Part 2 Chapter 4 of The Secret City. Next night, it was Friday evening, Semyonov paid me a visit. I was just dropping to sleep in my chair. I'd been reading that story of Del Amaze, The Return, one of the most beautiful books in our language, whether for its spirit, its prose, or its poetry, and something of the moonlit colour of its pages had crept into my soul, so that the material world was spun into threads of the finest silk behind which other worlds were more and more plainly visible. I had not drawn my blind, and a wonderful moon shone clear onto the bareboards of my room, bringing with its rays the mother of pearl reflections of the limitless ice, and these floated on my wall in trembling waves of opaque light. In the middle of this splendour I dropped slowly into slumber, the book falling from my hands, and I on my part seeming to float lazily backwards and forwards, as though truly one were at the bottom of some crystal sea, idly and happily drowned. From all this I was roused by a sharp knock on my door, and I started up, still bewildered and bemused, but saying to myself aloud, There's someone there, there's someone there. I stood for quite a while, listening on the middle of my shining floor. Then the knock was almost fiercely repeated. I opened the door, and to my surprise found Semyonov standing there. He came in, smiling, very polite, of course. You'll forgive me, Ivan Andreevich, he said. This is terribly unceremonious, but I had an urgent desire to see you, and you wouldn't wish me in the circumstances to have waited. Please, I said. I went to the window and drew the blinds. I lit the lamp. He took off his shoe-bur, and we sat down. The room was very dim now, and I could only see his mouth and square a beard behind the lamp. I had no Samovar, I'm afraid, I said. If I'd known you were coming, I'd have told her to have it ready. But it's too late now. She's gone to bed. Nonsense, he said brusquely. You know that I don't care about that. Now we waste no time. Let us come straight to the point at once. I've come to give you some advice, Ivan Andreevich, very simple advice. Go home to England. Before he had finished the sentence, I had felt the hostility in his voice. I knew that it was to be a fight between us, and strangely, at once the self-distrust and cowardice from which I'd been suffering all those weeks left me. I felt warm and happy. I felt that with Semyonov I knew how to deal. I was afraid of Vera and Nina, perhaps, because I loved them. But of Semyonov, thank God, I was not afraid. Well, now that's very kind of you, I said, to take so much interest in my movements. I didn't know that it mattered to you so much where I was. Why must I go? Because you are doing no good here. You are interfering in things of which you have no knowledge. When we met before you interfered, and you must honestly admit that you did not improve things. Now it is even more serious. I must ask you to leave my family alone, Ivan Indorevich. Your family? I retorted, laughing. Upon my word you do them great honour. I wonder whether they'd be very proud and pleased if they knew of your adoption of them. I haven't noticed on their side any very great science of devotion. He laughed. No, you haven't noticed, Ivan Indorevich, but there you don't really notice very much. You think you see the devil of a lot and a mighty clever fellow, but we are Russians, you know, and it takes more than sentimental mysticism to understand us. But even if you did understand us, which you don't, the real point is that we don't want you, any of you, patronising, patting us on the shoulder, explaining us to ourselves, talking about our souls, our unpunctuality, and our capacity for drink. However, that's merely in a general way, in a personal, dialect and individual way, I beg you not to visit my family again. Stick to your own countrymen. Although he spoke obstinately and with a show of assurance, I realised behind his words his own uncertainty. See here, Semyonov, I said, it's just my own Englishman that I'm going to stick to. What about Lawrence? And what about Bowen? Will you prevent me from continuing my friendship with them? Lawrence, Lawrence, he said, slowly, in a voice quite other than his earlier one, and as though he were talking a lie to himself. No, that's strange. There's a funny thing, a heavy, dull, silent Englishman, as ugly as only an Englishman can be, and the two of them are mad about him. Nothing in him, nothing. And yet there it is. It's the fidelity in the man, that's what it is, the word. He suddenly called out the word aloud, as though he'd made a discovery. Fidelity, fidelity, that's what we Russians admire, and there's a man with not enough imagination to make him unfaithful. Fidelity. Think of imagination, lack of freedom, that's all fidelity is. But I'm faithful. God knows I'm faithful, always, always. He stared past me. I swear that he did not see me, but I had vanished utterly from his vision. I waited. He was leaning forward, pressing both his thick, white hands on the table. His gaze must have pierced the ice beyond the walls, and the worlds beyond the ice. Then quite suddenly he came back to me, and said very quietly, Well, there it is, Ivan Andreevich. You must leave Vila and Nina alone. It isn't your affair. We continue the discussion then in a strange and friendly way. I believe it to be my affair, I answered quietly, simply because they care for me, and have asked me to help them, if they were in trouble. I still deny that Vera cares for Lawrence. Nina has some girl's romantic idea, perhaps, but that is the extent of the trouble.  He now spoke so quietly that I could scarcely hear his words. He was leaning forward on the table, resting his head on his hands, and looking gravely at me. What I can't understand, Ivan Andreevich, he said, is why you are always getting in my way. You did so in Galicia, and now here you are again. It is not as though you were strong or wise. No, it is because you are persistent. I admire you in the way you know. But now, this time, I assure you that you are making a great mistake in remaining. You will be able to influence neither Vera Mikhailovna nor your bulk of an Englishman when the moment comes. At the crisis they will never think of you at all, and the end of it simply will be that all parties concerned will hate you. I don't wish you any harm, and I assure you that you will suffer terribly if you stay. By the way, Ivan Andreevich, his voice suddenly dropped.  No, I said shortly. I never had one. No, of course not. I only thought. But of course you wouldn't. No, no. Well, as I was saying, you'd better leave us all to our fate. You can't prevent things. You can't indeed. I looked at him without speaking. He returned my gaze. Tell me one thing, I said, before I answer you. What are you doing to Markovitch, Alexei Petrovich? Markovitch? He repeated the name, with an air of surprise, as though he had never heard it before. What do you mean? You have some plan with regard to him, I said. What is it? He laughed then. I? A plan. My dear Durwood, I romantic you always insist on being. I a plan. Your plunges into Russian psychology are as naive as the girl who pays her ten copecs to see the fat woman at the fair. Markovitch and I understand one another. We trust one another. He is a simple fellow, but I trust him. Do you remember, I said, that the other day at the Jew's market you told me the story of the man who had tortured his friend until the man shot him, simply because he was tired of life and too proud to commit suicide? Why did you tell me that story? Did I tell it to you? He asked indifferently. I had forgotten. But it is of no importance.  We don't want you here any more. I tell you in a perfectly friendly way. I bear you normalis, but we're tired of your sentimentality. I'm not speaking only for myself. I'm not, indeed. We feel that you avoid life to a ridiculous extent and that you have no right to talk to us Russians on such a subject. What, for instance, do you know about women?  That teaches you something about women, but only something. Afterwards I found that there was only one woman. I left all the others like dirty washing. I was supremely faithful, so I learnt the rest. Now you have never been faithful, nor unfaithful. I'm sure that you have not. Then about God, when have you ever thought about Him? Why are you ashamed to mention His name? If an Englishman speaks of God when other men are present, everyone laughs. And yet why? It is a very serious and interesting question. God exists undoubtedly, and so we must make up our minds about Him. We must establish some relationship. What it is does not matter. That is our individual case. But only the English establish no relationship, and then call it a religion. And so, in this affair of my family, what does it matter what they do?  What are all those things compared with the idea behind them? If they wish to sacrifice happiness for an idea, that is their good luck. And no Russian would think of preventing them. But you come in with your English morality and sentiment and scream and cry. No Ivan Andreevich, go home, go home. I waited to be quite sure that he had finished. And then I said, that's all as it may be, Alexei Petrovich, it may be as you say. The point is that I remain here. He got up from his chair. You are determined on that? I am determined, I answer. Nothing will change you. Nothing. Then it is a battle between us, if you like. So be it. I helped him on with his shuba. He said in an ordinary conversational tone, there may be trouble tomorrow. He's been shooting by the Nicholas station this afternoon, I hear. I should avoid the Nevsky tomorrow. I laughed. I'm not afraid of that kind of death, Alexei Petrovich, I said. No, he said, looking at me, I will do you justice. You are not. He pulled his shuba close about him. Good night, Ivan Andreevich, he said. It's been a very pleasant talk. Very, I answered. Good night. After he had gone, I drew back the blinds and let the moonlight flood the room. End of Chapter 4. Part 2, Chapter 5 of The Secret City. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Richard Ortie. The Secret City by Hugh Walpole, Chapter 5. I feel conscious, as I approach the centre of my story, that there is an appearance of uncertainty in the way that I pass from one character to another. I do not defend that uncertainty. What I think I really feel now, on looking back, is that each of us, myself, Semyonov, Vera, Nina, Lawrence, Bohan, Grogov, yes, and the rat himself, was part of a mysterious figure who was beyond us, outside us, and above us all. The heart, the lungs, the mouth, the eyes, used against our own human agency, and yet free within that domination for the exercise of our own free will. Have you never felt, when you have been swept into the interaction of some group of persons, that you were being employed as a part of a figure that without you would be incomplete? A figure is formed, for an instant it remains gigantic, splendid, towering above mankind as a symbol, a warning, a judgment, an ideal, a threat. Dimly you recognise that you have played some part in the creation of that figure, and that living for a moment, as you have done, in some force outside your individuality, you have yet expressed that same individuality more nobly than any poor assertion of your own small, lonely figure could afford. You have been used, and now you are alone again. You were caught up and united to your fellow man.  When I woke on Saturday morning after my evening with Semyonov, I was conscious that I was relieved as though I had finally settled some affair whose uncertainty had worried me. I lay in bed, chuckling as though I had won a triumph over Semyonov, as though I said to myself, well, I needn't be afraid of him any longer. It was a most beautiful day, crystal clear, with a stainless blue sky, and the snow like a carpet of jewels, and I thought that I would go and see how the world was behaving. I walked down the Morskaya, finding it quiet enough, although I fancied that the faces of the passes by were anxious and nervous. Nevertheless, the brilliant sunshine and the clear, peaceful beauty of the snow reassured me. The world was too beautiful and well-ordered a place to allow disturbance. Then at the corner of the English shop, where the Morskaya joins the Nevsky prospect, I realized that something had occurred. It was as other world that I had known so long, and with whom I felt upon such intimate terms, had suddenly screwed round its face and showed me a new grin. The broad space of the Nevsky was swallowed up by a vast crowd, very quiet, very amiable, moving easily, almost slothfully, in a slow, stirring stream. As I looked up the Nevsky, I realized what it was that had given me the first positive shock of an altered world. The trams had stopped. I had never seen the Nevsky without its trams. I had always been forced to stand on the brink, waiting whilst the stream of his Voschiks galloped past, and the heavy, lumbering, colored elephants tottered along, amiable and slow and good-natured, like everything else in that country. Now the elephants were gone. The his Voschiks were gone. As far as my eye could see, the black stream flooded the shining way. I mingled with the crowd, and found myself slowly propelled in an amiable, aimless manner up the street. What's the matter?  I don't know, he said. They're saying there's been some shooting up by the Nicolae station, but that was last night. Some women had a procession about food. Tuck only Gavoriats, so they say. But I don't know. People have just come out to see what they can see. And so they had.  I could see no signs of ill temper anywhere, only a rather open-mouth wonder and sense of expectation.  No! I wouldn't go, she said.  I'm not coming. Not I. I was too clever for that. Then she would turn, shrilly calling for some child who was apparently lost in the crowd. Sasha! Oh, Sasha! She cried and turning again. Hey, look at the Cossack. There's a fine Cossack. It was then that I noticed the Cossacks. They were lined up along the side of the pavement, and sometimes they would suddenly wheel and clatter along the pavement itself to the great confusion of the crowd who would scatter in every direction.  The crowd obviously feared them not at all, and I saw a woman standing with her hand on the neck of one of the horses, talking in a very friendly fashion to the soldier who rode it. That's strange, I thought to myself. There's something queer here. It was then, just at the entrance of the Malaya Konyushenaya, that a strange little incident occurred.  They turned off with him towards the yard, close at hand. I could hear his voice shrilly protesting. The crowd also moved behind, murmuring. Suddenly a Cossack, laughing, said something. I could not hear his words, but everyone near me laughed. The little Chinovnik at my side said to me, that's right. They're not going to shoot whatever happens, not on their brothers, they say. They'll let the fellow go in a moment. It's only just for discipline's sake. That's right. That's the spirit. But what about the police, I asked? Ah, the police. His cheery, good-natured face was suddenly dark and scowling. Let them try, that's all. It's Proto Popov, who's our enemy, not the Cossacks. And the woman near him repeated, yes, yes, it's Proto Popov, hola for the Cossacks! I was squeezed now into a corner, and the crowd swirled and edded about me in a tangled stream, slow, smiling, confused, and excited. I pushed my way along, and at last tumbled down the dark stone steps into the car of Delagrav, a little restaurant patronized by the foreigners and certain middle-class Russians. It was full, and everyone was eating his or her meal very comfortably, as though nothing at all were the matter. I sat down with a young American, an acquaintance of mine attached to the American Embassy. There's a tremendous crowd in the Nevsky, I said. Yes, I'm too hungry to trouble about it, he answered. Do you think there's got to be any trouble, I asked? Course not. These folks are always wandering around. Proper Potov has it in hand, all right. Yes, I suppose he has, I answered with a sigh. You seem to want trouble, he said, suddenly looking up at me. No, I don't want trouble, I answered.  One's tempted to think that anything would be better. Don't you believe it? He said brusquely. Excuse me, Dewey, I've been in this country five years. A revolution would mean God's own upset. And you've got a war on, haven't you? They might fight better than ever, I argued. Fight! He laughed.  And a revolution would leave them like a lot of silly sheep, wandering onto a precipice. But there won't be no revolution. Take my word. It was at that moment that I saw Boris Grogov come in. He stood in the doorway, looking about him, and he had the strangest air of a man walking in his sleep, so bewildered, so wrapped, so removed, was he. He stared about him, looked straight at me, but did not recognize me. Finally, when a waiter showed him the table, he sat down still, gazing in front of him. The waiter had to speak to him twice, before he ordered his meal, and then he spoke so strangely that the fellow looked at him in astonishment. Guess that, she had seen the millennium, remarked my American. Or he's drunk, maybe. This appearance had the oddest effect on me. It was as though I had been given a sudden conviction, that after all, there was something behind this disturbance. I saw, during the hold of the rest of that day, Grogov's strange face, with the exalted, bewildered eyes, the excited mouth, the body tense and strained, as though waiting for a blow. And now, always when I look back, I see Boris Grogov standing in the doorway of the cave de la Grave, like a ghost from another world warning me. In the afternoon, I had a piece of business that took me across the river. I did my business and turned homewards. It was almost dark, and the eyes of the neighbor was coloured a faint green under the gray sky. The buildings rode out of it like black bubbles poised over a swamp. I was in that strange quarter of Petrograd, where the river seems like some sluggish octopus to possess a thousand coils. Always you are turning upon a new bend of the ice, secretly stretching into darkness. Strange bridges suddenly meet you, and then, where you would expect it to find a solid mass of hideous flats, there will be a cluster of masts and the smell of tar and little fierce red lights like the eyes of waiting beasts. I seemed to stand with ice on every side of me, and so frail was my trembling wooden bridge that it seemed an easy thing for the ice that appeared to press with tremendous weight against its banks to grind the supports to fragments. There was complete silence on every side of me. The street to my left was utterly deserted. I heard no cries nor calls. Only the ice seemed once and again to quiver as though some submerged creature was moving beneath it. That vast crowd on the Nevsky seemed to be a dream. I was in a world that had fallen into decay and desolation, and I could smell rotting wood and could fancy that frozen blades of grass were pressing up to the very pavement stones. Suddenly Anis Voschik stumbled along past me down the empty street, and the bumping rattle of the sledge on the snow woke me from my laziness. I started off, homewards. When I had gone a little way and was approaching the bridge over the neighbor, some man passed me, looked back, stopped, and waited for me. When I came up to him, I sought on my surprise that it was the rat.   Good evening, Barney, he said, grinning. Good evening, I said. Were you slipping off, too, so secretly? Slipping off? He did not seem to understand my word. I repeated it. Oh, I'm not slipping off, he said almost indignantly. No, indeed. I'm just out for a walk, like your honor, to see the town. What have they been doing this afternoon, I asked? There's been a fine fuss on the Nevsky. Yes, there has, he said, chuckling. But it's nothing to the fuss there will be. Nonsense, I said. The police have got it all in control already. You'll see tomorrow. And the soldier's bad in. Oh, the soldiers won't do anything. Talks one thing, actions another. He laughed to himself, and seemed greatly amused. This irritated me. Well, what do you know, I asked. I know nothing, he chuckled. But remember, Barney, in a week's time, if you want me, I'm your friend. Who knows? In a week, I may be a rich man. Someone else is rich, I answered. Certainly, he said. And why not? Why should he have things? Is he a better man than I? Possibly, but then it is easy for a rich man to keep within the law. And then Russia's meant for the poor man. However, he continued with great contempt in his voice. That's politics, dull stuff. While the others talk, I act. And what about the Germans, I asked him.  Ah, you don't understand us, Barney. He said, laughing. You're a good man, and a kind man. But you don't understand us. What can the Germans do? They can't take the hold of Russia. Russia's a big country. No, if the Germans come, there'll be more for us to take. We stood for a moment under the lamp post.  But no one shall touch you, unless it's myself if I'm very drunk. But you, knowing me, will understand afterwards that I was, at least, not malicious. I laughed. And this mysticism, they tell us about in England. Are you mystical rat? Have you a beautiful soul? He sniffed and blew his nose with his hand. I don't know what you're talking about, Barney. I suppose you haven't a rubble or two on you. No, I haven't, I answered. He looked up and down the bridge, as though he were wondering whether an attack on me was worthwhile. He saw a policeman and decided that it wasn't. Well, good night, Barney! He said gifily. He shuffled off. I looked at the vast neighbor pale green and dim gray, so silent under the bridges. The policeman, enormous under his high coat, the sure and confident guardian of that silent world, came slowly towards me, and I turned away home. End of chapter 5. Part 2, chapter 6 of The Secret City. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rita Butros. The Secret City by Hugh Wellpole. Part 2, chapter 6. The next day, Sunday, I have always called in my mind Nina's day. And so I propose to deal with it here, describing it as far as possible from her point of view and placing her in the center of the picture. The great fact about Nina at the end, when everything has been said, must always be her youth. That Russian youthfulness is something that no western people can ever know, because no western people are accustomed from their very babyhood to bathe in an atmosphere that deals only with ideas. In no Russian family is the attempt to prevent children from knowing what life really is maintained for long. The spontaneous impetuosity of the parents breaks it down. Nevertheless, the Russian boy and girl, when they come to the awkward age, have not the least idea of what life really is. Dear me, no. They possess simply a bundle of incoherent ideas, untested, ill-digested, but a wonderful basis for incessant conversation. Experience comes, of course, and for the most part it is unhappy experience. Life is a tragedy to every Russian, simply because the daily round is forgotten by him in his pursuit of an ultimate meaning. We in the West have learned to despise ultimate meanings as unpractical and rather priggish things. Nina had thought so much and tested so little. She loved so vehemently that her betrayal was the more inevitable. For instance, she did not love Boris Grogov in the least, but he wasn't some way connected with the idea of freedom. She was, I am afraid, beginning to love Lawrence desperately, the first love of her life, and he too was connected with the idea of freedom because he was English. We English do not understand sufficiently how the Russians love us for our easy victory over tyranny and despise us for the small use we have made of our victory. And then, after all, there is something to be said for tyranny too. But Nina did not see why she should not capture Lawrence. She felt her vitality, her health, her dominant will beat so strongly within her that it seemed to her that nothing could stop her. She loved him for his strength, his silence, his good nature, yes, and his stupidity. This last gave her a sense of power over him and of motherly tenderness too. She loved his stiff and halting Russian. It was as though he were but ten years old. I was convinced too that she did not consider that she was doing any wrong to Vera. In the first place, she was not as yet really sure that Vera cared for him. Vera, who had been to her always a mother rather than a sister, seemed an infinite age. It was ridiculous that Vera should fall in love Vera so stately and stern and removed from passion. Those days were over for Vera, and with her strong sense of duty and the fitness of things, she would realize that. Moreover, Nina could not believe that Lawrence cared for Vera. Vera was not the figure to be loved in that way. Vera's romance had been with Markovic years and years ago, and now whenever Nina looked at Markovic, it made it at once impossible to imagine Vera in any new romantic situation. Then had come the night of the birthday party, and suspicion had at once flamed up again. She was torn that night and for days afterwards with a raging jealousy. She hated Vera, she hated Lawrence, she hated herself. Then again her mood had changed. It was after all natural that he should have gone to protect Vera. She was his hostess. He was English and did not know how trivial a Russian scene of temper was. He had meant nothing, and poor Vera touched that at her matronly age anyone should show her attention had looked at him gratefully. That was all. She loved Vera. She would not hurt her with such ridiculous suspicions. And on that Friday evening when Semyonov had come to see me, she had been her old self again, behaving to Vera with all the tenderness and charm and affection that were her most delightful gifts. On this Sunday morning she was reassured.  The excitement of the disturbances of the last two days provided an emotional background, not too thrilling to be painful, because after all these riots would as usual come to nothing. But it was pleasant to feel that the world was buzzing and that without paying a penny one might see a real cinematograph show simply by walking down the Nevsky. I do not know of course what exactly happened that morning until Semyonov came in, but I can see the Markovitch family like 10,000 other Petrograd families assembling somewhere about 11 o'clock round the Samovar, all in various stages of undress, all sleepy and pale-faced, and a little be fogged, as all good Russians are, when, through the exigencies of sleep, they've been compelled to allow their ideas to escape from them for a considerable period. They discussed, of course, the disturbances, and I can imagine Markovitch portentiously announcing that it was all over he had the best of reasons for knowing. As he once explained to me, he was at his worst on Sunday because he was then so inevitably reminded of his lost youth.  The bells ring, and you feel that they ought to mean something to you, but of course one's gone past all that. But it's a pity. Nina's only thought that morning was that Lawrence was coming in the afternoon to take her for a walk. She had arranged it all. After a very evident hint from her, he had suggested it.  I also was asked to dinner and the theatre. Nina was sure that something must happen that afternoon. It would be a crisis. She felt within her such vitality, such power, such domination, that she believed that today she could command anything. She was, poor child, supremely confident, and that not through conceit or vanity, but simply because she was a fatalist and believed that destiny had brought Lawrence to her feet. It was the final proof of her youth that she saw the whole universe working to fulfill her desire. The other proof of her youth was that she began, for the first time, to suffer desperately. The most casual mention of Lawrence's name would make her heart beat furiously, suffocating her, her throat dry, her cheeks hot, her hands cold. Then, as the minute of his arrival approached, she would sit as though she were the centre of a leaping fire that, gradually, inch by inch, was approaching nearer to her, the flames staring like little eyes on the watch, the heat advancing and receding in waves like hands. She hoped that no one would notice her agitation. She talked nonsense to whomsoever was near to her, with little nervous laughs. She seemed to herself to be terribly unreal, with a fierce, hostile creature inside her who took her heart in his hot hands and pressed it, laughing at her. And then the misery, that little episode at the circus of which I had been a witness was only the first of many dreadful ventures. She confessed to me afterwards that she did not herself know what she was doing. And the final result of these adventures was to encourage her because he had not repelled her. He must have noticed she thought the times when her hand had touched his, when his mouth had been so close to hers that their very thoughts had mingled, when she had felt the stuff of his coat, and even for an instant stroked it. He must have noticed these things, and still he had never rebuffed her. He was always so kind to her. She fancied that his voice had a special note of tenderness in it when he spoke to her. And when she looked at his ugly, quiet, solid face, she could not believe that they were not meant for one another. He must want her, her gaiety, happiness, youth. It would be wrong for him not to.  Then the cursed misery of that waiting. They could hear in their sitting room the steps coming up the stone stairs outside their flat, and every step seemed to be his. He had come earlier than he had fixed. The era had stupidly forgotten, perhaps, or he had found the waiting any longer impossible. Yes, surely that was his footfall. She knew it so well. There, now he was turning towards the door. There was a pause. Soon there would be the tinkle of the bell. No, he had mounted higher. It was not Lawrence.  And then she would wonder suddenly whether she had been looking too fixedly at the door, whether they had noticed her. And she would start and look about herself consciously, blushing a little, her eyes hot and suspicious. I can see her in all these moods. It was her babyhood that was leaving her at last.  Never quite so careless, so audacious, so casual, so happy. In Russia, the awkward age is very short, very dramatic, often enough very tragic. Nina was as helpless as the rest of the world. At any rate, upon this Sunday, she was sure of her afternoon. Her eyes were wild with excitement. Anyone who looked at her closely must have noticed her strangeness, but they were all discussing the events of the last two days. There were a thousand stories, nearly all of them false, and a few true facts. No one, in reality, knew anything except that there had been some demonstrations, a little shooting, and a number of excited speeches. The town on that lovely winter morning seemed absolutely quiet. Somewhere about midday, Semyonov came in, and without thinking about it, Nina suddenly found herself sitting in the window talking to him. This conversation, which was in its results to have an important influence on her whole life, continued the development which that eventful Sunday was to effect in her. Its importance lay very largely in the fact that her uncle had never spoken to her seriously, like a grown-up woman before. Semyonov was, of course, quite clever enough to realize the change which was transforming her, and he seized it at once for his own advantage. She, on her side, had always, ever since she could remember, been intrigued by him. She told me once that almost her earliest memory was being lifted into the air by her uncle, and feeling the thick solid strength of his grasp, so that she was like a feather in the air, poised on one of his stubborn fingers. When he kissed her, each hair of his beard seemed like a pale, taut wire. So stiff and resolute was it. Her uncle Ivan was a flabby, effeminate creature in comparison. Then, as she had grown older, she had realized that he was a dangerous man, dangerous to women who loved and feared and hated him. Vera said that he had great power over them and made them miserable, and that he was, therefore, a bad, wicked man. But this only served to make him, in Nina's eyes, the more a romantic figure. However, he had never treated her in the least seriously. Had tossed her in the air spiritually, just as he had done physically when she was a baby, had given her chocolates, taken her once or twice to the cinema, laughed at her, and she felt deeply despised her. Then came the war, and he had gone to the front, and she had almost forgotten him. Then came the romantic story of his being deeply in love with a nurse who had been killed, that he was heartbroken and inconsolable, and a changed man. Was it wonderful that, on his return to Petrograd, she should feel again that old, bironic, every Russian is still brought up on Byron, romance? She did not like him, but, well, Vera was a stayed old-fashioned thing. Perhaps they all misjudged him, perhaps he really needed comfort and consolation. He certainly seemed kinder than he used to be. But until today he had never talked to her seriously. How her heart leapt into her throat when he began, at once in his quiet, soft voice. Well, Nina dear, tell me all about it. I know, so you needn't be frightened. I know, and I understand. She flung a terrified glance around her, but Uncle Ivan was reading the paper at the other end of the room. Her brother-in-law was cutting up little pieces of wood in his workshop, and Vera was in the kitchen. What do you mean, she said in a whisper. I don't understand. Yes, you do, he answered, smiling at her. You know, Nina, you're in love with the Englishman, and have been for a long time. Well, why not? Don't be so frightened about it. It is quite time that you should be in love with someone, and he's a fine, strong young man, not over-blessed with brains, but you can supply that part of it. No, I think it's a very good match. I like it. Believe me, I'm your friend, Nina. He put his hand on hers. He looked so kind, she told me afterwards, that she felt as though she had never known him before. Her eyes were filled with tears. So overwhelming a relief was it, to find someone at last who sympathized and understood and wanted her to succeed. I remember that she was wearing that day a thin black velvet necklace with a very small diamond in front of it. She had been given it by Uncle Ivan on her last birthday, and instead of making her look grown up, it gave her a ridiculously childish appearance as though she had stolen into Vera's bedroom and dressed up in her things. Then, with her fair, tussled hair and large blue eyes, open as a rule with a startled expression as though she had only just awakened into an astonishingly exciting world. She was altogether as unprotected and as guileless and as honest as any human being alive. I don't know whether Semyonov felt her innocence and youth. I expect he considered very little beside the plans that he had then in view, and innocence had never been very interesting to him. He spoke to her just as a kind, wise, thoughtful uncle ought to speak, to a niece caught up into her first love affair. From the moment of that half-hour's conversation in the window, Nina adored him and believed every word that came from his mouth. You see, Nina, dear, he went on. I've not spoken to you before because you neither liked me nor trusted me. Quite rightly you listened to what others said about me. Oh, no, interrupted Nina. I never listened to anybody. Well, then, said Semyonov, we'll say that you were very naturally influenced by them. And quite right, perfectly right. You were only a girl then.  I had nothing to say to you then. Now I can help you, give you a little advice, perhaps. I don't know what Nina replied. She was breathlessly pleased and excited. What I want, he went on, is the happiness of you all. I was sorry when I came back to find that Nicholas and Vera weren't such friends as they used to be. I don't mean that there's anything wrong at all, but they must be brought closer together, and that's what you and I, who know them and love them, can do. Yes, yes, said Nina eagerly. Semyonov then explained that the thing that really was, it seemed to him, keeping them apart was Nicholas's inventions. Of course Vera had long ago seen that these inventions were never going to come to anything, that they were simply wasting Nicholas's time when he might, by taking an honest clerkship or something of the kind, be maintaining the whole household, and the very thought of him sitting in his workshop irritated her. The thing to do, Semyonov explained, was to laugh Nicholas out of his inventions, to show him that it was selfish nonsense his pursuing them. To persuade him to make an honest living. But I thought, said Nina, you approved of them. I heard you only the other day, telling him that it was a good idea, and that he must go on. Ah, said Semyonov, that was my weakness, I'm afraid. I couldn't bear to disappoint him, but it was wrong of me, and I knew it at the time. Now Nina had always rather admired her brother-in-law's inventions. She had thought it very clever of him to think of such things, and she had wondered why other people did not applaud him more. Now suddenly she saw that it was very selfish of him to go on with these things when they had never brought in a penny, and Vera had to do all the drudgery. She was suddenly indignant with him, in how clear a light her uncle plays things. One thing to do, said Semyonov, is to laugh at him about them. Not very much, not unkindly, but enough to make him see the folly of it. I think he does see that already poor Nicholas, said Nina, with wisdom beyond her years. To bring Nicholas and Vera together, said Semyonov, that's what we have to do, you and I. And believe me, dear Nina, I, on my side, will do all I can to help you. We are friends, aren't we? Not only uncle and niece. Yes, said Nina breathlessly. That was all that there was to the conversation, but it was quite enough to make Nina feel as though she had already won her heart's desire. If anyone as clever as her uncle believed in this, then it must be true. It had not been only her own silly imagination, Lawrence cared for her. Her uncle had seen it, otherwise he would never have encouraged her. Lawrence cared for her. Suddenly, in the happy spontaneity of the moment, she did what she very seldom did, bent forward and kissed him. She told me afterwards that that kiss seemed to displease him. He got up and walked away. End of Part 2 Chapter 6 Part 2 Chapter 7 of The Secret City This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rita Butros The Secret City by Hugh Wellpole Part 2 Chapter 7 I do not know exactly what occurred during that afternoon. Neither Lawrence nor Nina spoke about it to me. I only know that Nina returned subdued and restrained. I can imagine them going out into that quiet town and walking along the deserted Quay. The quiet that afternoon was, I remember, marvelous. The whole world was holding its breath. Great events were occurring, but we were removed from them all. The ice quivered under the sun, and the snow clouds rose higher and higher into the blue. And once and again, a bell chimed and jangled. There was an amazing peace. Through this peaceful world Nina and Lawrence walked. His mind must, I know, have been very far away from Nina. Probably he saw nothing of her little attempts at friendship, her gasping sentences that seemed to her so daring and significant, he scarcely heard. His only concern was to endure the walk as politely as possible and return to Vera. Perhaps if she had not had that conversation with her uncle, she would have realized more clearly how slight a response was made to her. But she thought only that this was his English shyness and goshery. She must go slowly and carefully. He was not like a Russian. She must not frighten him. Ah, how she loved him as she walked beside him, seeing and not seeing the lovely frozen colors of the winter day, the quickly flooding saffron sky, the first bright star, the great pearl grey cloud of the Neva, as it was swept into the dark. In the dark she put, I am sure, her hand on his arm and felt his strength and took her small hurried steps beside his long ones. He did not, I expect, feel her hand on his sleeve at all. It was Vera whom he saw through the dusk, Vera watching the door for his return, knowing that his eyes would rush to hers, that every beat of his heart was for her. I found them all seated at dinner when I entered. I brought them the news of the shooting up at the Nicholas station. Perhaps we had better not go to the theater, I said. A number of people were killed this afternoon, and all the trams are stopped. Still, it was all remote from us. They laughed at the idea of not going to the theater. The tickets had been bought two weeks ago, and the walk would be pleasant. Of course we would go. It would be fun, too, to see whether anything were happening. With how strange a clarity I remember the events of that evening. It is detached and hangs by itself among the other events of that amazing time, as though it had been framed and separated for some special purpose. My impression of the color of it now is of a scene intensely quiet. I saw it once on my arrival that Vera was not yet prepared to receive me back into her friendship, and I saw, too, that she included Lawrence in this ostracism. She sat there stiff and cold, smiling, and talking simply because she was compelled, for politeness's sake, to do so. She would scarcely speak to me at all, and when I saw this I turned and devoted myself to Uncle Ivan, who was always delighted to make me a testing ground for his English. But poor Jerry, had I not been so anxious lest a scene should burst upon us all, I could have laughed at the humor of it. Vera's attitude was a complete surprise to him. He had not seen her during the preceding week, and that absence from her had heightened his desire until it burnt his very throat with its flame. One glance from her, when he came in, would have contented him. He could have rested then, happily, quietly, but instead of that glance she had avoided his eye. Her hand was cold and touched his only for an instant. She had not spoken to him again after the first greeting. I am sure that he had never known a time when his feelings threatened to be too much for him. His hold on himself and his emotions had been complete. These fellers, he once said to me about some Russians, are always letting their feelings overwhelm them, like women, and they like it. Funny thing. Well, funny or no, he realized it now. His true education, like Nina's, like Vera's, like Bohens, like Markovitch's, perhaps like my own, was only now beginning. Funny and pathetic, too. To watch his broad, red, genial face struggling to express a polite interest in the conversation, to show nothing but friendliness and courtesy. His eyes were as restless as minnows. They darted for an instant towards Vera, then darted off again, then flashed back. His hand moved for a plate, and I saw that it was shaking. Poor Jerry. He had learned what suffering was during those last weeks. But the most silent of us all that evening was Markovitch. He sat, huddled over his food, and never said a word. If he looked up at all, he glowered. And so soon, as he had finished eating, he returned to his workshop, closing the door behind him. I caught Semyonov looking at him with a pleasant speculative smile. At last, Vera, Nina, Lawrence, and I started for the theatre. I can't say that I was expecting a very pleasant evening, but the death-like stillness both of ourselves and the town did, I confess, startle me. Scarcely a word was exchanged by us between the English prospect and St. Isaac's Square. The Square looked lovely in the bright moonlight, and I said something about it. It was indeed very fine, the cathedral like a hovering purple cloud, the old sentry in his high-peak tat, the black statue, and the blue shadows over the snow. It was then that Lawrence, with an air of determined strength, detached Vera from us and walked ahead with her. I saw that he was talking eagerly to her. Nina said with a little shudder, Isn't it quiet, Dirtles, as though there were ghosts around every corner? Hope you enjoyed your walk this afternoon, I said. No, it was quiet then, but not like it is now. Let's walk faster and catch the others up. Do you believe in ghosts, Dirtles? Yes, I think I do. So do I. Was it true, do you think, about the people being shot at the Nicholas Station today? I dare say. Perhaps all the dead people are crowding round here now. Why isn't anyone out walking? I suppose they're all frightened by what they've heard, and think it better to stay at home. We were walking down the Morskaya, and our feet gave out a ringing echo. Let's keep up with them, Nina said. When we had joined the others, I found that they were both silent, Lawrence, very red, Vera pale. We were all feeling rather weary, a woman met us. You aren't allowed to cross the Nevsky, she said. The Cossacks are stopping everybody. I can see her now, a stout red-faced woman, a shawl over her head, and carrying a basket. Another woman, a prostitute I should think, came up and joined us. What is it she asked us? The stout woman repeated, in a trembling agitated voice, you aren't allowed to cross the Nevsky. The Cossacks are stopping everybody.  Bo-shi-moy, bo-shi-moy, she said, and I promised not to be late. Vera then, very calmly and quietly, took command of the situation. We'll go and see, she said, what is really the truth. We turned up the side street to the Moika Canal, which lay like powdered crystal under the moon. Not a soul was in sight. There arrived, then, one of the most wonderful moments of my life. The Nevsky prospect, that broad and mighty thoroughfare, stretched before us like a great silver river. It was utterly triumphantly bare and naked. Under the moon it flowed, with proud tranquility, so far as the eye could see, between its high black banks of silent houses. At intervals of about a hundred yards, the Cossack pickets, like ebony statues on their horses, guarded the way. Down the whole silver expanse, not one figure was to be seen. So beautiful was it under the high moon, so still, so quiet, so proud, that it was revealing now, for the first time, its real splendor. At no time of the night or day is the Nevsky deserted. How happy it must have been that night. For us it was as though we hesitated on the banks of a river. I felt a strange superstition, as though something said to me, You cross that, and you are plunged irrevocably into a new order of events. Go home, and you will avoid danger. Nina must have had something of the same feeling, because she said, Let's go home. They won't let us cross. I don't want to cross. Let's go home. But Vera said firmly, Nonsense! We've gone so far. We've got the tickets. I'm going on. I felt the note in her voice superstitiously, as a kind of desperate challenge, as though she had said, Well, you see nothing worse can happen to me than has happened. Lawrence said roughly, Of course, we're going on. The prostitute began in a trembling voice, as though we must all of necessity understand her case. I don't want to be late this time, because I've been late so often before. It always is that way with me. Always unfortunate. We started across, and when we stepped into the shining silver surface, we all stopped for an instant, as though held by an invisible force. That's it, said Vera, speaking it seemed to herself. So it always is with us. All revolutions in Russia end this way. An unmounted Cossack came forward to us. No hanging about there, he said. Cross quickly. No one is to delay. We moved to the other side of the Moika bridge. I thought of the Cossacks yesterday, who had assured the people that they would not fire. Well, that impulse had passed. Proto-Papov and his men had triumphed. We were all now in the shallows on the other bank of the canal. The prostitute, who was still at our side, hesitated for a moment, as though she were going to speak. I think she wanted to ask whether she might walk with us a little way. Suddenly she vanished without sound into the black shadows. Come along, said Vera, we shall be dreadfully late. She seemed to be mastered by an overpowering desire not to be left alone with Lawrence. She hurried forward with Nina, and Lawrence and I came more slowly behind. We were now in a labyrinth of little streets and black overhanging flats, not a soul anywhere, only the moonlight in great broad flashes of light. Once or twice a woman hurried by, keeping in the shadow. Sometimes at the far end of the street, we saw the shining naked Nevsky. Lawrence was silent then, just as we were turning into the square where the Mikolovsky Theatre was, he began. What's the matter? What's the matter with her, Doherd? What have I done? I don't know that you've done anything, I answered. But don't you see, he went on, she won't speak to me, she won't look at me. I won't stand this long.  I'll make her come off with me in spite of them all. I'll have her to myself. I'll make her happy, Doherd, as she's never been in all her life. But I must have her. I can't live close to her like this, and yet never be with her. Never alone, never alone. Why is she behaving like this to me? He spoke really like a man in agony, the words coming from him in little tortured sentences as though they were squeezed from him desperately with pain at every breath that he drew. She is afraid of herself, I expect, not of you. I put my hand on his sleeve. Lawrence, I said, go home. Go back to England. This is becoming too much for both of you. Nothing can come of it, but unhappiness for everybody. No, he said. It's too late for any of your platonic advice, Doherd. I'm going to have her, even though the earth turns upside down. We went up the steps and into the theatre. There was, of course, scarcely anyone there. The Mikolovsky is not a large theatre, but the stalls looked extraordinarily desolate. Every seat, watching one with a kind of insolent wink, as though, like the Nevsky, ten minutes before it said, well, now you humans are getting frightened.  We're coming back to our own. There was some such malicious air about the whole theatre. Above, in the circle, the little empty boxes were dim and shadowy, and one fancied figures moved there, and then saw that there was no one. Someone up in the gallery laughed, and the laugh went echoing up and down the empty spaces. A few people came in and sat nervously about, and no one spoke except in a low whisper, because voices sounded so loud and impertinent. Then again, the man in the gallery laughed, and everyone looked up frowning. The play began. It was, I think, les idées des françois, but of that I cannot be sure. It was a farce of the regular French type, with a bedroom off, and marionnettes who continually separated into couples and giggled together. The giggling tonight was of a sadly hollow sort. I pitied and admired the actors, spontaneous as a rule, but now, bravely stuffing any kind of sawdust into the figures in their hands. But the leakage was terrible, and the sawdust lays scattered all about the stage. The four of us sat as solemn as statues. I don't think one of us smiled. It was during the second act that I suddenly laughed. I don't know that anything very comic was happening on the stage, but I was aware with a kind of ironic subconsciousness that some of the superior spirits in their superior heaven must be deriving a great deal of fun from our situation. There was Vera thinking, I suppose, of nothing but Lawrence, and Lawrence thinking of nothing but Vera, and Nina thinking of nothing but Lawrence, and the audience thinking of their safety, and the players thinking of their salaries, and Proto Popov at home thinking of his victory, and the Tsar in SARSCO thinking of his God-sent autocracy, and Europe thinking of its ideals, and Germany thinking of its militarism. All self-justified, all mistaken, and all fulfilling some deeper plan at whose purpose they could not begin to guess. And how intermingled we all were, Vera and Nina, Monsieur Robert and mademoiselle Florey on the other side of the footlights, Trenchard and Marie killed in Galicia, the Kaiser and Hindenburg, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Postmaster of My Village in Glubshire. The curtain is coming down, the fat husband is deceived once again, the lovers are in the bedroom listening behind the door, the comic waiter is winking at the chambermaid. The lights are up and we are alone again in the deserted theater. Towards the end of the last interval, I went out into the passage behind the stalls to escape from the chastened whispering that went trembling up and down, like the hissing of terrified snakes. I leaned against the wall in the deserted passage and watched the melancholy figure of the cloakroom attendant huddled up on a chair, his head between his hands. Suddenly I saw Vera. She came up to me as though she were going to walk past me, and then she stopped and spoke. She talked fast, not looking at me, but beyond, down the passage. I'm sorry, Ivan Andreevich. She said, I was crossed the other day. I hurt you. I oughtn't to have done that. You know, I said, that I never thought of it for a minute. No, I was wrong, but I've been terribly worried during these last weeks. I've thought it all out today and I've decided. There was a catch in her breath and she paused. She went on. Decided that there mustn't be any more weakness. I'm much weaker than I thought. I would be ashamed if I didn't think that shame was a silly thing to have. But now I am quite clear. I must make Nicholas and Nina happy. Whatever else comes, I must do that. It has been terrible these last weeks. We've all been angry and miserable, and to now I must put it right. I can if I try. I've been forgetting that I chose my own life myself. And now I mustn't be cowardly because it's difficult. I will make it right myself. She paused again, then she said, looking me straight in the face. Ivana Andrejevich, does Nina care for Mr. Lawrence? She was looking at me with large black eyes, so simply, with such trust in me that I could only tell her the truth. Yes, I said, she does. Her eyes fell, then she looked up at me again. I thought so, she said. And does he care for her? No, I said he does not. He must, she said. It would be a very happy thing for them to marry. She spoke very low so that I could scarcely hear her words. Wait, Vera, I said. Let it alone. Nina is very young. The mood will pass. Lawrence, perhaps, will go back to England. She drew in her breath and I saw her hand tremble, but she still looked at me. Only now her eyes were not so clear. Then she laughed. I'm getting an old woman, Ivana Andrejevich. It's ridiculous. She broke off, then held out her hand. But we'll always be friends now, won't we? I'll never be crossed with you again. I took her hand. I'm getting old too, I said. And I'm useless at everything. I only make a bungle of everything I try. But I'll be your true friend to the end of time. The bell rang and we went back into the theatre. End of Part 2 Chapter 7 Part 2 Chapter 8 of The Secret City This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rita Butros The Secret City by Hugh Walpole Part 2 Chapter 8 And yet, strangely enough, when I lay awake that night in my room on my deserted island, it was of Markovitch that I was thinking. Of all the memories of the preceding evening, that of Markovitch huddled over his food, sullen and glowering, with Semyonov watching him, was predominant. Markovitch was, so to speak, the dark horse of the mall, and he was also when one came to look at it all the way round the centre of the story. And yet, it was Markovitch with his inconsistencies, his mysteries, his impulses, and purposes, whom I understood least of the mall. He makes indeed a very good symbol of my present difficulties. In that earlier experience of Marie, in the forests of Galicia, the matter had been comparatively easy. I had then been concerned with the outward manifestation of war, cannon, cholera, shell, and the green glittering trees of the forest itself. But the war had made progress since then. It had advanced out of material things into the very soul of men. It was no longer the forest of bark and tinder, with which the chiefs of this world had to deal, but to adapt the Russian proverb itself with the dark forest of the hearts of men. How much more baffling and intangible this new forest, and how deeply serious a business now for those who were still thoughtlessly and selfishly juggling with human affairs. There is no ammunition, I remember crying desperately in Galicia. We had moved further than the question of ammunition now. I had a strange dream that night. I saw my old forest of two years before, the very woods of Buchach with the hot painted leaves, the purple slanting sunlight, the smell, the cries, the whir of the shell. But in my dream, the only inhabitant of that forest was Markovic. He was pursued by some animal. What beast it was, I could not see. Always the actual vision was denied to me. But I could hear it plunging through the thickets, and once I caught a glimpse of a dark crouching body like a shadow against the light. But Markovic, I saw all the time sweating with heat and terror, his clothes torn, his eyes inflamed, his breath coming in desperate pants, turning once and again as though he would stop and offer defiance, then hasting on, his face in hands scratched and bleeding. I wanted to offer him help and assistance, but something prevented me. I could not get to him. Finally he vanished from my sight, and I was left alone in the painted forest. All the next morning I sat and wondered what I had better do, and at last I decided that I would go and see Henry Bohen. I had not seen Bohen for several weeks. I myself had been of late, less to the flat in the English prospect, but I knew that he had taken my advice that he should be kind to Nicholas Markovic with due British seriousness, and that he had been trying to bring some kind of relationship about. He had even asked Markovic to dine alone with him, and Markovic, although he declined the invitation, was, I believe, greatly touched. So about half past one I started off for Bohen's office on the Fontanka. I've said somewhere before I think that Bohen's work was in connection with the noble but uphill task of enlightening the Russian public as to the righteousness of the war, the British character, and the Anglo-Russian alliance. I say uphill because only a few of the real population of Russia showed the slightest desire to know anything whatever about any country outside their own. Their interest is in ideas, not in boundaries, and what I mean by real will be made patent by the events of this very day. However, Bohen did his best, and it was not his fault that the British government could only spare enough men and money to cover about one inch of the whole of Russia. And I hasten to add that if that same British government had plastered the whole vast country from Archangel to Vladivostok with pamphlets, orators, and photographs, it would not have altered in the slightest degree after events. To make any effect in Russia, England needed not only men and money but a hundred years experience of the country. That same experience was possessed by the Germans alone of all the Western peoples and they have not neglected to use it. I went by tram to the Fontanka and the street seemed absolutely quiet. That strange shining Nevsky of the night before was a dream. Someone in the tram said something about rifle shots in the summer garden, but no one listened. As Vera had said last night we had none of us much faith in Russian revolutions. I went up in the lift to the propaganda office and found it a very nice airy place, clean and smart, with colored advertisements by Sheperson and others on the walls, pictures of Hampstead and St. Albans and Kew Gardens that looked strangely satisfactory and homely to me and rather touching and innocent. There were several young women clicking away at typewriters and maps of the Western front and a colossal toy map of the London Tube and a nice English library with all the best books from Chaucer to D. H. Lawrence and from the religio Medici to Evie Lucas London. Everything seemed clean and simple and a little deserted as though the heart of the Russian public had not as yet quite found its way there. I think guileless was the adjective that came to my mind and certainly burrows the head of the place a large red-faced smiling man with glasses seemed to me altogether too cheerful and pleased with life to penetrate the wicked recesses of Russian pessimism. I went into Bohen's room and found him very hard at work in a serious emphatic way which only made me feel that he was playing at it. He had a little bookcase over his table and I noticed the Georgian book of verse Conrad's Nostromo and a translation of Robson's Pale Horse. All together too pretty and literary I said to him you ought to be getting at the peasant with a pitchfork and a hammer not admiring the intelligentsia. I dare say you're right he said blushing but whatever we do we're wrong we have fellows in here cursing us all day if we're simple we're told we're not clever enough if we're clever we're told we're too complicated if we're militant we're told we ought to be tenderhearted and if we're tenderhearted we're told we're sentimental and at the end of it all the Russians don't care a damn well I dare say you're doing some good somewhere I said indulgently come and look at my view he said and see whether it isn't splendid he spoke no more than the truth we looked across the canal over the roofs of this city domes and towers and turrets gray and white and blue with the dark red walls of many of the older houses stretched like an Arabian carpet beneath white bubbles of clouds that here and there marked the blue sky it was a scene of intense peace the smoke rising from the chimneys is vast chicks stumbling along on the father banks of the canal and the people sauntering in their usual lazy fashion up and down the Nevsky immediately below our window was a skating rink that stretched straight across the canal there were other figures like little dolls skating up and down and they looked rather desolate beside the deserted bandstands and the empty seats on the road outside our door a cart loaded with wood slowly moved along the high hoop over the horse's back gleaming with red and blue yes it is a view I said splendid and all as quiet as though there had been no disturbances at all have you heard any news no said bowen to tell the truth I've been so busy that I haven't had time to ring up the embassy and we've had no one in this morning Monday morning you know he added always very few people on Monday morning as though he didn't wish me to think that the office was always deserted I watched the little doll like men circling placidly round and round the rink one bubble cloud rose and slowly swallowed up the sun suddenly I heard a sharp crack like the breaking of a twig what's that I said stepping forward onto the balcony it sounded like a shot I didn't hear anything said bowen you get funny echoes up here sometimes we stepped back into bowen's room and if I had had any anxieties they would at once I think have been reassured by the unemotional figure of bowen's typist a gay young woman with peroxide hair who was typing away as though for her very life look here bowen can I talk to you alone for a minute I asked the peroxide lady left us it's just about Markovitch I wanted to ask you I went on I'm infernally worried and I want your help it may seem ridiculous of me to interfere in another family like this with people with whom I have after all nothing to do but there are two reasons why it isn't ridiculous one is the deep affection I have for Nina and Vera I promised them my friendship and now I've got to back that promise and the other is that you and I are really responsible for bringing Lawrence into the family they never would have known him if it hadn't been for us there's danger and trouble of every sort brewing and Semyonov as you know is helping it on wherever he can well now what I want to know is how much have you seen of Markovitch lately and has he talked to you bowen considered I've seen very little of him he said at last I think he avoids me now he's such a weird bird that it's impossible to tell of what he's really thinking I know he was pleased when I asked him to dine with me at the bear the other night he looked most awfully pleased but he wouldn't come it was as though he suspected that I was laying a trap for him but what have you noticed about him otherwise well I've seen very little of him he's sulky just now he suspected Lawrence of course always after that night of Nina's party but I think that he's reassured again and of course it's all so ridiculous because there's nothing to suspect absolutely nothing is there absolutely nothing I answered firmly he sighed with relief oh you don't know how glad I am to hear that he said because although I've known that it was all right Vera's been so odd lately that I've wondered you know how I care about Vera and how do you mean odd I sharply interrupted well for instance of course I've told nobody and you won't tell anyone either but the other night I found her crying in the flat sitting up near the table sobbing her heart out she thought everyone was out I'd been in my room and she hadn't known but Vera Derwood, Vera of all people I didn't let her see me she doesn't know now that I heard her but when you care for anyone as I care for Vera it's awful to think that she can suffer like that and one can do nothing oh Derwood I wish to God I wasn't so helpless you know before I came out to Russia I felt so old I thought there was nothing I couldn't do that I was good enough for anybody and now I'm the most awful ass fancy Derwood those poems of mine I thought they were wonderful I thought he was interrupted by a sudden sharp crackle like a fire bursting into a blaze quite close at hand we both sprang to the windows through them open they were not sealed for some unknown reason and rushed out onto the balcony the scene in front of us was just what it had been before the bubble clouds were still sailing lazily before the blue the skaters were still hovering on the ice the cart of wood that I had noticed was vanishing slowly into the distance but from the Latini just over the bridge came a confused jumble of shouts cries and then the sharp unmistakable rattle of a machine gun it was funny to see the casual life in front of one suddenly pause at that sound the doll-like skaters seemed to spin for a moment and then freeze one figure began to run over the ice a small boy came racing down our street shouting several men ran out from doorways and stood looking up into the sky as though they thought the noise had come from there the sun was just setting the bubble clouds were pink and windows flashed fire the rattle of the machine gun suddenly stopped and there was a moment's silence when the only sound in the whole world was the clatter of the wood cart turning the corner I could see to the right of me the crowds in the Nevsky that had looked like the continual unwinding of a ragged skein of black silk break their regular movement and split up like flies falling away from an opening door we were all on the balcony by now the stout burrows peroxide and another lady typist Watson the thin and most admirable secretary he held the place together by his diligence and order two Russian clerks Henry and I we all leaned over the railings and looked down into the street beneath us to our left the Fontanka bridge was quite deserted then suddenly an extraordinary procession poured across it at the same moment at any rate it seems so now to me on looking back the sun disappeared leaving a world of pale gray mist shot with gold and purple the stars were many of them already out piercing with their sharp cold brilliance the winter sky we could not at first see of what exactly the crowd now pouring over the bridge was composed then as it turned and came down our street it revealed itself as something so theatrical and melodramatic as to be incredible incredible I say because the rest of the world was not theatrical with it that was always to be the amazing feature of the new scene into which without knowing it I was at that moment stepping in Galicia the stage had been set ruined villages plague-stricken peasants shell holes trenches roads cut to pieces huge trees leveled to the ground historic chateaus pillaged and robbed but here the world was still the good old jog trot world that one had always known the shops and hotels and theaters remained as they had always been there would remain I believe forever those dull jagger undergarments in the windows of the bazaar and the bound edition of Chekhov in the bookshop just above the Moeka and the turtle and the goldfish in the aquarium near LSAF and whilst those things were there I could not believe in melodrama and we did not believe we dug our feet into the snow and leaned over the balcony railings absorbed with amused interest the procession consisted of a number of motor lorries and on these lorries soldiers were heaped I can use no other word because indeed they seem to be all piled upon one another some kneeling forward some standing some sitting and all with their rifles pointing outwards until the lorries looked like hedgehogs many of the rifles had pieces of red cloth attached to them and one lorry displayed proudly a huge red flag that waved high in air with a sort of flaunting arrogance of its own on either side of the lorries filling the street was the strangest mob of men women and children there seemed to be little sign of order or discipline amongst them as they were all shouting different cries down the fontanka no the duma to the Nevsky no no tovristi comrades to the Nicholas station such a rabble was it that I remember that my first thought was of pitting indulgence so this was the grand outcome of Boris Grogov's eloquence and the rat's plots for plunder of fitting climax to such vain dreams I saw the Cossack that ebony figure of Sunday night ten such men and this rabble was dispersed forever I felt inclined to lean over and whisper to them quick quick go home they'll be here in a moment and catch you and yet after all there seemed to be some show of discipline I noticed that as the crowd moved forward men dropped out and remained picketing the doorways of the street women seemed to be playing a large part in the affair peasants with shawls over their heads many of them leading by the hand small children boroughs treated it all as a huge joke pie jove he cried speaking across to me dear word it's like that play martin harvey used to do what was it about the french revolution you know the only way said peroxide in a prim strangled voice that's it the only way with their red flags and all don't they look ruffy in some of them there was a great discussion going on under our windows all the lorries had drawn up together and the screaming chattering and shouting was like the noise of a parrot's aviary the cold blue light had climbed now into the sky which was thick with stars the snow on the myriad roofs stretched like a filmy cloud as far as the eye could see the moving shouting crowd grew with every moment miss dear oh dear mr boroughs said the little typist who was not peroxide do you think i shall ever be able to get home we're on the other side of the river you know do you think the bridges will be up my mother will be so terribly anxious oh you'll get home all right answered boroughs cheerfully just wait until this crowd has gone by i don't expect there's any fuss down by the river his words were cut short by some order from one of the fellows below others shouted in response and the lorries again began to move forward i believe he is shouting to us said bohan it sounded like get off or get away not he said boroughs they're too busy with their own affairs then things happened quickly there was a sudden strange silence below i saw a quick flame from some fire that had apparently been lit on the fontanka bridge i heard the same voice call out once more sharply and a second later i felt rather than heard a whiz like the swift flight of a bee past my ear i was conscious that a bullet had struck the brick behind me that bullet swung me into the revolution end of part two chapter eight part two chapter nine of the secret city this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by rita butros the secret city by hue wellpole part two chapter nine we were all gathered together in the office i heard one of the russians say in an agitated whisper don't turn on the light don't turn on the light they can see we were all in half darkness our faces mistily white i could hear peroxide breathing in a tremulous manner as though in a moment she would break into hysteria we'll go into the inside room we could turn the light on there said boroughs we all passed into the reception room of the office a nice airy place with the library along one wall and bright colored maps on the other we stood together and considered the matter it's real said boros his red cheery face perplexed and strained who'd have thought it of course it's real cried bowen impatiently boros optimism had been often difficult to bear with indulgence now you see what about your beautiful russian mystic now oh dear cried the little russian typist and my mother whatever shall i do she'll hear reports and think that i'm being murdered i shall never get across you'd better stay with me tonight miss paredonov said peroxide firmly my flat's quite close here in gakarinsky we shall be delighted to have you you can telephone to your mother miss paredonov said boros no difficulty at all it was then that bowen took me aside look here he said i'm worried vira and nina were going to the astoria to have tea with samianov this afternoon i should think the astoria might be rather a hot spot if this spreads and i wouldn't trust samianov will you come down with me there now yes i said of course i'll come we said a word to boros put on our shubas and galoshes and started down the stairs at every door there were anxious faces out of one flat came a very fat jew gentlemen what is this all about riots said bowen is there shooting yes said bowen boji moi boji moi and i live over on vasili astrof what do you advise guess boda will the bridges be up very likely i answered i should stay here and they are shooting he asked again they are i answered gentlemen gentlemen stay for a moment perhaps together we could think i am all alone here except for a lady most unfortunate but we could not stay the world into which we stepped was wonderful the background of snow under the star blazing sky made it even more fantastic than it naturally was we slipped into the crowd and becoming part of it were at once as one so often is sympathetic with it it seemed such a childish helpless and good-natured throng no one seemed to know anything of arms or directions there were as i have already said many women and little children and some of the civilians who had rifles looked quite helpless i saw one boy holding his gun upside down no one paid any attention to us there was as yet no class note in the demonstration and the only hostile cries i heard were against proto pop off and the police we moved back into the street behind the fontanca and here i saw a wonderful sight someone had lighted a large bonfire in the middle of the street and the flames tossed higher and higher into the air bringing down the stars in flights of gold flinging up the snow until it seemed to radiate in lines and circles of white light high over the very roofs of the houses in front of the fire a soldier mounted on a horse addressed a small crowd of women and boys on the end of his rifle was a ragged red cloth i could not see his face i saw his arms wave and the fire behind him exaggerated his figure and then dropped it into a struggling silhouette against the snow the street seemed deserted except for this group although now i could hear distant shouting on every side of me and the monotonous clap clap clap clap of a machine gun i heard him say tovaris g now is your time don't hesitate in the sacred cause of freedom as our brethren did in the famous days of the french revolution so must we do now all the army is coming over to our side the prio brogenski have come over to us and have arrested their officers and taken their arms we must finish with proto pop off and our other tyrants and see that we have a just rule tovaris g there will never be such a chance again and you will repent forever if you have not played your part in the great fight for freedom so it went on it did not seem that his audience was greatly impressed it was bewildered and dazed but the fire leapt up behind him giving him a legendary splendor and the whole picture was romantic and unreal like a gaudy painting on a colored screen we hurried through into the nevski and this we found nearly deserted the trams of course had stopped a few figures hurried along and once an evostik went racing down towards the river well now we seem to be out of it said bowen with a sigh of relief i must say i'm not sorry i don't mind friends where you can tell which is the front and which is the back but this kind of thing does get on one's nerves i dare say it's only local we shall find them all as easy as anything at the astoria and wondering what we're making a fuss about at that moment we were joined by an english merchant whom we both knew a stout elderly man who had lived all his life in russia i was surprised to find him in a state of extreme terror i had always known him as a calm conceded stupid fellow with a great liking for russian ladies this past time he was able as a bachelor to enjoy to the full now however instead of the ruddy course self-confident merchant there was a pallid trembling jellyfish i say you fellows he asked catching my arm where are you off to we're off to the astoria i answered let me come with you i'm not frightened not at all all the same i don't want to be left alone i was in the 1905 affair that was enough for me where are they firing do you know all over the place said bowen enjoying himself they'll be down here in a minute good god do you really think so it's terrible these fellows once they get loose they stick at nothing i remember in 1905 good heavens where had we better go it's very exposed here isn't it it's very exposed everywhere said bowen i doubt whether any of us are alive in the morning good heavens you don't say so why should they interfere with us oh rich you know and that kind of thing and then we're englishmen they'll clear out all the english oh i'm not really english my mother was russian i could show them my papers bowen laughed i'm only kidding you watch it he said we're safe enough look there's not a soul about we were at the corner of the moi canal all was absolutely quiet two women and a man were standing on the bridge talking together a few stars clustered above the bend of the canal seemed to shift and waver ever so slightly through a gathering mist like the smoke of blowing candles it seems all right said the merchant sniffing the air suspiciously as though he expected to smell blood we turned towards the morskaya one of the women detached herself from the group and came to us don't go down the morskaya she said whispering as though some hostile figure were leaning over her shoulder they're firing around the telephone exchange even as she spoke i heard the sharp clatter of the machine gun break out again but now very close and with an intimate note as though it were the same gun that i had heard before which had been tracking me down around the town do you hear that said the merchant come on said bowen we'll go down the moika that seems safe enough how strangely in the flick of a bullet the town had changed yesterday every street had been friendly obvious and open they were now no longer streets but secret blind avenues with strange trees fantastic doors shuttered windows a grinning moon malicious stars and snow that lay there simply to prevent every sound it was a town truly beleaguered as towns are in dreams the uncanny awe with which i moved across the bridge was increased when the man with the women turned towards me and i saw that he was or seemed to be that same grave bearded peasant whom i had seen by the river whom henry had seen in the cathedral who remained with one as passing strangers sometimes do like a symbol or a message or a thread he stood with the nefsky behind him calm and grave and even it seemed a little amused watching me as i crossed i said to bowen did you ever see that fellow before bowen turned and looked no he said don't you remember the man that first day in the kazan they're all alike bowen said one can't tell oh come on said the merchant let's get to the astoria we started down the moeka past that faded picture shop where there are always large moth eaten canvases of cornfields under the moon and russian weddings and italian lakes we had got very nearly to the little street with the wooden hoardings when the merchant gripped my arm what's that he gulped the silence now was intense we could not hear the machine gun nor any shouting the world was like a picture smoking under a moon now red and hard against the wall of the street two women were huddled one on her knees her head pressed against the thighs of the other who stood stretched as though crucified her arms out staring onto the canal beside a little kiosk on the space exactly in front of the side street lay a man on his face his bowler had had rolled towards the kiosk his arms were stretched out so that he looked oddly like the shadow of the woman against the wall instead of one hand there was a pool of blood the other hand with all the fingers stretched was yellow against the snow as we came up a bullet from the morse guy struck the kiosk the woman not moving from the wall said they've shot my husband he did nothing the other woman on her knees only cried without ceasing the merchant said i'm going back to the europe and he turned and ran what's down that street i said to the woman as though i expected her to say hobgoblins bowen said this is rather beastly we ought to move that fellow out of that he may be alive still and how silly such a sentence when only yesterday just here there was the old beggar who sold bootlaces and just there where the man lay an old muddle dysvastic asleep on his box we moved forward and instantly it was as though i were in the middle of a vast desert quite alone with all the hosts of heaven aiming at me malicious darts as i bent down my back was so broad that it stretched across petrograd and my feet were tiny like frogs we pulled at the man his head rolled and his face turned over and the mouth was full of snow it was so still that i whispered whether to bowen or myself god i wish somebody would shout then i heard the wood of the kiosk crack ever so slightly like an opening door and panic flooded me as i had never known it to do during all my time at the front i've no strength i said to bowen pull for god's sake he answered we dragged the body a little way my hand clutched the thigh which was hard and cold under the stuff of his clothing his head rolled round and his eyes now were covered with snow we dragged him and he bumped grotesquely we had him under the wall near the two women and the blood welled out and dripped in a spreading pool at the women's feet now said bowen we've got to run for it do you know said i as though i were making a sudden discovery i don't think i can i leaned back against the wall and looked at the pool of blood near the kiosk where the man had been oh but you've got to said bowen who seemed to feel no fear we can't stay here all night no i know i answered but the trouble is i'm not myself and i was not that was the trouble i was not john derwood at all some stranger was here with a new heart poor shriveled limbs an enormous nose a hot mouth with no eyes at all this stranger had usurped my clothes and he refused to move he was tied to the wall and he would not obey me bowen looked at me i say doward come on it's only a step we must get to the astoria but the picture of the astoria did not stir me i should have seen nina and vira waiting there and that should have at once determined me so it would have been had i been myself this other man was there nina and vira meant nothing to him at all but i could not explain that to bowen i can't go i saw bowen's eyes i was dreadfully ashamed you go on i muttered i wanted to tell him that i did not think that i could endure to feel again that awful expansion of my back and the turning my feet into toads of course i can't leave you he said and suddenly i sprang back into my own clothes again i flung the charlatan out and he flumped off into air come on i said and i ran no bullets whizzed past us i was ashamed of running and we walked quite quietly over the rest of the open space funny thing i said i was damned frightened for a moment it's the silence and the houses said bowen strangely enough i remember nothing between that moment and our arrival at the astoria we must have skirted the canal keeping in the shadow of the wall then cross the st isaac's square the next thing i can recall is our standing rather breathless in the hall of the astoria and the first persons i saw there were vira and nina together at the bottom of the staircase saying nothing waiting in front of them was a motley crowd of russian officers all talking and gesticulating together i came nearer to vira and at once i said to myself laurence is here somewhere she was standing her head up watching the doors her eyes glowed with anticipation her lips were a little parted she never moved at all but was so vital that the rest of the people seemed dolls beside her as we came towards them nina turned round and spoke to someone and i saw that it was semi on off who stood at the bottom of the staircase his thick legs apart stroking his beard with his hand we came forward and nina began at once turtles tell us what's happened i don't know i answered the lights after the dark and the snow bewildered me and the noise and excitement of the russian officers were deafening nina went on her face lit can't you tell us anything we haven't heard a word we came just in an ordinary way about four o'clock there wasn't a sound and then just as we were sitting down to tea they all came bursting in saying that all the officers were being murdered and that protopov was killed and that that's true anyway said a young russian officer turning round to us excitedly i had it from a front of mine who was passing just as they stuck him in the stomach he saw it all they dragged him out of his house and stuck him in the stomach they say the czar has been shot said another officer a fat red-faced man with very bright red trousers and that radzienko's formed a government i heard on every side such words as people radzienko protopov freedom and the officer telling his tale again and they stuck him in the stomach just as he was passing his house through all this tale vira never moved i saw to my surprise that laurence was there now standing near her but never speaking semianov stood on the stairs watching suddenly i saw that she wanted me ivan andrejovic she said will you do something for me she spoke very low and her eyes did not look at me but beyond us all out to the door certainly i said will you keep alexi petrovich here mr laurence and mr bohan can see us home i don't want him to come with us will you ask him to wait and speak to you i went up to him semianov i said i want a word with you if i may certainly he said with that irritating smile of his as though he knew exactly of what i was thinking we moved up the dark stairs as we went i heard vira's clear calm voice will you see us home mr laurence i think it's quite safe to go now we stopped on the first floor under the electric light there were two easy chairs there with a dusty palm behind them we sat down you haven't really got anything to say to me he began oh yes i have i said no you simply suggested conversation because vira asked you to do so i suggested a conversation i answered because i had something of some seriousness to tell you well she needn't have been afraid he went on i wasn't going home with them i want to stop and watch these ridiculous people a little longer what had you got to say my philosophical optimistic friend he looked quite his old self sitting stockily in the chair his strong thighs pressing against the cane as though they'd burst it his thick square beard more wiry than ever and his lips red and shining he seemed to have regained his old self-possession and confidence what i wanted to say i began is that i'm going to tell you once more to leave alone i know the other day that alone oh that he brushed it aside impatiently there are bigger things than that just now derward you lack as i have always said two very essential things a sense of humor and a sense of proportion and you pretend to know russia whilst you are without those two admirable gifts however let us forget personalities there are better things here as he spoke two young russian officers came tumbling up the stairs they were talking excitedly not listening to one another red in the face and tripping over their swords they went up to the next floor their voices very shrill so much for your sentimental russia said semi on off he spoke very quietly how i shall love to see these fools all toppled over and then the fools who toppled them toppled in their turn derward you're a fool too but you're english and at least you've got a conscience i tell you you'll see in these next months such cowardice such selfishness such meanness such ignorance as the world has never known and all in the name of freedom why they're chattering about freedom already downstairs as hard as they can go as usual semi on off i answered hotly you believe in the good of no one if there's really a revolution coming which i still doubt it may lead to the noblest liberation oh you're an ass he interrupted quietly nobility in the human race i tell you evan andrejvich of the noble character that the human race is rotten that it is composed of selfishness vice and meanness that it is hypocritical beyond the bounds of hypocrisy and that of all mean cowardly nations on this earth the russian nation is the meanest and most cowardly that fine talk of ours that you english slobber over a mere excuse for idleness and you'll know it before another year is through i despise mankind with a contempt that every day's fresh experience only the more justifies only once have i found someone who had a great soul and she too if i had secured her might have disappointed me no my time is coming i shall see it last my fellow men in their true colors and i shall even perhaps help them to display them my worthy marcovich for example what about marcovich i asked sharply he got up smiling he put his hand on my shoulder he shall be driven by ghosts he answered and turned off to the stairs he looked back for a moment the funny thing is i like you derword he said end of part two chapter nine part two chapter ten of the secret city this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox dot org recording by rita butros the secret city by hu welpole part two chapter ten i remember very little of my return to my island that night the world was horribly dark and cold the red moon had gone and a machine gun pursued me all the way home like a barking dog i crossed the bridge frankly with nerves so harassed with so many private anxieties and so much public apprehension with so overpowering a suspicion that every shadow held a rifle that my heart leapt in my breast and i was suddenly sick with fear when someone stepped across the road and put his hand on my arm you see i have nothing much to boast about myself my relief was only slightly modified when i saw that it was the rat the rat had changed he stood as though on purpose under the very faint gray light of the lamp at the end of the bridge and seen thus he did in truth seem like an apparition he was excited of course but there was more in his face than that the real truth about him was that he was filled with some determination some purpose he was like a child who was playing at being a burglar his face had exactly that absorption that obsessing preoccupation i've been waiting for you baron he said in his horse musical voice what is it i asked this is where i live he said and he showed me a very dirty piece of paper i think you ought to know why i asked him kid to snay it who knows the czar is gone and we are all free men i felt oddly that suddenly now he knew himself my master that was now in his voice what are you going to do with your freedom i asked he sighed i shall have my duties now he said i'm not a free man at all i obey orders for the first time the people are going to rule i am the people he paused then he went on very seriously that is why baron i give you that paper i have friendly feelings towards you i don't know what it is but i am your brother they may come and want to rob your house show them that paper thank you very much i said but i'm not afraid there's nothing i mind them stealing all the same i'm very grateful he went on very seriously there'll be no czar now and no police we will stop the war and all be rich he sighed but i don't know that it will bring happiness he suddenly seemed to me forlorn and desolate and lonely like a lost dog i knew quite well that very soon perhaps directly he had left me he would plunder and murder and rob again but that night the two of us alone on the island and everything so still waiting for great events i felt close to him and protective don't get knocked on the head rat i said during one of your raids death is easily come by just now look after yourself he shrugged his shoulders so buddha buddha what will be will be nichevo it's of no importance he had vanished into the shadows end of part two chapter ten