“By the way,” said Zorinsky, “it is lucky you have come today. A certain Colonel H. is coming in this evening. He works on the General Staff and has interesting news. Trotsky is planning to come up to Petrograd.”
Elena Ivanovna was in a bad mood because a lot of sugar that had been promised to her and her colleagues had failed to arrive and she had been unable to make cakes for two days.
“You must excuse the bad dinner tonight, Pavel Ivanitch,” she said. “I had intended to have chocolate pudding for you, but as it is there will be no third course. Really, the way we are treated is outrageous.”
“Your health, Pavel Ivanitch,” said Zorinsky, undismayed by the prospect of no third course. “Here we have something better even than chocolate pudding, haven’t we?”
He talked on volubly in his usual strain, harping back again to prewar days and the pleasures of regimental life. I asked him if he thought most of the officers were still monarchists.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I expect you’ll find they are pretty evenly divided. Very few are socialists, but a lot think themselves republicans. Some, of course, are monarchists, and many are nothing at all. As for me,” he continued, “when I joined my regiment I took the oath of allegiance to the Tsar.” (At the mention of the Tsar he stood upright and then sat down again, a gesture which astonished me, for it really seemed to be spontaneous and unfeigned.) “But I consider myself absolved and free to serve whom I will from the moment the Tsar signed the deed of abdication. At present I serve nobody. I will not serve Trotsky, but I will work with him if he offers a career. That is, if the Allies do not come into Petrograd. By the way,” he added, checking himself abruptly and obviously desirous of knowing, “do you think the Allies really will come—the English, for instance?”
“I have no idea.”
“Strange. Everyone here is sure of it. But that means nothing, of course. Listen in the queues or market places. Now Kronstadt has been taken, now the Allies are in Finland, and so on. Personally, I believe they will bungle everything. Nobody really understands Russia, not even we ourselves. Except, perhaps, Trotsky,” he added as an afterthought, “or the Germans.”
“The Germans, you think?”
“Surely. Prussianism is what we want. You see these fat-faced commissars in leathern jackets with three or four revolvers in their belts? or the sailors with gold watch-chains and rings, with their prostitutes promenading the Nevsky? Those rascals, I tell you, will be working inside of a year, working like hell, because if the Whites get here every commissar will be hanged, drawn and quartered. Somebody must work to keep things going. Mark my words, first the Bolsheviks will make their Communists work, they’ll give them all sorts of privileges and power, and then they’ll make the Communists make the others work. Forward the whip and knout! The good old times again! And if you don’t like it, kindly step this way to No. 2 Gorokhovaya! Ugh!” he shuddered. “No. 2 Gorokhovaya! Here’s to you, Pavel Ivanitch!”
Zorinsky drank heavily, but the liquor produced no visible effect on him.
“By the way,” he asked, abruptly, “you haven’t heard anything of Marsh, have you?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “he is in Finland.”
“What!” he cried, half rising from the table. He was livid.
“In Finland,” I repeated, regarding him with astonishment. “He got away the day before yesterday.”
“He got away—ha! ha! ha!” Zorinsky dropped back into his seat. His momentary expression changed as suddenly as it had appeared, and he burst into uproarious laughter. “Do you really mean to say so? Ha! ha! My God, won’t they be wild! Damned clever! Don’t you know they’ve been turning the place upside down to find him? Ha, ha, ha! Now that really is good news, upon my soul!”
“Why should you be so glad about it?” I inquired. “You seemed at first to—”
“I was astounded.” He spoke rapidly and a little excitedly. “Don’t you know Marsh was regarded as chief of allied organizations and a most dangerous man? But for some reason they were dead certain of catching him—dead certain. Haven’t they got his wife, or his mother, or somebody, as hostage?”
“His wife.”
“It’ll go badly with her,” he laughed cruelly.
It was my turn to be startled. “What do you mean?” I said, striving to appear indifferent.
“They will shoot her.”
It was with difficulty that I maintained a tone of mere casual interest. “Do you really think they will shoot her?” I said, incredulously.
“Sure to,” he replied, emphatically. “What else do they take hostages for?”
For the rest of the evening I thought of nothing else but the possibility of Mrs. Marsh being shot. The Policeman had said the direct opposite, basing his statement on what he said was inside information. On the other hand, why on earth should hostages be taken if they were to be liberated when the culprits had fled? I could elicit nothing more from Zorinsky except that in his opinion Mrs. Marsh might be kept in prison a month or two, but in the long run would most undoubtedly be shot.
I listened but idly to the colonel, a pompous gentleman with a bushy white beard, who came in after dinner. Zorinsky told him he might speak freely in my presence and, sitting bolt upright, he conversed in a rather ponderous manner on the latest developments. He appeared to have a high opinion of Zorinsky. He confirmed the latter’s statements regarding radical changes in the organization of the army, and said Trotsky was planning to establish a similar new regime in the Baltic Fleet. I was not nearly so attentive as I ought to have been, and had to ask the colonel to repeat it all to me at our next meeting.
Maria was the only person I took into
