Читать книгу Tinker's Leave - Maurice Baring - Страница 8

Table of Contents

The journey to St. Petersburg, although uneventful, was full of excitement for Miles.

Every sight, each new face in Germany, and still more at the frontier and beyond it, was an event to him.

Alyosha was a curiously easy travelling companion. Sometimes he would talk incessantly for half an hour or so; sometimes he would remain silent for hours at a time. He smoked cigarettes all day, but never opened a book. Whether he talked or whether he remained silent, Miles felt equally at his ease with him. He arranged all that needed arrangement with an effortless efficiency. He spoke German as fluently as English, and had a knack of getting his way.

They arrived at St. Petersburg in the evening. There was no snow in the streets. The cabs were on wheels. Alyosha took Miles to a small shabby hotel, where he seemed to be at home and to have a number of acquaintances of all nationalities. There was a young American who greeted him warmly. Alyosha asked Miles to wait for him a moment in the hall while he talked to the American. He then came back after a while and fetched Miles, and took him upstairs, where they washed and unpacked.

“We shall only have a day here,” he explained. “We shall start to-morrow night if possible ... if we can get everything settled by then.”

“But do you mean me to come with you?”

“Of course, if you still want to.”

“I want to, but I don’t see how it is to be done.”

“There is only one way,” said Alyosha; “you must go out as a newspaper correspondent.”

“But I can’t write, and I have no connection with any newspaper.”

“Can you draw?”

“No, I can’t draw, but I can take photographs. It is my hobby. I got the first prize at the Norwich amateur competition last year.”

“That will do,” said Alyosha; “that is just the very thing; you will go as a photographer for a magazine.”

“But what magazine? I don’t know any magazines.”

“No, but I do. I think—I think I have already struck the very thing—we shall see. Have you any of your photographies” (pronounced phŏtōgrăphiĕs) “with you?”

“Only three: a view of London, a meet of foxhounds, and”—he blushed—“a portrait.”

“Let me see them.”

Miles searched his bag and brought out a small copy-book, in which he made notes, wrote fragments of a diary sometimes, and had even occasionally copied out verses and stuck in cuttings from newspapers which had pleased him. Loose in this book were a few letters and three unmounted photographs. One was a view of the Thames taken on Waterloo Bridge at dawn, the second a snapshot of a meet of foxhounds at Wheatham, the third was a portrait of a girl who came on in a turn at the Hammersmith Music Hall. One of the pupils at Mourieux’s had introduced Miles to her, and he had been to tea with her several times. She lived with her mother and an aged grandfather in Ladbroke Road. Miles thought her celestially beautiful, and had begged her to let him photograph her. She had consented with alacrity. But to her great disappointment, he had insisted on taking her with her hair down and against the light, and not, as she wished, with her new hat on, sitting on a chair next to a bowl of roses and holding a roll of music in her hands.

He did the photograph, and she cried from mortification when she saw it. A few days later she left for Manchester. She was on tour.

Alyosha looked at the photographs critically.

“Yes, they will do,” he said. “You have talent. The river effect is good, and you have got the Gretchen effect from that vulgar little town-sparrow.”

Miles blushed again.

They finished unpacking. “There is an American,” Alyosha said, “I know him—he is going out for Skreibners’. I will see him after dinner, I think——”

They dined together downstairs at the restaurant of the hotel. Alyosha seemed absent-minded; he spoke little during the meal. He seemed to be thinking something out. Directly they had finished dinner, and Alyosha had lit his cigarette, he said to Miles: “I have got an appointment. I must go out at once. I will come back and fetch you about twelve o’clock, and we will have supper.”

“Ought I to dress?” asked Miles.

“Oh dear, no.”

“It is no use your going to the theatre,” Alyosha said as he went; “is it?”

“No; I shall be quite happy here, reading a book.”

Miles was, in fact, engrossed in a book he had never heard of before, and which he had bought at one of the stations they had stopped at, in the Tauchnitz edition. It was called Tom Jones. Alyosha reappeared sooner than Miles had expected him. He was back by eleven o’clock.

“I am going to take you,” he said, as he came into the room, “to the house of another aunt of mine—to stay, I mean; we will be more comfortable there. She wishes you to come just now; but I must warn you that she detests all Englishmen—not personally, but politically, now that they are the allies of Japan.”

“Then surely I had better stay here?”

“Oh no. I have told her all about you, and she thinks that it is such a good thing that an impartial Englishman should go to the war, and tell the truth, and take truthful photographs. You see Reuter tells such lies, and our Government has quarrelled with the Times.”

“But am I going?”

“I think it will be easy. There is an American, I saw him after dinner—I mean I caught sight of him directly we arrived, but I spoke to him after dinner. His name is Paul something Haslam, and he comes from the west. He has got a contract with Skreibners’, the American magazine, to write a monthly article, with war pictures from the front; but they want real pictures, something artistic, and he has never taken a photography in his life. He pretends he has—he lies; he doesn’t mean to go near the front, unless he is made to. What I have said to him is this. He can stay where he likes—say Mukden. You can take the photographies, and he can ‘write them up,’ as he calls it. You can go out as his partner; the magazine will pay. It can be arranged to-morrow with Skreibners’ agent—it will make it easier—they have got an office here. Then you will have to see your Ambassador, and get a letter from him, and I will take you to the War Office and do the rest. Of course the photography business from the point of view of the magazine is all nonsense, because, if they let you take any photographies of any interest, they won’t let you send them off till it is too late. But you will be able to do views of China. The streets at Mukden.”

“Do you think they will let me go?”

“Yes; I will answer for you,” he laughed; “they know me.”

“Who?”

“Oh, the kind of authorities that matter. I mean those that really matter, the people who get things done.”

“Now we must pack up all those things again. You had better pack mine, you pack better than I; no Russian can pack.”

Miles got through the packing of their few belongings quickly enough.

They went downstairs and paid their bill, took back their passports, and Alyosha ordered a cab.

“Tell me,” said Miles, “about your aunt; is she the sister of your aunt in Paris?”

“Oh no, not at all. Certainly not. She has been the wife of my Uncle Kouragine, who is dead, so she is really what you perhaps call an aunt-in-law. She has no children, and she lives alone in a large house, in the ... but what is the use of telling you the name of a street? It is some way off ... the distances here are great ... her name is Princess Kouragine. She wears her husband’s name of course, but there are dozens of Princess Kouragines, and she is always called Kitty.”

“Does she speak English?”

“Of course; it is the only language she can speak, except French and German.”

“But surely she speaks her own language?”

“A little, very badly; just enough to be able to speak to the servants ... she learnt it when she was grown up.”

They drove across the Nevski, along the Morskaya, past St. Isaac’s Cathedral, down along a canal till they came to a Palladian stucco building with a portico and pillars.

They were let in by a hall porter who waved them up a staircase.

“I feel very shy,” whispered Miles as they walked upstairs. They were shown into a long, low drawing-room by a footman, but there was no one there. They walked through it to a smaller square room, with faded red silk on the walls, a few French pictures and Empire furniture, where, sitting near a tea-table, was a small lady dressed in black, with grey hair, pronounced features, and bright grey eyes, smoking a cigarette. There was a small Irish terrier in the room that barked.

“Bon soir, Alyosha,” she said. “Ah! voici votre ami.”

She walked to meet them. Alyosha kissed her hand and introduced Miles. She gave him a penetrating glance as she shook hands with him.

“Come and sit down, Mr. Miles,” she said, pointing to a chair. “I believe you have another name, but it is too difficult for me. I shall call you Mr. Miles. I am delighted to see you; I like the English as a rule, but not now; they are behaving abominably. Personally I have always got on with them. They are nice, but your Government is detestable. Many years ago I was staying at a large country-house, by Lord Stonehenge, in Shropshire. He was a great friend of mine, and I liked him. I lit a cigarette in my bedroom, and I was told that no one may smoke in the house, and that if one wanted to smoke, one must go into the garden—it was winter too—so I went to Lord Stonehenge, and said that I was going to be the exception to his rule, and to smoke when and where I wanted. He laughed and said he would be delighted. He even smoked a cigarette after dinner to give me a contenance. The butler was very shocked. But then the English are always easily shocked. Are you easily shocked, Mr. Miles?”

Miles got scarlet, and began pulling up his left sock.

“I don’t understand,” went on the Princess, “why Englishmen’s socks are always coming down. Other people’s socks don’t come down, but Englishmen are always pulling up their socks.”

Miles got redder still.

“Well,” she said, “you will not be wanting to talk to an old woman like myself, and it is late, and I am sleepy. I suppose Alyosha will take you somewhere. They will show you your rooms. You will have the appartement on the ground floor,” she said to Alyosha. “It doesn’t matter how late you come in. We will meet to-morrow at déjeuner. I have ordered some Bliny.” Alyosha said something in Russian. She nodded and got up. Alyosha kissed her hand, said “Good-night,” and added: “We shall be alone, then?” As she walked out of the room, she said to Alyosha, “Ton Anglais me plaît,” and then she said a few words in Russian and laughed. She walked through a little door to her apartments, and Alyosha took Miles downstairs. They had two bedrooms and a sitting-room, and a bathroom between them, on the ground floor.

“It is now getting on for midnight,” said Alyosha. “Just right for supper.” They drove to a restaurant which seemed to Miles a long way off.

“I am going to introduce you to your American, to the man who will be your colleague,” said Alyosha. “He has got a little supper here with some ladies ... Olga Varina, the famous singer—she sings ballads—she has no voice; Maltzova the dancer, and Maya Komarova. They won’t be there yet, not all of them ...”

“I shan’t be able to understand what they say.”

“Haslam doesn’t speak a word of Russian. My aunt,” he went on, changing the subject, “is very clever. She has no prejudices. You see there are few, really no houses I could go to here at St. Petersburg now ... owing to, well, a bother I got into some time ago, a long time ago ... I will tell you all about it some day ... in England it would have been worse, ... but even here it would be uncomfortable, only my Aunt Kitty doesn’t mind—she wouldn’t—she doesn’t care. When I had the bother, she did everything she could to help me, although she is not at all sentimental, and not what is called kind ... but she understood—she has no prejudices at all.”

“Except against English people?”

“That is political and temporary. She has disputed and quarrelled with English politicians and diplomatists all her life—but the English, they are really her best friends. She used to write long letters to Kingslake and Kingley, and to Mr. Gladstone; she knows your Ambassador, or at least the man in charge, well, and will give you a letter for him. I have asked her to. She is a Slavophile, but at the same time she is very liberal, and is always talking against the Government. She thinks this war is a folly. So it is; but she thinks it is wicked of England to be allies with Japan—wicked and silly. Wicked, well, yes—perhaps she is right—I don’t care; but silly it is; and you will regret it when we lose the war, which we probably shall. But she is clever outside of politics, and she has written a book in French on Chopin. She is a great musician.”

“Like your other aunt?”

“Aunt Lizzy? Oh no, quite different. They hate each other. They are both energetic, and both do things, but different things. Aunt Lizzy gets up classical and theatrical concerts; Aunt Kitty sees nobody, and never gives parties, and yet knows every one of any interest in Europe—they are drawn to her as to a magnet. Aunt Kitty is much cleverer.”

“But your other aunt is kind to you too, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she has to be; she is my mother’s sister, la voix du sang, and then she is very good-natured—of course she is rather absurd, but Aunt Kitty is some one—you must have seen that from talking to her for five minutes. She has read everything—seen every one—and everything——”

“Yes, I thought she was rather alarming.”

“She is frank, and sees everything. You will get used to her soon. She is not at all frightful, and she likes you—that is everything.”

After what to Miles seemed an endless drive, they arrived at the restaurant, and left their coats in the cloakroom. Alyosha led Miles through a large hall in which there were a few people having supper at small tables—there was a stage at the end of it—to a private room, which looked out like a box on to the hall. In this box there was a table laid for ten people, and a great many bottles on the table, besides caviare, kippered salmon, and other cold hors d’œuvres. So far the only people there were a tall, dark, thin, slim-looking man, who turned out to be Haslam—he was in day clothes—and another American in evening clothes. He, too, was a journalist, the correspondent of a New York newspaper. Miles was introduced to both of them.

“The ladies are late, but we will have a little vodka to keep us warm,” said Haslam.

He looked at Miles in a friendly way. He was good-looking, with an amused expression and good-humoured, dishonest eyes.

Haslam poured out some vodka for every one.

“Wait one moment,” said Alyosha; “before the drinking begins, I have something to do. Have you got a visiting card?” he said to Miles.

“Yes,” said Miles; “but what on earth do you want it for?”

“Give it to me.”

Miles handed him a card. It had his London address.

Alyosha wrote something on it, and gave it him back.

“There; I have written your name and address—the address of the house where we are staying—in English and in Russian, so that if we get separated and you get lost, you will be able to find your way, or somebody will be able to find your way for you.”

The other two men laughed.

“But I shan’t get separated from you, shall I?” asked Miles anxiously.

“Not if we can help it, but one never knows.”

They all drank a small liqueur glass of vodka, and then Miles was given some caviare. The dose was doubled and repeated—a third time for the Trinity, a fourth time for the four corners of a house, a fifth time for the five cupolas of a church.

Miles felt a warm glow, and soon began to feel pleasantly exhilarated, but he remained quite clear-headed. They sat down at the end of the table, and Paul Haslam treated him to a long and confidential monologue: the story of his life. He had been a circus-rider, an actor, a stoker, and a banker.

“Tu sais,” said Alyosha suddenly, “il ne faut pas croire un mot de ce qu’il dit, il ne sait pas dire la vérité.”

After Miles had drunk his fifth glass of vodka, more guests arrived—three elegant ladies: Olga Varina, Maltzova, and Maya Komarova. They were accompanied by an Englishman and several other men whose nationality Miles could not guess, although he was introduced to them, but he was vaguely aware that they were not Russians. They sat down to supper, and champagne bottles were opened, and toasts were drunk. The ladies treated Miles with great friendliness, as if they had known him all his life. They talked French. The hall of the restaurant was now full, and a variety entertainment was in full swing on the stage. Miles felt himself getting happier and happier; he was not, he thought, in the least intoxicated—and this was odd; perhaps it was the dry air of St. Petersburg, perhaps he had a strong head. He had always been used to tasting strong Madeira at his uncle’s. When supper was over, and the talk was growing louder and louder, somebody raised a cry of “Tsygan!” (gipsies), and no sooner was the word said than Alyosha and the Americans and some one else went to arrange the matter.

Presently they moved into another larger, empty room. It was rather dingy. In one corner of the room there was a battered pianoforte, much the worse for wear. On the walls looking-glasses in gilded frames. At one end of the room was a plush sofa. In front of it was a table, with champagne bottles, glasses, and candles—the only illumination. Miles and the other spectators all sat down on the sofa.

In front of them, occupying the whole of the other side of the room, was the chorus of gipsies. They were different from what Miles expected; they were not “raggle-taggle” people in shabby and gorgeous clothes, with tambourines and sequins; they were a chorus of men and women in ordinary dress who, though dark in complexion, looked, he thought, like the audience in the dress circle at a classical concert in London.

They were seated in a semicircle. A man with a guitar, dark—and he, too, in ordinary clothes—stood up and led the chorus; sometimes he took the solo part. His body and his guitar swayed to the rhythm of the music.

Later a woman took a solo part. The chorus rose into a wail as loud and as fierce, thought Miles, as the howling of a pack of wolves, and then died away into an unsatisfied sigh.

Miles thought the music unpleasant: discordant, monotonous, and exasperating.

Champagne was poured out and toasts were drunk. But on the part of the spectators there was no visible gaiety; no noise, no laughter, and little talk. Yet Miles thought they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

He looked on at the scene as it were from the outside. He felt detached, as if he were a spectator at the play. He said to himself: “It is, I suppose, because I don’t understand what they are singing, and because this sort of music is so new to me.”

He observed the audience.

Alyosha was lying back on the sofa, sitting next to Olga Varina, the singer. He was not looking at her; he was staring with a fixed expression straight in front of him. Olga Varina had a clever, impertinent face; now her eyes seemed full of tears, but sparkling tears of pleasure. The lady they called Maltzova was short; she had dark hair, fine aquiline features, and a long rope of pearls. Miles saw her profile. She was smoking a cigarette. She looked as calm as a statue, aloof and indifferent—and yet Miles had the impression as of being near a loaded revolver. The third woman, Maya Komarova, had a childish baby face, fair hair, and candid eyes. She looked as if she were utterly absorbed, and enjoying herself like a child that is being told a fairy tale. The men were equally rapt and subdued. But every now and then some one would break the silence and ask for a particular song: “The Blue Bird” (Alyosha interpreted) or “Cold Dawn.”

The American in evening clothes was sitting on the floor, his head nodded drowsily. All the spectators seemed to be bound by the same spell, as if they had taken an opiate; they were like lotus-eaters, Miles thought; no, not lotus-eaters, because they seemed to feel it all ... like people who are taking part in a dream. Miles looked at the gipsies. They seemed to him listless and bored. They were carrying on an irrelevant, intermittent under-current of conversation among themselves, like telegraph-girls, Miles thought, at a London post-office, behind the wire netting.

One of them had toothache and a swelled face, which was bound up with a handkerchief. “This is to them,” thought Miles to himself, “what my office used to be to me. It is their daily work. I wonder what their recreation is, if they have one?”

After the singing had lasted some time, Miles’ impressions began to change. He lost his detachment. He was touched by the spell. He ceased to think the noise disagreeable. All at once he found himself trembling all over as from fever, and then he became aware that the fever was pleasant. He did not want it to stop; he wanted it to go on. He wanted it never to stop.

He felt that he had been initiated, and whenever the music stopped, he felt he wanted one more glimpse of that sweet and bitter, that discordant and melodious Limbo; he hoped the hurly-burly would never be done.

“What is it all about?” Miles asked Alyosha.

“Oh,” said Alyosha, “the usual things: troikas, snow, spring, birch-trees, white dawns, sleepless midnights, famishing morrows, eternal farewells, vows of everlasting love, ‘Had we never met,’ ‘Good-bye for ever,’ and the music is really German waltzers sung differently. You must be hating it; every one does at first, but it will grow on you.”

“It has grown on me already,” said Miles.

Then he reached a new phase. He no longer thought about it as a scene; he was in it, an actor taking a part in the dream. He was made to stand up for the Charochka, and the leader of the chorus, guitar in hand, stood in front of him, having first asked his name of Alyosha; he was sung to by name, and told to drain his glass at a given moment, which he did. He did not feel in the least shy or uncomfortable. By this time he was simply enjoying himself. He was looking at everything through a veil, but it was pleasant. He wanted the dream to last for ever, the spell never to be broken.

Miles lost the sense of time. The leader of the chorus seemed to sway with his guitar and with his body to the rhythm of the chorus for an eternity. The howling as of wolves was fiercer, louder, and hoarser; the dying sighs softer and more desperately unsatisfied.... The cold dawn was beginning to pierce through the window of the cheerless and gaudy private room. The candles on the table were guttering. There were more solos ... people asked for songs all at once. It was oppressively hot. The air was thick with cigarette smoke. There was a pause in the singing. Miles said to himself, “I must get some air.” He got up. “I will be back in a moment,” he said. Nobody took any notice, and he went out of the room, and walked downstairs. He asked for his hat and coat, and walked out into the street. The air—the sharp, cool air of the cold grey dawn—acted on him like magic. It had the effect of making him dance off into happy, irresponsible unconsciousness, into the dawn and the unknown. Upstairs the singing went on and on, until the gipsies sang their last song, which had for its burden “Domoi, domoi” (“Home, home”).

It was only when the spectators were leaving the restaurant that the absence of Miles was noticed.

Alyosha asked the attendants where he was, but all that he could find out was that Miles had left the restaurant some time ago, after taking his hat and his coat; he had gone on foot.

“What can we do?” asked Haslam.

“Nothing,” said Alyosha. “He has got his name and his address in his pocket. They will bring him home. It was lucky I took that precaution. It is, I have found, always safe to do that with strangers in Russia.”

“He won’t give the police any trouble, I guess, anyway,” said Haslam.

“One never knows,” said Alyosha calmly. “English people are sometimes so very violent when they are—what do you call it, say, when they have drink-taken.”

“That’s Irish, and Irishmen are certainly violent; but that boy looks as if butter would not melt in his mouth.”

“He is most willing to learn,” said Alyosha.

Alyosha did not go home immediately. He went to Haslam’s rooms. They had a further discussion of plans. Alyosha pointed out to him that it would be most advantageous for him to take Miles with him. He had everything to gain and nothing to lose by it.

Alyosha did not get home till seven in the morning. He asked the hall porter whether Miles had arrived.

“Yes,” said the night porter calmly. “They brought them”—he used the third person plural, which in Russian indicates respect—“twice from the police station, and I didn’t recognise them, and sent them back. They were ‘drink-taken,’ they were unconscious, and their coat was torn. Then they took them to the back door, and Petrushka, the dvornik (the man who swept the back-yard), recognised them and said: ‘Yes, that is our Barin.’” (“That is our gentleman.”) “They are asleep.” (“Oni spiat.”)