Futility (20 page)

“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 fox-trots.”

“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 fox-trots?’ 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.

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 gold-mines, 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 gold-mines 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 gold-mines 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 gold-mines. 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 book-keeper 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 Tokio 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, bird-like 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.

“To-morrow,” said the Flag-Lieutenant, “at 7.30 comes the ice-breaker, 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 Hawaiian band—we had been well provided for that evening—played
“Tell me
,
”
by request.

“They played this at that dance,” said the Flag-Lieutenant. “To-morrow 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 ante-room, 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 side-long 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 ice-breaker, 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
datchas
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 road-side. 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 window-panes 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 some one 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.…”

THAT EVENING I CALLED ON THEM TO SAY good-bye, 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.