The Secret City. Hugh Walpole
not, I am afraid, as chivalrous as he might have been, because he knew that the girl on his other side was laughing at his attempts to explain that he was not a Frenchman. “Stupid old woman!” he said to me afterwards. “She dropped her bag under the table at least twenty times!”
Meanwhile the astonishing fact was that the success of the dinner was Jerry Lawrence. He was placed on Vera Michailovna’s left hand, Rozanov, the Moscow merchant near to him, and I did not hear him say anything very bright or illuminating, but every one felt, I think, that he was a cheerful and dependable person. I always felt, when I observed him, that he understood the Russian character far better than any of us. He had none of the self-assertion of the average Englishman and, at the same time, he had his opinions and his preferences. He took every kind of chaff with good-humoured indifference, but I think it was above everything else his tolerance that pleased the Russians. Nothing shocked him, which did not at all mean that he had no code of honour or morals. His code was severe and stern, but his sense of human fallibility, and the fine fight that human nature was always making against stupendous odds stirred him to a fine and comprehending clarity. He had many faults. He was obstinate, often dull and lethargic, in many ways grossly ill-educated and sometimes wilfully obtuse—but he was a fine friend, a noble enemy, and a chivalrous lover. There was nothing mean nor petty in him, and his views of life and the human soul were wider and more all-embracing than in any Englishman I have ever known. You may say of course that it is sentimental nonsense to suppose at all that the human soul is making a fine fight against odds. Even I, at this period, was tempted to think that it might be nonsense, but it is a view as good as another, after all, and so ignorant are all of us that no one has a right to say that anything is impossible!
After drinking the vodka and eating the “Zakuska,” we sat down to table and devoured crayfish soup. Every one became lively. Politics of course, were discussed.
I heard Rozanov say, “Ah, you in Petrograd! What do you know of things? Don’t let me hurt any one’s feelings, pray. … Most excellent soup, Vera Michailovna—I congratulate you. … But you just wait until Moscow takes things in hand. Why only the other day Maklakoff said to a friend of mine—‘It’s all nonsense,’ he said.”
And the shrill-voiced young man told a story—“But it wasn’t the same man at all. She was so confused when she saw what she’d done, that I give you my word she was on the point of crying. I could see tears … just trembling—on the edge. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she said, and the man was such a fool. …”
Markovitch was busy about the drinks. There was some sherry and some light red wine. Markovitch was proud of having been able to secure it. He was beaming with pride. He explained to everybody how it had been done. He walked round the table and stood, for an instant, with his hand on Vera Michailovna’s shoulder. The pies with fish and cabbage in them were handed round. He jested with the old great-aunt. He shouted in her ear:
“Now, Aunt Isabella … some wine. Good for you, you know—keep you young. …”
“No, no, no …” she protested, laughing and shaking her earrings, with tears in her eyes. But he filled her glass and she drank it and coughed, still protesting.
“Thank you, thank you,” she chattered as Bohun dived under the table and found her bag for her. I saw that he did not like the crayfish soup, and was distressed because he had so large a helping.
He blushed and looked at his plate, then began again to eat and stopped.
“Don’t you like it?” one of the giggling girls asked him. “But it’s very good. Have another ‘Pie!’ ”
The meal continued. There were little suckling pigs with “Kasha,” a kind of brown buckwheat. Every one was gayer and gayer. Now all talked at once, and no one listened to anything that any one else said. Of them all, Nina was by far the gayest. She had drunk no wine—she always said that she could not bear the nasty stuff, and although every one tried to persuade her, telling her that now when you could not get it anywhere, it was wicked not to drink it, she would not change her mind. It was simply youth and happiness that radiated from her, and also perhaps some other excitement for which I could not account. Grogoff tried to make her drink. She defied him. He came over to her chair, but she pushed him away, and then lightly slapped his cheek. Every one laughed. Then he whispered something to her. For an instant the gaiety left her eyes. “You shouldn’t say that!” she answered almost angrily. He went back to his seat. I was sitting next to her, and she was very charming to me, seeing that I had all that I needed and showing that she liked me. “You mustn’t be gloomy and ill and miserable,” she whispered to me. “Oh! I’ve seen you! There’s no need. Come to us and we’ll make you as happy as we can—Vera and I. … We both love you.”
“My dear, I’m much too old and stupid for you to bother about!”
She put her hand on my arm. “I know that I’m wicked and care only for pleasure. … Vera’s always saying so. But I can be better if you want me to be.”
This was flattering, but I knew that it was only her general happiness that made her talk like that. And at once she was after something else. “Your Englishman,” she said, looking across the table at Lawrence, “I like his face. I should be frightened of him, though.”
“Oh no, you wouldn’t,” I answered. “He wouldn’t hurt any one.”
She continued to look at him and he, glancing up, their eyes met. She smiled and he smiled. Then he raised his glass and drank.
“I mustn’t drink,” she called across the table. “It’s only water and that’s bad luck.”
“Oh, you can challenge any amount of bad luck—I’m sure,” he called back to her.
I fancied that Grogoff did not like this. He was drinking a great deal. He roughly called Nina’s attention.
“Nina … Ah—Nina!”
But she, although I am certain that she heard him, paid no attention.
He called again more loudly:
“Nina … Nina!”
“Well?” She turned towards him, her eyes laughing at him.
“Drink my health.”
“I can’t. I have only water.”
“Then you must drink wine.”
“I won’t. I detest it.”
“But you must.”
He came over to her and poured a little red wine into her water. She turned and emptied the glass over his hand. For an instant his face was dark with rage.
“I’ll pay you for that,” I heard him whisper.
She shrugged her shoulders. “He’s tiresome, Boris. …” she said, “I like your Englishman better.”
We were ever gayer and gayer. There were now of course no cakes nor biscuits, but there was jam with our tea, and there were even some chocolates. I noticed that Vera and Lawrence were getting on together famously. They talked and laughed, and her eyes were full of pleasure.
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