Futility (25 page)

“
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 for ever. 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 good-bye 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 race-course. 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.

THE END

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