“Why have you given up your inventions, Nicolai Leontievitch?” I said to him, suddenly turning round upon him.
“My inventions?” he repeated, seeming very startled at that.
“Yes, your inventions.”
“No, no. … Understand, I have no more use for them. There are other things now to think about—more important things.”
“But you were getting on with them so well?”
“No—not really. I was deceiving myself as I have often deceived myself before. Alexei showed me that. He told me that they were no good—”
“But I thought that he encouraged you?”
“Yes—at first—only at first. Afterwards he saw into them more clearly; he changed his mind. I think he was only intending to be kind. A strange man … a strange man. …”
“A very strange man. Don’t you let him influence you, Nicholas Markovitch.”
“Influence me? Do you think he does that?” He suddenly came close to me, catching my arm.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen you often together.”
“Perhaps he does … Mojet bweet … You may be right. I don’t know—I don’t know what I feel about him at all. Sometimes he seems to me very kind; sometimes I’m frightened of him, sometimes”—here he dropped his voice—“he makes me very angry, so angry that I lose control of myself—a despicable thing … a despicable thing … just as I used to feel about the old man to whom I was secretary. I nearly murdered him once. In the middle of the night I thought suddenly of his stomach, all round and white and shining. It was an irresistible temptation to plunge a knife into it. I was awake for hours thinking of it. Every man has such hours. … At the same time Alexei can be very kind.”
“How do you mean—kind?” I asked.
“For instance he has some very good wine—fifty bottles at least—he has given it all to us. Then he insists on paying us for his food. He is a generous-spirited man. Money is nothing to us—”
“Don’t you drink his wine,” I said.
Nicholas was instantly offended.
“What do you mean, Ivan Andreievitch? Not drink his wine? Am I an infant? Can I not look after myself?—Blagadaryoo Vas. … I am more than ten years old.” He took his hand away from my arm.
“No, I didn’t mean that at all,” I assured him. “Of course not—only you told me not long ago that you had given up wine altogether. That’s why I said what I did.”
“So I have! So I have!” he eagerly assured me. “But Easter’s a time for rejoicing … Rejoicing!”—his voice rose suddenly shrill and scornful—“rejoicing with the world in the state that it is. Truly, Ivan Andreievitch, I don’t wonder at Alexei’s cynicism. I don’t indeed. The world is a sad spectacle for an observant man.” He suddenly put his hand through my arm, so close to me now that I could feel his beating heart. “But you believe, don’t you, Ivan Andreievitch, that Russia now has found herself?” His voice became desperately urgent and beseeching. “You must believe that. You don’t agree with those fools who don’t believe that she will make the best of all this? Fools? Scoundrels! Scoundrels! That’s what they are. I must believe in Russia now or I shall die. And so with all of us. If she does not rise now as one great country and lead the world, she will never do so. Our hearts must break. But she will … she will! No one who is watching events can doubt it. Only cynics like Alexei doubt—he doubts everything. And he cannot leave anything alone. He must smear everything with his dirty finger. But he must leave Russia alone … I tell him. …”
He broke off. “If Russia fails now,” he spoke very quietly, “my life is over. I have nothing left. I will die.”
“Come, Nicolai Leontievitch,” I said, “you mustn’t let yourself go like that. Life isn’t over because one is disappointed in one’s country. And even though one is disappointed one does not love the less. What’s friendship worth if every disappointment chills one’s affection? One loves one’s country because she is one’s country, not because she’s disappointing. …” And so I went on with a number of amiable platitudes, struggling to comfort him somewhere, and knowing that I was not even beginning to touch the trouble of his soul.
He drew very close to me, his fingers gripping my sleeve—“I’ll tell you, Ivan Andreievitch—but you mustn’t tell anybody else. I’m afraid. Yes, I am. Afraid of myself, afraid of this town, afraid of Alexei, although that must seem strange to you. Things are very bad with me, Ivan Andreievitch. Very bad, indeed. Oh! I have been disappointed! yes, I have. Not that I expected anything else. But now it has come at last, the blow that I have always feared has fallen—a very heavy blow. My own fault, perhaps, I don’t know. But I’m afraid of myself. I don’t know what I may do. I have such strange dreams—Why has Alexei come to stay with us?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Then, thank God, we reached the church. It was only as we went up the steps that I realised that he had never once mentioned Vera.
VIII
And yet with all our worries thick upon us it was quite impossible to resist the sweetness and charm and mystery of that service.
I think that perhaps it is true, as many have said, that people did not crowd to the churches on that Easter as they had earlier ones, but our church was a small one, and it seemed to us to be crammed. We stumbled up the dark steps, and found ourselves at the far end of the very narrow nave. At the other end there was a pool of soft golden light in which dark figures were bathed mysteriously. At the very moment of our entering, the procession was passing down the nave on its way round the outside of
