Part + 

IV + 

Nina + 

I + 

And this now is the ending, the Liebestod of my theme. We had left so suddenly. Her last words, look, gesture had “settled it.” But now, in retrospect, the things that “settled it” were, in their very vagueness, just the things striving to unsettle me, as I resumed my interrupted course at Oxford, having “relinquished my commission,” thanks to the conclusion of the war. Was she à moi, or wasn’t she? Well, was she? She was. She wasn’t. Oh⁠—how the hell could I know! + 

The art of living is the ability to subordinate minor motives to major ones. And it is an unsatisfactory art. You must make up your mind what you want, and when you have made up your mind what you want, you might as well, for the difference it makes to you, have never had a mind to make up. For the consequences have a way of getting out of hand and laying out the motives indiscriminately. And then you with your intent and will seem rather in the way. That is the truth.⁠ ⁠… (But it would serve us right if we thought so!) + 

Since childhood I had more or less earmarked my future, and the circumscription did not really take in Nina. I had in those early days conceived a novel that, oh! was to knock all existing novels flat. This novel was to be my goal in life, and then later on the novel was to follow my real life, a life of augmented splendour and achievement. Pending that achievement, there was, of course, that other life, essentially out of focus with the novel, not really life at all, a transitory, irritating phase not meriting attention. The novel was begun⁠—invariably begun. The quite indefinably peculiar atmosphere of it seemed to defy the choice of language. For I happen to belong to that elusive class of people knowing several languages who, when challenged in one tongue, find it convenient to assure you that their knowledge is all in another. And I am one of those uncomfortable people whose national “atmosphere” had been somewhat knocked on the head⁠—an Englishman brought up and schooled in Russia, and born there, incidentally, of British parents (with a mixed un-English name into the bargain!), and here I am. The war claimed me. And then, the war over, I looked at the novel. Heaven! How it had shrunk. I had contrived to overlook real life since it was out of focus with my novel, and now I found that it was just the novel that was out of focus with real life. Nothing more than that. But what a discovery! I had lived these years like an automaton, giving scarcely any heed to the life about me but vaguely cherishing the “masterpiece,” and I found that I had really lived unconsciously and was alive, while the “masterpiece” had stifled and was dead. + 

It must have been at this point that the thought of Nina came to me identified with the idea of living as against recording. She would come to me in dreams. I was walking with some people, and she was walking with some other people. And then we met, and the people she was with stopped to talk to the people I was with, and she looked at me, a little bashful, “repentance” written on her face, as if to say, “I am waiting”⁠—but never said a word. And in my sleep the “truth” would dawn on me: “So all this other⁠ ⁠… was mere whimsicality? Oh yes, of course! I should have understood her.” + 

And in my waking hours, that were like dreams, involuntarily I would find myself asking General Bologoevski, whom I always went to see in town, if he “understood her.” But the General understood nothing. “I know why you are always coming here,” he once remarked. “It is because I know her, because you want to talk to me of her.⁠ ⁠… And you have reason to. My God! what eyes! What calves! What ankles! Look here: why in the world don’t you marry her?” + 

I had come to his hotel a while ago, which he had chosen on account of the “nice little women there,” as he explained, and overtook him in the act of making amorous advances to the pretty chambermaid who was giggling loudly in his bedroom. “English women,” he confided to me, “always let themselves go with foreigners. They’re somehow ashamed with their own countrymen. However.” + 

We went downstairs. “Yes,” he sighed, “things are getting a little difficult just now. All I’ve got is ten pounds. And when those are gone I won’t know where to turn to. And there’s that motorcycle I’ve bought, and they are pressing me for payment. I give dem h‑h‑hell! But it is all a damrotten game, you know. The only consolation is that it really is a good motorcycle⁠—a fine big thing. But there seems no one I could borrow from.” + 

“But you will ride in taxis, General,” I gently reprimanded him. + 

“Well, what is ten pounds?” he asked. “Whether I ride in taxis or go by bus, it’s all one. It won’t last in any case. No: all my hope is in the claim I’ve lodged with the Russian Embassy. I understand it’s now only a question of the Allies recognizing General Wrangel before the claim is paid. But come, I’ll introduce you to that Russian Colonel there. He’s been to Vladivostok and knows your friends, no doubt⁠—Nina. Come.” + 

We shook hands, and then compared experiences. “And do you remember that good-looking girl, Nina Bursànova?” at length I ventured. + 

The Colonel thought hard, and then said: + 

“No, I don’t remember.” + 

Silence. The subdued hum of London was like the burden note of a distant organ. Two other Russian Colonels and a Captain, all of the Denikin Army, sauntered up, and the General called the waiter and stood liqueurs and cigars all round. The faint sounds of a hidden orchestra reached our ears and set a match to the emotions stored away in my subconscious warehouse.⁠ ⁠… The tepid air within, surrounded by the cold outside, the shaded lights contrasted by the dark of night without, the easy atmosphere of crowded, dazzling excitement, enshrouded by the loneliness of space, and our intimate seclusion within this gay tumultuousness⁠—these things spoke. And the soft music told me that life is, and that she was all this that it meant.⁠ ⁠… + 

No more novels! Life, I thought, was worth all the novels in the world. And life was Nina. And Nina was life. And, by contrast, the people I encountered seemed pretentious and insincere. The women in particular were unreal. They talked of things that did not interest them with an affected geniality. They pretended a silly superiority or else an unconvincing inferiority. They said “Really?” and “Indeed?” and “How fascinating!” and “How perfectly delightful!” Nina was not like that. My three sisters were not like that. They were real. They would laugh when they liked; they would say exactly what they thought; and they would say nothing if there was nothing to be said. Nina was so childish in her ways, and yet so very wise. She bit. She took water in her mouth and blew it out straight at your face, and threw herself on the sofa recklessly and stretched herself across, head downward.⁠ ⁠… She would never quite grow up. And by contrast, Oxford with its sham clubs and sham societies appeared a doll’s house, a thing stationary and extinct of life, while the world, the Outside World, was going by. And I asked myself: What am I waiting for? + 

In fine, it was Tristan pining for Isolde⁠—with the important variation that Tristan journeyed to Isolde for the reason that Isolde failed to come to Tristan. One evening, very suddenly, I left England and set out back to the Far East. + 

II + 

I travelled with Sir Hugo and the Russian General, and we took the eastern route. I had recognized Sir Hugo’s gait as he came my way one day in crowded Piccadilly, but stopped in front of a shop window. And when I came up I saw Sir Hugo gazing at long rows of D.S.O.’s and O.B.E.’s displayed behind the window. He was going out as professional adviser⁠—to Siam, I think, he said⁠—or some suchlike place, and we arranged to leave together. And then the General who was going out to Wrangel’s Army in Constantinople joined us. He was to get off at Port Said. + 

On board next morning I showed the General an alarming Reuter message from Constantinople. The French Government, it ran, had ordered the disbandment of General Wrangel’s Army, offering to transport the refugees back to Russia or to Brazil, but General Wrangel declined the offer, refused the invitation to go to Paris, and demanded the return of his arms and munitions which the French had already sold to Georgia, where they had fallen into Bolshevik hands. Money, gold and silver valuables and jewels had been stolen from the steamer in which General Wrangel was staying. Important military documents regarding the campaign in the Crimea had also been stolen. + 

“I know,” he said, “it is a most damrotten game, you know. I give dem h‑h‑hell, those damrotten Frenchmen. They are all damrotten Bolsheviks, they are.” + 

“Well,” I said quietly, “Kolchak has tried it. Denikin has tried it. Yudenich has tried it. I should give it a rest now.” + 

“Ah,” he laughed, “all this has merely been a little rehearsal. We shall begin seriously in a year or two. It’s the only way to stop bloodshed.” He puffed at his heavy cigar and his eyes twitched in the smoke. + 

“A rehearsal.⁠ ⁠… Yes, I too intend to begin ‘seriously’ when I get to Vladivostok,” I laughed. + 

“Is it not rather an adventure in futility?” Sir Hugo asked. + 

“He has taken my advice at last.” The General kissed his fingertips. “What eyes!⁠—” + 

“What calves! What ankles!” I completed automatically. + 

Silence. + 

“The boat’s beginning to roll.” + 

“Where are all the passengers?” asked the General. + 

“I fear they must be indisposed,” Sir Hugo said, “in consequence of the heavy sea.” + 

The General paused a little, gazing down at the cause of the passengers’ indisposition. “Of course,” he said, “this rolling and pitching ought never to be.” + 

“Oh!” said Sir Hugo. + 

“It is entirely due to bad steering. Now on Russian ships when there is rolling or pitching the captain leaves his breakfast-table without a word, goes up to the man at the steering-wheel, beats him in the face the number of times he considers adequate (v mordoo, do you understand?)⁠—” + 

Sir Hugo nodded to indicate that he understood. + 

“⁠—and retires, without a word, to the saloon and continues his breakfast. And believe me, Sir Hugo, there is no more⁠—ha, ha, ha⁠—rolling or⁠—ha, ha, ha⁠—pitching! No more.” + 

“Hm,” said Sir Hugo. “Doesn’t the man at the steering-wheel ever⁠ ⁠… protest?” + 

“No,” said the General. “He knows what it’s for. The whole beauty of it is that the transaction is carried out swiftly, efficiently, quietly, without a sound⁠ ⁠… to everybody’s satisfaction.” + 

“This quietude of method, General, seems to have produced, to put it mildly, quite a stir recently?” + 

“Not carried out quietly enough,” explained the General, indicating the root of the trouble. + 

“The times are dead and over, anyhow.” + 

“They are dead and over,” sighed the General, as if mourning a dear relation. + 

Silence again. The wind full of that vigour of the sea swept across my face. + 

“Do you see that ship there, sir?” + 

“Which ship where?” came the answer. + 

“That ship there,” said I, pointing at the only vessel on the only sea. + 

Sir Hugo looked. + 

“It’s not a ship,” he said. “It’s a boat.” + 

“But, oh! sir,” I breathed in courteous remonstrance. + 

“Only His Majesty’s ships are ships,” came the dry rejoinder. “All other vessels are boats.⁠ ⁠… But to return to the question at issue, what were you going to say about the boat?” + 

“Well, I thought it was the Aquitania, but now I see it isn’t,” I said, looking down into the green-blue waves. “Do you remember the U-boat scare three years ago when we crossed to New York? It was a time when you felt that at any moment you might find yourself floating on the water owing to the disappearance of the boat.” + 

“The ship,” corrected Sir Hugo. “The Aquitania⁠ ⁠… I mean the boat⁠ ⁠… I beg your pardon, you’re right this time and I apologize. But why the devil didn’t you say so straight out instead of wasting my time and your time with⁠ ⁠… with⁠ ⁠… with such a rubbishy matter?” + 

Ominous silence. + 

Then said the General, “Perhaps we might go and have a drink?” + 

A week later we were entering the harbour of Port Said. We stood at the rail, balancing ourselves on our heels, as the liner, rolling heavily, turned into port. + 

“We’re already four days late,” Sir Hugo said. + 

“I know. I have never been on such a damrotten ship before,” remarked the General. “Now I remember on a Russian ship I once crossed the Pacific in, the captain promised to reach Yokohama by a certain date, but, as usual of course, failed to do so by a week or more. Well, all the passengers on board, officers and civilians, men and women, first-class passengers and even those who worked their passage, used to go up to the captain’s cabin every morning and beat him in the face (v mordoo, you understand?) until it had swollen to, oh⁠—oh⁠—” (he indicated the size of the captain’s face)⁠—“immense proportions.” + 

“Hm,” said Sir Hugo, seemingly very interested. “I think I caught you, General, saying ‘first-class passengers and those who worked their passage.’ Now do you, or don’t you, purposely omit second-class passengers and such passengers as may, or may not, have been going steerage? Or am I putting words into your mouth? But let this matter drift: it is of no consequence. My sympathies in this incident, I hope you will forgive me, General, are all on the side of the captain.” + 

The General listened, but did not understand. We parted with him next morning, as we left Port Said.⁠ ⁠… + 

Then, one afternoon, armed with binoculars, we peered at the horizon to see if we could spot dry land. It was towards seven in the evening that the throbbing liner came into sight of Aden. She stole up carefully, and then lay still outside the harbour. + 

We could feel the Sahara breathe upon us, like an oven. I leaned across the rail and watched the sandy, ominous desert coast, the strange, almost pathetic stillness of the place, the malicious yellow water of the harbour. + 

I remember those disturbing, endless nights at Aden, when I fancied that the boat would never move again. I remember a kind of jeering look about that ancient liner (captured from the Germans in the war) as she broke down every now and then at Godforsaken places like Perim. I was in a hurry, but circumstances had conspired to make my journey inordinately slow.⁠ ⁠… But we were moving now at last. I gazed at the sombre, yellow water as the liner glided off the shark-infested coast of Aden in the heavy, stifling silence of the eastern night. And it seemed to me that from the surface to its depths the sea writhed in agony, and that the sun-scorched desert withered in its age-long weariness, all from a want of motive. And it seemed to me the stars had spent themselves in waiting.⁠ ⁠… + 

Then, one evening at Colombo, I parted with Sir Hugo, who was changing boats for Singapore. We shook hands warmly. “Thank you so much for all your splendid, excellent work,” he was saying; and we were both obviously touched. And though I did not know what the splendid, excellent work he was thanking me for really was, I now felt that it was enormous, overwhelming, but that I would gladly do it all again, and more if necessary: so sweet was it to be thanked! “Splendid! Splendid!” he repeated, as I helped him with his things. “Good. Very good. Thank you! Thank you again! Splendid! Splendid fellow! Splendid fellow! Thank you! Goodbye!” And as he settled in the throbbing motor-launch below that then took him ashore, he waved his hand to me and his lips seemed to be moving still and saying “Splendid!” Then he was gone⁠ ⁠… on his new mission of advice. + 

I was sorry to part with the old man. There was a quality about him that made him almost human. Later in the journey I had a letter from him. “We have had a good voyage, so far,” he wrote, “with only two days’ rough weather, when we were skirting a typhoon, or a similar storm.⁠ ⁠…” + 

And now I was alone on board the old ocean liner, as she steamed away carefully past the bright, foam-washed breakwaters of Colombo’s sunlit coast, and bulged into the open sea. + 

I was in bed on deck, on the point of going to sleep. Suddenly the dream of Nina, like a wave from nowhere, flowed upon my brain. I was still awake that second: I caught the dream as if with both my hands. I smiled broadly to myself. I had caught a dream!⁠ ⁠… + 

The sea was like a mirror of black glass. I listened to the nocturnal silence. Now and then a wilful dolphin would splash the surface of the water; then everything was still. The liner glided noiselessly across the sea. + 

Towards Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai.⁠ ⁠… I had vague fears of being “late.” In my emotional anxiety the East itself appeared emotionally coloured. The eastern night was veiled with sorrow. It was a night of Why? I discovered pathos in the animation of the Peking streets at night. Even as I write I can see Canton with its narrow, crowded streets sheltering beneath the dripping, overlapping roofs of shops, and feel the sombre enigmatic calm of their interior, the lethargic stare of Chinese merchants seated on the floor, and the thudding of the rain upon the roof; and I can see the dull and yellow water of the rivers, the swarming multitudes of lives upon the quays, the sampans crowding the canals; and I recall again the din of Mukden, the stretch of ancient muddy soil receding from my sight as I watched it from the window of the train, the fall of evening, and the melancholy of the ages. And I was made to feel that I was in another age, another world, that somewhere I must have dreamt this, or perhaps had known it ere I was born on earth, that deep in the recesses of my memory was an imprint of this peculiar light, this noise and din, this languid stillness of the East. + 

III + 

Finally I arrived at Vladivostok. The moment I set my foot on the platform I flew by well-known streets and curves and turnings to their house. I remember I felt in the manner of Tristan at the end of the last act: very sure, impatient, overwhelmed with love. I felt that I would just fly into the room and cry “Isolde!” and she would fly into my arms⁠—“Tristan!” And then, immediately, we would get busy with the love duet. + 

I knocked at the window, and I felt that they should hear the throbbing of my heart. I knocked again, and then the blind behind the window was tampered with, and there was Sonia peering at me through the glass. Her frown developed into a radiant smile and her voice rang through the building: + 

“Andrei Andreiech!” + 

She ran away and then came to the door, half opened it, and said, “Andrei Andreiech, we aren’t dressed yet; but come into the drawing-room⁠ ⁠… wait, let me run away first.” + 

It was about eleven o’clock in the morning. She ran away, and I went into the drawing-room. Everything was exactly as I had left it. The canary in the cage went on with his usual “Chic!⁠ ⁠… cherric!⁠ ⁠…” hopping to and fro. The sun was shining brightly through the window. It was one of those glorious autumn days that are like the unfolding days of spring. + 

“We shall be ready in ten minutes,” Sonia shouted from the adjoining room. + 

I waited ten minutes, and another ten minutes. Then the door opened and Sonia, radiant, came in. “Nina will be ready in ten minutes,” she said. + 

“No, she won’t be ready!” came Nina’s voice⁠—a discontented voice. + 

“Fanny Ivanovna and Kniaz have gone out shopping,” Sonia said. + 

“How is Nikolai Vasilievich?” I asked. + 

“He is probably at the office⁠ ⁠… or else with Zina.” + 

“How are the mines?” + 

She only waved her hand. + 

“Hopeless?” + 

“Oh, he hopes⁠—we all hope, of course.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Well then,” said I, “… we must hope.” + 

Then Vera, radiant and marvellously pretty, came in. “Nina will come in five minutes,” she said. + 

“Not in five but in ten minutes,” came Nina’s voice, this time a whimsical voice. + 

I sat on the old sofa, and Sonia and Vera both stared at me in a curious manner, wondering, no doubt, why the dickens I had arrived. + 

Then the door of the adjoining room flew open, and Nina flitted in, shook hands without looking at me and flitted over to the window. + 

I still sat on the old sofa, of which the spring had burst, and no one spoke. It was a somewhat silly situation. + 

“That spring I am sitting on is burst,” I said at length. + 

“Oh, Vera burst it,” Nina said. + 

“It’s a lie!” Vera flared. “You know yourself you burst it last night when you jumped about with Ward.” + 

“No, it’s Vera,” Nina said. + 

“It’s a lie! a lie! a lie!” + 

“It really doesn’t matter in the least who burst it,” I intervened. “I noticed that the spring was burst because I happened to be sitting on it⁠ ⁠… otherwise everything seems to be very much the same.” + 

We sat still for a little while. Then Nina turned to me impulsively and said, “And you haven’t seen the three sisters!” + 

I stared at her with blank expression. + 

She ran out, and returning quickly, thrust three tiny kittens on my lap. The old cat followed her into the room and looked up at me suspiciously. + 

“This is Sonia. This is Nina. This is Vera,” she explained. + 

For a while we admired the “three sisters”; then with the same swift motion, she grabbed the kittens in her hands and carried them away. The old cat followed her back into the adjoining room. + 

Again there was silence. The canary in the cage went on: “Chic!⁠ ⁠… cherric!⁠ ⁠…” + 

“And Andrei Andreiech always goes on with his ‘Chic!⁠ ⁠… cherric!’⁠ ⁠…” said Nina. + 

“Which Andrei Andreiech?” + 

She pointed at the canary. + 

“What do you mean?” + 

“We call him Andrei Andreiech.” + 

“Why?” + 

“Oh, just so⁠ ⁠… there is something of you about him⁠ ⁠… something⁠ ⁠… unsubstantial.” + 

“Nina, come for a walk,” I said. + 

I helped her on with her coat. + 

We went by the Aleutskaya, bathed in sunshine, switched off down the Svetlanskaya and turned into a park overhanging the sea. Autumn stood at the door with its sombre moods of hopes frustrated, of joys gone, and aims blown to the wind, like leaves of autumn. + 

“Why did you come?” she said. “Why? I never asked you.” + 

“You told me that you love me,” I said. + 

“I never loved you.” + 

“Why did you lie then?” I cried. + 

“Go to the devil!” she answered, and turned her face away. + 

“I have been three months on the way⁠ ⁠… three months. Good God, Nina, travelling three months to come and see you⁠—and there!⁠ ⁠…” + 

“It was an unusually long journey. You must have been moving very slowly.” + 

“There!” I went on protestingly, “I chuck Oxford, come all the way to Vladivostok, spend three months on the journey⁠ ⁠… because⁠ ⁠… because I love you, and you⁠—” + 

“You have a speck of soot on your nose,” she remarked. + 

“Nina!” I cried laughing, my heart all weeping tears. “Nina!” + 

“Go and wash your face,” she said, “and then come back again. I’ll wait for you here.” + 

I gave it up. We sat together, saying nothing, and something about the autumn sun, the wind that came defiant from the roaring sea and harassed the fallen yellow leaves at our feet, suggested that I was late in the season with my love⁠—perhaps too late. Tristan became a thing alien and remote, and I felt that I was singing in an altogether different opera. + 

IV + 

We did not go home. She said, “I’m tired of seeing Papa, Fanny Ivanovna and Kniaz. They always quarrel, always quarrel.⁠ ⁠… Kniaz is the best of the lot.” Instead we went to the Olenins who lived in a remote dacha by the sea. It was a place scarcely accessible by night, for there was not a light and the roads were pools of mud. The environment concentrated all the angry dogs and robbers in the town. + 

We found Sonia and Vera there chatting with the three American boys, now known as the “three brothers.” The hostess seated at the piano was sending forth sounds of syncopated music, and then the three sisters with their corresponding “brothers” jazzed, while I was left alone with my sense of the three months’ journey east gnawing at my heart.⁠ ⁠… The fact of the matter was that I failed to see exactly where I came in in this combination. + 

I strolled into the dining-room with its familiar pictures in gilt frames, poorly furnished. Colonel Olenin, now out of work, was playing cards with a brother officer, also out of work, and with Zina’s father, while a Japanese paying guest was looking on, picking his teeth the while. Madame Olenin, little Fanny clinging to her skirt, came up and stood, a little bored, and with that look of hers as though she could have loved a lot. + 

“You do not dance?” the paying guest inquired on our being introduced. “Why?” + 

“Andrei Andreiech is smitten,” said Madame Olenin. + 

“Ah!⁠ ⁠… Iz zas so⁠ ⁠… zzz⁠ ⁠… ?” + 

“Has lost his heart to Nina.” + 

The paying guest chuckled and picked his teeth. “Ah!⁠ ⁠… Iz zas so?” he said and sucked his breath in “… zzz⁠ ⁠…” as Japanese do in their politeness. “Ah!⁠ ⁠… Very nice! Very nice!” + 

“Andrei Andreiech wants to marry her,” continued Madame Olenin. + 

“Ah!⁠ ⁠… Iz zas so?⁠ ⁠… zzz.⁠ ⁠… Very nice! Very nice!” + 

“But she doesn’t want to,” I said. + 

“Ask her,” she said. + 

“I have asked her. She won’t.” + 

“Well, you ask her again.” + 

“How many times?” + 

“Never mind how many times. Go on asking her. If you go on at it long enough any woman will give way. You go on asking her. Or else marry our little Olya, our little football. You’ll suit each other well.” + 

The paying guest chuckled loudly and picked his teeth. + 

She was trifling, trifling with a serious question, and I smiled, as one smiles on these occasions⁠—an economic and reluctant smile. + 

I learnt that one of the veteran grandfathers had died a month ago; the other was alive. He sat and frowned before him, and little Fanny seemed to shun his frown each time she passed him in the dining-room. I spoke to him and found that he would not admit that any revolution had ever taken place in Russia. “Nonsense,” he kept saying. “Nonsense. In France there has been a revolution. But this is Russia. This is not France.” + 

“But⁠—but what of the Bolsheviks?” I asked. + 

The antiquated veteran suddenly relapsed into a fit of anger. “I’ll show these Bolsheviks!” he threatened. “I’ll make them dance! I’ll stand no nonsense! Not I! They’ll soon see the man they’ve got to deal with! They’ll get short shrift from me, I can tell you! I’ll show these Bolsheviks! I’ll make them sing!⁠ ⁠…” The feeble old man was seized by a violent fit of coughing. His body shook and reeled, and his vain threats only emphasized the wretched impotence, the piteous weakness of his senility. Madame Olenin came to his rescue and beat him on the back to alleviate his coughing and prayed him not to talk of the wicked Bolsheviks as it was injurious to his health, but even through his coughing, choking hopelessly, he threatened angrily: “I’ll show these Bolsheviks! I’ll make them sing!⁠ ⁠… these Bolsheviks! I’ll make them dance!” and then again relapsed into a violent fit a of senile coughing. + 

Uncle Kostia, as I went to him, was sitting on the sofa, unshaven and unkempt, in the dim and dreary light of early evening. An empty glass of tea stood on the table. “They are dancing,” he said, with a strange gleam in his eye. “Let them dance. They think I am useless. Let them think. They’ve been complaining of me?” + 

“Who, Nikolai Vasilievich?” + 

“No, he wouldn’t. I respect him. The others. I know they have. It’s life’s own joke that its superior humanity is not good enough for their inferiors. To the superior humanity the provocation is past a joke, I can tell you; to the inferior, the situation is just a matter of fact; so whose is the joke unless it is life’s own? Life is like that. Here am I⁠—writing away unselfishly. Heaven only knows if what I write will be published in my lifetime. Then, years afterwards, they will read my books; they will think of me, wonder how I looked and spoke and felt. And I won’t know.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Yes. But to dwell prematurely on the sadness of one’s death to others, Uncle Kostia, is like asking for money in advance. It’s commercially unsound.” + 

Then, as our talk continued, I became aware of awful symptoms of Uncle Kostia’s condition. Uncle Kostia assured me positively that he had never had a father: that he was the son of his grandfather. And when I pointed out that the omission seemed to me to err a little on the side of the extravagant, he replied quite earnestly that he did not “see it.” + 

V + 

Such pitiful, heartrending scenes as this became a frequent occurrence. Each of the three sisters walked arm in arm with each of the “three brothers,” and I trailed alone behind them, a kind of tutor, with a heinous sense of my three months’ voyage ripening into a grievance. A poor thing, sir, but mine own! The three sisters, escorted safely home, would cry out from the house steps, “Good night, Brothers!” The “three brothers” then would answer, “Good night, Sisters!” I alone said nothing. I felt that an additional “brother” might spoil the symmetry of the arrangement. The fact of the matter, as you will see, was that I was not one of the “three brothers.” That settled it. + 

A very similar situation would ensue at dances, those delightful dances of the American Red Cross. We, that is, the three sisters, the “three brothers” and I (the odd number), would drive down in an American Service limousine, rolling gently through the dark and gruesome streets, the mellow moon shining feebly on the muddy road. Next we entered that long draughty room in the Naval Barracks taken over by the American Red Cross. In a little while the three sisters reappeared in the room, looking the bouquet that they were, that big nigger band would blurt out its syncopated music, and they would slide away in the embrace of the “three brothers” and vanish in a paraphernalia of Allied uniforms, while I was reduced to being a “wallflower,” or else to dance with plump and heavy women, which after my experience with Nina felt very much like moving heavy chairs about the floor. It was idiotic to have travelled sixteen thousand miles to do this sort of thing!⁠ ⁠… That settled it. + 

I dare say it was my fault⁠—but my somewhat inartistic intrusions on a party that was otherwise complete, began to tire Nina. She asked me to give up “pursuing” her. I resolved not to pursue her. I told her so. I kept telling her so. My passionate explanations of my aloofness began to anger her. My vehement assurances of resignation to my lonely lot struck her as discordant and dishonest. And she conferred on me the sentence which in love is hardest of all sentences to bear⁠—the sentence of indifference. Now there is but one way to combat indifference in love, and that is by a feud. You tell yourself: She may think of the quarrel at times, perhaps regret the loss, or be annoyed, or feel hostile. There is then some link between you and her. However small, that is at least something. Indifference is simply nowhere. Acting on these lines, my three months’ journey always in my mind, I developed a grievance that outraged my soul. I swore there and then to myself that never again, so long as I lived, would I go to see Nina. That settled it. + 

I found myself going there that same afternoon, it seemed in spite of myself and partly under the influence of the wine that I had consumed at lunch. The day was a peculiarly sunny and friendly kind of day and the blue sky and the clear air and even the shops themselves seemed to beckon to me not to be a fool, not to stand upon my silly dignity; and so I discovered, as I walked along till I could see their house beckoning to me in the distance, that her indifference, even if confirmed (and I now refused to confirm it), had the overlooked advantage of admitting me of being in her presence. But when I returned I found I had innumerable occasions to revert to my original interpretation of indifference. + 

And feeling that my affairs were in a bad way I made a bold coup to regain my tottering prestige. I appeared furiously, almost indecently intellectual, talked in quick succession of Turgenev, Goethe, Dostoevski, Chekhov, Flaubert, Shakespeare and Tolstoy. It impressed nobody. She hardly listened to me. So I tried Wagner, Scriabin, Debussy and Richard Strauss. Nothing doing. I tackled Ibsen, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shaw, Bennett, Chesterton and H. G. Wells; quoted them. It cut no ice. She showed that this sort of thing “did not go down with her” at all. Clearly she wasn’t “having any.” And the great men, I fear, looked small beneath her scornful look. + 

I met her once in the street. It had been snowing in the night, prematurely for the season; now the snow was thawing and the ground was muddy. The sun was yellow, honey-coloured, and her sidelong look seemed warmer in the sunshine. + 

“Will you marry me?” I said. + 

“No.” She shook her head. “I am tired of you.” + 

“I know that,” I replied, and walked silently beside her. + 

“If I were really tired of you I wouldn’t tell you.” + 

“Then why do you tell me?” I took it up, hungering for something positive, however small. + 

“I don’t always say what I think,” was the answer. + 

We walked on. + 

“We are leaving in any case,” she said. + 

“When? Where?” + 

“Next month⁠ ⁠… for Shanghai. Mama is going to start a business there. Hats. We have to do something.⁠ ⁠… We shall have a good time in Shanghai.” + 

“Ah, you won’t!” I said. + 

She looked at me. + 

“What of your ‘three brothers’?” I gloated. + 

“Their ship is going there next month. Aha! Do you think Mama would get us to come otherwise?” + 

“Good riddance!” I said. + 

“What’s happened?” + 

“Go!” I cried. “But for heaven’s sake go. Off with you! I haven’t time to waste. I want to get back. I am missing my examination!” + 

“You can go back now if you like. I’m not keeping you.” + 

“What’s the matter with you?” + 

“What’s the matter with you?” + 

“I shall see you off first,” I said, “and then I’ll go.” + 

VI + 

And then I only wished that they would go, and that I could return at once to England. The date of sailing was put off from week to week because of passport difficulties and dearth of accommodation in the steamers of the Russian Volunteer Fleet. I was frightened lest they should not be able to get away. For if they stayed, my soul was ruined. + 

And then, thank heaven, they were going. + 

Fanny Ivanovna and Nikolai Vasilievich preferred to part with them in their own rooms. It was, I think, because they would rather hide their emotion from the people who they knew were sure to come to see the girls off on the boat, and too, I think, because the relations with Magda Nikolaevna were not entirely satisfactory. + 

Yesterday I had met them in the Aleutskaya as they returned from the restaurant Zolotoy Rog, where they now always went to lunch: the cooking arrangements in the rooms were thoroughly inadequate. Nikolai Vasilievich in his mackintosh and bowler hat looked markedly older and more worn than he had looked two years ago. Perhaps it was the shrewd light of the afternoon that scrutinized his features. There was a curious, mysterious, Monna Lisa look about the face of Fanny Ivanovna: as if she knew a thing or two: as if she had grounds for reassurance. And had she not? The partnership with Magda Nikolaevna was an engaging proposition. The only two deterrents to her going into partnership with Magda Nikolaevna were those two unfortunate words that had not lost their sting for her⁠—“governess” and “lapdog.” She told me she might overlook the “governess”: the suggestion had not a shadow of foundation and could be forgiven⁠—at a pinch. But the “lapdog”⁠—never! Henceforth, as in the past, their destiny hung on the mines, and Fanny Ivanovna’s ideas as to their recovery were somewhat mixed. But the Japanese were now in possession of the Province, and if Nikolai Vasilievich got back his mines she said she would be able to return to Germany. She hated Vladivostok. And yet, she told me privately this morning, they had been so long together, had gone through so much misery together, that she doubted if she could ever leave him. And even if the mines materialized, she thought⁠—there was that suspicion in her heart and consequently that look of reassurance in her face, that youthful ease about her manner⁠—that the passion between Nikolai and Zina was wearing off. And⁠—nothing ever happens.⁠ ⁠… + 

They were both visibly perturbed. Nikolai Vasilievich walked up and down the room, obviously to hide his emotion. The luggage had already been removed to the boat, and the three sisters, dressed for the voyage, had sat down before the final parting. Kniaz read his paper to himself, and we talked inconsequently of anything and everything, and incidentally I learnt that Uncle Kostia, in pursuance of a logical analysis of his position as an author, had arrived at the conclusion that it was futility to get up at all, and of late conformed to his discovery. + 

“And⁠—” said I significantly. + 

“Yes⁠ ⁠… yes,” said Nikolai Vasilievich knowingly. “I’m sorry for him.” + 

Fanny Ivanovna surveyed the three sisters with a doleful look. “Ach, Nikolai Vasilievich!” she said. “Look at us! Even our children are leaving us. There will be no one left when they are gone but you and I and Kniaz and the kittens. Sonia, Nina and Vera, the kittens. The real Sonia, Nina and Vera have lost patience with us.” + 

“Don’t, Fanny Ivanovna, don’t,” Vera murmured. + 

“And we have lived together a long time, through a maze of trouble, yet I think we lived happily⁠—as happily as we could. Why that parting now? Why?⁠ ⁠…” + 

Someone sighed, and Nikolai Vasilievich turned his face away. + 

“Now it is October. It will soon be winter and this roof and yard will be deep in snow. Outside it will be cold and dark and wretched, and we shall be short of wood, and there will be another coup d’état. But you and I, Nikolai Vasilievich, you and I will be here⁠ ⁠… going out to lunch at the Zolotoy Rog then as ever⁠ ⁠… ever!⁠ ⁠…” + 

She sighed deeply. “What shall we do all by ourselves in the winter?” + 

Nikolai Vasilievich, his hands deep in his trouser pockets, stood at the window and did not answer. When he was perturbed, I noticed, he always stood at the window with his hands deep in his trouser pockets, and thought. And I fancied that he must be thinking: Strange were the ways of the world: there! all along he had planned to escape from her⁠—but life has taken its course, and nothing has come of it. And now those others, for whom he had stayed, were going away from him, and he, the would-be deserter, was left all alone with her; and in a thousand and one indefinable ways she has captured him. And when I met his eyes I had a feeling, an unmistakable feeling, that indeed I was right in my surmise. + 

Then came that hush, familiar in farewells, that comes in anticipation of the signal. Nikolai Vasilievich pulled out his watch and said, “Well⁠—” + 

We rose, and I went out and waited for them in the street. + 

Then they came out. Fanny Ivanovna, Nikolai Vasilievich and Kniaz stood on the steps and looked at us, as we walked away, turning round again and again as we went. The sharp autumn wind ruffled Nikolai Vasilievich’s scanty hair, and the three of them, as they stood there hatless in the open, looked frail and weak and helplessly exposed to the storms of life. Then Kniaz went back into the house, as if in a hurry to resume an interrupted occupation. We looked round a last time, and turned the corner. The three sisters blew their noses frequently and gulped, and Vera’s eyes were red. And as I went I too was thinking: Strange were the ways of the world: there! I had arrived from the other end of the earth in time to see them off on a two-days’ trip: to assist at an ordinary farewell in this unholy outskirt of the world, when I ought to be swotting hard for my Final Schools! And, by contrast, Oxford seemed a place of doing things. + 

Even now that they have gone and the steamer is about to reach the docks of that far eastern Paris, I can see them very vividly before me as they stood on the deck of the Simbirsk: three pretty kittens, each lovelier than the other and quite irresistible together. It was long over two hours since we had been told to clear the decks, but the steamer was still there. I stood on the quay with Magda Nikolaevna, who was to follow her three daughters in a day or two by rail, and while she was telling me delightful tales of Nina’s childhood, I looked at Nina leaning with her folded hands upon the rail and her chin upon her folded hands, looking at us with that exquisite, disquieting sidelong look, evidently intent on catching what her mother was telling me about her. I do not remember how long I stood there. There were the “three brothers” to see them off, on the eve of their own departure for Shanghai; then they left: they had to get back to their ship. Time after time I would go up close to the steamer; but I gathered from her look that the effort was superfluous: there was nothing we could talk about. Each time I went back and stood by Magda Nikolaevna and the Olenins and wished to heaven that the steamer would depart. But the steamer, despite all its hooting, seemed intent on remaining. Then, suddenly, I realized that it was indeed impossible to keep on standing there forever. I felt that this was now the end and that now I must make haste to go. I turned to Magda Nikolaevna and the Olenins, and we shook hands; then I approached the boat and waved goodbye to them. Nina stretched her hand down to me without a word; but a handshake would have involved a cold bath! + 

I went hastily, without looking back. I walked briskly to the Zolotoy Rog and lunched lavishly and drank much wine⁠—a luxury in these times!⁠—as if to celebrate the occasion of my soul’s release. I felt as if I was being freed from prison. I sat in the crowded, heated restaurant and watched the life bubbling about me⁠—watched it in excitement, in exultation. But after lunch I thought I wanted to make certain⁠—for real freedom could not come till I was certain⁠—that the steamer had finally departed. Accordingly I strolled down to the wharf of the Volunteer Fleet. As I approached it I perceived the two impassive funnels of the Simbirsk still showing from above the godowns. I turned back into town, my mind a rising sea of tribulation. I longed to see the end of it, to know that they had gone. Why this heartrending delay? I paced the streets of Vladivostok, seething with emotion. I must have looked odd that afternoon, for strangers turned round in the streets to look at me as I passed. I walked on and on, increasing my pace as I did so. An hour later, or thereabouts, I made my way back to the wharf. The steamer was still there. I turned back into town. I could scarcely endure the torture of the suspense. I walked the length of the Svetlanskaya, and then switched off until I reached the racecourse. I turned into the wood. I climbed the hills. + 

Then, late in the afternoon, before twilight had set in, I made my way back to the wharf. My heart sick with palpitation, I looked over the godowns of the Volunteer Fleet. The steamer had departed. I went past innumerable barrels piled together, steam-heating pipes and wire rusting in the open, machinery dumped on the quay, and bales of cotton rotting in the dockyard, until finally I stood on the very spot where I had parted with them. The space at the quay where the Simbirsk had been showed empty; dull, dirty water heaved at my feet and a cork from a bottle and some bits of wood heaved upon it. I looked out upon the sea for a sign of the steamer. It had completely vanished. I peered at the horizon to see if I could spot the smoke from its two funnels. But there was none. + 