As I approached the broad deep doorway of my house I saw a tall man muffled up, standing half concealed in the shadow of one of the pillars.
"Who are you, and what are you doing there?" I asked peremptorily, stopping and looking at him.
"What should I be doing, but waiting for Lieutenant Petrovitch?" answered the fellow, stepping forward.
"Well, I am Lieutenant Petrovitch. What do you want?"
"You are not the lieutenant."
"Then you are not looking for Lieutenant Petrovitch," I returned, as I opened my door. "Be off with you." I spoke firmly, but his reply had rather disconcerted me.
Instead of going he advanced toward me when he saw me open the door, and shot a glance of surprise at me.
"I beg you honour's pardon. I didn't recognise you; and when you pretended not to know me, I thought it was someone else. You've disguised yourself by that change in your face, sir."
There was a mixture of servility and impudence in the man's manner which galled me. He spoke like a fawning sponger: and yet with just such a suggestion of threat and familiarity in his manner as might come from a low associate in some dirty work which he thought gave him a hold over me.
"What is it you want?" I spoke as sternly as before; and the fellow cringed and bowed as he answered with the same suggestion of familiar insolence.
"What have I waited here five hours for but to speak to your lordship privately—waited, as I always do, patiently. It's safer inside, lieutenant."
"Come in, then." It was clearly best for me to know all he had to say.
As soon as we were inside and I had turned up the lights I placed him close to the biggest of them; and a more villainous, hangdog looking rascal I never wish to see. A redhaired, dirty, cunning, drinking Jew of the lowest class; with lies and treachery and deceit written on every feature and gesture. The only thing truthful about him was the evidence of character stamped on his self-convicting appearance.
"I wonder what you are to me," I thought as I scanned him closely, his flinty shifting eyes darting everywhere to escape my gaze.
"Well, what do you want? I'm about sick of you." A quick lifting of the head and eyebrows let a questioning glance of mingled malice, hate, and menace dart up into my face.
"Lieutenant, your child is starving and his mother also; and I, her father, am tired of working my fingers to the bone to maintain them both."
"What are you working at now?" I asked with a sneer. I spoke in this way to hide my unpleasant surprise at the unsavoury news that lay behind his words. The more I looked at him the more was I impressed with a conviction of his rascality: but the fact that he was a scoundrel did not at all exclude the possibility that some ugly episode concerning me lay behind. On the contrary it increased the probability.
"I've not come to talk about my work, but to get money," said my visitor in a surly tone. "And money I must have."
"Blackmail," was my instant conclusion: and my line of conduct was as promptly taken. There is but one way to take with blackmailers—crush them.
"Did you understand what I said just now? I am sick of you and your ways, and I have done with you."
The man shifted about uneasily and nervously without replying at once, and then in a sly, muttering tone, and with an indescribable suggestion of menace said:—
"There are some ugly stories afloat, Lieutenant."
"Yes: and in Russia, those who tell them smell the atmosphere of a gaol as often as those against whom they are told. A word from me and you know where you will be within half a dozen hours." This was a safe shot with such a rascal.
"But you'll never speak that word," he said sullenly. "We've talked all this over before. You can't shake me off. I know too much."
Obviously my former self had handled this man badly: probably through weakness: and had allowed him to get an ugly hold. He was presuming on this now.
I took two rapid turns up and down the room in thought. Then I made a decision. Taking ink and paper I sat down to the table and wrote, repeating the words aloud:—
"To the Chief of Police.—The Bearer of this——"
"How do you spell your rascally name?" I cried, interrupting the writing and looking across at him.
"You know. You've written it often enough to Anna."
Good. I had got the daughter's name at any rate.
"Yes, but this is for the police, and must be accurate." The start he gave was an unmistakable start of fear.
"Everyone knows how to spell Peter, I suppose. And you ought to know how to spell Prashil, seeing your own child has to bear the name."
"The Bearer of this, Peter Prashil, declares that he has some information to give to you which incriminates me. Take his statement in writing and have it investigated. Hold him prisoner, meanwhile, for he has been attempting to blackmail me. You, or your agents will know him well.
Signed, ALEXIS PETROVITCH.Lieutenant, Moscow Infantry Regiment."
"Now," I cried, rising, giving him the paper, and throwing open the door. "Take that paper and go straight to the Police. Tell them all you know. Or if you like it better stand to-morrow at midday in the Square of the Cathedral and shout it out with all your lungs for the whole of Moscow to hear. Or get it inserted in every newspaper in the city. Go!" and I pointed the way and stared at him sternly and angrily.
"I don't want to harm you."
"Go!" I said. "Or I'll wake my servant and have the police brought here."
For a minute he tried to return my look, and fumbled with the paper irresolutely.
"Go!" I repeated, staring at him as intently as before.
He stood another minute scowling at me from under his ragged red brows and then seemed to concentrate the fury of a hundred curses into one tremendous oath, which he snarled out with baffled rage, as he tore the paper into pieces and threw them down on the table.
"You know I can't go to the police, damn you," he cried.
I had beaten him. I had convinced him of my earnestness. I shut the door then and sitting down again, said calmly:—
"Now you understand me a little better than ever before; and we will have the last conversation that will ever pass between us. Tell me plainly and clearly what you want. Quick."
"Justice for my daughter."
"What else?"
"The money you've always promised me for my services," with a pause before the last word.
"What services?"
"You know."
"Answer. Don't dare to speak like that," I cried sternly.
"For holding my tongue—about Anna—and—the child. I want my share, don't I?" he answered sullenly, scowling at me. "Is a father to be robbed of a child and then cheated?" He asked this with a burst of anger as if, vile as he was, he was compelled to stifle his sense of shame with a rush of rage.
"Hush-money, eh? And payment for your daughter's shame. Well, what else?" I threw into my manner all the contempt I could.
"My help in other things—with others." He uttered the sentence with a leer of suggestion that sent my blood to boiling point; and he followed it up with a recital of mean and despicable tricks of vice and foul dissipation until in sheer disgust I was compelled to stop him.
What more the man might have had to say I knew not; but I had heard enough. It was clear that I was indeed a bitter blackguard, and that for my purposes I had made use of this scoundrel, who had apparently begun by selling me his own daughter. It was clear also that all this must end and some sort of arrangement be made.
At the same time I knew enough of Russian society to be perfectly well aware that not one of the acts which this man had suggested would count for either crime or wrong against me. One was expected to keep the seamy side of one's life decorously out of sight; but if that were done, a few "slips" of the kind were taken as a matter of course.
Personally, I hold old-fashioned notions on these things, and it was infinitely painful to me that I should be held guilty of such blackguardism. I would at least do what justice I could.
"I have been thinking much about these things lately," I said, after a pause. "And I have come to a decision. I shall make provision for you..."
"Your honour was always generosity itself," said the fellow squirming instantly.
"On condition that you leave Moscow. You will go to Kursk; and there ten roubles will be paid to you weekly for a year; by which time if you haven't drunk yourself to death, you will have found the means to earn your living."
"And Anna?"
"Your daughter will call to-morrow afternoon on my sister——"
"Your sister?" cried the man in the deepest astonishment.
"My sister," I repeated, "at this address"—I wrote it down—"and the course to be taken will depend on what is then decided. You understand that the whole story will be sifted, so she must be careful to tell the truth.
"The discreet truth, your honour?" he asked with another leer.
"No, the whole truth, without a single lie of yours. Mind, one lie by either of you, and not a kopeck shall you have."
With that I sent him about his business. I resolved to have the whole story investigated; and it occurred to me that it would be a good test of my sister's womanliness to let her deal with the case. I reflected too that it would do her no harm to know a little of the undercurrent of her brother's life.
That done, I turned into bed after as full a day as I had ever lived, and slept well.
Reflection led me to approve the plan of sending the old Jew's daughter to Olga; and after breakfast the next morning I wrote a little note to prepare her for the visit.
"This afternoon," I wrote, "you will have a visit from a girl whose name is Anna Prashil, and she will tell you something about your brother's history which I think your woman's wit will let you deal with better than I can. We will have the story sifted, but you can do two things in the matter better than I—judge whether the girl is an impostor; and if not, what is the best thing to do for her. I will see you afterwards."
I sat smoking and thinking over this business when my servant, Borlas, announced that a lady wished to see me; and ushered in a tall woman closely veiled.
I was prepared now for anything that could happen.
I rose and bowed to her; but she stood without a word until Borlas had gone out.
"Don't pretend that you don't know me," she said, in a voice naturally sweet and full and musical, but now resonant with agitation and anger.
It was a very awkward position. Obviously I ought to know her, so I thought it best to speak as if I did.
"I make no attempt at pretence with you," I said, equivocally. "But aren't you going to sit down?"
"No attempt at pretence? What was your conduct last night if not pretence—maddening, infamous, insulting pretence?"
I knew her now. It was the handsome angry woman whose signals at the ball I had ignored—Paula Tueski. She had probably come to upbraid me for my coldness and neglect. "Hell holds no fury like a woman scorned," thought I; and this was a woman with a very generous capacity for rage. If she recognised me....
"Won't you take off that thick veil, which prevents my seeing your very angry eyes. You know I always admire you in a passion, Paula." I did not know how I ought to address her so I made the plunge with her Christian name.
"Why dared you insult me by not speaking to me at the ball last night? Why dared you break your word? You pledged me your honour"—this with quite glorious scorn—"that you would introduce your impudent chit of a sister to me at the ball. And instead, my God, that I am alive to say it!—you dared to sit with her laughing, and jibing and flouting at me. Pretending—you, you of all men on this earth—that you did not know me! Do you think I will endure that? Do you think——" Here rage choked her speech, and she ended in incoherency, half laugh, half sob, and all hysterical.
I was sorry she stopped at that point. The more she told me the easier would be my choice of policy. From what she said I gathered this was another of the pledges made under the fear of Devinsky's sword.
"You know perfectly well that Olga is exceedingly difficult to coerce—
"Bah! Don't talk to me of difficulties. You would be frightened by a fool's bladder and call it difficulties. I suppose you shaved your beard and moustache because they were difficulties, eh? Difficulties, perhaps, in the way of getting out of Moscow unrecognised on the eve of a fight? You know what I mean, eh?"
For a moment I half thought she, or the police agents of her husband might have guessed the truth, and this made me hesitate in my reply.
"Did you think I was afraid to kill Major Devinsky, or ashamed to let it be known that I am the best swordsman in the regiment?"
"Why have you never told me that?" she cried with feminine inconsequence. "I don't understand you, Alexis. You want me one day to get this man assassinated because you say you know he can run you through the body just as he pleases, and you promise me the friendship of your sister if I will do it; and yet the very next, you go out and meet him and he has not a chance with you. But why did you do it? I have heard of it all. Did you want to try me?"
I thanked her mentally for that cue.
"At all events two things are clear now," I said. "I did not want to get out of Moscow for fear of Devinsky, and you would not do that which I told you could alone save my life. You did not think my life worth saving." I spoke very coldly and deliberately.
"So that is it?" she cried, with a quick return of her rage. "You insult me before all Moscow because I will not be a murderess—your hired assassin."
It was an excellent situation. If I had devised it myself, I could not have arranged it more deftly, I thought.
I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing; but the silence and the gesture were more expressive than many words.
My visitor tore off the veil she had worn till now, and throwing herself into a chair looked at me as though trying to read my innermost thoughts: while I was trying to read hers and was more than half suspicious that she might see enough to let her jump at the truth.
But a rapid reflection shewed me I should be wise to use the means she herself had supplied, as an excuse for the change in me toward her. It was dangerous, of course, to set at defiance a woman of her manifest force of character and in her position; but in attempting to continue even an innocent intrigue with her there was equal danger.
She remained silent a long time, considering as it seemed to me, how she should prevent my breaking away from her. She was a clever woman, and now that the first outburst of emotion was over, she abandoned all hysterical display and resolved, as her words soon proved, to appeal to my fears rather than to any old love.
She laughed very softly and musically when she spoke next.
"So you think you can do as you will with me, Alexis?"
"On the contrary," I replied, quite as gently and with an answering smile. "I have no wish to have anything at all to do with you."
"Yet you loved me once," she murmured, the involuntary closing of her eyelids being the only sign of the pain my brutal words caused.
"The sweetest things in life are the memories of the past, Paula. If you really loved me as you said, it will be something for you to remember that while you prized my life, you held my love."
"A man would starve on the memory of yesterday's dinner."
"True; or hope that somebody else will give him even a more satisfying meal."
"You could always turn a woman's phrases, Alexis."
"And you a man's head, Paula."
"Bah! I have not come here to cap phrases."
"Yet there can be little else than phrases between us for the future. You have shewn me what store you set on my life."
"Did you think I could love you if you were such a coward that you dared not fight a duel?"
"You thought I dared not when you refused to help me."
"You said you dared not. But do you think I believed you? Could I believe so meanly of the man I loved?"
"You discussed the matter as if you believed it," said I; making a leap in the dark and blundering badly.
"Discussed it? What do you mean? With whom? Do you think I am mad? I sat down at once and answered your mad letter in the only way it could be answered."
Great Heavens! I had apparently been fool enough in my desperate cowardice to actually write the proposal. The letter itself, if she dared to use it, spelt certain ruin.
"Well, you answered the test your own way, and...." I shrugged my shoulders as a suggestive end to the sentence.
She paused a moment looking thoughtfully at me. Then knitting her brows, she asked:
"What is the real meaning of this change, Alexis? Do try for once to be frank. You have always half a dozen secret meanings. You have boasted of this in regard to others—perhaps because you were afraid to do anything else."
"Are you a judge of my fears? I think I have already shewn you that that which I led you to believe frightened me most had in reality no terrors at all for me."
"One thing I know you are afraid of—to break with me." This came with a flash of impetuous anger, bursting out in spite of her efforts at self-restraint.
I smiled.
"We shall see. I have not broken with you. It is you who have broken with me. How often have you not sworn to me," I cried passionately, making another shot—"that there was nothing upon this earth that you would not do if I only asked you? What value should I now set on a broken love-vow?"
"Had I thought you were even in danger, I would have dared even that, Alexis, dangerous and desperate as you know such a hazard must be." She spoke now with a depth of tone that was eloquent of feeling. "What I told you is true—and you know it. There is nothing I will not do for you. Bid me do it now to shew you my earnestness. Shall I leave my husband?—I will do it. Shall I tell the world of Moscow the tale of my love?—I will do it. Nay, bid me strip myself and walk naked through the streets of the city, calling on your name and proclaiming my love—and I will do it with a smile, glorying in my shame because it brings you to me and me to you—never to part again."
This flood of passion spoken with such earnestness as I had never heard from the lips of woman before was almost more than I could endure to hear without telling the truth to her. It abashed me, and the story of the deception I was practising on her rose to my lips: but before I could speak she had resumed, and her wonderful voice had a power such as I cannot describe. It seemed to compel sympathy; and as it became the vehicle for every varying phase of feeling it almost raised an echo of feeling in me.
"You don't know the fire you have kindled; you don't dream of its volcanic fierceness. I do not think I myself knew it until last night when you turned from me in silence and coldness, as though, my God! as though your lips had never rested on mine, or mine on yours, in pledge of delirious passion. Ah me! You cannot act like this, Alexis. It was you who warmed into life the love that burns in me, and it is not yours to quench. You must not, cannot, aye—and dare not do it. You know this. Come, say that all this is just your pique, your temper, your whim, your test, your anything; and that all is still between us as it must always be—always, Alexis, always."
If I had been the man she thought I was, I cannot but believe she would have prevailed with me. The seductiveness of her manner, her absolute self abandonment, and the plain and unmistakable proof of her love, were enough to touch any man placed as he would have been.
But I had nothing to prompt my kinder impulses. She was only a stranger: infinitely beautiful, passionate, and melting: but yet nothing more than a stranger. And I had no answering passion to be fired by her glances, her pleas, and her love. She was a hindrance to me; and I was only conscious that I was in a way compelled to act the part of a cad in listening to her and cheating her. And I could only remain silent.
She read my silence for obstinacy, and then began to shew the nature of the power she held over me. I was glad of this; as it seemed to give me a sort of justification for my action. It was an attack; and I had to defend myself.
"You do not answer me. You are cold, moody, silent—and yet not unmoved. I wonder of what you are thinking. Yet there can be but one burden of your thoughts. You are mine, Alexis, mine; always, till death—as you have sworn often enough. And after your bravery I love you more than ever. I love a brave man, Alexis. Every brave man. I would give them the kiss of honour. And that you are the bravest of them all is to me the sweetest of knowledge. Yesterday, when I heard how you had humbled that bully, I could do naught but thrill with pride every time I thought of it. It was my Alexis who had done it. Won't you kiss me once as I kissed you a thousand times in thought yesterday? No? Well, you will before I go. And then I began to think how glad I was that I had made it impossible for you ever to think of giving me up. I know you are brave;—but even the bravest men shudder at the whisper of Siberia."
She paused to give this time to work its effect.
"I wonder how other women love; whether, like me, they think it fair to weave a net round the man they love, strong enough to hold the strongest, wide enough to reach to the Poles, and yet fine enough to be unseen?" She laughed. "I have done this with you, sweetheart. You know how often you have asked me for information and I have got it for you—you have wanted it for the Nihilists. Knowing this I have given it and—you have used it. Once or twice you have told them what was not true, and now you are suspected and in some danger of your life. But you are guarded also and watched. Two days ago you were at the railway station in private clothes and with your dear face shaven; you were trying to leave Moscow. But you probably saw the uselessness of the attempt and gave it up. Had you really tried, you would have been stopped. Do you think you can hope to escape from me? Do you think you can break through the net-work of the most wonderful police system the world ever knew? Psh! Do not dream of it. Moscow is a fine, large, splendid city. But Moscow is also a prison; and the man who would seek to break out of it, but dashes his breast against the drawn sword of implacable authority."
"You have a pleasant humour, and a light touch in your methods of wooing," said I, bitterly. She had made a great impression on me.
"The wooing is complete, Alexis. It was your work. I do but guard against being deceived. Escape from Moscow being hopeless for you, you have only to remember that a word from me in my husband's ear will open for you the dumb horrid mouth of a Russian dungeon which will either close on you for ever, or let you out branded, disgraced, and manacled to start on the long hopeless march to Siberia."
I had rather admired the woman before; now I began to hate her. I could not fail to see the truth behind her words; and a flash of inspiration shewed me now that the safest course I could take was to shake off the character I had so lightly assumed. But her next words bared the impossibility of that.
"Do you think now it is safe to break away from me? But that is not all. There is another consideration. You have drawn your sister into these Nihilist snares. You know how she is compromised. I know it too. There are more dungeons than one in Russia. If you were in one, I would see to it that she, who has scorned and flouted and insulted me, was in another; with her chance also of a jaunt across the plains." The flippancy of this last phrase was a measure of her hate.
The thought of the poor girl's danger beat me. What this woman said was all true—damnably, horribly, sickeningly true.
"Have you planned all this?" I asked, when I could bring myself to speak calmly.
"No, no, Heaven forbid. I had not a thought of it in all my heart; not a thought, save of love and a desire to shield you from any real danger that threatened you, till,"—and her voice changed suddenly—"yesterday, when you loosed all the torrents that can flow from a jealous woman's heart. I am a woman; but I am a Russian."
She was lying now, for she was contradicting what she had said just before.
"My sister's fate is nothing to me," I said, callously. "She has made her bed, let her lie on it. But as for myself"—I had but one possible to seem to yield—"I care nothing. I am not the coward you once thought me, and my meeting with Devinsky shews you that clearly enough. But I doubted your love when I found you did not answer to the test I made."
"You do not doubt it now. I am here at the risk of my life; at the risk of both our lives," she said, her eyes aflame with feeling as she hung on my deliberately spoken words.
"This morning has been a further test, and I should not be a sane man if I doubted you now, or ever again."
"Then kiss me, Alexis."
She sprang from her chair and threw herself into my arms, loading me with wild tempestuous caresses, like a woman distraught with passion.
I hated myself even while I endured it; and nothing would have made me play so loathesome and repugnant a part but the thought that Olga's safety demanded it.
She was still clinging about me, calling me by my name, caressing me, upbraiding me for my coldness, and chiding me for having put her to such a test, when a loud knock at the door of the room disturbed us both.
It was my discreet servant Borlas; the loudness of his knock being the measure of his discretion.
He said that my sister was waiting to see me.
I was not a little annoyed that so soon after Olga had warned me against the wiles of Paula Tueski, she should come just when my most unwelcome lover was in my rooms—and at such a moment. But I thrust aside my irritation—which was not against Olga—and went to her, curious to learn what had brought her to visit me.
She told me in a few sentences. A friend had been to warn her that I was in danger from the Nihilists and that unless I took the greatest care, I should be assassinated. The poor girl was all pale and agitated with alarm on my account, and had rushed off to hand the warning on to me. She was half hysterical. She wanted me to fly at once, to claim the protection of the British Consulate; to proclaim my identity and get away even before my passport came from her brother.
"There is not the danger you fear, Olga," I said, reassuringly. "I shall find means to avoid it. But I want to speak to you about another matter. Paula Tueski is here"—my sister shrank back and looked at me with a hard expression on her face such as I had not seen there in all our talks. Evidently she hated the woman cordially. "You are right in your estimate of her in one respect, and for the moment she has beaten me. Much as I dislike the business, we must manage to blind her eyes and tie her hands for the moment—or I for one see none but bad business ahead."
"How comes she to be here?" asked Olga, in a voice of suppressed anger.
"I will tell you all that another time," I answered, speaking hurriedly and in a very low tone. "Another point has occurred to me. She is very bitter against you and has been urging your brother to get you to receive her. This was to have been done last night. My apparent refusal to speak to her at all came as a crowning insult, and she was mad. There is one way in which I think we might the more easily deceive her, if you can bring yourself to do it. Come in now and let me present her to you: or let me go and tell her that you will call on her."
"Will it make things safer for you?" she asked, always thinking of the trouble into which she would persist in saying she had brought me.
"It would make them safer for you, I think."
"I care nothing for myself. She can't harm me. Do you wish it? Do you think it desirable? I will do it if you say yes." She spoke so earnestly that I smiled... Then she added:—"Ah, it is so good to have someone that I can trust. That's why I leave it to you."
"I don't wish it," I answered, gravely, "because she is the reverse of a good woman, but I do think it would be prudent."
"Let's go to her at once," cried the girl, getting up from her chair readily. "We can talk afterwards. That's the one privilege...." she checked herself and then coloured slightly. I pretended not to notice it; but this absolute confidence pleased me not a little.
"Bear in mind, we are only playing a part with this woman," I whispered.
"I know. She is too dangerous for me ever to forget that, or to play badly." She dashed a glance of quick understanding at me and then seemed to change suddenly into a Russian grande dame. An indescribable air of distinction manifested itself in a hundred little signs, and she carried herself like a stately duchess, as we entered the room where Paula Tueski sat waiting impatiently.
A great glad light of triumph leapt into the latter's eyes as she saw Olga was with me, and she, too, drew herself up as I made the two formally known to each other. It was a delightful bit of comedy. Olga was full of quite stately regrets that she had not had the pleasure of knowing the other long before: said that her brother's friends were, of course, her friends; and that she hoped to call that week on Madame Tueski and that Madame would find an opportunity of returning the visit speedily. She made such an appearance of unbending to the other, that the difference between them was all the more pronounced.
Madame Tueski on her side was too full of the seeming triumph over us to be able to be natural with my sister; and she alternately gushed and froze as she first tried to captivate and then would remember that Olga was only consenting through compulsion to know her. The result was as ridiculous as an episode could be beneath which lurked such possibilities of tragedy.
It lasted only a few minutes when I suggested, and I had a purpose, that the two should leave the house together. I wished to get rid of Paula Tueski without further love-making: and desired in addition that if there were any spies about the house they should see the two together, so that if any tales were carried to the Chief of the Police they should be innocent ones.
"I will call later in the day if possible," I promised Olga, as she left.
"Ugh, how I hate her;" was the whispered reply, inconsequential but very feminine. And I shut the door on the two and went back to my room to think out this new set of most complicated problems.
Paula Tueski's visit had changed everything; and I saw it would be foolish not to look that fact straight in the face. I could not see how things would end; but certainly flight, for the time, was simply impossible. For myself, I did not much care. I had had a few hours of excitement which had completely drawn me out of the morbid mood in which I had arrived in Moscow; and nothing had happened to make me much more anxious to live than I had been then.
Life might have been endurable enough, if I could have gone on with my army career as Lieutenant Petrovitch; but not if the abominable and disgraceful intrigue were to be added as a necessary condition. That would be unendurable: and had I been a free agent, I would have ended the whole thing there and then, by admitting the deception and putting up with the results. Indeed, it occurred to me that in a country like Russia, where I knew that courage stood for much and military skill for more, the reputation I had managed to make would be likely enough to tell in my favour if I told the truth and asked leave to volunteer.
But was I a free agent?
Look at the thing as I would I could see no means by which I could get out of the mess, even taking my punishment, without leaving my sister in deep trouble. If Paula Tueski found that I had humbugged her and that Olga was in the plot, it was as plain as a gallows that she would be simply mad and would wreak her spite on the girl.
Could I leave Olga to this? The words of confidence she had spoken were still echoing in my ears—and very pleasant music they made—and could I quietly save my own skin and leave her in the lurch? It was not likely that I should do anything of the sort; and I didn't entertain it for a moment as a possibility. The girl had trusted to me; and I must make her safety the first consideration of any plan I formed.
But how?
I could see only one way. It was that she should get out of Moscow, and indeed out of Russia altogether. It was not probable that the woman Tueski would place any obstacle in the way, provided I did not attempt to leave as well; and I came to the conclusion that the best possible course would be for Olga to take her departure at once. She could go and join her brother in Paris, or wherever he had gone; and then I could carry on alone the play, farce, burlesque, comedy, or tragedy, as it might prove.
It was early evening before I could get round to see Olga, and then I had to spend some time with her aunt, the Countess Palitzin, an ugly, garrulous and dyspeptic old lady, who wanted to hear all about the Devinsky business over again: and then went on to tell me of some famous duels that had happened in her young days.
I observed that Olga was very thoughtful during the interview with the aunt, but as soon as we were alone she put her hand into mine and with a look that spoke deep feeling and pleasure, said:—
"You could have done nothing that would have better pleased me—nothing could shew so clearly that you understand me better than anyone ever did before. I have seen the girl and listened to her story and questioned her. I think there is yet good in her and I am convinced she tells the truth. She longs to be separated from her dreadful father...."
"He leaves for Kursk to-morrow," I said.
"Good. Then I will make the care of the others my charge. I don't do much that is useful; and if I can make that life happier and give the child the chance of growing up to be a good Russian, I shall have done something. What say you?"
She seemed more admirable than ever in my eyes for this; but I hesitated a moment what to say; and she, quick to read my looks, added, her own features taking a reflection of my doubts:—
"But of course that is all subject to your opinion. Is there anything else you think better? But I should like this very much:" and a smile broke over her face.
"The plan is excellent; but there is a difficulty, unless you can make your arrangements at once and permanently, or at any rate for a considerable time ahead. Or you might perhaps better arrange for the mother and child to leave Russia."
The girl looked perplexed; and fifty little notes of interrogation crinkled in her forehead and shot from her eyes.
"There is something behind that, of course," she said. "What is it?"
"I think it would be the best plan if you yourself were to go away on a little tour. You have had the idea of leaving Russia, you know, and going to your brother as soon as he has made a home in Paris, or wherever he stops."
"Well?" when I paused.
"Bluntly, I think you would be safer across the frontier;" and I told her at some length my reasons.
"But what of you? Do you think I do not wish to share the success which my brother is enjoying here? Or are you thinking of leaving Russia also?" By a swift turn of the head she prevented me from seeing her face as she asked this.
I laughed as I answered lightly:—"No. The state of my health, combined with regimental duties, social engagements, Nihilistic contracts, and other complications render it a little difficult to leave at present."
The girl did not laugh, however, but kept her face turned from me; and I could not help admiring the poise of the head and the graceful outline it made against the grey evening light falling on her from the window.
She seemed so much more womanly than the laughing girl I had met first on the Moscow platform, and it was difficult to think that so short a time had passed since then. I filled up the long pause during which she appeared to be making up her mind what answer to give me, by thinking what a pleasant sister she was and how sorry I should be to lose her.
"Well?" I asked, when the pause had lasted a very long time.
"I am very much obliged to you for your advice," she said, turning round and looking coldly at me, and speaking in a formal precise tone; "but I find myself unable to take advantage of it. I cannot conveniently leave Moscow just now." Then just when I was at a loss to know how I had offended her, she changed suddenly. She stamped her foot quite angrily, a flush of indignation reddened her cheeks and her eyes flashed as she looked at me and cried:—"And I thought you understood me! Do you think we Petrovitch's are all cowards? And that I am like Alexis, having got you into this fearful trouble would run away and leave you to get out of it alone?" For an instant she struggled with her emotion. Then she exclaimed: "It is an insult!" and bursting into tears she rushed out of the room.
I stared in blank amazement at the door after it had closed behind her, and wondering what it was all about, left the house in a medley of confused thoughts, in which regret for having in some clumsy way worried her and the consciousness that she was really a plucky girl intermingled themselves with the memory of how pretty she had looked in her emotional indignation. The thought of her tears, and that I had caused them, gave me the worst twinges, however; and this kept recurring and bothering me during the whole evening.
At the club, where I went from Olga's house, I was careful to maintain the same part as on the previous day: the character of a stern, reserved, observant man, moody but very resolute and determined. Not a sign of the bully nor a symptom of braggadocio: but just the kind of man who, while quite willing to let others take their own way in life, means to take his. Unready to force a quarrel, but equally unready to pass over a slight; and relentless if involved.
This was pretty much my own character, with some of the dash and life pressed out of it; and it was easy enough for me to maintain it. That night I played a little. I knew I had formerly been a pretty heavy gambler; but to-night I purposely stopped short in the full tide of winning. I had lost at first, and the luck turned with a rush, as it will, and as soon as I had pulled back my losses I stopped, to the astonishment of all who had been accustomed to find in me a heavy plunger.
"You'll be donning the cowl, next, Petrovitch, and preaching self-denial," said one, a handsome laughing youngster who had been bemoaning his own losses a minute before.
"A good thing for the Turks, if he does it before the war," said another subaltern.
Some others chimed in, and it was easy to see from the drift of the talk how genuine was the turn in the tide of opinion about me.
I left the club and wanting fresh air while I thought over matters I went for a short walk. I knew the City pretty well, of course, owing to my long residence there; and the changes since I had left were not very considerable.
Walking thoughtfully down one of the broad streets I became conscious that I was being followed. I had had a similar sensation before; but what Paula Tueski had told me about being watched and guarded, and the warning that Olga had given me now caused me to attach more importance to the matter.
It is one of the most hateful sensations I know, to feel that one's footsteps are being dogged by a spy. I turned round sharply several times, and each time noticed a man at some distance behind me trying to slip out of sight. He was clever at his business, and several feints I made in the attempt to shake him off failed. But I escaped him at length in the great Church of St Martin. Everyone knows the many outlets of that enormous pile. It has as many entrances as a rabbit warren, and most of them are nearly always open. I went in by one door and left instantly by another, and running off at top speed, I was out of sight before the spy could well know I had left the building. I seemed to breathe more freely as soon as I had shaken the fellow off.
I stayed out some time, renewing my acquaintance with several parts of the city; and it was late when I reached home—so late that the streets were deserted.
This fact nearly cost me my life.
I was passing a narrow street when, without the slightest warning—though I cannot doubt that in some way my approach had been signalled—four men rushed out on me with drawn knives. By mere chance their first rush did not prove fatal; for two of them who struck at me came so close, that the knives gashed my clothes.
But when they missed their chance, I did not give them another. I sprang aside, whipped out my sword, sent up a lusty cry for help that made the houses ring again, and set my back against the wall to sell my life as dearly as I could. They closed round me and attacked instantly; a swift lunge sent my blade through one of them, a swinging cut made another drop his knife with a great cry of pain, and an unexpected, but tremendously violent back-handed blow with the hilt of my sword right in the face sent a third down reeling and half senseless.