Читать книгу The White Terror and The Red - Abraham Cahan - Страница 17

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ONE afternoon, in December of the same year, Pavel sat in a student restaurant, in the capital, eating fried steak and watching the door for a man with whom he had an appointment. He ate without appetite and looked fatigued and overworked. He had been out from an early hour, bustling about on perilous business and dodging spies. It was extremely exhausting and enervating, this prowling about under the perpetual strain of danger. He was liable to be arrested at any moment. It was like living continually under fire.

The restaurant was full of cigarette smoke and noise. Somebody in the rear of Pavel, who evidently had nothing to say, was addressing somebody else in high-flown Russian and with great gusto. His fine resonant voice, of which he was apparently conscious, jarred on Pavel’s nerves, interfering with what little relish he had for his meal. He was eyeing the design on the frost-covered door-glass and lashing himself into a fury over the invisible man’s phrase-mongery, when he was accosted by a fair-complexioned young woman:

“Pardon me, but if I am not mistaken you are Prince Boulatoff?”

“That’s my name. And with whom have I the pleasure——?”

“Oh, that would really be uninteresting to know. I’ll tell you, though, that I belong to Miroslav.”

He reluctantly invited her to a glass of tea, which she accepted, saying: “It may look as if I were forcing myself upon your acquaintance, prince, but I really could not help it. Whatever comes from Miroslav is irresistible to me.” And talking rapidly in effervescent, choking sentences, she told him that her name was Maria Andreevna Safonova (Safonoff), that she was a student at the Bestusheff Women’s College and that her brother was a major of gendarmes.

Pavel had heard of there being a daughter or a sister of a Miroslav gendarme officer at the Bestusheff College; also that she made a favourable impression on her classmates; but he had been too busy to give the information more than passing notice.

“Is your brother in Miroslav?” he asked.

“Yes, and I can assure you he is a gentleman, even if he is in the gendarme service. Some day, I hope, he’ll give it up. He is really too good to be in the business.”

Pavel ascribed her ebullition to the nature of the subject, but he soon found that she was in the same state of excitement when a railroad ticket was the topic. She looked twenty-three but she had the cheeks and eyes of a chubby infant, while her arms and figure had the lank, immature effect of a girl of thirteen.

While they sat talking, a dark man in the military uniform of the Medico-Surgical Academy entered the café. It was Parmet, the man Pavel was waiting for. Finding him engaged, the newcomer passed his table without greeting him, took a seat in a remote corner and buried himself in a book.

Mlle. Safonoff did all the talking. She had not sat at Boulatoff’s table half an hour nor said much about Miroslav before she had poured out some of her most intimate thoughts to him.

“If you think it a pleasure to be the sister of a gendarme officer you are mistaken,” she said. “It is not agreeable to be treated by everybody as though you had been put at the college to spy upon the girls, is it? My brother is a better man than the brothers and fathers and grandfathers of all the other student-girls put together, I assure you, prince. But then, of course, you may think I’m trying to spy on you, too.”

“No, I don’t,” said Boulatoff with a laugh, pricking up his ears.

“Don’t you, really?” And her eyes bubbled.

“Of course, I don’t.”

“Oh, if you knew how good he is, my brother. Do you remember the time when poor Pievakin left Miroslav? I know you do. You were in the eighth class then. Well, I may as well tell you, prince”—she lowered her voice—“had it not been for my brother there would have been no end of arrests at the railroad station. He simply told his men not to make a fuss. You see, I can confide in you without hesitation, for who would suspect a Boulatoff of—pardon the word—spying? But I, why, I am the sister of a gendarme officer, so it is quite natural to suppose, and so forth and so on, don’t you know.”

“Do you know the girl who made that speech?”

“There you are,” she said dolefully. “I happened to be at the other end of the room just then. When I tried to find out who she was everybody was mum. Fancy, my best girl-friend said to me: 'If I were you, Masha, I shouldn’t want to know her name if I could. Suppose you utter it in sleep and your brother overhears you.’ The idiots! They didn’t know it was my brother who saved that girl from being arrested. And, by the way, if she had been arrested by some of his men, it would not have been hard for her to escape. I know I am saying more than I should, but I really can’t help it. You have no idea how I feel about these things. And now, at the sight of you, prince—a man from Miroslav—I seem to be going to pieces altogether. Well, I don’t mean, though, that my brother would have let her escape. But then I have an aunt, who is related to the warden of the Miroslav prison by marriage, so she can arrange things there. Oh, she’s the greatest revolutionist you ever saw. Of course, I don’t know whether you sympathise with these things, prince, but I’ll tell you frankly, I do. It was that aunt of mine who talked it into me. She is simply crazy to do something. She is sorry there are no political prisoners in Miroslav. If there were she would get them out. She’s just itching for a chance to do something of that sort. And yet she never met a revolutionist in her life, nor saw a scrap of underground paper.”

To question the ingenuousness of this gush seemed to be the rankest absurdity. The Russian spies of the period were poor actors. Pavel was seized by a desire to show her that he, at least, did not suspect her of spying, and quite forgetting to restrain the “idiotic breadth” of his Russian nature for which he was often rebuked by a certain member of the revolutionary Executive Committee who was forever berating his comrades for their insufficient caution, he slipped a crisp copy of the Will of the People into her hand.

“Put it into your muff,” he said.

The colour surged into her chubby face. Her whole figure seemed tense with sudden excitement, as though the fine glossy paper in her hand were charged with electricity.

“How shall I thank you?” she gasped.

Pavel saw a moist glitter in her eyes, and as he got up, his slender erect little frame, too, seemed charged with electricity. When she had gone he asked himself whether it had not all been acting, after all. He cursed himself for his imprudence, but he said: “Oh, well, what must be will be,” and as usual the phrase acted like an effectual incantation on his frame of mind.

Parmet had been dubbed Bismarck, because he bore considerable resemblance to Gambetta. Another nickname, one which he had invented himself, on a similar theory of contrasts, was Makar. Makar was as typically Slavic as his face was Semitic. His military uniform, which he had to wear because his Academy was under the auspices of the War Department, ill became him. Instead of concealing the rabbinical expression of his face, it emphasised it. When they came out of the restaurant, a man, shouldering a stick, was running along the snow-covered pavement, lighting the street-lamps, as though in dread of being forestalled by somebody.

“Guess who that girl is,” Pavel said.

“Have I heard of her?”

“No. Quite an amusing sort of a damsel. Seething and steaming for all the world like a samovar. You should have seen her calflike ecstasy when I handed her something to read. I was afraid she was going to have a fit.”

Makar trotted silently on, continually curling himself in his wretched grey cloak and striking one foot against the other, to knock the caked drab-coloured snow off his boots. Pavel wore a new furred coat.

“She may be useful though,” Pavel resumed, after a pause. “That is, provided she is all she seems to be. Her brother is a gendarme major. What do you think of that?”

“Is he?” Makar asked, looking up at his companion in beatific surprise.

“Yes, and she says he’s a good fellow, too. Of course, she’s quite a full-fledged ninny herself, and ought to be taken with a carload of salt, but she referred to some facts with which I happen to be familiar.” While he was describing the girl’s aunt, a passing soldier saluted Makar, mistaking him for an army officer. Makar, however, was too absorbed in his companion’s talk to be aware of what was going on about him. Pavel shrieked with laughter. “He must be a pretty raw sort of recruit to take you for a warrior,” he said. When he had finished his sketch of the woman who was longing to set somebody free, the medical student paused in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Why, she’s a godsend, then,” he said.

“Moderate your passions, Mr. Army Officer,” Pavel said languidly, mocking his old gymnasium director. “If she does not turn out to be a spy we’ll see what we can do with her. She strikes me rather favourably, though.”

“Why, you oughtn’t to neglect her, Pasha. If I were you I would lose no time in making her brother’s acquaintance. Think of the possibilities of it!”

“Bridle your exuberance, young man. Her brother lives many miles from here. He is on the hunt for sedition in the most provincial of provinces. Want to make a Terrorist of him? Go ahead. He lives in Miroslav. There.”

“In Miroslav!” Makar echoed, with pride in the capital of his native province.

Presently they entered a courtyard and took to climbing a steep stony staircase. Strong, inviting odours of cabbage soup and cooked meat greeted them at several of the landings. Makar’s lodging was on the sixth floor. He had moved in only a few days ago and the chief object of Pavel’s visit was to make a mental note of its location.

The first thing Makar did as he got into the room was to put a pitcher on one of his two windows. The windows commanded a little side street, and the pitcher was Makar’s safety signal. When he had lit his lamp a sofa, freshly covered with green oil-cloth, proved to be the best piece of furniture in the room, the smell of the oil-cloth mingling with the stale odours of tobacco smoke with which the very walls seemed to be saturated.

“Ugh, what a room!” Pavel said, sniffing. They talked of a revolutionist who had recently been arrested and to whom they referred as “Alexandre.” Special importance was attached by the authorities to the capture of this man, because among the things found at his lodgings was a diagram of the Winter Palace with a pencil mark on the imperial dining hall. As the prisoner was a conspicuous member of the Terrorists’ Executive Committee, the natural inference was that another bold plot was under way, one which had something to do with the Czar’s dining room, but which had apparently been frustrated by the discovery of the diagram. The palace guard was strongly re-enforced and every precaution was taken to insure the monarch’s safety. Now, the Terrorists had their man in the very heart of the enemy’s camp, and the result of the search of Alexandre’s lodgings was no secret to them. This revolutionist, whose gloomy face was out of keeping with his carefully pomaded hair, kid gloves, silk hat, showy clothes and carefully trimmed whiskers à la Alexander II., was known to Makar as “the Dandy.” Less than a year before he had obtained a position in the double capacity of spy and clerk, at the Third Section of his Majesty’s Own Office, and so liked was he by his superiors that he had soon been made private secretary to the head of the secret service, every document of importance passing through his hands. Since then he had been communicating to the Executive Committee, now a list of new suspects, now the details of a contemplated arrest, now a copy of some secret circular to the gendarme offices of the empire.

While they were thus conversing of Alexandre and the Dandy, Pavel stretched himself full length on the sofa and dozed off. When he opened his eyes, about two hours later, he found Parmet tiptoeing awkwardly up and down the room, his shadow a gigantic crab on the wall. Pavel broke into a boisterous peal of laughter.

“Here is a figure for you! All that is needed is an artist to set to work and paint it.”

“Are you awake? Look here, Pasha. Your gendarme’s sister and her aunt are haunting my mind.”

“Why, why, have you fallen in love with both of them at once?” Pavel asked as he jumped to his feet and shot his arms toward the ceiling. He looked refreshed and full of animal spirits.

“Stop joking, Pasha, pray,” Makar said in his purring, mellifluous voice. “It irritates me. It’s a serious matter I want to speak to you about, and here you are bent upon fun.” Pavel’s story of the gendarme officer’s sister had stirred in him visions of a mighty system of counter-espionage. He had a definite scheme to propose.

Pavel found it difficult to work himself out of his playful mood until Makar fell silent and took to pacing the floor resentfully. When he had desisted, with a final guffaw over Makar’s forlorn air, the medical student, warming up to fresh enthusiasm, said:

“Well, to let that prison stand idle would be criminal negligence. That girl’s aunt must be given a chance.”

“What’s that?” Pavel said, relapsing into horseplay. “Do you want somebody nabbed on purpose to give a bored lady something to excite her nerves?” He finished the interrogation rather limply. It flashed upon him that what Makar was really aiming at was that some revolutionist should volunteer to be arrested on a denunciation from the Dandy or some other member of the party with a view to strengthening its position in the Third Section.

Makar went on to plead for an organised effort to get into the various gendarme offices.

“It is a terrible struggle we are in, Pasha. Our best men fall before they have time to turn round. If we had more revolutionists on the other side, Alexandre might be a free man now.”

“Well, and sooner or later you and I will be where he is now and be plunged into the sleep of the righteous, and there won’t even be a goat to graze at our graves. Let the dead bury the dead, Makashka. We want the living for the firing line. We can’t afford to let fresh blood turn sour in a damp cell, if we can help it.”

“But this is ‘the firing line’,” Makar returned with beseeching, almost with tearful emphasis. “If you only gave me a chance to explain myself. What I want is to have confusion carried into every branch of the government; I want the Czar to be surrounded by a masquerade of enemies, so that his henchmen will suspect each other of being either agents of the Third Section or revolutionists. Do you see the point? I want the Czar to be surrounded by a babel of mistrust and espionage. I want him to be dazed, staggered until he succumbs to this nightmare of suspicion and hastens to convoke a popular assembly, as Louis XVI. was forced to do; I want the inhabitants of our tear-drenched country to be treated like human beings without delay. My scheme practically amounts to a system or terrorism without violence, and I insist that one good man in the enemy’s camp is of more value than the death of ten spies.” His low, velvety voice rang clear, tremulous with pleading fervour; his face gleamed with an intellectual relish in his formula of the plan. As he spoke, he was twisting his mighty fist, opening and closing it again, Talmud-fashion, in unison with the rhythm of his sentences.

Ejaculations like “visionary!” “phrase-maker!” were on the tip of Pavel’s tongue, but he had not the heart to utter them. Aerial as the scheme was, Makar’s plea had cast a certain spell over him. It was like listening to a beautiful piece of mythology.

“Let us form a special force of men ready to go to prison, to be destroyed, if need be,” Makar went on. “The loss of one man would mean, in each case, the saving of twenty. Think how many important comrades a single leak in the Third Section has saved us. It’s a matter of plain arithmetic.”

“Of plain insanity,” Pavel finally broke in.

“Don’t get excited, Pasha, pray. Can’t you let me finish? If I am wrong you’ll have plenty of time to prove it.”

His purring Talmudic voice and the smell of the fresh oil-cloth were unbearable to Pavel now.

“It’s like this,” Makar resumed. “In the first place [he bent down his little finger] every honest man is sure to be arrested some day, and what difference does it make whether the end comes a few months sooner or a few months later? In the second place [he bent down the next finger] there must be some more people like that girl’s aunt. It is quite possible that most of those who would be arrested on this plan would get out, and that itself would be a good thing, for it would add to the prestige of the party. Everything that reveals the weakness of the government on the one hand, and the cleverness and daring of our people on the other, is good for the cause. Every success scored by the ‘Will of the People’ is a step in the direction of that for which men like yourself are staking their lives, Pasha. Don’t interrupt me, pray. I’ll go a step further. I am of the opinion that under certain conditions, where an escape is assured, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let one’s self be arrested just in order to add another name to the list of political gaol-breakers, that is to say, to the list of the government’s fiascos. Every little counts. Every straw increases that weight which will finally break the back of Russia’s despot.”

“Do you really mean what you say, Makar? Do you actually want to be arrested?” Pavel asked.

“Not at all. All I want is that another good man should gain the confidence of the Third Section and that another political prisoner should escape.”

“And what if all Mlle. Safonoff says turns out to be as idiotic a dream as all this tommyrot of yours?”

“ ‘If one is afraid of wolves one had better keep out of the woods.’ You, yourself, have taken much greater chances than that, Pasha. If I am arrested with papers and the worst comes to the worst they won’t hang me.”

“I see you take it seriously after all. Well, if you think I’ll let you do anything of the kind you are a fool.”

“You can’t prevent me from doing what I consider to be right. Nor do I want anybody else to send the denunciation which is to result in my arrest. I’ll send it myself. All I want is that somebody should claim credit for it afterward, when I am in prison—on that very day, if possible. The search and arrest will be ordered from St. Petersburg, and then some of our men will say at the Third Section that the anonymous letter was his, adding some details about me. Details can be worked out later. Where there is a will there is a way. At any rate, I don’t expect anybody but myself to bear the moral responsibility for my arrest.”

He talked on in the same strain until Pavel sprang to his feet, flushed with rage. “It’s all posing—that’s all there’s to it!” he shouted. “On the surface it means that you are willing to sacrifice yourself without even attracting attention, but in reality this subtle modesty of yours is only the most elaborate piece of parading that was ever conceived. It’s love of applause all the way through, and you are willing to stake your life on it. That’s all there is about it.”

Makar grew yellow in the face and sweat broke out on his forehead. “In that case, there’s no use talking, of course,” he said in a very low voice. “If I am a humbug I am a humbug.”