At seven o’clock, all talk, all action ceased. Faces set, white and still, fixed on the heavy folding-door. When it creaked every figure became a statue, a death-statue, stone-livid, breathless, dead in life. A moment of ghastly, intolerable suspense, a silence that could be felt, and in the silence—a name. And when the name was spoken, every figure—but one—would imperceptibly relapse. Here and there a lip would twitch, here and there a smile would flicker. But no one would break the dead silence. One of their number was doomed.
The figure that bore the spoken name would rise, and move, move slowly with a wooden, unnatural gait, tottering along the narrow aisle between the plank couches. Some would look up and some would look down; some, fascinated, would watch the dead figure pass; and some would pray, or mutter, “Tomorrow, maybe, I.” Or there would be a frantic shriek, a brutal struggle, and worse than Death would fill the chamber, till where two were, one only would be left, heaving convulsively, insane, clutching the rough woodwork with bleeding nails.
But the silence was the silence of supreme compassion, the eyes that followed or the eyes that fell were alike those of brothers or sisters, for in death’s hour vanish all differences and there reigns the only true Communism—the Communism of Sympathy. Not there, in the Kremlin, nor there in the lying soviets—but here in the terrible house of inquisition, in the Communist dungeons, is true Communism at last established!
But on this December afternoon the terror-hour was not yet. There were still three hours’ respite, and the figures spoke low in groups or sat silently waiting, waiting, endlessly waiting.
Then suddenly a name was called. “Lydia Marsh!”
The hinges creaked, the guard appeared in the doorway, and the name was spoken loud and clearly. “It is not the terror-hour yet,” thought every woman, glancing at the twilight through the high, dirt-stained windows.
A figure rose from a distant couch. “What can it be?” “Another interrogation?” “An unusual hour!” Low voices sounded from the group. “They’ve left me alone three days,” said the rising figure, wearily. “I suppose now it begins all over again. Well, à bientôt.”
The figure disappeared in the doorway, and the women went on waiting—waiting for seven o’clock.
“Follow me,” said the guard. He moved along the corridor and turned down a side-passage. They passed others in the corridor, but no one heeded. The guard stopped. Looking up, the woman saw she was outside the women’s lavatory. She waited. The guard pointed with his bayonet.
“In here?” queried the figure in surprise. The guard was silent. The woman pushed the door open and entered.
Lying in the corner were a dark green shawl and a shabby hat, with two slips of paper attached. One of them was a pass in an unknown name, stating that the holder had entered the building at four o’clock and must leave before seven. The other had scrawled on it the words: “Walk straight into St. Isaac’s Cathedral.”
Mechanically she destroyed the second slip, adjusted the shabby hat, and wrapping the shawl well round her neck and face passed out into the passage. She elbowed others in the corridor, but no one heeded her. At the foot of the main staircase she was asked for her pass. She showed it and was motioned on. At the main entrance she was again asked for her pass. She showed it and was passed out into the street. She looked up and down. The street was empty, and crossing the road hurriedly she disappeared round the corner.
Like dancing constellations the candles flickered and flared in front of the icons at the foot of the huge pillars of the vast cathedral. Halfway up the columns vanished in gloom. I had already burned two candles, and though I was concealed in the niche of a pillar, I knelt and stood alternately, partly from impatience, partly that my piety should be patent to any chance observer. But my eyes were fixed on the little wooden side-entrance. How interminable the minutes seemed.
A quarter to five! Then the green shawl appeared. It looked almost black in the dim darkness. It slipped through the doorway quickly, stood still a moment, and moved irresolutely forward. I walked up to the shrouded figure.
“Mrs. Marsh?” I said quietly in English.
“Yes.”
“I am the person you are to meet. I hope you will soon see your husband.”
“Where is he?” she asked, anxiously.
“In Finland. You go there with me tonight.”
We left the cathedral and crossing the square took a cab and drove to the place called Five Corners. Here we walked a little and finding another cab drove near to “No. 5,” again walking the last hundred yards. I banged at the door three times.
How shall I describe the meeting with Maria! I left them weeping together and went into another room. Neither will I attempt to describe the parting, when an hour later Mrs. Marsh stood ready for her journey, clad in the cloak we had purchased in the morning, and with a black shawl in place of the green one.
“There is no time to lose,” I said. “We must be at the station at seven, and it is a long drive.”
The adieus were over at last, and Maria stood weeping at the door as we made our way down the dark stone stairs.
“I will call you Varvara,” I cautioned my companion. “You call me Vania, and if by chance we are stopped, I am taking you to hospital.”
We drove slowly to the distant straggling Okhta station, where lately I had watched the huge figure of Marsh clamber on to the roof and disappear through the window. The little Policeman was on the platform, sincerely overjoyed at this happy ending to his design. I forgot his ways, his dirtiness, his messy quarters, and thanked him heartily, and as I thrust the packet of money
