Futility

“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 bird-like look of hers, she said, “To-day ... 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 to-day 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 post-card 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 for ever 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 gold-mines. 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 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.

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 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 bread-winner.

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 side-long, 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 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. “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....”

XI

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.

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 pre-war 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 oft-times 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 good-bye. 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 book-keeper Stanitski. It was a curious thing that the book-keeper 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 business man; 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 book-keeper 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 down-trodden 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 to-day 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 good-bye 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. Good-bye.”

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 pre-war 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 good-bye. “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....”

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 chamber-maid 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 motor-cycle 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 motor-cycle—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 such-like 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 finger-tips. “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 God-forsaken 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! Good-bye!” 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, Hongkong, 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.