With a sweep of colour the stage broke into a mist of movement. Masked and hooded figures in purple and gold and blue and red danced madly off into a forest of stinking, sodden leaves and trees as thin as tissue-paper burnt by the sun. “Oh—aye! oh—aye! oh—aye!” came from the wounded, and the dancers answered, “Tra-la-la-la! Tra-la-la-la,’ ” The golden screens were drawn forward, the lights were up again, and the whole theatre was stirring like a coloured paper ant heap.
Outside in the foyer I found Lawrence at my elbow.
“Go and see her,” he whispered to me, “as soon as possible! Tell her—tell her—no, tell her nothing. But see that she’s all right and let me know. See her tomorrow—early!”
I could say nothing to him, for the Baron had joined us.
“Good night! Good night! A most delightful evening! … Most amusing! … No, thank you, I shall walk!”
“Come and see us,” said the Baroness, smiling.
“Very soon,” I answered. I little knew that I should never see either of them again.
III
I awoke that night with a sudden panic that I must instantly see Vera. I, even in the way that one does when, one is only half awake, struggled out of bed and felt for my clothes. Then I remembered and climbed back again, but sleep would not return to me. The self-criticism and self-distrust that were always attacking me and paralysing my action sprang upon me now and gripped me. What was I to do? How was I to act? I saw Vera and Nina and Lawrence and, behind them, smiling at me, Semyonov. They were asking for my help, but they were, in some strange, intangible way, most desperately remote. When I read now in our papers shrill criticisms on our officials, our Cabinet, our generals, our propagandists, our merchants, for their failure to deal adequately with Russia, I say: Deal adequately? First you must catch your bird … and no Western snare has ever caught the Russian bird of paradise, and I dare prophesy that no Western snare ever will. Had I not broken my heart in the pursuit, and was I not as far as ever from attainment? The secret of the mystery of life is the isolation that separates every man from his fellow—the secret of dissatisfaction too; and the only purpose in life is to realise that isolation, and to love one’s fellow-man because of it, and to show one’s own courage, like a flag to which the other travellers may wave their answer; but we Westerners have at least the waiting comfort of our discipline, of our materialism, of our indifference to ideas. The Russian, I believe, lives in a world of loneliness peopled only by ideas. His impulses towards self-confession, towards brotherhood, towards vice, towards cynicism, towards his belief in God and his scorn of Him, come out of this world; and beyond it he sees his fellow-men as trees walking, and the Mountain of God as a distant peak, placed there only to emphasise his irony.
I had wanted to be friends with Nina and Vera—I had even longed for it—and now at the crisis when I must rise and act they were so far away from me that I could only see them, like coloured ghosts, vanishing into mist.
I would go at once and see Vera and there do what I could. Lawrence must return to England—then all would be well. Markovitch must be persuaded. … Nina must be told. … I slept and tumbled into a nightmare of a pursuit, down endless streets, of flying figures.
Next day I went to Vera. I found her, to my joy, alone. I realised at once that our talk would be difficult. She was grave and severe, sitting back in her chair, her head up, not looking at me at all, but beyond through the window to the tops of the trees feathery with snow against the sky of eggshell blue. I am always beaten by a hostile atmosphere. Today I was at my worst, and soon we were talking like a couple of the merest strangers.
She asked me whether I had heard that there were very serious disturbances on the other side of the river.
“I was on the Nevski early this afternoon,” I said, “and I saw about twenty Cossacks go galloping down towards the Neva. I asked somebody and was told that some women had broken into the bakers’ shops on Vassily Ostrov. …”
“It will end as they always end,” said Vera. “Some arrests and a few people beaten, and a policeman will get a medal.”
There was a long pause. “I went to Masquerade the other night,” I said.
“I hear it’s very good. …”
“Pretentious and rather vulgar—but amusing all the same.”
“Everyone’s talking about it and trying to get seats. …”
“Yes. Meyerhold must be pleased.”
“They discuss it much more than they do the war, or even politics. Everyone’s tired of the war.”
I said nothing. She continued:
“So I suppose we shall just go on for years and years. … And then the Empress herself will be tired one day and it will suddenly stop.” She showed a flash of interest, turning to me and looking at me for the first time since I had come in.
“Ivan Andreievitch, what do you stay in Russia for? Why don’t you go back to England?”
I was taken by surprise. I stammered, “Why do I stay? Why, because—because I like it.”
“You can’t like it. There’s nothing to like in Russia.”
“There’s everything!” I answered. “And I have friends here,” I added. But she didn’t answer that, and continued to sit staring out at the trees. We talked a little more about nothing at all, and then there was another long pause. At last I could endure it no longer, I jumped to my feet.
“Vera Michailovna,”
