 

We sat together long into the morning, and Nikolai Vasilievich complained of his lot. The mines, it seemed, were still the chief deterrent to his happiness. His family, he said, had decided to leave Petrograd and go east because their house, which, strictly speaking, belonged to them no longer, had, since the Bolshevik revolution, been invaded by a host of undesirable people and there was hardly a room left in the house that they could call their own. Another reason which prompted them to leave the capital was that the Bolshevik authorities had restricted individuals from drawing on their current accounts in the banks; and what was more important still, Nikolai Vasilievich had really nothing left in the bank to draw upon. So he had naturally turned to his other source of income⁠—the goldmines in Siberia. He had poured considerable money into these goldmines in the past, in the hope that some day they would make him very wealthy. For years and years they had a way of ever being on the eve of making him wealthy, yet always some minor, unforeseen incident occurred which temporarily postponed the realization of his hopes. The goldmines were about to begin to pay, when war broke out and temporarily affected the output. Then in the war he perceived the opportunity of placing them on a military footing. The governor, a friend of his, had promised to assist him, when unhappily the revolution came and the governor was arrested and dismissed. Kerenski’s time was the most trying time of all. For then the miners began to call committee-meetings and talk as to what they would do when they seized the mines; but they confined their revolutionary schemes to a violent expression as to what they would do, in the meantime doing nothing, either in the taking over of the mines or in the working of them. With the Bolshevik revolution things began to move, and the men seized the mines. At first the news was a great shock to Nikolai Vasilievich, for he knew that there were many families dependent on him. Then he perceived that he could actually buy the gold from the men at exactly the same price as it had cost him to produce it. He was much relieved, and for the first time in his life he was actually doing good business. + 

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 bookkeeper 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 goldmines, 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 cooperation of two influential generals⁠—to organize and dispatch a punitive expedition to the goldmines in order to compel the miners to restart work. This somewhat complicated scheme had necessitated a trip to Tokyo 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 Tokyo, 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 today, jokingly of course, that he would have to work out a timetable 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 muddleheaded 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 goldmines 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 tomorrow, 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 crossroads. + 

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 reestablished 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 windowpane; 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 cabfare; 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 house 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 afterwar 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 goldmines. + 

“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 foxtrots to krakowiaks, 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 foxtrot. + 

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.” + 

We sat silent in the heated room of the little wooden house creaking in the wind, and I felt lost and hidden amid all this sun and fir and solitude around us. Nikolai Vasilievich drank his tea and wondered if the Bolsheviks would hand him back his house and money at the bank, and if the Czechs, as obviously they ought, would compensate him for his loss on the goldmines. He had great hopes, he said, of the punitive expedition; but there was one aspect⁠—a moral one⁠—that disturbed him greatly. He wondered whether the punitive expedition would turn out to be quite honest and would not do him out of his interests in the goldmines altogether. + 

Afterwards he came up to me and said in a weary undertone: “You know, it will be very dull tonight⁠—nothing but Russian dance music. Honestly, it would only spoil your evening if you went.” + 

“Don’t take any notice of him,” cried the three sisters simultaneously. “It will be very jolly. He’s only thinking of himself.” + 

“Nikolai!” cried Fanny Ivanovna. “What nonsense! You’ve already promised me to come. You’re their father and it’s your duty to take your children out. I refuse to go alone with them.” + 

As I entered the brilliantly illuminated ballroom, the three sisters, each claimed by an Allied officer, were foxtrotting, in defiance of the congregation. Nikolai Vasilievich, wearing a dinner-jacket, looked very angry, very lonely and very bored; and Fanny Ivanovna looked ominously triumphant. + 

“Poor Nikolai Vasilievich!” I said when Fanny Ivanovna and I were alone. “That dinner-jacket of his looks miserable and frightened as though it felt the outrage of being dragged into this mock festivity. It seems to say: ‘What have I done?’ ” + 

“Doesn’t matter. He is better where he is. + 

“He would only be with that girl of his if I had not insisted on his coming with us,” she added by way of afterthought. + 

“Zina?” + 

“Ach! Andrei Andreiech! It makes me so ill, so angry to think of it.” + 

Then Nikolai Vasilievich, ludicrously festive, strolled up to us. + 

“Well,” he muttered, yawning into his white-cuffed hand. + 

“Jolly dance,” I said. + 

“For those who dance,” he retorted in a voice as though I had foully and grievously betrayed him. + 

Then the music ceased abruptly. The three sisters, scantily and deliciously attired, glided up, and were met with an involuntary critical examination from the eyes of Fanny Ivanovna, who effected a few, to all appearance needless, pulls at their evening-gowns. + 

“I could hardly recognize Nina with her hair like this,” I remarked aloud. + 

With sylphine litheness, she slid between me and Baron Wunderhausen to the drawing-room. + 

“Really, I don’t like the way you’ve done your hair,” I said. “There’s nothing at the front.” + 

Instantly she vanished to the dressing-room; and in her absence the Baron tackled me again about a billet in Persia or Mesopotamia. I expressed a mild surprise. “Have we not come here to help the Russian national cause?” I asked. “Is that then of no interest to you?” + 

“You know,” he said nonchalantly, “nothing will come of it.” + 

“Why?” + 

“The Czechs are such awful swine. They’re all Bolsheviks.” + 

And then added, “And the Americans, too, are Bolsheviks. President Wilson. Nothing will come of it all.” + 

And, involuntarily, the conversation at lunch surged back to my mind. I thought this equalled it in point of sheer “constructive statesmanship.” And then Nina, now in her original coiffure, returned. + 

We sat under dusty imitation palm-trees, my sleeve every now and then touching her shapely naked girlish arms; till Nikolai Vasilievich came up and gave us supper, insisting on paying for it all himself. I thought of the poor, long-suffering mines who would eventually have to square all this, as I surveyed the debris on the tablecloth, while Nikolai Vasilievich paid the waiter. + 

When the music, after the due interval, broke out into a resounding waltz, we all flocked back into the ballroom. + 

General Bologoevski, who had turned up at the eleventh hour, stood at my side, and we admired Nina, who now fulfilled a carelessly contrived engagement. “What eyes! What calves! What ankles!” he was saying. “Look here, why in heaven don’t you marry her?⁠ ⁠…” + 

Driving through the dark and muddy streets, I sat on the folding seat; the car was packed with members of the family. Tucked away in the corner opposite, like a purring kitten, was Nina. We began to part provisionally at their gate; but they asked me to come in. We had cold ham and tinned salmon and tea with sweets. There was a certain subdued agitation about my presence in the household at this hour, and once I heard Fanny Ivanovna’s shrill voice from the adjoining room explain excitedly to Sonia: “You needn’t drag the bed into the drawing-room till Andrei Andreiech is gone.” + 

I had been going for an hour or so. We had said “good night” innumerable times. Nina clung to me whimsically, ignoring Nikolai Vasilievich’s desire to be rid of me. They all came out into the tiny hall and added to the difficulty of my withdrawal. Nina fastened my great sheepskin overcoat, which appealed to her by reason of its many straps. I was to come again tomorrow night to supper, and the day after, and every, every day.⁠ ⁠… + 

III + 

My tangled memories of Siberia come to me today largely as a string of dances, dinners, concerts, garden-parties, modulated by the atmosphere of weather and the seasons of the year, with the gathering clouds of the political situation looming always in the background. And I remember, in particular, the Admiral’s first thé dansant. As he ran through my provisional list of guests he frowned and growled a little. “What are all these women?” he asked. + 

“You should see them, Admiral,” smiled General Bologoevski. + 

“Good-looking?” + 

The General kissed his fingertips. + 

“And who is Fanny Ivanovna?” + 

“A German.” + 

A shadow came across his face. “I’m damned if I want any Huns in my house,” he growled; but gave in grudgingly. + 

Through inadvertence on somebody’s part, the officers of the U.S. Flagship arrived half an hour before time⁠—an incident which taxed my capacity for consuming liquor to the utmost pitch. They had also overdone their kindness by sending us two jazz bands instead of one, with the result that their almost simultaneous employment in the two adjoining rooms reserved for dancing proved an experience unsatisfactory to the ear. As the Hawaian string-band flowed and quivered in a languid, plaintive waltz, the adjoining brass-band fairly knocked sparks out of it by bursting into an intoxicating one-step. + 

Some two hours earlier I had met Vera in the street. She had been to see their dressmaker about the frock in which now, radiant but bashful, she appeared. Almost immediately, the family was followed by the Zina-Uncle Kostia wing, and by Magda Nikolaevna and Čečedek. But they would not speak to one another. Nikolai Vasilievich had been to see me in the morning about bringing Zina; and now he tried to dance with her. But both were awkward and bashful, and the experiment proved unsatisfactory; while Fanny Ivanovna looked on at them sarcastically. Nina whispered to me as we one-stepped: “After them! Go after them!” her triangular, fur-bordered hat bobbing up into my face in the excitement. And as we overtook them: “Oh, my God!” + 

Stepping like a duck, Zina would not turn unless warned beforehand, and even then only half the circle; and Nikolai Vasilievich, exasperated by his futile efforts, asked impatiently: “Are you dancing in goloshes? Have you rubber soles on your shoes? Or what is it?” + 

They gave it up at last and stood by the wall, in everybody’s way, shamefaced and pitiful; and Zina looked as though she regretted her insistence on coming to this dance. + 

“Will you dance?” said I. + 

“I’ve never danced before,” said she. “But I don’t mind trying.” She looked up at her lover. Evidently their experiment did not count. Nikolai Vasilievich smiled feebly. + 

And, as a preliminary, she stepped on my toe.⁠ ⁠… + 

My next dance was with Magda Nikolaevna, a beautiful woman enough, but so delicate and with such an elaborate concoction of accessories by way of dress that the chief sensation yielded from the dance with her was one of infinite precaution. + 

As a pièce de résistance, I danced with a little niece of Uncle Kostia, Olya Olenin. She was stout and round, like a football, and we banged into people and against walls carelessly and with the harmlessness of a football. + 

“Today I have grown ten years older,” confided Nikolai Vasilievich, as I came up to him. “I shall not forget it.” + 

“You take it much too seriously,” I said. + 

“I blame myself for being such a fool as to have listened to her. I didn’t want to come.” + 

“Nikolai Vasilievich, really!” + 

“Oh, please don’t take it that way. It was charming of you to ask us. I like your Admiral⁠ ⁠… and that other officer, his assistant, who says ‘Splendid! Splendid!’ ” + 

“Sir Hugo,” I supplied. + 

Then Uncle Kostia, spectacled, and with the air of a profound philosopher taking stock of his impressions, joined us. “I’ve been talking to your Admiral,” he said. + 

“Well?” + 

“Fine-looking man. Combines the manner of Napoleon I with the mind, I think, of Napoleon III. Wants to get to Moscow. But what he’ll do when he gets there (if he gets there), curiously enough doesn’t seem to have occurred to him! The simplicity of the scheme is touching. All right, let’s assume he gets there and plants a constitutional Russian government and retains an Allied army to support it. Will he keep the Allied troops there indefinitely? And when at last they go, what’s to prevent the government from collapsing like a pack of cards at the hands of a population inevitably resentful of foreign interference? Then there’s your country. You think your country will support you. But it will be divided.” + 

“I disagree,” said Nikolai Vasilievich. “I’d much rather, for example, the gold-mining area was occupied by English troops, or even by the Japanese, than by the Russians. I know what I am talking about. I am a typical Russian myself. There are honest men in Russia, and there are clever men in Russia; but there are no honest clever men in Russia. And if there are, they are probably heavy drinkers.” + 

Uncle Kostia “pooh-poohed” this sweeping charge; but Nikolai Vasilievich continued: + 

“To take my bookkeeper Stanitski. Andrei Andreiech knows him. Dishonest as you make them. And still I am obliged to keep him on. Why? Because if I took an honest man he would make such a hash of all the books that I wouldn’t know where I was at all.” + 

“But do you know where you are with a dishonest bookkeeper, Nikolai Vasilievich?” said Uncle Kostia with that keen spasmodic interest that highly abstract men have of taking, periodically, in practical affairs, almost as a relief from themselves. “I am a man of letters, no businessman in any sense; still it would seem to me⁠—” + 

“To be candid,” said the other, “it doesn’t matter much either way just now. Till we can get the goldmines back there is no doing any business. I get money in advance occasionally. He sees to the paying of the interest, which is paid out of the same money, and puts it down in the books. For the present that is all.” + 

“Hm!⁠ ⁠… Still, I should do something about that,” said Uncle Kostia, “if I may presume to give advice in these matters.” + 

“When we get the goldmines there will be time enough to act,” Nikolai Vasilievich answered somewhat gruffly. “I only mentioned it as an illustration of the political situation we have to contend with. The foreigners here must laugh at our methods!” + 

“Why? They’re only muddling up our issues.” + 

“The idea,” I attempted to amend Uncle Kostia’s proposition, “is that the Allied troops should help to raise and train Russian cadres and so lay the foundation for a new Russian Army which, in its turn, would make it possible to rebuild the State. It’s not an invasion by foreign troops. You may rest your mind in peace on that point.” + 

“Oh!⁠ ⁠… Oh!⁠ ⁠… If that’s the idea,” said Uncle Kostia in augmented tones, “then I am doubly alarmed; for I can guess the elements which will form the backbone of this new White Russian Army⁠—monarchists altogether too brainless to realize that theirs is a lost cause.” + 

“Most of them, I think, would favour a Constitutional Monarchy,” proffered Nikolai Vasilievich. + 

“A constitutional monarchy in Russia,” retorted Uncle Kostia, “would invariably be more monarchical than constitutional.” + 

“Anyhow,” I said, “do have a drink.” + 

I could see Sir Hugo’s ruddy, weather-beaten face, as he served Fanny Ivanovna with her ice-cream; and as I came up to her I overheard her say to him in German: “I think the Bolsheviks are bound to be beaten soon because it is impossible to do any trade while they are in power.” + 

“Splendid!” said Sir Hugo somewhat inconsequently. “Splendid!” + 

“We simply can’t recover our mines, and Nikolai Vasilievich⁠—” + 

She stopped.⁠ ⁠… + 

She danced heavily; and as I turned her each time, revolved a few times of her own momentum. She sought to direct me by sheer strength of will. “Who is steering, Fanny Ivanovna? You or me?” I asked in exasperation. + 

“I am sorry, Andrei Andreiech,” she answered. “I do it unintentionally.” + 

The Baron asked me for the third time about Persia or Mesopotamia; but the Admiral’s approach frightened him away. + 

We watched Kniaz, who was shaking hands cordially with everybody as he took his leave. “That Kniaz of yours looks as if one day he’d been unspeakably astonished⁠—and remained so ever since.” + 

“Look at General Bologoevski, sir, dancing with that painted woman.” + 

The Admiral’s face drew out and darkened. “That man,” said he, “is the biggest fool in the Russian Army.” He pondered. “The Russian men are no damned good. But the women are splendid! What about that Czech concert tonight? You can bring your women if you like into the box. Don’t want the men. Ha! ha! ha! Look at old Hugo talking to the young girls!” + 

“I’ll ask the three sisters.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Those three there sitting on the windowsill?” + 

“Yes.⁠ ⁠… And Fanny Ivanovna,” I added. + 

“All right. Let’s have the Hun. + 

“Well, Nikolai Vasilievich,” he turned to his guest. “I hear you know English very well. Where have you picked it up?” + 

“No, no,” blushed Nikolai Vasilievich; and said in Russian, “Your English spelling is so difficult. In English you spell a word ‘London’ and pronounce it ‘Birmingham.’ ” + 

“Ha! ha! ha! ha!” laughed the Admiral loudly, but with dignity; and then asked, “Are you comfortable in Vladivostok? Can you get all the food you want for your family? I hope you will tell me if there is anything I can do?” + 

“I am very grateful,” bowed the Russian. + 

“Now mind you don’t forget to ask.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Nikolai Vasilievich, as things went, did not forget; nor did he wait to be asked twice. On the spot he said that he understood the Admiral was shortly travelling by special train upcountry, and all he, Nikolai Vasilievich, requested was one modest coupé in that special train, as it was urgent that he should see a certain Russian general at Omsk, relative to the forthcoming punitive expedition to his goldmines. + 

The Admiral returned the classic answer: “I’ll see what I can do.” + 

“Will you kindly introdooce me to the young lady yonder?” said a very smart, stiff-collared U.S. naval officer. He looked in the direction of the windowsill. + 

“Which one?” + 

The next moment he was dancing with Nina. + 

“Who’s that officer?” asked General Bologoevski. + 

“Ward.” + 

“What eyes! What calves! What ankles!” he sighed again. “Look here, really, why in the world don’t you marry her?” + 

“And now,” said I, “it’s my turn,” as the waltz subsided on the last three beats. + 

“Tell me,” whined Nigger voices, “why nights are lonesome,” and the cymbals beat the pulse; “tell me why days are blue.⁠ ⁠…” And we moved rhythmically to the incantation, stooping, jerking gently, swaying smoothly, like plants in the water. When the song ceased it was immediately encored. And when the bands went, a handful of us, those who had enjoyed it most, lingered for a while. I and Nina, the Baron and his painted lady, Vera and Holdcroft, danced to the husky gramophone; and Sonia sat on the windowsill and stared at Holdcroft with unmitigated admiration. + 

And in the evening I called for them in our car and took them to the concert. We arrived a little late because at a point in the journey our progress had been impeded by a car that blocked the road. Inside was a drunken gentleman who was being urged by the chauffeur to pay his fare. “Don’t want to pay,” the gentleman responded. + 

“Then get out!” + 

“Don’t want to get out.” + 

“Get out, you⁠—” + 

“Who’re you talking to?” came from within. “Don’t you know I’m an officer?” + 

“Officer. There’s a lot of you here, we know your kind.⁠ ⁠… Get out!” + 

“Don’t want to get out.” + 

“Then kindly pay your fare.” + 

“Don’t want to pay.” + 

At length our chauffeur succeeded in disentangling our car. “I’m always so frightened for the children. Awful language these drunkards use,” said Fanny Ivanovna. + 

The theatre, as we entered the box, was a gallery of distinguished generals, admirals and Allied high commissioners; and the orchestra was sending forth the plaintive strains of the familiar Czecho-Slovak marching song. + 

I sat next to Nina, and the Admiral was in the other corner, half screened from the public view by the dusty curtain. To the great delight of Sonia and Fanny Ivanovna, there was the Overture to Tannhäuser; and as the initial pilgrims’ chorus was being repeated in its last resort, the conductor urging the executants to ever greater efforts, and the trombones blazed away their utmost perturbation, a chuckle of glee and satisfaction spread over the Admiral’s fine-set face. “There’s more discipline in an orchestra like this,” said he, “than in a battalion of Marines,” and clapped his hands uproariously. + 

The concert over, the Admiral dispatched me first in his car with the family and waited for me to return for him. Driving home through the warm and starry night, Fanny Ivanovna praised the immaculate politeness of Sir Hugo; but added afterwards, “He’s frightfully nervous, and keeps fiddling with something or other all the time.” + 

“And keeps saying ‘Splendid! Splendid!’ ” added Nina. + 

“There’s something curious about his mind, too,” she said. + 

“Ah! you’ve discovered that!” I laughed. “It’s a grasp of the inessential, a passion for detail and exactitude unexcelled in creation. You don’t know him. Today, for instance, I met him on the landing, before lunch. ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Full of work?’ Now it had seemed to me that he said ‘Full of drink?’ and naturally enough I said, ‘No, not at this hour, sir.’ ‘At what hour do you start, pray?’ he began, and thinking he was talking about cocktails, I said, ‘Oh, just before dinner.’ ‘Hm!’ he said. ‘Just before dinner. I shall have to look into that.’ ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said, ‘I think I must have heard you wrong. Do you mind telling me again what you said?’ ‘Hm!’ he said, ‘I’ve been talking to you on this landing for the last three minutes on the basis of my original inquiry, and you now ask me what it was I said. I said⁠—I think these were the exact words I used⁠—I said: “Hello!” I said. “Full of work?” ’ ‘Full of work?’ I cried, ‘and I thought you said “Full of drink.’ ‘Full of drink,’ he said, ‘full of drink indeed. Good morning to you!’ And he went his way.” + 

The car had pulled up. + 

“Good night, Andrei Andreiech, and thank you very, very much.” + 

“Good night,” smiled the three sisters. + 

The Admiral was bucked as we drove home. I knew that he was fond of young girls. On the other hand, he liked mature women. He praised the girls. I breathed to him that they had praised him. + 

The Admiral smiled one of his most adorable smiles. + 

“Fanny Ivanovna,” I said, “was struck by your appearance.” + 

The gallant Admiral blushed like a girl. + 

“There is something in having an appearance,” he said at last. + 

He looked out into the dark and silent night. Some minutes later he said, with conviction, “She’s a good woman, that Fanny Ivanovna.” + 

“Russian women are so much more interesting and fascinating,” I babbled, “than other women.” + 

“Yes,” he agreed. “But she’s a Boche.” + 

“Unfortunately,” I sighed. + 

The Admiral yawned. “Never mind,” he said. “I don’t mind the Germans. What I can’t stick are the dirty Bolsheviks.” + 

“Russian girls,” I continued, “are far more interesting and clever than other girls.” + 

“All girls,” the Admiral replied, “are stupid.” + 

IV + 

Much of my experiences must now appear in the nature of a farce. This is not my fault. A good deal of life is a hilarious farce, and yet, as in the case of the affiliation of Nikolai Vasilievich’s family, it all comes about in the proper constitutional way, through a string of human motives. For a week or so Nikolai Vasilievich kept on applying to the Admiral for a coupé in his train to Omsk, in the teeth of implacable refusals. Then, after much opposition from the Admiral, and a passionate, though somewhat vague attempt on the part of Nikolai Vasilievich to identify his personal misfortunes with that of “honest” Russia, and the doings of the Czechs, the miners, and the punitive expedition whose disinterestedness he had begun to doubt, with that of international Bolshevism, this was conceded. But on hearing of this step, Fanny Ivanovna at once concluded that Nikolai Vasilievich was trying to escape from her⁠—a suspicion she always entertained⁠—and she immediately applied to see the Admiral in person and asked for two additional coupés, to accommodate her and the three sisters. The Admiral was a sailor and a gentleman. He promised her two coupés. + 

I forget which wing of the family was the next to apply. I remember that every day that week our waiting-room was crowded with petitioners. The Admiral said No. He found himself saying No innumerable times each day. Now it is an intrinsic part of the Russian character that it does not accept No for No. It is constitutionally incapable of doing so. Its institutions are all a negation of that principle. And what is more, it refuses to confine that fact to within the Russian border. It regards it in the light of worldwide application, assuming that it is indeed nothing less than human nature. + 

The Admiral still said No. He held that it was not human nature but just Russian nature, and as an illustration of his point he meant to show that when an Englishman says No he does mean No. But none of them would understand the Admiral’s interpretation of No. They had all grown up with the idea that No meant Yes after an adequate amount of pressure and insistence. The pressure was of various kinds, according to the age, sex and nature of the applicant. There were tears, entreaties. There were questions, such as the “object” of the Allies in Siberia, since they monopolized the best trains and refused to help the Russians in their primary needs. There were direct questions which it was thought must needs shatter the impregnability of the Admiral’s No, such as, for instance: Did the Admiral wish to starve them, as he evidently did, by cutting them adrift from Nikolai Vasilievich, the breadwinner? + 

The Admiral still said that No was No, and would they please understand it? They all replied that No was not the point, the point being: What were they to do without Nikolai Vasilievich? Whereon the Admiral replied that when he said a thing he meant it, this being the sterling value of British character. But they persisted all the same, treating him as if he were just human like the rest of them. Then the Admiral became a little angry. It annoyed him that they should fail to understand the primary fact that an Englishman was not a Russian and that hence any laxity that held good in Russian character did not hold good in that of a native of the British Isles. But the Russians hammered on in spite of all; till the Admiral was heartily amused that they should indeed know no better than to think that he would give in just because they persisted, for, the ignorance of human nature that, he thought, such a belief implied⁠—a quaint and childish ignorance⁠—began to fascinate him. He looked at them and looked at them again, as they poured forth their woes⁠ ⁠… and marvelled. Indeed, their touching innocence fascinated him so much that finally he felt he wanted to humour them, as one is inclined to humour quaint, unreasonable children who know no better. And it was by way of humouring them that the Admiral gave way. No (for once only) was to mean Yes. They thanked him cordially. He sighed and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. The Russian character had won the day. + 

That night we started on our trip along the great, now pitiably disorganized Siberian track. It was a lovely night in late autumn. The Admiral’s special train had been brought over on the main line; and the General and I, both somewhat under the influence of liquor, walked arm in arm up and down the platform; and the General, in an overflow of feeling, spoke piteously of his ruined soul, his wasted life, and how he felt, and what he felt, and why he felt it. The Admiral and Sir Hugo had already settled down in the drawing-room of the coach, and were drinking. As the train moved, we too stepped into the carriage and threw ourselves back on our cushions; and the General’s hand stretched for the bottle. But I lay back musingly in the dark carriage, thinking of all things and none in particular, in that agreeable half-conscious way that is known to precede slumber, as the train rattled on its way to Omsk. + 

Two carriages behind us was Nikolai Vasilievich with a substantial proportion of his family, all bound for Omsk. When I closed my eyes I could see Nina, and my drowsy thoughts would linger: “She is à moi.⁠ ⁠… Tucked away in that compartment with her sisters.⁠ ⁠… À moi.⁠ ⁠… Now they were undressing for the night.⁠ ⁠… À moi.⁠ ⁠… At a handstretch. Always there. But there was no hurry. O life⁠ ⁠… leisurely life⁠ ⁠… !” + 

I was wakened by the General, and we went and joined the Admiral and Sir Hugo. It seemed that they were both what is known as “lit up.” + 

“You’re drunk,” the Admiral greeted me. + 

“And so are you,” I said. + 

“I know I am, damn you!” + 

And we were all very jolly and sang “Stenka Razin,” the Russian robber song, while the train rattled westward. And the General’s eyes were moist with tears: he was happy in his melancholy. And, tearfully emotional, he crept to the Admiral, and clinging to his neck tried to kiss him. + 

“Go away!” cried the Admiral in the manner of an innocent young girl about to be accosted; and then in a more manly tone: + 

“Damn your eyes!” + 

And then the General leaned back with that exaggerated leisure peculiar to his condition, and sang a Russian gipsy song. He spoke of the good old prewar days. He sighed, sighed deeply. Now everything seemed to have gone wrong, no doubt because his wife who ran him was not here to look after him. But he expected her to come and then all would be well. If he was in a muddle, if he was in debt, as he invariably was, he merely turned to his creditors and said, “I don’t understand all this. Wait till my wife arrives. It’s a damrotten game, you know, without my wife. My wife she is a clever woman. She will put it all right with you. My wife she is a dragoon.” + 

In the night the train stopped at a wayside station and seemed as though it would never start again. The Admiral then sent out the General to find out what was the matter, and Sir Hugo, who attributed the cause to “bad staff work,” proffered the suggestion of “negotiating” with the stationmaster. But the General said he thought the stationmaster was a most “damrotten fellow,” in the case of which type he usually relied on “elemental” measures. Accordingly he drew out his pistol and threatened to shoot the stationmaster like a dog unless he cleared the line immediately. The stationmaster, used to these methods, took no heed of the warning, but said that he would lodge a vigorous protest through the usual channels. Whereon the General replaced the pistol in his pouch, remarking that life was a “damrotten game.” + 

What a trip!⁠ ⁠… + 

In the morning I observed the Admiral talking to Fanny Ivanovna in his deliberate manner, looking into her eyes. And the impression I received was that the Admiral thought Fanny Ivanovna was a “good fellow.” But the three sisters, bashful though they were when he spoke to them in English, had somehow overlooked him; though Nina once remarked, “How awfully funnily his mouth protrudes when he looks at you so seriously. I feel so shy because I feel he does.” + 

“Now with all this English influence behind him Nikolai Vasilievich ought to be able to find out something definite about his mines at Omsk,” Fanny Ivanovna confided to me. “And there is no doubt this time we’re travelling in comfort. The children are so pleased. You know, they are so childish. Any change like this amuses them.” And then, in a lowered voice: “Anything like that⁠—love⁠—I assure you, they know absolutely nothing about. They’re such children!” + 

“But Sonia’s married!” I remonstrated. + 

“Ach! how that angers me! And to whom, to whom! He can’t even wash his neck. It’s all that mother!” + 

And so we covered verst after verst, as our luxurious train, freshly painted, beautifully furnished, admirably kept, rushed through a stricken land of misery. On our choice engines we moved like lightning, or perchance stood long hours at lonely wayside stations, the glamour of innumerable electric lights within our carriages presenting to a community of half-starving refugees the gloating picture of the Admiral and his “staff” at dinner. + 

And so we arrived at Lake Baikal, that crystal sea imprisoned in a frame of snow-capped mountains. We stopped our train and lingered on the rocks, drank in the harmony of a strange light, glassy water, snow, fir, and perfect quietude; and when at last we said goodbye to Lake Baikal, that proudest of lakes, a gale fearful and furious had blown in upon this serenity of beauty and lashed huge waves in the inky blackness of the night. + 

On went the train, rushing and swaying through the windy space of the fields. + 

What a trip! How we argued and wrangled the long journey through! Sometimes we would almost come to blows; for the ordinary Russian does not argue: he shouts, and his opponent, to score his point, shouts louder and quicker. The Russian General combined intellectual vagueness with an emotional temperament; and, contriving to identify his country with his class, he discovered that his country had been grievously insulted by me. All was over between us. He would never speak to me again. + 

But that evening, after dinner, we sat together over a bottle of whisky, and the General became emotional. “You are young and foolish,” he said, “and you probably don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t. But you love Russia. Tell me you love Russia; don’t you? We both love Russia. She’s been degraded and trampled on; but she is a fine country. She will arise. She must arise. And we both love Russia.” He cried. “Tell me you love Russia. Tell me you love her. We Russians are lazy, drunken, good-for-nothing swine; but we are good people, aren’t we? It’s a holy land. It’s a holy people. Look at her.” He gazed out of the window. + 

I rose and stood by him, and we looked at Russia, whirling past. Then I left him. When I returned, the General was still lying on the sofa, but his melancholy had vanished and he was spitting at the ceiling, probably for want of anything better to do. + 

On we went. Two days before we had left Irkutsk. The train rushed and roared and rattled. It was a weather that breeds pessimists. I stood looking out upon the steppes, these immense, monotonous Siberian plains, dull and melancholy in the rain, when Zina came to me and said her mother wished to see me privately. As I entered her coupé the old lady was drinking tea. She bade me sit down. + 

“It’s about Uncle Kostia,” she began. She sighed, and there was a prolonged pause. “Cleverness! Wisdom!⁠ ⁠… Oh, I don’t know, Andrei Andreiech. God in heaven knows”⁠—she crossed herself⁠—“that we are groping in the dark and none of us know what we are about or what’s what, and I am an old ignorant, sinful woman. But if you ask me, Andrei Andreiech, I’d just as soon have a fool as a wise man. Take Uncle Kostia. Such a clever man⁠—and what’s the good of it? I am stupid, dotty in my old age, but really I don’t see where all his cleverness is leading to. And I say it is time he did something and gave up living upon others. Zina tells me she can’t keep on asking Nikolai Vasilievich for money, and I really do think it is time Uncle Kostia began to work⁠ ⁠… and published something. I thought perhaps you could get the Admiral to place him on some paper⁠—propaganda of some sort. It isn’t that one is sorry to keep Uncle Kostia. He is clever, they all say. Heaven knows he has lived on his brother long enough, and one was never sorry to give him all he wanted since the man is clever, you understand, and writes. But now there is nothing to give⁠ ⁠… since there is nothing, you see? I don’t want to appear obdurate or unfeeling; but I thought perhaps you could talk it over with Uncle Kostia. I know he likes you and he might listen to you.” + 

I went, promising to do what I could. + 

When I knocked at the door of Uncle Kostia’s coupé it was late in the afternoon. The train rushed, and the dreary monotonous steppes receded, whirling past. Twilight was falling within and without. The candles had not yet been lit. Then the door of the coupé was pulled open and revealed Uncle Kostia sitting on the sofa, laboriously rubbing his eyes. I inquired if I had disturbed him. He assured me that I had not. He sprinkled some eau de cologne on his hands and rubbed his face⁠—a substitute for washing⁠—then made room for me on the sofa, and rubbing his eyes with his fists he yawned widely and looked at the window. The melancholy of the Siberian plain must have communicated itself to both of us. For a time we sat in silence, contemplating the unspeakable disorder of the coupé. I was about to frame an adequate sentence to open conversation when he preceded me. + 

“There!” he said, and struck his forehead with his palm. “And I am called a clever man. Andrei Andreiech, I have been thinking. I have been thinking a good deal these last days.” He stopped abruptly. + 

“What have you been thinking about, Uncle Kostia?” I asked. + 

“That’s just the trouble,” he said, “I can’t tell you.” + 

I waited. + 

“I don’t know myself,” he explained. + 

I still waited. + 

“I have been thinking of this and that and the other, in fact, of one thing and another⁠—precious but elusive thoughts, Andrei Andreiech. Beautiful emotions. A kaleidoscope of the most subtle colours, if I may so express myself. And, Andrei Andreiech, it has taught me a great truth. It has taught me the futility of writing.” + 

“But now really, Uncle Kostia,” I remonstrated. + 

“Don’t interrupt me,” said Uncle Kostia. “It is a truth that only ten percent, if that, of the substance of our thoughts and feelings can be transferred on paper. It can’t be done, Andrei Andreiech⁠—and that’s all there is to it. + 

“And when I think what a fool I have been, writing all these years, toiling, slaving at a desk like a clerk⁠—when I ought to have been thinking, only thinking.” + 

“But, Uncle Kostia⁠—” I began. + 

“Andrei Andreiech, it’s no use. How can I write down what I think? The subtlety, the privacy, the exquisite intimacy, the thousand and one inexplicable impulses that prompt and make up thought and stir emotion.⁠ ⁠… Andrei Andreiech, how can I? Think! how can I? Oh, you are hopeless⁠ ⁠… hopeless!⁠ ⁠… Today I have been thinking. It will seem nothing to you if I tell you; it will seem nothing to me if I tell it; but, believe me, it was something infinitely deep, infinitely complex, infinitely beautiful just when I thought of it⁠—without the labour of exertion.” + 

“What was it, Uncle Kostia?” I inquired. + 

“It was vague,” he said evasively. + 

“Oh, come, Uncle Kostia?” + 

“How can I tell? I know too much.” + 

I was aware of the unpleasant shrinking of ideas when set down on paper. So I persisted: + 

“Come on, Uncle Kostia! out with it!” + 

“Well,” said Uncle Kostia, and his face became that of a mystic. “I thought, for instance⁠—I wonder if you will understand me?⁠—I thought: Where are we all going?” + 

“Hm,” I said significantly. + 

“I thought: Why are we all moving?” + 

“You have not far to seek for motives,” said I. “I presume there are motives in each case.” + 

“Motives!” he cried. “That is the very point. There are no motives. The motives are naught. It is the consequences. Where are we going? Why are we going? Look: we are moving. Going somewhere. Doing something. The train rushes through Siberia. The wheels are moving. The engine-drivers are adding fuel to the engines. Why? Why are we here? What are we doing in Siberia? Where are we heading for? Something. Somewhere. But what? Where? Why?” + 

I think I must have misunderstood Uncle Kostia’s subtle thoughts. Or was it that my commission was continually in my mind? But I asked him: + 

“Is it that you are doomed by your sense of inutility, Uncle Kostia?” + 

His eyes flashed. He spoke impatiently: “My inutility! Your inutility! What the devil does it matter whose inutility? Is your Admiral very utile, may I ask? What I was saying was that we all behaved as if we were actually doing things, boarding this Trans-Siberian Express as if in order to do something at the end of the journey, while actually the journey is in excess of anything we are likely to achieve.” + 

But I thought I would keep him to the point, that is to say, my point. “Then would you rather not travel in this train, Uncle Kostia?” + 

An anxious look came into his eyes. + 

“Why? I like travelling in this train. I am comfortable.” + 

“But the futility of it?” + 

“Oh!” groaned Uncle Kostia at my stupidity. “Can’t you understand that it is the very fact of this physical futility that inflates me with a sense of spiritual importance?” + 

I looked at him with a blank expression. + 

“When I am at home⁠—I mean anywhere at a standstill⁠—I am wretched intolerably. I write and I think⁠—” He stopped. + 

“What?” + 

“What am I writing for: what on earth am I thinking for?” + 

“So you have doubts?” + 

“Yes, at moments I am seized by misgivings: what is it all for? I ask.” + 

“I see.” + 

“Now it is different. We are moving, apparently doing something, going somewhere. One has a sense of accomplishing something. I lie here in my coupé and I think: It is good. At last I am doing something. Living, not recording. Living! Living! I look out of the window, and my heart cries out: Life! Life! and so living, living vividly, I lapse into my accustomed sphere of meditation, and then before I know exactly where I am I begin to meditate: Where are we all going to? Isn’t our journey the kernel of absurdity? And so, by contrast, as it were, I gain a sense of the importance of meditation.⁠ ⁠… That is how we deceive ourselves, Andrei Andreiech.” + 

“And you can do it in spite of being conscious of the deception involved?” + 

“I have been unconscious of it,” he said, “until you forced me into introspection.” + 

Then, after a pause, I was tickled into inquiring: + 

“Why don’t you⁠—er⁠—publish some of it, eh, Uncle Kostia?” + 

Uncle Kostia grabbed his beard into his fist and looked at me with pity rather than with scorn and made a movement as if he was going to spit out of sheer disgust, but evidently thought better of it. “You have a front of brass,” he said. “I cannot penetrate it.” + 

“Look here, Uncle Kostia,” I cried impatiently, “you must be reasonable and think of poor Nikolai Vasilievich. He can’t go on supporting everybody.” + 

“He hasn’t said anything, has he?” he asked anxiously. + 

“No⁠ ⁠… but.⁠ ⁠…” I paused to enable him to say the obvious. + 

“He wouldn’t,” said Uncle Kostia. “He is wonderful. I admire him.” + 

I returned to my coupé. It was evening now and the lights were lit. Dismal forests stretched over hundreds of versts. I lay back and the ideas let loose by Uncle Kostia set to work in my mind. And I thought: Where are we heading? Why? What is it all for? And then I thought of the war with its hysterical activity; I pictured soldiers boarding trains, to return to the front; the loading of ships with war matériel; the rush in the Ministry of Munitions. I thought of the Germans seething with energy in just the same way; and I contrasted in my mind this hustling activity, this strained efficiency with the pitiable weakness in the intellectual conception of the conflict, and I understood that the man had been essentially right, that our journeys were in excess of our achievements. Our life was an inept play with some disproportionately good acting in it. Then, as I dreamed away, I heard Fanny Ivanovna talking to somebody in the adjoining coupé. I pulled my door open and I could now hear her voice distinctly. I listened. I was vastly tickled. I wondered to whom it was that she was telling her autobiography. Then I heard occasional expressions of assent in Sir Hugo’s trim and careful Russian. I leaned forward, the incarnation of attention. + 

“He would come to me in the evening and say, ‘Fanny, I don’t know what I would do without you.⁠ ⁠…’ + 

“He came to me one evening in April and said, ‘Fanny, I must speak to you very seriously.⁠ ⁠…’ + 

“ ‘It is love, this time, real love. I thought that I had loved, I had loved, you, Fanny, but this is the love that comes once only, to which you yield gloriously, magnificently, or you are crushed and broken and thrust aside.⁠ ⁠…’ ” + 

I felt my heart beat violently within me. I waited for Sir Hugo’s detailed cross-examination; but indeed there was little of it. Only once, when Fanny Ivanovna referred to Nikolai Vasilievich’s wife did Sir Hugo stop her with an apology, to inquire “Which wife?” + 

The train rushed through the autumn night; the windows now were black and revealed nothing. Interlacing with the din, squeal and rattle of the wheels, now and then my ear would catch familiar fragments of the monologue. + 

“ ‘Nikolai!’ I cried. ‘Du bist verrückt⁠ ⁠… wahnsinnich!⁠ ⁠…’ + 

“I cried and he cried with me.⁠ ⁠… + 

“ ‘Think of the children, Nikolai! They are your children.⁠ ⁠…’ + 

“I said to him: ‘I shall wait till you pay me off. I shall not leave otherwise.’ ” + 

I felt indeed I was on the summits of existence. Why should I be treated to such stupendous depths of irony? There beyond the clouds the gods were laughing, laughing voluptuously. I could not sit still. With all my heart I craved to have a peep, if only at Sir Hugo’s face. I thought I’d give my life to know what was his verdict on the situation. Noiselessly I stole into the corridor, and bending forward with infinite precaution, I peeped at the interior of the coupé. They sat next each other. Under the shaded light projected the ruddy weather-beaten face of Sir Hugo. Sir Hugo looked⁠—how shall I describe it?⁠—he looked as if he thought it was a case of damned bad staff work. + 

The train rushed on, noisily swaying through the silence of the night. I went back to my coupé, and passing Uncle Kostia’s kennel I overheard the finale of what must have been a frantic theological discussion between Uncle Kostia and the General. The General, drunk, his fundamental principles of faith all uprooted and scattered in disorder about the coupé, furious, with hair dishevelled, cried out to Uncle Kostia: + 

“Well, is there a God, or is there no God?” + 

“How do I know?” snapped Uncle Kostia angrily. “Go away!” + 

V + 

When the train arrived at Omsk, the new regime of Kolchak had been established. The Admiral was distinctly pleased with the change; for he no longer believed in granting the Russian people a Constituent Assembly because he had grounds for thinking that the Russian people, if given this opportunity, would take advantage of it and elect a government other than that of Kolchak. And the Admiral was rather fond of little Kolchak, whose interpretation of democracy was that of denying the people the choice of government until such time as by some vague, mysterious, but anyhow protracted, system of education he hoped their choice would fall upon his own administration. We lived in our train, a verst or thereabouts from the station⁠—a thoroughly unwholesome place; and the Admiral diverted most of his time by throwing empty tobacco tins at the pigs that dwelt in the ditches around the train. “You have no conception what a pig a pig really is,” he said, “till you see an Omsk pig.” + 

“Splendid!” said Sir Hugo. “Splendid!” + 

“There she goes again!” yelled the Admiral, and hit an old big sow with a Navy Cut tobacco tin. + 

“Splendid effort!” said Sir Hugo. “Splendid effort!” + 

“I give dem h‑h‑hell!” roared General Bologoevski. “Damrotten pigs!” But, as usual, his threat remained an empty one. + 

But while most of us were very much at sea as to why exactly we had arrived at Omsk, Nikolai Vasilievich seemed immune from doubt. Nikolai Vasilievich, suspicious of the punitive expedition, had arrived at the seat of the anti-Bolshevik Administration to seek redress and compensation in regard to his goldmines. I think it was chiefly for my British uniform that Nikolai Vasilievich asked me to accompany him on his visit to the General at the General Staff, before whom he was going to lay his case. I noticed that Nikolai Vasilievich had always had a curious habit of establishing some connection between his personal grievance and some powerful outside influence, as, for example, the general question of Allied intervention; and he insisted that he and we and intervention were really all one affair, and that hence a favourable solution of his financial difficulties was all part and parcel of that scheme which aimed at the defeat of Bolshevism. + 

We entered a large dirty waiting-room where crowds of petitioners awaited their turn with a patience that bordered on spiritual resignation: after the Russian manner they all desired to see the head man personally, whose life was consequently spent in interviews. A nasty dirty little woman with a nasty dirty little child, pointing at me with a dirty finger, was saying to her howling offspring, in an attempt to pacify her next-of-kin, “Is that your daddy, is he? Is that your daddy?” + 

The General was an elusive person, a wily man, a master in the art of compromise. He was the idol of the Allies. He was one of those few who could so wangle things, so balance favours, as to please at once all the multitudinous Allies and even curry favour with a large majority of Russians. His habitual procedure was this. If an Ally asked him, for example, for the allotment of a certain building, he always promised without reserve. Then the Russian organization in possession of that building would at once cry out in protest; and he immediately assured them that they would be allowed to keep the building: the whole matter, he explained, was a mere misunderstanding. Then the Russian organization stayed, and when the Ally came to take the building over they referred the Ally to the General. And when the Ally came to him and asked for explanation, the General, with a charming smile, would say, “Well, you see that building is not really suitable for your use. I will find you a better one.” Then the Ally waited. He must have time, the General said; and actually he played on time, on “evolution.” And in the meantime there was a coup d’état; or the Russian organization went bankrupt; or the particular Allied representative who had been worrying him was replaced by another, with whom the General would begin again at the beginning; or the Allied troops were about to be withdrawn; or the city was recaptured by the Sovets; or there was a fire and the correspondence was buried in the flames. He was a man who had no use whatever for “free will” and played entirely on “predestination.” + 

The General listened to Nikolai Vasilievich’s emotional narrative in a friendly manner, and smiling pleasantly he rose and shook hands, as if to show that the interview was at an end, saying, “You may rest assured that it will be quite all right. Call again one of these days.” + 

Nikolai Vasilievich went out, beaming. “Well,” he said, “it seems settled.” I tendered my heartiest congratulations. + 

Then “one of these days” we called upon the General a second time. Nikolai Vasilievich laid great stress on the dastardly action of the Czechs⁠—that nation just then being out of court with the government at Omsk⁠—but the General merely said, “Wait till the Supreme Ruler returns from Perm. I can do nothing without the Supreme Ruler.” + 

Nikolai Vasilievich then waited for the return of the Supreme Ruler; and presently we called again. The General’s manner, as he received us, was considerably less sunny than it had been on the two previous occasions. “You have been here before,” he greeted Nikolai Vasilievich. “You must have patience and wait.” + 

“Wait?” asked Nikolai Vasilievich in a tone of secret terror, the terror of a man who had been doing naught else all his life⁠—and knew its meaning. + 

“Yes, I advise you to wait. Have patience.” + 

“How long?” asked Nikolai Vasilievich. + 

“How do I know?” the General replied. “Wait⁠—and you will see.” + 

Now, was it that Nikolai Vasilievich had waited long enough and seen nothing? Was it that in the circumstances he thought it sounded too much like a mockery? Or was it the explosion of that brewing restlessness that he had gathered in the years of intermittent waiting: the last puff of ineffectual remonstrance before his final sinking into hopeless resignation? But suddenly Nikolai Vasilievich went wild. I had never seen him in that state before. He abused the General in immoderate terms. He accused him first of turning honest people into Bolsheviks; then of being in the pay of Moscow. He threatened to lead a rebellion against the Kolchak State. Nikolai Vasilievich ceased to be a man and became an incarnation: Man having lost his patience: Humanity gone wild in the waiting. He thundered forth at the adversary, and his ruined hopes were the woes of Humankind. Then, coming to the end of his intellectual resources, but far from having yet exhausted his spiritual wrath, he made reference to the Day of Judgment. The door into the chancery flew open, and the Chief of Staff, the Aide-de-camp, and heads of various departments dashed upon the scene, wondering what on earth had happened; and shouting loudly Nikolai Vasilievich hurled abuse upon the Chief-of-Staff, the Aide-de-camp, and the heads of various departments. And then in the waiting-room he went for a stray Admiral, a petitioner like himself, and hurled abuse at him as well. + 

“All right,” the General said at length. “All right. If you won’t be reasonable, I shall have to resort to the recognized procedure. Guard!” And he ordered them to take Nikolai Vasilievich away. Nikolai Vasilievich still raged and fluttered, and the guards came up to him with signs of deference and indecision. “Come on, sir,” they persuaded him, “he really means it.” And taking him each under one arm, they dragged him out into the open. + 

We walked back to the train. + 

“What those people will not realize,” I took it up to humour him, “is that you can’t live on nothing. Waiting doesn’t feed you, and waiting doesn’t clothe you; and when you have a family⁠—” + 

“Of course, one can borrow,” said Nikolai Vasilievich. + 

“Yes, of course,” I agreed. + 

Fanny Ivanovna greeted him with “Well, Nikolai, is it all arranged?” + 

A fiendish look came on his face, as though he said, “The hell it is!” and all the more fiendish because he did not say it. + 

She sighed conspicuously. And her sigh gave him a nervous shudder. A look of hate came into his steel-grey eyes. “She even sighs offensively,” he said to me, “as though she meant to charge me with the necessity of doing so.” + 

“Nikolai!” she cried, “don’t let yourself go before strangers. What will Andrei Andreiech think of you! You know I am not to blame because the mines won’t pay. And you ought to remember that I advised you to sell them long ago, and if you had listened to me then we shouldn’t have been in this plight. Well, well, it’s no use quarrelling now. We’ve got to wait, that’s all.” + 

The ironic fascination of the situation at this point proved irresistible. “There’s an English proverb,” I supplied: “ ‘All things come to him who waits.’ ” + 

“Hm!” said Nikolai Vasilievich. + 

“And there’s another one: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ ” + 

“Excellent proverbs!” he said dryly. + 

Kniaz popped his head out from behind the paper, like a mouse, and added, “There’s our own Russian proverb, too: ‘The slower you drive the farther you get.’ ” + 

“You, Kniaz, had better read your paper,” retorted Nikolai Vasilievich acidly. “What does it say in there?” + 

I stood at the window of the stationary train and watched the sinking landscape dissolve in the gathering gloom about us. Why did the winter air seem so acutely strange, as if charged with something, a kind of tenderness, a warm, transfiguring love⁠ ⁠… ? Nikolai Vasilievich came to my side and watched, his hands in his trouser pockets. + 

“Pigs in the ditches,” he brooded, “pigs in offices, everywhere.⁠ ⁠… A town of pigs. That General⁠ ⁠… oh! what a pig.⁠ ⁠…” + 

VI + 

The “affiliation” of Eisenstein into our “society” was a tribute to his own unflagging perseverance. It so happened that while in Vladivostok the Admiral had been in urgent need of a dentist, and quite by accident he tumbled against Eisenstein, who had set up a practice there. The Admiral, though he loathed all Jews, was yet favourably impressed by Eisenstein because on his first visit to him he heard Eisenstein engage in a vigorous cursing of his Chinese servant. He liked to see a man who knew how to put “these people” in their places, a man who knew how to assert his own authority, a man who did not talk about “equality” and suchlike tosh (discordant with his sentiment), “utopia,” “socialism,” and that sort of thing, you know, that has made the world, etc. etc. There was altogether too much Bolshevism abroad, and the vigorous action of the dentist with his Chink appealed to him unspeakably. + 

“This clamouring for allowing men from below to come up to the top and not imposing individuals of the old governing class from above,” he said. “All damned well to talk like that, but in the meantime is anarchy to be allowed to continue unchecked? Apparently so.” + 

“Orright! Orright!” said Eisenstein. + 

This seemed the only word he knew in English. But it did not baffle him in the least; indeed he preferred to converse in English by means of its continual solitary use to any reasonable conversation in Russian; and when the Admiral spoke Russian to him he still replied, “Orright! Orright!” The Admiral had found him an amazing dentist. The Admiral’s teeth and dentistry seemed the subject he was least interested in of all. He talked politics and finance. At intervals strange men and women of a strong Hebrew strain would run into the room, and Eisenstein, leaving the Admiral with his mouth wide open and cotton-wool stuck under his tongue, would exchange queries in a quick and agitated manner with these dark intruders. The Admiral would hear such phrases as “What is the yen today? How much is the dollar?” And if the Admiral chanced to touch the question of finance, Eisenstein would pounce upon him with inquiries: “Do you want dollars? How many dollars? Or can I sell you francs?” Or suddenly he would ask the Admiral to recommend his being made a British subject. Where was the difficulty? He could always change his name Eisenstein to Ironstone, which, he believed, sounded jolly well in English. + 

In a crisis he would suddenly drop his instruments on the floor and rely upon his naked hands, which by the way, he never washed between his clients. He was always one of two things: either extremely optimistic, when he said that the most violent pain was nothing; or very pessimistic, when he said that nothing could be done to alleviate the pain. Sometimes he was extremely indolent and said that nothing was required to be done and all was well; and sometimes violently enthusiastic for huge undertakings, for the most drastic and sweeping reforms, for extracting all the remaining teeth in the Admiral’s mouth and substituting gold all over, and all sorts of crowns and bridges of his own invention that ran into four-figure dollars and were evidently going to hang loose in the Admiral’s mouth. All the while he would talk and inflict his own political views on his clients, which were that the English were both fools and clever knaves: the apparent contradiction did not disturb him in the least; and if the Admiral showed any inclination to contradict some amazing insinuation, he would just press the needle a little and manipulate it on the nearest nerve in the tooth and so silence all opposition. He would talk of the exchange at Vladivostok and of how easy it was to make money, and when asked how to do it he would say you had only to turn one currency into another, whether yen, dollars, sterling or roubles, and a vast fortune was assured you, evidently quite irrespective of the order of turnover, or the particular currency, or the amount employed, or the rate at which the transactions were being effected. He would talk all the while, never stopping the whole time the client was there; and then at the finish stick a piece of saturated cotton-wool into any hole in any tooth, take no heed of your protests, and tell you to come again any time, any day⁠—when he would keep you waiting for whole hours at a stretch. He would see you out, shouting in the passage in reply to any question you might have put: “Orright! Orright!” as he closed the door upon you; and then turn to the next patient. + 

He attended to the Admiral’s teeth twice in Vladivostok, and then hearing through a third person that the Admiral was not quite satisfied with the finality of his work, he left the coast and joined the Admiral on his own initiative at Omsk (in order to evade military service at the Base), and now stated that he was a member of the Admiral’s party. He was followed by Baron Wunderhausen, now a second lieutenant in Kolchak’s Army, who arrived in Omsk and asked the Admiral to take him on as his interpreter. This was conceded. The young Baron, who said that he was anxious to help, displayed a curious lack of judgment, or if his aim was flattery, a curious ignorance of the art. He held that Russia was a “feminine” nation, which should be controlled and directed by a “masculine” nation like England; and that Great Britain should raise, equip, and officer an army of Buriats, Khirghiz, Kalmucks, and other native races in order to conquer Russia. As for himself, the Baron wanted to wash his hands of the whole business, to get into the British Army, to renounce his Russian nationality, and get a post somewhere in Persia or Mesopotamia. It seemed more and more as one lived longer that to get White Russia on her legs was like trying to get a featherbed to stand on end. + 

Occasionally we would visit the front, and the Admiral would interfere in everything. He would look and shake his head: the pace and method of extermination would appear to him thoroughly inadequate. We stood behind a gunner who kept on firing at a tree, as such; apparently for no other reason. + 

“What are you firing at?” the Admiral asked. + 

The man pointed at the tree. + 

“Are there any Reds behind?” + 

The man shrugged his shoulders. The question to him seemed immaterial. + 

“Have you got a telephone there?” + 

The man shook his head. + 

“But what are you aiming at?” + 

He pointed at the tree. + 

It transpired that four regiments composing the division had gone over to the enemy that very morning. Of the division there remained just fourteen men, the Commander and his divisional headquarters, comprising about three hundred officers. We saw the Commander in his office and asked him what he thought he would do. He said that he would wait; he thought the men might return. + 

“Who are you counting on,” said the Admiral sarcastically, “God?” + 

“Yes, Your Excellency,” sighed the Commander, “we have no one else to count upon.” + 

And the Admiral felt shamed. + 

But the men, it seems, did not return. They ran as fast as their legs would carry them over to the Bolshevik lines, and the Bolsheviks, thinking that they were being attacked by overwhelming numbers, fled in disorder.⁠ ⁠… + 

The Admiral was gloomy. The wind cut us in the face in our rapid drive. Slowly and gradually afternoon evolved into evening. + 

“That Peking and Tientsin News,” I broke the silence, “seems to be somewhat pro-Bolshevik.” + 

“It’s always pro-Something,” the Admiral grunted. + 

He looked out of the window of the car on the vast snow-covered plains stretching all around us and brooded darkly. + 

“Some people,” said he, “think snow beautiful. I think it idiotic.” + 

Although technically the presence of Nikolai Vasilievich’s family on our train was but a temporary measure, yet it was recognized by all, through that deeper human instinct that defies illusion, that there was an element of permanence about it that would give points to the oak tree. Of course, the Admiral could always have cleared his train of the family by subjecting them to a prolonged machine-gun fire; but, as with soldiers, diplomats and politicians, the personal morality of sailors is much above their national morality. Need I say that they remained? The motive of their journey was that Nikolai Vasilievich was perpetually compelled to see some General in some town along the line about his goldmines, for his gathering suspicions concerning the integrity of the punitive expedition had now been amply justified. And then, as time went on, the motive, as motives do, dissolved into a habit. But the relations between the Zina-Uncle Kostia wing and that of Fanny Ivanovna and the three sisters, and similarly, the relations between Fanny Ivanovna and Magda Nikolaevna, were far from satisfactory. At wayside stations and impromptu halts in fields and glades and valleys, when we all left the train and hastened to take exercise, there had been awkward situations; and when the three sisters had occasion to pass Zina or any of her little sisters they never failed to put out their tongues at them⁠—presumably as a sign of disapproval of Nikolai Vasilievich’s approval of them. + 

We parted with them as we got back to Vladivostok; but they continued coming to our parties; and the rumour spread that Fanny Ivanovna was, as they say, bien vue at the Admiral’s “Court.” Only once, the very haughty wife of an insignificant officer, newly landed at the port, sounded the alarm: “A Problem has arisen in Society! Can we receive a German, or can we not?” But the problem, like so many problems, died its death without solution. + 

VII + 

It was the day after General Gaida’s unsuccessful rising. “They’ve gone out for a walk with those three American naval officers,” Fanny Ivanovna told me when I called. “Just the two of us, as usual,” she added somewhat bitterly. Kniaz, seated in the corner, audibly confirmed her statement, as it were, by sucking sweets. There was an acute scent of eau de cologne in the room. + 

“How charming!” I exclaimed, bending forward to examine a tiny little jumper that she was knitting. + 

“Oh, that’s for my godchild.” + 

“Who?” + 

“Oh, the little girl I christened. Madame Olenin’s little daughter. She’s just three weeks old today. A dear little thing.” + 

“Another niece for Uncle Kostia, what! They do turn them out in that family. Zina has more cousins than any girl alive!” + 

“Well,” said Fanny Ivanovna, “the little thing can’t help being her cousin. And Madame Olenin is really very nice. What does it matter after all if she’s her aunt? I respect her all the same, and she did so want me to be the godmother, and the little girl is called Fanny after me.” + 

The canary hopping to and fro punctuated the swift movement of her accustomed fingers. + 

“My dear Andrei Andreiech,” she burst out in answer to my question as to when Nikolai Vasilievich would be back, “there was a time when I knew all about his movements. But that time is over. I feel more and more as we live longer that my hold on him is weakening. And I feel with every day it’s getting weaker and weaker, and he is slipping away from me, and I am powerless to stop him. And soon I shall cease to bother altogether. He can stay there all night if he pleases.” + 

“I’ve seen Zina lately. She looks quite grown up.” + 

“Oh, what a headache I have!” She dipped her folded handkerchief into a bowl of eau de cologne and pressed it to her forehead. “If I hadn’t Nina to console me⁠—Oh, you have no idea what a tender, loving heart our Nina has.” + 

“Nina tender?” + 

“You don’t know her. Do you remember that day you arrived here, and I was so anxious to know where she had been? Well, she wouldn’t tell me then because⁠ ⁠… she thought it might upset her plan. Afterwards she told me. She had been to see her mother.” + 

“Is that all?” + 

“Well, it seems her mother wants to make it up with me⁠—wants, in fact, that we should start a business together. Hats.” + 

“And won’t you?” + 

She thought for a time. “I don’t think I could,” she said at last, “after what she’s said about me.” + 

There was a pause of silence, which the canary, though, did nothing to observe. “But if I do, it will be solely for Nina’s sake. Poor child, she so wants to make our peace.” + 

“But doesn’t Sonia, as the eldest sister, ever take the lead?” + 

“Sonia?” She laughed. “Why, look at Sonia. We have a nickname for her⁠—‘Miss Moon.’ It suits her admirably. And Sonia is deceitful. Yesterday she lied to me. She said that they had been to see their mother, but as a matter of fact Nina told me afterwards that they had gone to a dance on the American cruiser with Mr. Ward and White and Holdcroft.” + 

“What, again!” + 

“Yes, I am very much against it,” she confided. “I was furious. I said to Nina: ‘Andrei Andreiech and your father had nearly lost their lives looking for you everywhere during the firing.’ But all she said was, ‘There was no need to.’ ” + 

“They had been on the American Flagship⁠ ⁠… on the American Flagship.⁠ ⁠…” My mind could not digest the news. Yesterday when the firing had begun, Nikolai Vasilievich rushed in, panic-stricken, and said that the three sisters had been lost in the upheaval. I had been sitting in the little office with Sir Hugo, who was writing to a Czech Colonel of his acquaintance to apologize for misspelling the Colonel’s name in a recent letter. This done, Sir Hugo looked through some old minutes of past meetings to see if there was any matter which had not been quite thoroughly thrashed out. He thought he was about to find such a matter, when a rifle report echoed sharply through the air, and was immediately followed by a multitude of others. We rose and looked out of the window. The projected coup had broken out. + 

There was a continuous rattle of machine-gun fire. The station building and the square before it were being attacked by Gaida’s men and defended by British-trained cadets from Russian Island School. A fearless cadet in British khaki lay on the bridge that traversed the rails, fully exposed to view, and rattled off his machine-gun; then he lay still. Several bodies were already lying on the square, some dead, others wriggling with pain. + 

Most of the remaining family had been removed to an empty barracks near the station before fighting had become desperate. But it was not till we had launched into the streets that we asked ourselves how we proposed to set about our task. On we walked, looking in at stray houses, inquiring at private flats; but I think at heart we realized that our action was more by way of satisfying our consciences, for we had not a ghost of an idea where to look for them. Returning, we perceived the two mothers lamenting bitterly the death of the same children (which they had been quick to take for granted)⁠—but still not on speaking terms with each other. A window had been knocked out by a stray shell. + 

Firing subsided and then resumed and grew in intensity, as darkness descended upon the town. A drizzling November snow now fell upon the wrangling troops. The station changed hands more than once. Some wounded men had been picked up and dragged into a hospital rigged up in the barracks, and were heard moaning and groaning the long night through, while the city shook under fire of field-guns. + 

The morning unveiled a gruesome picture. The snow that had fallen in the night, and was still falling, now covered the ground and its dead bodies some inches deep. The square, the streets, the yards, the rails, and sundry ditches betrayed them lying in horrid postures, dead or dying. Those that were not dead, when discovered were finished with the bayonet by the “loyal” troops, amid unspeakable yells. Then they lay still and stiff in horrible attitudes. Men and women would stoop over them, gaze and wonder. Perhaps there is nothing that brings home so clearly the conviction of the temporary nature of human things as the sight of a dead body. What a moment since had been a human being with a life and purpose of his own was now an object, like a stone or a stick.⁠ ⁠… + 

“I shall not forget that night,” said Fanny Ivanovna, “nor what I saw this morning. The faces of the prisoners, some almost green from fright, as they stood with their hands up in the cold grey light of the morning, and the babyish face of that Cossack subaltern⁠—a veritable mother’s darling⁠—as he detailed them into two parties. And then that other boy of about the subaltern’s own age, awfully good looking, who had been hiding in the chimney all night and was forgotten and only remembered as the prisoners had been marched off to the station to be killed. Then came that terrible rattle of machine-guns from within. He was hurried up to the boyish subaltern who motioned in an offhand manner in the direction of the station; and then a soldier ran across with him⁠—the soldier in front, the boy following⁠—hastening to be in time for the firing-party. But the firing had just that moment come to an end. The boy fumbled in his pocket and gave some folded paper to the soldier; then vanished into the station. And some moments afterwards there came those three solitary shots.” + 

“When I entered the station,” I said, “I saw piles of dead bodies lying on the steps on which rich red blood trickled down all the way; and on top of all that handsome boy, with the back of his scalp blown off. They were shot at by machine-guns as they were being driven down the stone staircase in the station, and their boots had been removed and appropriated by their executioners. One man three hours afterwards was still breathing heavily. He lay on the steps, bleeding, and covered by other bleeding bodies. Another man in the pile was but slightly hit. He lay alone in the pile of dead, with a curious mob and sightseeing soldiery walking about him, shamming death. After three hours he rose and walked away, but was caught and shot.” + 

“Horrible!” she said. “It’s shameful! The Whites kill the Reds, the Reds kill the Whites⁠ ⁠… and nobody is any the farther. If people would only realize that killing is the first thing they shouldn’t do.” + 

“The proposition would appear self-evident. But it seems as if the one idea of the Kolchakites is bloodshed to suppress bloodshed; and that this also happens to be the idea of the Bolsheviks; and that the Kolchakites are shocked at it.” + 

“Why can’t human beings settle things by conference?” + 

“They must be human beings for that, Fanny Ivanovna.” + 

“Sir Hugo surely⁠—” + 

“Sir Hugo’s chief preoccupation at a conference is to commit another allied gentleman into saying ‘Yes’ on any given point, and then by a series of masterful, elaborate and elusive thrusts of speech to commit him into saying ‘No’; and then to point out the contradiction. It is what Sir Hugo calls ‘displaying the good old fighting spirit.’ His attention is essentially devoted to the careful recording of documents that find their way into our office accidentally, documents which in themselves he regards as inessential and unimportant. And the Admiral hates Sir Hugo’s love of detail and exactitude which seems bent on proving to him very clearly and precisely the uncertainty and vagueness of his own position.” + 

She sighed. + 

“It is a consolation,” said she, “to think that there are other useless people in the world besides ourselves.⁠ ⁠…” + 

The snow still fell in heaps as I walked home, and it grew markedly colder, and one felt the onset of winter; while prisoners, it was said, were being killed in prison⁠—noiselessly⁠—out of consideration for the Allies in the city. + 

VIII + 

Who can convey at all adequately that sense of utter hopelessness that clings to a Siberian winter night? Wherever else is there to be found that brooding, thrilling sense of frozen space, of snow and ice lost in inky darkness, that gruesome sense of never-ending night, and black despair and loneliness untold, immeasurable? Add to this the knowledge of a civil war fumbling in the snow, of people ill-fed, ill-clothed and apathetic, lying on the frozen ground, cold and wretched and diseased. A snowstorm is blowing furiously; the wooden house groans and yells in the night; the tin roof squeals in agony, fearful lest it be cast to the winds; and the storm now howls like a beast, now sobs like a child, now dies away, gathering for another outburst.⁠ ⁠… + 

The house was lit and warm and comfortable. It was the Admiral’s house. But the Admiral was away, and in his absence I had conceived it possible to give a dinner-party. The arrangement of the guests at table had been a delicate but delicious business. I had placed Fanny Ivanovna at the side of Magda Nikolaevna. I had seated Nikolai Vasilievich side by side with Eisenstein. I had sprinkled some of Zina’s sisters amongst the three sisters. And there was Sir Hugo, who talked in French about the Russian situation to Zina’s mother (who feared God, and knew no French); and it was evident, moreover, as he talked that his daily paper was not the Daily Herald but rather the Morning Post. + 

The table was littered with bottles of the very best wine, procured from the Admiral’s private cellar, and the expression of my guests became, as they do become under the influence of wine, more impulsive and less amenable to the control of the will. Their will seemed, as the feast proceeded, to become less and less amenable to the authority of the conscience. Kniaz had been drinking cocktails wholesale. He had never tasted one before, and found that his life had been wasted. “They are exquisite,” he said. + 

“They are,” Sir Hugo said. “They induce one to forget their price.⁠ ⁠… Oh, no, no! I didn’t mean it in that way, Prince. Do have another cocktail.” + 

I sat still among my guests, strangely flushed, and the vast sea of Russian life seemed to be closing over me. I saw Fanny Ivanovna talking to Magda Nikolaevna, somewhat timidly perhaps and with undue reserve, but still talking! Eisenstein was gleaming with silent satisfaction as he surveyed “the family.” He felt, I think, that he was one of it at last, and now he was all right. Nikolai Vasilievich on more than one occasion addressed Eisenstein as “Moesei Moeseiech” in an amiable if not familiar sotto voce. Zina’s mother spoke very eagerly to Sir Hugo about the persecution of the Russian priesthood by the Bolsheviks, but much of her eloquence was lost upon him. Sir Hugo’s knowledge of her language, in spite of his long residence in Russia, was inexplicably remote. When he was asked if he could talk Russian well, he would say “Moderately.” But, as a matter of fact, his ability to express himself in Russian was, I think, confined to hailing a cab in that language by crying out the word “Izvozchik,” and then, seated therein, muttering the word “Poshol!” which he usually mispronounced as “Push off”⁠—both words happily meaning literally the same thing and so adequately similar in sound as to serve his purpose. + 

General Bologoevski, on my left, was holding forth on the situation. + 

“Looks pretty hopeless,” I remarked. + 

“Not a bit of it,” rejoined the General. + 

“But they are retreating everywhere.” + 

“On purpose,” said the General. + 

“But whatever for?” + 

“Well, there was a conference of generals⁠ ⁠… I presume⁠ ⁠… who have decided it. I think it a good thing myself.” + 

“Why?” + 

“Well⁠ ⁠… we’ll entrap them.” + 

“I am most pessimistic.” + 

“I am perfectly optimistic⁠—quite certain of victory.” + 

“Why, General?” + 

“Denikin.” + 

“He is advancing very slowly.” + 

“Ah, but he is about to enter Great Russian territory.” + 

“Well, what’s there in that?” + 

“Why,” he explained, “the Great Russians are the only real decent Russians. I am a Great Russian myself.” + 

I nodded with significance, as if to indicate that this made all the difference in the situation. + 

Then, once again, Fanny Ivanovna sat silent. Perhaps she thought of her position, insecure and unconventional, disused, no longer wanted; and of her instincts so discordant with her life, her instincts that had always been on the side of respectability, the purity of home life, the sanctity of marriage, and the very things, in fact, that had always been denied her: so much so that in her unstable, questionable position she had yet been stringently insistent on this aspect of their life, and always in her heart was reminded that she had no title to enforce that law, no claim, beyond a doleful craving for the decencies of usage and convention. Perhaps the presence of Nikolai Vasilievich’s two other wives had served to remind her of the painful irony of her life; perhaps the wine affected her with melancholy as it had affected me. Perhaps she pondered on her broken life, her sacrifices that had gone unnoticed; or pictured to herself her eventual return to Germany, the cruel astonishment of those for whom she too had sacrificed her life. And it may have occurred to her, as a belated afterthought in life, that possibly she had been “sat upon” too often and too much. + 

But no; it was not quite that. There was something fatalistic, and yet almost defiant, in her look. A blend of optimistic resignation. What was it? What was she discovering? Why that smile? It was as though in desperation she had given him full rein and found, to her amazement, that he did not seem to pull as hard as when she held him tight. + 

I perceived that my dinner-party promised well. I caught Fanny Ivanovna’s eye and raised my glass; and instantly I had her glass refilled. My head began to swim. I discovered an agreeable warmth in my body, and the expression that had come on my face seemed to be getting out of my control. “Fanny Ivanovna,” I cried, “never mind my expression: I know it is stupid. It has come on of its own accord, and I cannot quite remove it, though I feel that a smile may develop of itself at any moment.” + 

“Look,” Nina said to Sonia, “how awfully funnily his face changes from smile to seriousness. Look!” + 

I smiled a drunken smile. + 

“Look: there again!” + 

I should have explained here that I had a passion for that white and pasty substance that Russians eat at Easter⁠—paskha, and when I was in Russia I made it my habit to eat it in and out of season. I had a pyramid of considerable dimensions locked up in the safe.⁠ ⁠… And now, at the close of dinner, the secret was betrayed. A dash was made for it. The guests armed themselves with knives, forks, and spoons and dug into the substance and cleared it away in less than twenty minutes. They then lay moaning and suffering not a little from its effect on their abounding stomachs. + 

We were jolly, exuberant, self-centred and sentimental. I felt distinctly pleased with myself. I knew not why; that is the secret of good wine. Some people laughed, others after the manner of the Slav were fain to weep; and outside there raged the snowstorm of a Siberian winter night. + 

Fanny Ivanovna, Magda Nikolaevna, Čečedek, Eisenstein, Nikolai Vasilievich, reclined on sofas and armchairs, smoked and sipped liqueurs; and Sonia, Nina, Vera, Zina and her sisters and Baron Wunderhausen made a noise in the adjoining rooms and did wild things with the furniture. + 

Uncle Kostia stood on the hearthrug, dazed and very red in the face, and held forth at great length: his Russian soul a reservoir of overflowing feeling. “I feel positively strange,” he said. “I swear I never felt like this before. I nodded, do you know, to some point in an argument with which at the time I happened to agree, and to my great embarrassment I somehow kept on nodding quite in spite of myself, and keep on nodding⁠—do you see me, Fanny Ivanovna?⁠—though the portion of the argument with which I had expressed agreement long died in oblivion. I know it is the wine. It is good wine, and⁠—to make a long story short⁠—I am drunk. But I don’t care. This is an exceptional night. It is a memorable night. Fanny Ivanovna and Nikolai Vasilievich and Magda Nikolaevna, Moesei Moeseiech, Zina, Sonia, Nina, Vera, Kniaz: I swear I never felt so near to you as I do feel tonight. I feel beastly sentimental. I feel that I could howl aloud. I feel that presently I will go round and kiss each one of you in turn. Look into your own hearts. What is the use of pretending? We are all one family and Nikolai Vasilievich, our dearly beloved, much-respected Nikolai Vasilievich, is our parent and guardian. He stood by us well in our hour of need. His task has been an uphill task; but has he complained of us? Not once. He has borne the burden of many families without a sigh of protest. Speaking for myself, we men of letters have to lean for our support on stalwart men like Nikolai Vasilievich, and it is indeed largely on their generous help that art and literature must depend. As you know, we men of letters are no business men, but if as a writer and a student of life and human nature I may presume to give advice: don’t lose courage, Nikolai Vasilievich. Remember, we are all behind you; we shall follow you, if need be, to the end of the earth. Courage, Nikolai Vasilievich! Keep hard at it! Keep hard at it!” + 

We became agitated. We all spoke at once, perhaps for no other reason than that we had been deprived of speaking for so long. And then, suddenly, we subsided, for on the floor above us, occupied by a Russian family, someone was playing the piano. It was Chopin. We listened to the music and grew still, and our souls were all music as though he had touched their strings. And the house seemed charmed, and the gruff Siberian night looked in through the window and listened in silence.⁠ ⁠… For his is the grace and sweet melancholy of romance, and his the laughter of silver trumpets, and tears as bright as the dew at dawn. His sorrows are no graver than the sorrow of the gold-red sunset, and his sobs are the sobs of the sea, the echo of the waves weeping on the rocks. And it has all been to him a dream in music, and when we hear it we dream with him.⁠ ⁠… + 

“And Fanny Ivanovna,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “is now a widow!” + 

A thought flashed across my brain. “Fanny Ivanovna,” I cried, “I had meant to ask you what was that funeral procession you all followed yesterday?” + 

“My husband’s,” she said, and I was struck unpleasantly by her tone of mirth and triumph. + 

“Eberheim?” + 

“Yes,” smiled Nikolai Vasilievich; “she is a widow now. A merry widow!” And Fanny Ivanovna laughed in a loud and jarring manner. It seemed odd why I had not guessed so obvious a candidate when I had seen the funeral procession pass by my window, and had supposed that the corpse had been some victim of the Gaida outbreak. We all felt that it was the best thing for the man, and nothing more was said on the subject. Eisenstein, in an impossible condition, sang sentimental gipsy songs to his own accompaniment on the piano, and his voice was such that the cat hid itself in the house and could not be found for three days afterwards; and Nikolai Vasilievich was assisting him in a rather timid staccato baritone. Sonia, Nina, Vera, Zina and her sisters, Baron Wunderhausen and I were jazzing in the adjoining room. Fanny Ivanovna and Magda Nikolaevna, seated side by side on the sofa, were discussing, somewhat timidly it seemed, Magda Nikolaevna’s proposal that they should start a millinery establishment together, procuring fashionable “Parisian” hats from Peking and Shanghai and selling them at great profit in Vladivostok; and Zina’s father was sleeping, mouth wide open, in his chair. + 

IX + 

She was going along quickly, wrapped in the familiar fur; and it was snowing merrily. + 

“Nina!” + 

She turned round and stopped, smiling. And the bright white winter day seemed to be smiling with her. It was the day of the Social Revolutionary coup d’état. Early in the morning troops of revolutionary partisans had occupied the city peacefully and taken possession of the public buildings, to wild cheering from the local crowds. The Russian national flag had been hauled down and a red one hoisted in its stead. Processions had appeared with revolutionary banners, and the town was decorated in red. “Have you heard the news?” she said. “Pàvel Pàvlovich, the Baron, has fled to Japan overnight, without telling us a word.” + 

“Of course, he was in danger of being arrested by the Reds,” I said. “But I suppose he’ll come back some day.” + 

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” + 

“What does Sonia think?” + 

“She’s glad.” + 

“Glad?” + 

“Yes. She was going to leave him herself⁠ ⁠… to marry Holdcroft. But now.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Now what?” + 

“But now he’s left her.” + 

“Well, all the better, then. Saves trouble.” + 

“It’s⁠ ⁠… humiliating.” + 

We went on together and, nearing home, we cut through masses of new snow. It was one o’clock. The sun shone yellow. She put her hand into my coat pocket. Tender flecks, falling from the sky, would linger on her brows and lashes. We fumbled and wrangled in the snow; and, with that birdlike look of hers, she said, “Today⁠ ⁠… I like you.” + 

At the American Headquarters dance last night she had been strangely, inexplicably hostile; and Fanny Ivanovna had made it worse by exhorting her to dance with me against her will. And, of course, there were Ward and White and Holdcroft. I remember sitting there that night with a sense of injury. What was the matter? Had I usurped too many of her dances? I felt as a man might feel who in a moment of particular goodwill towards mankind discovers that his watch has been pickpocketed. I said nothing, but strove to put it all into my look. She came up to me, rapturous, delicious. There was about her that night a disquieting, elusive charm. “I told you that I love you. What else do you want?” She said it with just that torturing proportion of smile and earnestness that you could not tell how it was meant: and very likely that was just how it was meant. I remember I ransacked my soul for something stinging. “You can’t love,” I said. “You’re not a woman; you’re a fish.” It is unfair to analyse love-reasoning unless in a similar emotional temperature. The dance over, our coats on, we sat and waited for the car, Nina looking rather sulky.⁠ ⁠… And today what a change the sunshine has wrought! + 

We reached their house. “Come in,” she said. + 

“No.” + 

She went in, took off her coat, and while I lingered, came back and stood on the steps. + 

“You’ll catch cold like that.” + 

She shook her head. + 

“I wish,” said I, “that women would propose to men.⁠ ⁠… I should love to say, ‘Oh, why can’t we remain just friends?’ ” + 

She looked at me. “You would say it to me?” + 

“Jokingly, of course.” + 

“I shan’t propose then.” + 

“And if I said it seriously, would you propose then?” + 

“Yes,” she laughed. + 

“Aren’t we supposed to be engaged, though?” + 

“Are we?” + 

“I think so.” + 

“We’ll marry but divorce at once,” she said, “and live separately, and meet only once a year.” + 

And then the door opened and Nikolai Vasilievich said somewhat angrily to me: “Either come inside, or go. She’ll catch cold standing here with nothing on.” And as he vanished he rather slammed the door. + 

“Go in, Nina, or he’ll be angry.” + 

“Take no notice of him. None of us take any notice of him. That’s why he is angry.” + 

“Then I’ll go in,” I said. And we both went in, and heard Fanny Ivanovna saying: “Believe me, Sonia, it’s all for the best. If you like, send him a postcard with ‘Good riddance’ on it. That’s all you need say.” And as I listened, it transpired further⁠—for misfortunes never come alone⁠—that Baron Wunderhausen was not a baron, and not even Wunderhausen. + 

Sonia was downcast. “What the devil does it matter, anyhow,” argued Nikolai Vasilievich, “above all now that he is gone, whether he is a baron or no baron, Wunderhausen or no Wunderhausen?” But Sonia would not hear of it. That he should have left without telling her a word! That he should have lied to her all these years! Also she had always scoffed at him for his title, thought it ridiculous, almost a deliberate affectation. But now that the truth had been revealed to her and she knew that he had never had a title, she felt that she had been insulted rudely, married under false pretences. Well, she would insist on a divorce; she would take good care that she was the first in the field to insist on it. Holdcroft was extraordinarily attractive. He seemed rather keen on Vera, though. But how beautifully he danced. + 

And just that moment the gramophone, which Vera was fiddling with, broke loose into an intoxicating one-step. Nina, standing by it, echoed at the end of each refrain⁠—“My‑y‑y cell‑ar!” as the music galloped into syncopation. + 

“Whose is the gramophone?” + 

It was Olya Olenin’s, the timid “football” little niece of Uncle Kostia. + 

“There they are!” cried Sonia. Three U.S. naval uniforms appeared in the window. + 

“If only we had more room here,” sighed Fanny Ivanovna. But how scrupulously clean she kept the little that there was of it. + 

“I’m forever blow‑ing bub‑bles,” hissed the gramophone.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Fu⁠—fu fu fu fu⁠—fu fu⁠—” whistled Nikolai Vasilievich. And, forgetful of her prodigal baronial spouse, Sonia dodged the chairs and sofa in the embrace of Holdcroft, while Kniaz sat in his corner seat, a little in the way, and read his paper and sucked sweets. + 

“You want to go?” Fanny Ivanovna looked at Nikolai Vasilievich with a solicitude that suggested a desire to anticipate his wishes. “All right. We’ll have our tea now. Sonia! Nina! Vera! Tea.” + 

“There’s no hurry,” he calmed her. + 

During tea he was hilarious. He had been out in the streets and mixed with the crowds. What hilarious, happy crowds! The change had come about at last. Something would happen now. He said he thought it would be a few days only till the thing was finally settled. He meant to go and see some of the new ministers. A quite decent Government, it seemed; and what good order, all things considering. The Social-Revolutionaries had a double platform; they appealed to those who had no use for international militarism on revolutionary grounds, and to those who had no use for revolution on national grounds. And Nikolai Vasilievich thought that such broad-minded, reasonable people could not fail to see his point as regards the goldmines. I sat listening to him and in my influx of sudden happiness eating more than I really wanted to; for I felt she was à moi once more. + 

He went out at last, and Fanny Ivanovna shut the door behind him. She looked at me, smiled, and then heaved a little sigh. “I let him do as he pleases,” she said. “Perhaps it’s better so. We’ll see.⁠ ⁠…” + 

As it darkened we took Olya home, and trailing our feet in the deep snow, carried the uncomfortably heavy gramophone, and marched in various formations, halted, marched again, and then, towards the climax, carried Nina in a burial procession. At the Olenins we danced again, I claiming Nina and the three American boys having to put up with what was “second best.” Madame Olenin, a suckling in a jumper at her breast, stood in the doorway and watched. A ten-years-old military cadet had followed her into the room and also stood in the doorway, in a civilian overcoat, and gaped at us. “Our Peter,” said she, “is a loyal little monarchist and refuses to take off his shoulder-straps in spite of the Red coup d’état.” The maternal hand stroked the offspring’s hair in a tender gesture. “But I made him put on this civilian overcoat on top. It isn’t safe, you know.” + 

I came up and cuddled little Fanny in a rather inefficient fashion and lavished unmitigated praise, as is the classic way when talking to a mother of her babe. And then little Fanny, as is the classic way with babies, for no apparent cause, began howling, howling without rhyme or reason. I was made to play the piano, and I was pleasantly aware that Nina advertised me and showed me off as though I was her own special merchandise. The snow in the yard was pink from the sun as we jumped about on the sofa. She took water in her mouth and blew it out into my face, whereon I got her into a corner and slapped her hard, while the others looked on in amusement. She was trying to bite my hands; and then as we went out she would insist on fastening my overcoat. + 

The others trailed behind, and we could hear their laughter growing fainter as we walked ahead. The snow creaked agreeably beneath our feet. It was five o’clock and there were the first signs of twilight. We passed the sombre silhouette of their little wooden house. Oh, how sad were these things in the winter.⁠ ⁠… Darkness was swiftly setting in. We crossed the wood. The tall pine-trees, covered with a thick coating of snow, stood mute and dreaming in the twilight; only their peaks moved ever so gently to and fro, murmuring some vague complaint. + 

Then, suddenly, we came out into the open and saw the sea. Clad in an armour of ice, it was as smooth as a mirror. Here and there a monstrous snow-covered lump rose from the surface. The sky was grey and fretful and darkness fell upon us with every minute. The sun, as it set, slowly cast a feeble red flame on the sea chained in ice, and the crescent moon spread a yellow light over the surface, glimmering in varied colours on the ice, the snow, the glaciers. The wind strengthened and the frost pricked at my ears. + 

“Say something! Say something!” + 

“What shall I say?” + 

“Why, you’re worse than Kniaz!” I exclaimed. + 

She smiled. + 

“Say that the sea is a dazzling sight, that the moon is⁠ ⁠… well, anything you like, that the sun is red copper.” + 

She looked as though all this was nothing, but she alone was real. “Why falsify the tone? It’s there: I can see it.” + 

“Is this not beautiful then? You’re an amazing creature! One doesn’t know which side to get hold of you. I talk to you about⁠ ⁠… about⁠ ⁠… this” (a florid gesture to the sea). “You tell me it is false.” + 

“This” (an imitative florid gesture) “is all right. But please don’t talk about it to me.” + 

She was silent. + 

“I liked you this morning,” she said then. “But now⁠—!” + 

“You see, the trouble is,” said I, “that you can’t talk of anything but foxtrots.” + 

“Last night at the American dance,” she said, “I danced with Ward.” + 

“I know, I saw you,” I said in a tone of condemnation. + 

“He’s very nice; I like him; but I can’t talk of anything to him. He asked me, ‘Do you like foxtrots?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And when later on we danced the waltz, he said, ‘Do you like waltzes?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said. ‘I like them too.’ ” + 

“There you are!” I cried triumphantly. “You’ve got to stick to me and sack all the rest!” + 

“You are nice,” she said, “and there are days when I like you⁠—though you never know when they are. But⁠ ⁠… I can’t talk to you.” + 

And she added, “I am going home.” + 

The sun contracted and grew more red and feeble as the moon shone brighter and cast an even yellow light upon the space around us. Fretful fantastic shadows flitted across the ice. Objects about us grew black. Darkness was now hard upon us. + 

We returned by moonlight that glimmered on the snow. + 

X + 

Six weeks elapsed, and the snow was melting in the valley. When the sun appeared behind the trees the birches, steeped in water, had that silvery appearance which is beautiful beyond measure. Spring was in the air. + 

It was a dinner, a formal, drunken, tedious affair that I must needs attend. I sat between General Bologoevski and a British flag-lieutenant, who had fallen in love with Nina at first sight and now drank in greedily everything I had to say about her. In this building, not so long ago, other men had met their death. At each coup d’état this house had been besieged. Fugitives had taken shelter in these rooms. Even on this sofa a body had been stabbed to death. And now we revelled noisily. The dark, dark night of early spring was a breathing, watching presence. The bare white-plastered walls seemed to prick their ears. + 

What has happened? Nothing. The nights were drawing in. The three sisters had gone to a dance. And so had Ward, White and Holdcroft. When now I called on them, more often I would find the older folks alone. How melancholy, but strangely fascinating, were these evenings: this gathering of souls dissatisfied with life, yet always waiting patiently for betterment: enduring this unsatisfactory present because they believed that this present was not really life at all: that life was somewhere in the future: that this was but a temporary and transitory stage to be spent in patient waiting. And so they waited, year in, year out, looking out for life: while life, unnoticed, had noiselessly piled up the years that they had cast away promiscuously in waiting, and stood behind them⁠—while they still waited.⁠ ⁠… + 

What Nikolai Vasilievich actually waited for was best known to himself. His hopes had been built up on the assumption of a sudden recovery of his goldmines, a possibility he connected somehow with political developments in the Far East. It would not be fair to examine critically the grounds he had for this ambitious expectation, from any rational standpoint. Nikolai Vasilievich had built up enchanted castles of a rare magnitude and beauty upon this somewhat flimsy and elusive foundation; and he could not have now examined this foundation with an open mind without ruining his dreams. And Nikolai Vasilievich had further committed himself to the continued sustaining of illusions by identifying in his mind certain definite promises of a financial nature that he had made to Zina and her people, his daughters, Fanny Ivanovna, his wife and Kniaz, with his dreams, indeed in such a manner that his dreams had become vital realities to them; and this important consideration had served the further purpose of giving his dreams all the more the appearance of realities. He had private doubts, of course; but he brushed them aside in a manly manner: he could not afford to do otherwise. He waited for political changes. He was not clear in his mind as to what particular political changes would serve his purpose. He did not know. He was wise enough to know that in conditions so complex and multitudinous as those in Siberia there was no telling which particular political combination would affect his goldmines favourably. Moreover, he did not want to know. He did not want to know because he felt that if he knew, his happiness henceforth must needs depend on the single chance of that particular political combination, alone likely to affect his goldmines favourably, coming into power; rather did he like to think that his happiness depended on any kind of change on the political horizon⁠—a more than likely possibility. + 

At last he saw hopeful signs. The Social Revolutionary partisans had occupied the city, and from day to day he waited for an indication of their attitude towards his goldmines. This indication came to hand at last when they called for him and put him into prison for having taken part in that lamentable punitive expedition of which, as a matter of fact, he was the chief victim. His term of imprisonment, unpleasant as it was, had yet served the good purpose of further cementing his multitudinous family. His daughters, Zina, Čečedek, Kniaz, Fanny Ivanovna, his wife, Eisenstein, Uncle Kostia, Zina’s father, and the bookkeeper Stanitski, all met in their frequent calls in the cell of the breadwinner. + 

On dragged the dinner. General Bologoevski at my side was telling me that he was at heart a democrat, that he sincerely wished to see a government that was more democratic than the old “damrotten government” under the Czar. Yes, his heart, he said, was democratic, and even when he was in Tokyo he could not suffer himself, yes, he could not suffer himself (he put his hands upon his heart), big and strong as he was, to be pulled by a dwarf slave. So he placed the coolie in his riksha and pulled the man himself. And yesterday he went with his own Chink cook to a Chinese theatre and sat out the whole performance in an incredible atmosphere. Now was that not democracy? And if it wasn’t, well, he questioned what democracy really was. He did his bit. What else did the people want? They were never satisfied. + 

And then that unknown quantity, that strange old man Sir Hugo, fired off a jewel. Sitting opposite, I could hear a Captain of the U.S. Navy talking of the decline of discipline; to which Sir Hugo answered in his heckling manner, “Well, Captain Larkin, I don’t think I can agree with you, and I should be inclined, if you’ll allow me, to suggest to you that your people are not as disciplined as our men, or, should I say, they have not had the same experience of discipline.” + 

“Well, may be yes; may be no,” said the other. “It seems, though, Sir Hugo, they have done about equally well in the war, anyhow.” + 

Whereon Sir Hugo was convulsed with merriment. “Splendid fellow, Captain Larkin! Good. Very good. Splendid! Ha, ha, ha, ha! You’re a diplomat, Captain Larkin, you know. Oh, yes, you are. Very clever, very diplomatic indeed. Ha, ha, ha, ha! I notice you use just the right word. Ha, ha, ha, ha! You say ‘it seems.’ You’re not committing yourself, now are you, eh?” + 

Captain Larkin ate his fish in silence. What was the world indeed coming to? + 

On dragged the dinner. The black panes of the big bare windows stared unflinchingly. Yes, the three sisters had gone to a dance with the three American boys; and I could picture to myself that other private little dance when I had quarrelled with her deliberately, to bring matters to a head, to know where I stood. But the quarrel had not “come off,” and her attitude was as ever unintelligibly vague. Then I sat there and watched her outline⁠—what a girl!⁠—and her sidelong, birdlike look.⁠ ⁠… + 

In came two Italian tenors, fingering their guitars. We leaned back in our chairs, watched the cigar smoke descend on the wine, listened how the southern mellow voices defied the breaking rigour of the night of early spring. + 

“Tomorrow,” said the Flag-Lieutenant, “at 7:30 comes the icebreaker, and off we barge into the open.” + 

“To‑o‑re‑e‑ador⁠—! To‑o‑rrre‑ado‑o‑o‑o‑or! Tam‑tram‑taram‑tam⁠—” + 

“Two vermouths!” + 

“That’s the stuff to give ’em!” + 

Hand upon heart, the singers emptied the glasses. + 

“Stenka Razin! Stenka Razin! The Russian robber song,” enjoined the table. + 

“Ah! je ne connais pas, messieurs.” + 

And we sang the Russian robber song as best we could, and the Italianos both joined in as soon as they had got the hang of it. Dinner over, we sat about anyhow, and another soloist, a Hungarian prisoner of war, half-wailed, half-sobbed a Russian song that ended with the desperate refrain of “Never, never, never, never⁠ ⁠… never.⁠ ⁠…” The Russian General’s eyes blinked in the cigar smoke. “What’s that play, you remember⁠—‘Those are not tears: it’s the juice of my soul. The juice of my soul.⁠ ⁠…’ ” Then the old Hawaian band⁠—we had been well provided for that evening⁠—played “Tell Me,” by request. + 

“They played this at that dance,” said the Flag-Lieutenant. “Tomorrow at 7:30 we’re off. I wonder if we shall ever come back.” + 

“Those are not tears: it’s the juice of my soul.⁠ ⁠…” + 

As we passed into the anteroom, the company was getting rowdy. A French Colonel, cigar in mouth, was throwing gramophone records on the floor, as though they were quoits, adding, with a blissful sidelong smile at me, “Les disques!” Somebody had released the gramophone, and a rowdy one-step was the result. Cocktails, wine, liqueurs, whisky⁠ ⁠… 7:30, the icebreaker, the juice of my soul, never, never, les disques.⁠ ⁠… Like dregs, they had been stirred from the bottom, swam up and began to flow hither and thither with the rolling of the tide. Abrupt impressions crowd my brain. Nina. Spring. A trip by motor to the Garden City. We lose our way. A bearded student of the intellectual brand offers to see us through, gets in next to the chauffeur and directs him, but presently loses his way too. “This hill,” says he, as if to justify himself, “used to be on the right bank of the river.” “Heaven knows what’s happened to it,” say I. She laughs. Oh, how she laughs! We arrive at last⁠—and, oh! horror! We meet her father and Zina. We lunch at the new Casino restaurant. The old proprietor shakes his clients by the hand respectfully, but bullies the waiters. It is Sunday. The sunlit sea, too, has a festive, leisurely appearance. We walk into a public park with the notice “Cattle and Other Ranks not admitted.” Supper at the Casino restaurant. When evening comes the bullied waiters, conscious of the approach of the Red Army, demand a share in the profits in addition to their wage. The old proprietor shouts louder than he would and looks to the public for moral support. “None of your Bolshevism here, please!” he shouts, putting on in emphasis what he lacks in weight; and they can all feel that he is frightened of them. We talk to two Russian soldiers. One of them has never heard of Admiral Kolchak. “You fool,” says the other, “he’s that English General who gives you clothing.” We return in the early evening. The sky is flushed; the dachas steeped in foliage. The seaway sunlit route. Pink light everywhere. The approach of summer, the feeling that we should act in unison with nature, and the crushing, curbing sense that we dare not⁠—oh! for so many reasons. The waiting, the suspension of plans owing, among other things, to the civil war. The prevailing Russian atmosphere⁠—chronic uncertainty. The wild flowers in the grass at the roadside. The American regimental dance that night. She looks at me, sits near me. I help her on with her coat; then to step into the car. And the nocturnal moonlit journey homeward.⁠ ⁠… Youth! Her splendid, wonderful youth. How trivial, how great. How much, how little. That’s how we live. A flash here; a scent there. It’s gone, and it’s the devil to recapture.⁠ ⁠… + 

The big black windowpanes still stare at you indecently; that’s why somebody throws a bottle through them. The gramophone shoots painful memories through my feverish brain. Now she is dancing with them.⁠ ⁠… They are playing rugger with a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. Oh! the pictures. Somebody has set a match to the imitation palm-tree. Good job! And somebody else has poured a bottle of whisky into the piano. Uproarious shouts. A fat, flabby Major stands on the table, shouting “Charing Cross. All change here!” and then begins to sell the furniture by auction and imitate a Bolshevik speaker all in the same breath. I am dragged up on the table. Shouts of “Speech! Speech!” My mouth begins to move but the voice seems to be coming out of an empty barrel; both I and they seem someone else. The table begins to sway like a ship⁠—a pendulum⁠—and I feel that I am being supported on my legs only by some outward spirit. Les disques. The juice of my soul. Ha, ha, ha, ha! I laugh feebly but awfully funnily, as I am being carried out under the arms. My room. Never, never.⁠ ⁠… Oh!⁠ ⁠… The bed is a merry-go-round, a spindle. I dash out on to the floor. The floor revolves the other way. Damn! Somebody ties a wet handkerchief round my head, and says, “You’re a brick.⁠ ⁠… Nina. Les disques.⁠ ⁠… Youth.⁠ ⁠… Your splendid, wonderful youth.⁠ ⁠…” + 

XI + 

That evening I called on them to say goodbye, for we were leaving on the morrow. The occasion coincided with the release of Nikolai Vasilievich from prison, following on the seizure of the fortress by the Japanese. Already through the windows there gazed the evening of early spring. The church bells on that Easter Sunday, the most festal day in the year, rang dolefully through the Christian city seized by a heathen yellow race, and spoke of better days. + 

There had been another night of firing. The headquarters of the Russian Zemstvo had been fiercely bombarded in the night. Then when at last the building was stormed by Japanese troops they found, to their amazement, that there was no one there. General Bologoevski, who had been attached of late to the Russian Staff, discovered on the morrow that he had lost yet another government overnight. Down came the red flag and up went the flag of the Rising Sun. Russian prisoners tied to their Korean colleagues were being led through the streets on a rope, like cattle. Then, these lives wasted, this damage done, “their honour satisfied,” as said the Nippon officers, they turned to the scattered government and invited them to return to their shattered offices and resume their interrupted duties. And Nikolai Vasilievich, released from prison, was inclined to think that the little Nippons were, on the whole, good fellows. + 

Fanny Ivanovna and he, alone in the house, were about to have tea. The canary in the cage seemed livelier at the approach of spring. The cat was growing fatter. The samovar could not be made to work. Nikolai Vasilievich, dressed up in a morning-coat, put on white leather gloves and blackened them considerably as he grappled inefficiently with the large insurgent samovar that blew up columns of black smoke in the little hall; while Fanny Ivanovna, as usual, shouted advice to him from the adjoining room that really only served to annoy him. + 

“Sit down, Andrei Andreiech,” she said, “he won’t be long. Well, Nikolai,” she shouted, “can you manage it? Andrei Andreiech is waiting for his tea.” + 

“Shut up!” came his angry voice amid angry, recalcitrant hissing. + 

“Nikolai! Please! What will Andrei Andreiech think of you?” + 

There was no kulich, no paskha. But Fanny Ivanovna had done up the table as well as she could for the occasion; and there was something pathetic about the poor results she had attained compared with the lustre of prewar Easter-week in Petersburg. We sat at table, and no one spoke. Nikolai Vasilievich was sad. Was he sad because he had returned from prison to something that was only prison in a mitigated form? Was it that the suspense had been too long, that he had succumbed in the waiting? Was it that he had suddenly, secretly, for no particular reason, on the eve of great changes, lost faith in the recovery of his mines? Or was it just reaction, the unexpectedness of his release? How much the one, how much the other, who can tell? The emotion of the soul is an elusive thing. There is a subtlety about the moods that bears no introspection. These nights in early spring in Vladivostok are so intolerably sad that ofttimes one might weep for no other reason than that life was passing untouched, unrealized, a drudgery with but a gleam of beauty.⁠ ⁠… + 

Only later in the evening it transpired from his conversation that he hesitated. He hesitated what to do. His mind was in a state of perplexity and doubt. His finances were coming to an end. Should they all follow Baron Wunderhausen to Yokohama on the off-chance that he has secured some post there? But he remembered that the Baron was not a baron, and not even Wunderhausen, and he felt that he would be safer not to count on him. They might follow the Admiral to England, as the Russian General was doing; or remain with Eisenstein in Vladi, who was beginning to succeed as a dentist here⁠—there was a dearth of them⁠—and wait till the mines materialize? Perhaps he had better wait. Things seemed to be moving now at last, and perhaps there was more hope now than there had been hitherto. + 

After supper the Admiral and Sir Hugo came to say goodbye. Also, gradually, the family collected. The room was now full of people. The talk, as ever, lapsed into politics. The Russians have a habit of suspecting the “Allies” of unheard-of calumnies, so much so in fact that even the surprising attitude of innocence adopted by the allied representatives, who sincerely know no better, seems a fairer statement of the true position. The incentive to bloodshed in this miserable Russian business, as in fact the incentive to all murder, is not so much a matter of wanton wickedness as wanton ignorance: a metaphysical confusion of motive: a chaos of the mind: a matter of muddled ethics. It is an integral part of Russian hospitality that they blackguard an “ally” to his face for the “calumnious machinations” practised by his Government in foreign affairs. The amusing thing about it is that this blackguarding is so deplorably inconsistent. One is apt to be shouted down for the “betrayal” of Kolchak, the “annexation” of the Caucasus, and the starvation by blockade by one’s host, who will have it that all these diabolical acts have been deliberately designed by Mr. Lloyd George in order to “humiliate” Russia for her early exit from the war. But really all this angry denunciation is almost meant as a compliment: to show how much they like you personally despite your racial blackguardism, which they take for granted. Thus accosted, one is apt to become heated, stick up for the Government of one’s country, and overstate facts. The room becomes a bear-garden. + 

Eisenstein opened the attack. “Your allied diplomats,” he said, “are hopeless. Some months ago I had occasion to see one of these worthy representatives of the diplomatic corps on behalf of a number of Jews that were in danger of being massacred by Kolchak’s officers. The diplomat, my client, by the way, was a marvellous linguist, a wonderful specimen of humanity. There he sat before me, maintaining a most distressing silence in twenty-eight foreign languages. ‘I beg of you to intercede,’ I said, ‘to prevent their being massacred. I entreat you, sir, to protest.’ + 

“ ‘My dear Mr. Eisenstein,’ he said at last, ‘how can I protest⁠—before they are killed? I want facts to go upon. I cannot act before I have facts. Facts, Mr. Eisenstein, facts!’ + 

“ ‘Sir,’ I cried, ‘you will have deadly facts, if you are satisfied to wait at all.’ + 

“ ‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘I am not going to risk my reputation for flimsy rumours of this kind. I have been a diplomat now for thirty-six years, and never once in my career, sir, have I said anything that⁠ ⁠… well, could be misconstrued⁠ ⁠… to mean something. And I am certainly not going to revise my methods now.’ And that was all I got out of him.” + 

“You Allies,” said Uncle Kostia, “have no sense of humour. I’m a sedentary worker, a man of letters, no fighting man in any sense. I sit in my room all day and watch your intervention through the window, so to speak. And it amuses me to see how you are fussing over us and always in the wrong direction, running about like clowns in a circus. A naval gentleman of yours will arrive at the port, fresh and raw from the high seas, and will be moved to request enlightenment from his more experienced colleagues on this rather elementary question: ‘Who is Kolchak? Is he a Bolshevik?’ He will be corrected in his erroneous supposition; and then, a week later, he will begin to dabble in Russian politics and will undertake brief excursions along the coast and fire now and then, somewhat promiscuously, at groups of villagers, whom in his simplicity he believes to be Bolsheviks⁠—boom⁠—boom⁠—boom⁠—boom! He will set them flying in all directions, perhaps kill a cow or so. After such a trip he will return to port, cheery and in good spirits; and after some little while the scattered villagers will return to their village, consume the cow, and resume their interrupted occupations.⁠ ⁠… Wonderful minds you have! You will prop up some half-witted general and send in stores of clothing and munitions. And the fruit of it? The Bolshevik divisions wearing British uniforms with royal buttons, and the Bolshevik minority in Moscow nationally strengthened in the face of foreign enemies. I sit at my window, writing, reading, and the news dribbles through: ‘Omsk fallen. Kolchak shot. Allies packing up.’ It seems⁠ ⁠… silly.” + 

“Quite,” said the bookkeeper Stanitski. It was a curious thing that the bookkeeper Stanitski should not have been seen in Nikolai Vasilievich’s household till the absence of finances in the firm of Nikolai Vasilievich provided him with nothing to record. Nikolai Vasilievich still went to his office every afternoon to talk things over with Stanitski and possibly to keep up the feeling that he was still a businessman; and sometimes Zina would come and see him at his office. Stanitski was glad of these visits; for he would then drop the paper he had been reading⁠—there was absolutely nothing to do⁠—and take part in their conversation. As business gradually dribbled down to nothing, one felt that the bookkeeper Stanitski was becoming less of an employee and more of a friend and hanger-on. He was absolutely indispensable to Nikolai Vasilievich, for Stanitski was an optimist. + 

“Kolchak was impulsive and well-meaning,” said Eisenstein, “but unfortunate in his selection of a task. He dismissed General Ditrich, who wanted to give up Omsk to save the Army, and replaced him by General Saharov, who undertook to keep Omsk; whereon General Saharov lost both Omsk and the Army.” + 

“You Jews,” said the Admiral, “are all damned Bolsheviks.” When the Admiral spoke of Jews he was filled with anger and, curiously, his face assumed a kind of Semitic expression. + 

“I wasn’t, Admiral,” he said. “I might be one now. There may be a gleam of hope there at least. There’s none here.” + 

“I wasn’t one,” said Kniaz, his eyes and nostrils flaming with passion, “till you Allies made me one!” The room grew still. We all turned round and stared at him. He had come in an hour or so ago, said nothing and consumed a box of chocolates all by himself. For twenty years or more he had said nothing. We felt that he had had ample time to think deep thoughts: and there at last he was pouring them out: giving us the benefit of all these years of silent contemplation: releasing the compressed fervour of his humiliated and downtrodden patriotism. + 

“Kniaz! Kniaz!” cried Fanny Ivanovna in alarm. “Kniaz!” + 

But there was no stopping him. He spoke with the tremor and vehemence of a man who had held his tongue for twenty years. He overwhelmed us with surprise, but he seemed no less overwhelmed himself, flushed and marvelling at what was the matter with him. “Why I personally object to your meddling in our affairs,” he cried, “is because it implies the impression as if you could manage your own.” Fearful, flaming words spat from his fiery mouth. “Ireland. India. Egypt.” Etc., etc, etc. + 

An Admiral contradicted by an adult person not subject to Naval regulations is a man at a disadvantage. + 

“They are just a pack of damned Bolsheviks, the lot of them, that’s all they are,” said he. + 

“Jew-led, I suppose,” laughed Eisenstein. + 

“The Russian question,” said the Admiral, “is a very big question, and I do not propose to discuss it here.” + 

“You have made it into a big question,” they all shouted, “because you had not the imagination to foresee how it would grow into a big question when it was yet a little one.” + 

“I wonder,” said the Admiral, “if you have held these views consistently throughout the revolution, if you had always been opposed to our help?” + 

“Well,” said Kniaz, “when I thought you would back up a moderate democratic party I was at least more hopeful of the issue.” + 

“Which ‘moderate party,’ pray?” + 

“Avksentiev’s Government. The Directorate.” + 

“Oh, those!” scoffed the Admiral. “They weren’t much good. They did not believe in armies, and fighting, and that sort of thing.” + 

Kniaz looked up at him and pondered over the Admiral’s uniform and probably thought that fighting, for the gallant sailor, was really an end in itself. And Kniaz concluded with the words: “And now having thoroughly muddled up our issues, you leave us to the tender mercies of the Japanese.” But Sir Hugo, conceiving that they were arguing beside the point, snatched that phrase from him and stepped in between them with much dignity. He must have felt that the occasion called for a clear brain like his own to clear the misunderstanding. + 

“I think, Prince Borisov” (and we all stared at Kniaz: it was indeed characteristic that Sir Hugo should be the first to know the Prince’s name), “that you are totally mistaken as to the object of the Allies in Siberia. You use that most unfortunate word ‘invasion.’ There was no question of ‘invasion.’ Our sole object in coming out to Russia, and the Admiral will confirm it, was to establish one indivisible national Russia by creating one strong united Russian Army⁠—and that object, I am glad to say, we have now achieved.” + 

“One national Russia! Excuse me, but⁠—but⁠—but⁠—but if there is any national Russia today it is all on the other side. As for the Russian Army, the only Russian Army now is the Bolshevik Army. The others have all melted away.” + 

“Ho! Kniaz is a Bolshevik!” cried Fanny Ivanovna. + 

“Ho! ho!” cried the others. + 

“I will not argue about details, Prince Borisov. I am not a biologist and I don’t dissect. And I don’t propose to be dragged into pedantic microscopic analysis as to which is the particular political party to which the army, for the moment, swears allegiance. I am satisfied that it is a strong Russian Army, which it has been our object to create. And I will now say goodbye to you, and I will ask you to accept my very best wishes for the welfare of your great country, sir, and your personal welfare, too. Goodbye.” + 

The Admiral and Sir Hugo then vanished with Nikolai Vasilievich, and Fanny Ivanovna went after them into the little hall to see them out, while I remained behind. + 

“Sonia! Vera! Nina!” came from Fanny Ivanovna. “How dark! Light the elektrichno!” + 

“Why don’t you tell her,” I said to the three sisters, “that it is not ‘elektrichno,’ but ‘elektrichestvo’?” + 

“We’ve told her hundreds of times,” they replied in unison, “but she will have it her own way ‘elektrichno’ and ‘elektrichno.’ ” + 

The Admiral’s departure had set the ball spinning. Very soon the bulk of them was gone. And then the incredible happened. The three American boys arrived and took the three sisters to a dance. And on the eve of my departure! I heard their laughing voices in the street, as the door closed upon them. That settled it. How they enjoyed themselves! How they enjoyed life! As for me, I would have to go home and pack.⁠ ⁠… That settled it. + 

I sat alone with Nikolai Vasilievich and Fanny Ivanovna. + 

“Wasn’t Kniaz great?” said Nikolai Vasilievich. + 

“Who could have expected such eloquence from Kniaz?” said Fanny Ivanovna. + 

“Last night,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “Fanny Ivanovna and Kniaz sat alone and drank. They were quite drunk when I got home.” And he laughed in a sad, kindly manner. + 

“We only had a little port,” said Fanny Ivanovna. “Kniaz drank but said nothing. He is a funny man. He bought some live chickens, and he keeps telling me every day at supper that he will bring me fresh eggs as soon as the chicks grow up and begin to lay. His contribution, you see, to the supper he consumes here! The chickens have had time to grow into old hens⁠—but the eggs are not forthcoming. And when I say to him, ‘Kniaz, what about these eggs?’ he answers in a tone as though I had wronged him, ‘But, Fanny Ivanovna, they are only chickens yet.’ ” + 

“He is always borrowing money from me,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “and he owes me many hundred thousand roubles⁠—we have lost count, what with the exchange!⁠—and two days ago he borrowed forty roubles just to pay his cab. He plays cards all day, and yesterday he won twenty thousand roubles; and when Fanny Ivanovna suggested that he should pay me back, at any rate some of his debt, he gave me back the forty roubles!” Nikolai Vasilievich smiled again in a sad and kindly manner. What beautiful and kindly eyes he had.⁠ ⁠… + 

And then we talked of Petersburg and the old days, of prewar Easter, and their charming house in the Mohovaya. + 

“And do you remember the Three Sisters, Nikolai Vasilievich?” + 

“Don’t I! I was so wild that night because I had to miss an appointment I had made with Zina. Oh, I was so wild that night.⁠ ⁠…” He looked at his watch. + 

“Well!” he said, and rose, yawning. “I’ve got to go.” + 

He put on his coat, for the night was fresh and damp, and his goloshes, as the roads were muddy. We heard the door close on him as he went out. + 

“Always going to Zina’s?” + 

“Yes,” said Fanny Ivanovna. “But it’s quite all right. They play cards there every night.” And then added for further reassurance: “He is passionately fond of cards⁠ ⁠… and it keeps him occupied.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“And do you remember that other play⁠ ⁠… at the Saburov?” + 

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.⁠ ⁠… Oh, what was the ending of that play? We had to leave before the end. I was curious how it would end. But I think you stayed to the last?” + 

“Yes.⁠ ⁠… She is waiting for him to come back to her. She is waiting confidently because he has left his silk hat on the table. So she is waiting. But his valet comes and takes the hat; and she breaks down⁠—and curtain!” + 

“Oh,” she said. + 

“Nikolai Vasilievich liked it,” I observed. + 

“Did he like it?” + 

She did not like it. By her face I could see that she did not like his liking it. It was as if the thing was peculiarly discordant with her own mood and trend of thought, as if she feared, against her hope, that Nikolai Vasilievich, in spite of all, might one day follow the example of the gentleman with the silk hat⁠ ⁠… and send Stanitski to her for his suits and underclothes. + 

She brooded. + 

“How long ago it seems,” she said at last. “To think how long ago!⁠ ⁠… and we are still the same. Nothing has changed⁠ ⁠… nothing. Then it was the climax, and we held our breath expecting that now⁠ ⁠… now something must happen. Nothing happened. Then our whole life stood on edge, and the edge was sharp. We felt that the crisis could not last. We waited for an explosion. But it never came. The crisis still dragged on: it lapsed into a perpetual crisis; but the edges blunted. And nothing happened. Life drags on: a series of compromises. And we drag along, and try to patch it up⁠ ⁠… but it won’t. And it won’t break. And nothing happens. Nothing ever happens. Nothing happens.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“When I was very young,” I said, “I thought that life must have a plot, like a novel. But life is most unlike a novel; more ludicrous than a novel. Perhaps it is a good thing that it is. I don’t want to be a novel. I don’t want to be a story or a plot. I want to live my life as a life, not as a story.” + 

“Yes,” she said, pursuing her own thought. “Nothing happens. Nothing.⁠ ⁠…” + 

The black night gazed through the window. The samovar produced melancholy notes. Tea was getting cold on the table. + 

XII + 

“Would she come?” I thought, as next morning we drove off to the wharf. We passed a lonely square with a solitary Chink with a tin sword. That was the last we saw of Vladivostok. + 

The family came to see us off in practically its full strength. But she did not come. That settled it. + 

Nikolai Vasilievich was unshaven⁠—a perfectly correct omission in a Russian gentleman. He wore blue spectacles, a bowler hat, a summer coat and goloshes. On the pier we talked of the political situation. The Admiral repeated but one phrase: “We are not to blame.” The Russian General shook his head and blamed some vague, unknown power in rather vague, indefinite terms with a rather vague, indefinite blame, and then summed up the situation with “I told you so!” though the substance of his telling was all very mysterious. But both fools and wise men alike had long given up the attempt to discover any meaning whatsoever in this resplendent General’s utterances; and if they listened to him at all, their attention was usually concentrated on his face or uniform or any other object near at hand. + 

She had not come. That settled it. + 

It rained, as on the day we arrived. + 

Then the Admiral came up to Nikolai Vasilievich to say goodbye. “Well, Nikolai Vasilievich,” he said, “what will you do?” + 

“Well⁠ ⁠… I’ll wait,” said Nikolai Vasilievich. “I don’t think it can be long now.⁠ ⁠…” + 