Futility (9 page)

The two ancient grandfathers were much too old and feeble to intervene on behalf of the old order of things; they had exhausted their Liberal aspirations with the liberation of the serfs in 1861 and could not see what in the world more anybody wanted. Zina’s father, underpaid and ill as he was, had lost for ever the hope of seeing better days, and failed to see how the revolution could affect his own position.

Nikolai Vasilievich was still keeping him so far. These Liberals interpreted the revolution as a protest against the pro-German tendency at court, and as an attempt to get into line
with the Western Democracies in this hitherto unconvincing struggle against militarism and autocracy. The news was rumoured that the Czar had abdicated. Again, it was said that a section of the court had been planning a revolution to depose the Emperor and substitute his brother Michael in order to carry on the war more vigorously; and that the people’s revolution had preceded it by two days. Some monarchists now wanted to put down the revolution in order to carry on the war; other monarchists wanted to put down the war in order to put down the revolution; and still other monarchists wanted to put down the revolution and did not care a hang about the war. The Liberals wanted the revolution to carry on the war; the Czar wanted to put down the revolution; the Socialists and workmen wanted to put down the war and to put down the Czar; and the soldiers and sailors wanted to put down their officers. The Liberal gathering drank to Russia’s Allies; and then Uncle Kostia, obviously moved by the great event, rose and said in a slow, melodious voice:

“We will not talk about or criticize the past. We will carry it gently into the depths of the garden and bury it there among the flowers. And then, carefully, we will look into the cradle and nurse very tenderly the slumbering future …”

This attitude, we all felt, was befitting to the great bloodless revolution.

I REMEMBER THE EXCITEMENT OF IT ALL. UNCLE Kostia, it appeared, had risen earlier that day on account of
the revolution; and after dinner, still in his dressing-gown and slippers, he paced the floor quicker than was his custom, and, contrary to his practice, discoursed at great length. He held that history was moving at an unheard-of pace, and he complained that it was indeed difficult for him, a historian, to keep pace with it. The revolution had overtaken Uncle Kostia as he was still tackling the age of Anne.

From Zina’s house I remember walking to the Bursanovs in the Mohovaya. I passed the sombre silhouettes of the snow-covered barges frozen on the Neva. It was dark now and the crowds in the streets were more tumultuous. Soldiers and civilians alike walked aimlessly, rifle slung over the shoulder. Several wine-cellars had been broken into; there were drunkards in the streets; but anyhow, all seemed drunk with the revolution. Shots were heard every now and then, mostly fired in the air, while the law courts had gone up in flames. The revolution, it was felt, had been established.

Curiously enough I had not seen the Bursanovs on my return to Petrograd until that night. They were just the same. Kniaz sat in the corner of the little drawing-room in his usual chair, and it seemed that the revolution had impressed him. But how it had impressed him no one could have divined. Need I say that the three sisters sat in much the same positions, waiting—waiting for developments? Nikolai Vasilievich was very bitter. He had regarded the war almost as a deliberate attempt of providence to complicate his already very complicated domestic situation, and considering that providence had had the satisfaction of achieving its pernicious end, it seemed he could not understand the necessity of a revolution. “Malignity! Malignity!” he muttered, lowering the blinds, as if to show that he, at any rate, would have nothing to do with it.

“Nothing noble about it at all!” he answered me.

And Fanny Ivanovna, who had been sitting silently for some time, looked as if she were entirely of his opinion on that point.

And then a horrible groan was heard from the adjoining room. I cast a swift interrogative glance at Nikolai Vasilievich. I had an idea that they had hidden some wretched half-mutilated policeman, the victim of a revolutionary mob. But Nikolai Vasilievich and Fanny Ivanovna looked awkward and ashamed. There was, I noticed, a kind of appeal for sympathy in their eyes.

“That is Fanny Ivanovna’s husband,” said Nikolai Vasilievich apologetically.

I looked incredulous, and he explained. As Fanny Ivanovna was not married to him, she was a German subject, and when war broke out she was to go back to Germany or be interned in Vologda. She refused to go to Germany till Nikolai Vasilievich had provided for her for life, but as the war had further crippled his finances he was not in a position to give her the money; so they married her to Eberheim, an elderly gentleman of German extraction but a Russian subject. As his nominal wife Fanny Ivanovna was a Russian subject and could live in Russia until such time as the improvement in the working of the gold-mines made it possible for Nikolai Vasilievich to provide for her for life. Then if he could get a divorce from his wife he would marry Zina.

“Is he wounded?” I asked, scenting revolutionary blood in the air.

“No—cancer,” said Nikolai Vasilievich. And contrasted with this word painted red, the revolution out of doors seemed pale and trifling.

“He is going to have an operation in a day or so.”

“Has he suffered long?” I inquired.

“Oh, we took him out of hospital,” explained Fanny Ivanovna. “You may think it odd, but he consented to the marriage on condition that we took him home and looked after him. He said that he would not live long in any case and that money was no earthly use to him in his condition: what he wanted was care and comfort. And now the doctors and operations are costing Nikolai Vasilievich a good bit of money, I can tell you. Really, we are most unfortunate people.… And Sonia, too, marrying Baron Wunderhausen, who, as I suspected, is a drag on Nikolai Vasilievich’s resources. Really, he cannot afford it, Andrei Andreiech. The mines—” She waved her hand. Nikolai Vasilievich, with his hands deep in his trouser pockets, stood looking at the window, though the blinds were lowered and there was nothing he could see.

“The wedding ceremony,” she went on, “was painful. I barely stood it myself. The priest at first refused to marry us. Nikolai Vasilievich had to lead him aside and bribe him. Eberheim’s condition was so bad … critical. It was wicked.… Yet he has a way of lasting. He has lasted now for over two years. One wants to be human to him, but really, Andrei Andreiech, look at us, look at us … us.… And now the revolution. Who
wants
the revolution?” She put her chin on her hand and turned her face away. There was silence.

Then, suddenly, without reason or provocation, she turned on the old Kniaz, sitting neatly in his usual arm-chair, imperturbable like a butler:

“Kniaz! Don’t sit there like that, like … Oh, God, you’ve been sitting like that in that chair for thirteen years.… Say something! Say something!”

“What can I say?” he smiled faintly.

“What can you say!” she echoed; and again there was silence.

“Hasn’t he got any relations?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“No money?”

“Penniless.”

“Is he … good?”

“Yes, but … exacting.”

“Oh, poor fellow, he can’t help it,” said Nikolai Vasilievich.

“Poor fellow,” said Fanny Ivanovna.

“Poor fellow,” I echoed.

For a moment we sat in silence. We waited for Eberheim to groan again; but he too was silent; and we could just hear the measured ticking of the great oak-panelled clock in the corner and the subdued tumult of the streets below.

“And where is Magda Nikolaevna?” I asked.

“She is with Čečedek.”

“One burden less, what, Nikolai Vasilievich?”

Nikolai Vasilievich sighed.

“You would hardly say so,” said Fanny Ivanovna, “for Nikolai Vasilievich still has to keep his wife.”

“But what of Čečedek?”

“I am very sorry for him,” said Fanny Ivanovna.

And I learnt that at the outbreak of hostilities the Russian authorities had found it necessary to confiscate the whole of Čečedek’s property. They were then going to intern him, but he succeeded in proving to them that he was now a Czech; and so they set him free. But the property which they had taken from him as an Austrian they did not return to him as a Czech. He had been in correspondence with the authorities on this subject ever since July, 1914, and on his ultimate success in getting some of it refunded his marriage with Magda Nikolaevna must henceforth depend. Whether the revolution would assist him in his ambitious expectations, or would delay them further, it
was hard to prophesy. Nikolai Vasilievich helped him as much as he was able in his present circumstances. In the meantime Magda Nikolaevna had suspended her application for a divorce and was still on Nikolai Vasilievich’s books for payment. But Čečedek’s attitude had not changed. He now rather liked to emphasize the Slavic side to their union, had in the last three years developed a Czech intonation in his Russian speech, professed an undue regard for his “Brother-Slavs,” pronounced his own name “Chechedek,” and in signing put those funny little accents on the C’s.

I left them very early next morning; in the excitement of the day there had been much work left overnight unaccomplished. It was about six o’clock when I crossed the Field of Mars. Soldiers in odd groups strolled along in the snow, now and then firing off a rifle in the air, just for the fun of the thing; and the capital wore that appearance of a banqueting-hall in the shrewd light of the morning after a particularly heavy feast. Fretful clouds moved swiftly across the winter sky. The morning promised a fine day.

THE REVOLUTION DRAGGED ON THROUGH THE winter and “deepened” as the months advanced. The forerunners of confusion became visible: food and commodities were being procured in an irregular manner. All were waiting.…

Pictures of them recur continually to my mind, as I write. I can see Fanny Ivanovna, and particularly I can see the three sisters, always sitting in the same positions, perched on sundry
chairs and sofas, Fanny Ivanovna engaged in silent contemplation over needlework, and Kniaz sitting in his usual chair, reading, or more often sitting idly, thinking into space. The seasons would be changing rapidly from one to the other—but their position never! Rain would drum against the window-pane, snow would be falling on the street below; then the ice on the Neva would begin to break and slowly move toward the Bay; and again one would feel the onset of spring, the unfolding of white nights.…

“How tiring this is, Andrei Andreiech,” Fanny Ivanovna complained. “To be always waiting to begin to
live
. When is that upward movement in happiness, that splendid life that we are always waiting for, to begin at last? Somehow you wait for the spring. But spring has come … 
alone
, and only emphasizes our misery, by the contrast.… Spring makes me mad. I begin to want impossible things.…”

“You are an active woman, Fanny Ivanovna,” said I. “You ought not to sit still. It’s bad for you. You ought to run about.”

“But … I’ve got to wait.”

“I suppose waiting is sitting still. It
is
, in a sense.…”

“It isn’t that. But what am I going to run about for? I go out shopping. But that doesn’t
advance
things, you understand. Besides, I simply dread asking Nikolai Vasilievich for money.”

“He hasn’t got any?”

“He has. He’s always borrowing—
crescendo, forte, fortissimo!
But where will it end? When? Borrowing money is all right if you can do it. But it’s not, as it were, an income; it’s not—how shall I put it?—an end in itself, is it? There’s got to be something, somewhere, sometime. Those gold-mines have got to justify themselves. Our plans, our movements, everything depends on them. That’s why it’s so annoying. They’ve got to pay, and I am confident that they will pay. But
when
?…”

She rose abruptly, as was her wont, her black silk skirt rustling as she swept out.

It was “Papa this” and “Mamma that” and “Fanny Ivanovna the other thing.”

“Won’t you stop sighing?” I suggested.

“It’s all very well for you,” protested the three sisters simultaneously. “But do you think it’s very nice for us?”

“What do you want, anyhow?”

They did not answer; they looked at the window, brooding.

I said in a jovial tone of voice:

“Well, I tried to help you. But you won’t be helped.”

“Helped us indeed!” they cried out simultaneously. The three sisters had a way of speaking simultaneously and almost word for word in matters of domestic politics. They were a party in themselves, stubbornly opposed to all the other camps of Nikolai Vasilievich’s family.

The night before, I had taken them to Kusivitski’s concert. People had been staring enviously at me, as if to ask: “Who are those three pretty kittens?” I felt absurdly like a proud papa. The music was excruciating. During the piano solo I clung to my chair: I could scarcely sit still. “Scriabin,” I burst out as the music stopped, “is a persistent knocking at the door—but the door doesn’t open. Still, as we might know in any case that there
is
nothing behind the door, that doesn’t greatly matter, does it? It’s the knocking that is a human necessity. And what a desperate knocking it is!”

Nina looked at me with that trick she had of assuming innocence and said: “Which door?”

And it flashed across my mind that, whereas Sonia played the piano with an agreeable touch of feeling, Nina’s hammering was shrill and disagreeable, while, musically, Vera was still an unknown quantity.

But the pianist had resumed.

“What is this?” Nina asked.

“A fox-trot,” I replied, very superior.

I sat on the small seat facing the three sisters, as Professor Metchnikoff trotted homeward through the sombre streets. The night was warm and humid. By the street lamps I could see their faces. When she was silent Nina looked so wise. Perhaps she seemed wiser than she actually was. All this—the war, the revolution—she had overlooked: and it did not exist. Scriabin—she had overlooked him. And he did not exist. But she was there, watchful.…