The Baroness was a large solid lady with a fine white bosom and strong white arms. Her face was homely and kind; I saw at once that she adored her husband; her placid smile carried beneath its placidity a tremulous anxiety that he should be pleased, and her mild eyes swam in the light of his encouragement. I was sure, however, that the calm and discipline that I felt in the things around me came as much from her domesticity as from his discipline. She was a fortunate woman in that she had attained the ambition of her life--to govern the household of a man whom she could both love and fear.

Lawrence came in, and we went through high folding doors into the dining-room. This room had dark-blue wall-paper, electric lights heavily shaded, and soft heavy carpets. The table itself was flooded with light--the rest of the room was dusk. I wondered as I looked about me why the Wilderlings had taken Lawrence as a paying guest. Before my visit I had imagined that they were poor, as so many of the better-cla.s.s Russians were, but here were no signs of poverty. I decided that.

Our dinner was good, and the wine was excellent. We talked, of course, politics, and the Baron was admirably frank.

"I won't disguise from you, M. Durward," he said, "that some of us watch your English effort at winning the heart of this country with sympathy, but also, if I am not offending you, with some humour. I'm not speaking only of your propaganda efforts. You've got, I know, one or two literary gentlemen here--a novelist, I think, and a professor and a journalist.

Well, soon you'll find them inefficient, and decide that you must have some commercial gentlemen, and then, disappointed with them, you'll decide for the military... and still the great heart of Russia will remain untouched."

"Yes," I said, "because your cla.s.s are determined that the peasant shall remain uneducated, and until he is educated he will be unable to approach any of us."

"Quite so," said the Baron smiling at me very cheerfully. "I perceive, M. Durward, that you are a democrat. So are we all, these days.... You look surprised, but I a.s.sure you that the good of the people in the interests of the people is the only thing for which any of us care. Only some of us know Russia pretty well, and we know that the Russian peasant is not ready for liberty, and if you were to give him liberty to-night you would plunge his country into the most desperate torture of anarchy and carnage known in history. A little more soup?--we are offering you only a slight dinner."

"Yes, but, Baron," I said, "would you tell me when it is intended that the Russian peasant shall begin his upward course towards light and learning? If that day is to be for ever postponed?"

"It will not be for ever postponed," said the Baron gently. "Let us finish the war, and education shall be given slowly, under wise direction, to every man, woman, and child in the country. Our Czar is the most liberal ruler in Europe--and he knows what is good for his children."

"And Protopopoff and Sturmer?" I asked.

"Protopopoff is a zealous, loyal liberal, but he has been made to see during these last months that Russia is not at this moment ready for freedom. Sturmer--well, M. Sturmer is gone."

"So you, yourself, Baron," I asked, "would oppose at this moment all reform?"

"With every drop of blood in my body," he answered, and his hand flat against the tablecloth quivered. "At this crisis admit one change and your d.y.k.e is burst, your land flooded. Every Russian is asked at this moment to believe in simple things--his religion, his Czar, his country.

Grant your reforms, and in a week every babbler in the country will be off his head, talking, screaming, fighting. The Germans will occupy Russia at their own good time, you will be beaten on the West and civilisation will be set back two hundred years. The only hope for Russia is unity, and for unity you must have discipline, and for discipline, in Russia at any rate, you must have an autocracy."

As he spoke the furniture, the grey walls, the heavy carpets, seemed to whisper an echo of his words: "Unity... Discipline... Discipline...

Autocracy... Autocracy... Autocracy...."

"Then tell me, Baron," I said, "if it isn't an impertinent question, do you feel so secure in your position that you have no fears at all? Does such a crisis, as for instance Milyukoff's protest last November, mean nothing? You know the discontent.... Is there no fear....?"

"Fear!" He interrupted me, his voice swift and soft and triumphant. "M.

Durward, are you so ignorant of Russia that you consider the outpourings of a few idealistic Intelligentzia, professors and teachers and poets, as important? What about the people, M. Durward? You ask any peasant in the Moscow Government, or little Russia, or the Ukraine whether he will remain loyal to his Little Father or no! Ask--and the question you suggested to me will be answered."

"Then, you feel both secure and justified?" I said.

"We feel both secure and justified"--he answered me, smiling.

After that our conversation was personal and social. Lawrence was very quiet. I observed that the Baroness had a motherly affection for him, that she saw that he had everything that he wanted, and that she gave him every now and then little friendly confidential smiles. As the meal proceeded, as I drank the most excellent wine and the warm austerity of my surroundings gathered ever more closely around me, I wondered whether after all my apprehensions and forebodings of the last weeks had not been the merest sick man's cowardice. Surely if any kingdom in the world was secure, it was this official Russia. I could see it stretching through the s.p.a.ce and silence of that vast land, its servants in every village, its paths and roads all leading back to the central citadel, its whispered orders flying through the air from district to district, its judgements, its rewards, its sins, its virtues, resting upon a basis of superst.i.tion and ignorance and apathy, the three sure friends of autocracy through history!

And on the other side--who? The Rat, Boris Grogoff, Markovitch. Yes, the Baron had reason for his confidence.... I thought for a moment of that figure that I had seen on Christmas Eve by the river--the strong grave bearded peasant whose gaze had seemed to go so far beyond the bounds of my own vision. But no! Russia's mystical peasant--that was an old tale.

Once, on the Front, when I had seen him facing the enemy with bare hands, I had, myself, believed it. Now I thought once more of the Rat--_that_ was the type whom I must now confront.

I had a most agreeable evening. I do not know how long it had been since I had tasted luxury and comfort and the true fruits of civilisation. The Baron was a most admirable teller of stories, with a capital sense of humour. After dinner the Baroness left us for half an hour, and the Baron became very pleasantly Rabelaisian, speaking of his experiences in Paris and London, Vienna and Berlin so easily and with so ready a wit that the evening flew. The Baroness returned and, seeing that it was after eleven, I made my farewells. Lawrence said that he would walk with me down the quay before turning into bed. My host and hostess pressed me to come as often as possible. The Baron's last words to me were:

"Have no fears, M. Durward. There is much talk in this country, but we are a lazy people."

The "we" rang strangely in my ears.

"He's of course no more a Russian than you or I," I said to Lawrence, as we started down the quay.

"Oh yes, he is!" Lawrence said. "Quite genuine--not a drop of German blood in spite of the name. But he's a Prussian at heart--a Prussian of the Prussians. By that I don't mean in the least that he wants Germany to win the war. He doesn't--his interests are all here, and you mayn't believe me, but I a.s.sure you he's a Patriot. He loves Russia, and he wants what's best for her--and believes that to be Autocracy."

After that Lawrence shut up. He would not say another word. We walked for a long time in silence. The evening was most beautiful. A golden moon flung the snow into dazzling relief against the deep black of the palaces. Across the Neva the line of towers and minarets and chimneys ran like a huge fissure in the golden, light from sky to sky.

"You said there was something you wanted to ask my advice about?"

I broke the silence.

He looked at me with his long slow considering stare. He mumbled something; then, with a sudden gesture, he gripped my arm, and his heavy body quivering with the urgency of his words he said:

"It's Vera Markovitch.... I'd give my body and soul and spirit for her happiness and safety.... G.o.d forgive me, I'd give my country and my honour.... I ache and long for her, so that I'm afraid for my sanity.

I've never loved a woman, nor l.u.s.ted for one, nor touched one in my whole life, Durward--and now... and now... I've gone right in. I've spoken no word to any one; but I couldn't stand my own silence....

Durward, you've got to help me!"

I walked on, seeing the golden light and the curving arc of snow and the little figures moving like dolls from light to shadow. Lawrence! I had never thought of him as an urgent lover; even now, although I could still feel his hand quivering on my arm, I could have laughed at the ludicrous incongruity of romance, and that stolid thick-set figure. And at the same time I was afraid. Lawrence in love was no boy on the threshold of life like Bohun... here was no trivial pa.s.sion. I realised even in that first astonished moment the trouble that might be in store for all of us.

"Look here, Lawrence!" I said at last. "The first thing that you may as well realise is that it is hopeless. Vera Michailovna has confided in me a good deal lately, and she is devoted to her husband, thinks of nothing else. She's simple, nave, with all her sense and wisdom...."

"Hopeless!" he interrupted, and he gave a kind of grim chuckle of derision. "My dear Durward, what do you suppose I'm after?... rape and adultery and Markovitch after us with a pistol? I tell you--" and here he spoke fiercely, as though he were challenging the whole ice-bound world around us--"that I want nothing but her happiness, her safety, her comfort! Do you suppose that I'm such an a.s.s as not to recognise the kind of thing that my loving her would lead to? I tell you I'm after nothing for myself, and that not because I'm a fine unselfish character, but simply because the thing's too big to let anything into it but herself. She shall never know that I care twopence about her, but she's got to be happy and she's got to be safe.... Just now, she's neither of those things, and that's why I've spoken to you.... She's unhappy and she's afraid, and that's got to change. I wouldn't have spoken of this to you if I thought you'd be so short-sighted...."

"All right! All right!" I said testily. "You may be a kind of Galahad, Lawrence, outside all natural law. I don't know, but you'll forgive me if I go for a moment on my own experience--and that experience is, that you can start on as highbrow an elevation as you like, but love doesn't stand still, and the body's the body, and to-morrow isn't yesterday--not by no means. Moreover, Markovitch is a Russian and a peculiar one at that. Finally, remember that I want Vera Michailovna to be happy quite as much as you do!"

He was suddenly grave and almost boyish in his next words.

"I know that--you're a decent chap, Durward--I know it's hard to believe me, but I just ask you to wait and test me. No one knows of this--that I'd swear--and no one shall; but what's the matter with her, Durward, what's she afraid of? That's why I spoke to you. You know her, and I'll throttle you here where we stand if you don't tell me just what the trouble is. I don't care for confidences or anything of the sort. You must break them all and tell me--"

His hand was on my arm again, his big ugly face, now grim and obstinate, close against mine.

"I'll tell you," I said slowly, "all I know, which is almost nothing.

The trouble is Semyonov, the doctor. Why or how I can't say, although I've seen enough of him in the past to know the trouble he _can_ be.

She's afraid of him, and Markovitch is afraid of him. He likes playing on people's nerves. He's a bitter, disappointed man, who loved desperately once, as only real sensualists can... and now he's in love with a ghost. That's why real life maddens him."

"Semyonov!" Lawrence whispered the name.

We had come to the end of the quay. My dear church with its round grey wall stood glistening in the moonlight, the shadows from the snow rippling up its sides, as though it lay under water. We stood and looked across the river.

"I've always hated that fellow," Lawrence said. "I've only seen him about twice, but I believe I hated him before I saw him.... All right, Durward, that's what I wanted to know. Thank you. Good-night."

And before I could speak he had gripped my hand, had turned back, and was walking swiftly away, across the golden-lighted quay.

XIX

From the moment that Lawrence left me, vanishing into the heart of the snow and ice, I was obsessed by a conviction of approaching danger and peril. It has been one of the most disastrous weaknesses of my life that I have always shrunk from precipitate action. Before the war it had seemed to many of us that life could be jockeyed into decisions by words and theories and speculations. The swift, and, as it were, revengeful precipitancy of the last three years had driven me into a self-distrust and cowardice which had grown and grown until life had seemed veiled and distant and mysteriously obscure. From my own obscurity, against my will, against my courage, against my own knowledge of myself, circ.u.mstances were demanding that I should advance and act. It was of no avail to myself that I should act unwisely, that I should perhaps only precipitate a crisis that I could not help. I was forced to act when I would have given my soul to hold aloof, and in this town, whose darkness and light, intrigue and display, words and action, seemed to derive some mysterious force from the very soil, from the very air, the smallest action achieved monstrous proportions. When you have lived for some years in Russia you do not wonder that its citizens prefer inaction to demonstration--the soil is so much stronger than the men who live upon it.

Nevertheless, for a fortnight I did nothing. Private affairs of an especially tiresome kind filled my days--I saw neither Lawrence nor Vera, and, during that period, I scarcely left my rooms.

There was much expectation in the town that February 14th, when the Duma was appointed to meet, would be a critical day. Fine things were said of the challenging speeches that would be made, of the firm stand that the Cadet party intended to take, of the crisis with which the Court party would be faced.