Once before Marie had said those same words to me. It was as though I heard her voice again.
“I won’t fail you,” I said.
There was a knock on the door, it was flung open as though by the wind, and Nina was with us. Her face was rosy with the cold, her eyes laughed under her little round fur cap. She came running across the room, pulled herself up with a little cry beside the bed, and then flung herself upon me, throwing her arms around my neck and kissing me.
“My dear Nina!” cried Vera.
She looked up, laughing.
“Why not? Poor Durdles. Are you better? Biédnie … give me your hands. But—how cold they are! And there are draughts everywhere. I’ve brought you some chocolates—and a book.”
“My dear! …” Vera cried again. “He won’t like that,” pointing to a work of fiction by a modern Russian literary lady whose heart and brain are of the succulent variety.
“Why not? She’s very good. It’s lovely! All about impossible people! Durdles, dear! I’ll give up the party. We won’t go. We’ll sit here and entertain you. I’ll send Boris away. We’ll tell him we don’t want him.”
“Boris!” cried Vera.
“Yes,” Nina laughed a little uneasily, I thought. “I know you said he wasn’t to come. He’ll quarrel with Rozanov of course. But he said he would. And so how was one to prevent him? You’re always so tiresome, Vera. … I’m not a baby now, nor is Boris. If he wants to come he shall come.”
Vera stood away from us both. I could see that she was very angry. I had never seen her angry before.
“You know that it’s impossible, Nina,” she said. “You know that Rozanov hates him. And besides—there are other reasons. You know them perfectly well, Nina.”
Nina stood there pouting, tears were in her eyes.
“You’re unfair,” she said. “You don’t let me do anything. You give me no freedom, I don’t care for Boris, but if he wants to go he shall go. I’m grown up now. You have your Lawrence. Let me have my Boris.”
“My Lawrence?” asked Vera.
“Yes. You know that you’re always wanting him to come—always looking for him. I like him, too. I like him very much. But you never let me talk to him. You never—”
“Quiet, Nina.” Vera’s voice was trembling. Her face was sterner than I’d ever seen it. “You’re making me angry.”
“I don’t care how angry I make you. It’s true. You’re impossible now. Why shouldn’t I have my friends? I’ve nobody now. You never let me have anybody. And I like Mr. Lawrence—”
She began to sob, looking the most desolate figure.
Vera turned.
“You don’t know what you’ve said, Nina, nor how you’ve hurt. … You can go to your party as you please—”
And before I could stop her she was gone.
Nina turned to me a breathless, tearful face. She waited; we heard the door below closed.
“Oh, Durdles, what have I done?”
“Go after her! Stop her!” I said.
Nina vanished and I was alone. My room was intensely quiet.
XVII
They didn’t come to see me again together. Vera came twice, kind and good as always, but with no more confidences; and Nina once with flowers and fruit and a wild chattering tongue about the cinemas and Smyrnov, who was delighting the world at the Narodny Dom, and the wonderful performance of Lermontov’s Masquerade that was shortly to take place at the Alexander Theatre.
“Are you and Vera friends again?” I asked her.
“Oh yes! Why not?” And she went on, snapping a chocolate almond between her teeth—“The one at the Piccadilly is the best. It’s an Italian one, and there’s a giant in it who throws people all over the place, out of windows and everywhere. Ah! how lovely! … I wish I could go every night.”
“You ought to be helping with the war,” I said severely.
“Oh, I hate the war!” she answered. “We’re all terribly tired of it. Tanya’s given up going to the English hospital now, and is just meaning to be as gay as she can be; and Zinaida Fyodorovna had just come back from her Otriad on the Galician front, and she says it’s shocking there now—no food or dancing or anything. Why doesn’t everyone make peace?”
“Do you want the Germans to rule Russia?” I asked.
“Why not?” she said, laughing. “We can’t do it ourselves. We don’t care who does it. The English can do it if they like, only they’re too lazy to bother. The Germans aren’t lazy, and if they were here we’d have lots of theatres and cinematographs.”
“Don’t you love your country?” I asked.
“This isn’t our country,” she answered. “It just belongs to the Empress and Protopopoff.”
“Supposing it became your country and the Emperor went?”
“Oh, then it would belong to a million different people, and in the end no one would have anything. Can’t you see how they’d fight?” … She burst out laughing: “Boris and Nicholas and Uncle Alexei and all the others!”
Then she was suddenly serious.
“I know, Durdles, you consider that I’m so young and frivolous that I don’t think of anything serious. But I can see things like anyone else. Can’t you see that we’re all so disappointed with ourselves that nothing matters? We thought the war was going to be so fine—but now it’s just like the Japanese one, all robbery and lies—and we can’t do anything to stop it.”
“Perhaps some day someone will,” I said.
“Oh yes!” she answered scornfully, “men like Boris.”
After that she refused to be grave for a moment, danced about the room, singing, and finally vanished, a whirlwind of blue silk.
A week later I was out in the world again. That curious sense of excitement that had first come to me during the early days of my illness burnt now more fiercely than ever. I cannot say what it was exactly that I thought was going to happen.
