Читать книгу Tinker's Leave - Maurice Baring - Страница 9

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When Miles woke up the next morning he was asked by the servant whether he would have some tea. The Russian treated him with sympathetic knowingness. But as Miles did not understand him, and the servant knew no other language but Russian, the effect was wasted. Miles remembered nothing of what had happened after he had left the restaurant. Tea was brought to him in the sitting-room, and after he had got up and was dressed Alyosha appeared and said he was going to have breakfast.

His breakfast consisted of four glasses of vodka and a pickled cucumber. While he ate it he reconstructed to Miles the events of the evening.

“Yes,” he said, “you must have been very drunk and what is called disorderly. I expect you resisted the police. They took you to the Uchastok.”

“How awful!” said Miles. “Will the Princess ever know?” (He wondered whether she could possibly tell Aunt Fanny.)

“She knows already. I have seen her. She had been told, but she doesn’t mind; on the contrary, she expected it. She likes you a thousand times the better. The household already respect you immensely.”

They had hardly finished dressing when three policemen called. They were shown in by the footman, who was grinning. Alyosha interviewed them.

They said they had found Miles wandering about the streets in a state of exhilaration.

“Drunk?” said Alyosha.

They demurred at that. They were in the habit of appraising accurately, not only as professional critics, but as fellow-artists, and their standard was high. No, they said, not drunk—certainly not drunk. “Wypimshi,” they said, which can be well rendered as “not drunk, but having drink-taken.”

They had suggested his going with them to the police station, to find out about him; but he had refused to go with them, doubtless owing, they suggested, to his ignorance of the Russian language. “He understands nothing,” they said. When they had tried to take him there, he had fought them all three like a tiger. That is what they had come about. He had torn their clothes; Government property, for which they were responsible. They were poor folk. They would get into trouble. Nobody listened to excuses. Ultimately he had been taken to the police station. He was, they said, very savage—ochen dikii. Once there, he had fallen into a quiet sleep which had lasted two hours. The officer in charge had found his address written on a card in his pocket, and when he had attained to semi-consciousness he sent him to Princess Kouragine’s house in a cab with a policeman. But there the night-porter, or whoever had opened the door, had disowned him. Miles apparently had presented a sorry appearance: his coat was in rags, his shirt dripping, torn, and blood-stained, his hair dishevelled, and he had a cut on his chin.

He was then brought back to the police station and was given a glass of tea. Once more he fell asleep. When he came to the second time, he was sent back, with two policemen this time, to Princess Kouragine’s house, and again the hall-porter denied him, with an oath this time. He was brought back to the police station, and after another refreshing nap and another glass of tea, he was restored to a state of more advanced consciousness, and he repeated the name of Princess Kouragine several times quite audibly and intelligibly. The police officer in despair sent him back a third time with another policeman. The policeman had the brilliant idea of going to the back door, where they were let in by Petrushka, the dvornik, the man whose duty it was to look after the outer premises, and sweep the yard of snow in winter. He was a peasant, with hair like tow, and he sympathised with the intoxicated, as we have already seen.

Petrushka had claimed him with pride.

with tears in his eyes, “we ask His Brightness to have pity on us. We are poor folk. Our uniforms are torn, and we shall be made to pay for new ones out of our pay. Ten roubles will be little ... a small sum, Batiushka ...”

Ample, indeed handsome, compensation under Alyosha’s directions was paid. The police retired murmuring blessings on everybody concerned, and the episode was closed.

“And now,” said Alyosha, “we must be busy, very busy. The first thing for you to do is to go to Skreibners’, then to the British Embassy. Here is a letter which my aunt has written for you to her friend, the Chargé d’Affaires. There is at this moment no Ambassador, as the new one has not yet arrived. I will drive you there, and I will wait for you while you are there, but I will not come in; we must go to Skreibners’ first.”

“But what am I to say to them?” said Miles.

“I will explain,” said Alyosha. “You must take those photographies you showed me with you.”

They took a cab, and on the way to the Embassy they stopped at an office in a large street full of shops, where, surrounded by typists and clerks, sat Mr. Silas K. Blomberg the agent for Skreibners’ Magazine.

“Do you know him?” asked Miles as they stood outside the door.

“Oh yes,” said Alyosha. “Haslam introduced me last night.”

“Come right in,” said Mr. Blomberg when they were shown in, “and sit down.” Three glasses of tea were brought and Miles was introduced. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Consterdine,” said Mr. Blomberg, offering Miles a cigarette. “You want to go to this darned war with Haslam? Now we want pictures, and Haslam can’t take pictures. Haslam’ll write up anything you take, but we must have a picture expert. He tried to bluff us into letting him do the pictures.... Now the first question is, what is your work like?”

“Show him the photographies,” said Alyosha.

Before Mr. Blomberg could make a comment, Alyosha began to present the pictures, and to discuss them with a wealth of technical detail and phraseology which made Miles gasp.

It was Greek to him. “You see it’s the new process,” said Alyosha. “That got the first prize at Munich,” he said, pointing to the view of the Thames (Miles gasped); “and that was reproduced in Country Life,” he said, pointing to the snapshot of the meet at Wheatham; “and that is Eulalie Collins—the Eulalie Collins, the famous music-hall star. She made a sensation with that song, ‘Kiss me when the moon is new.’ They have engaged her here at the Aquarium for the winter. You see the point of Consterdine’s pictures is that they are so various: he could take a battlefield as easily as a prima donna, and then he has experience of the new processes, which makes all the difference for reproduction in magazines. He is thinking of doing colour pictures.”

“Oh, we couldn’t run to that now,” said Mr. Blomberg, alarmed.

“Of course, Haslam,” went on Alyosha, “is a perfect newspaper-man and a good writer of long stories; but he cannot take a photography—no, not even of a donkey in a field. He has no sense of grouping, or horizon, or foreground. He told me so himself.”

“I know,” said Blomberg. “But I guess he could get some one out there to do the pictures for him.”

Alyosha chuckled.

“Who,” he asked, “will be the unselfish newspaper-man who will give away his copy?”

“It wouldn’t be a question of giving.”

“Who, then, is the editor who will sell his scoops at a loss?”

“Not necessarily at a loss.”

“To sell them anyway would be a loss at this moment, in those circumstances. Don’t be childlike, Mr. Blomberg. If you don’t want Consterdine, say so, and I will take him across the road and fix him up with Lautenberg for the Woche. They pay good money.”

“Don’t fly off the handle,” said Mr. Blomberg. “I don’t say the stuff is bad. I don’t say they wouldn’t get across with Haslam to write them up, but the point is this: it’s no use my having the first picture taker in the world unless he can get to the front and take the pictures I want taken. Now will Mr. Consterdine be able to hit the front? It’s no good my having Haslam at the front writing up pictures which might just as well have been taken in the Chinese quarter at San Francisco. Do you get me?”

“I get you perfectly,” said Alyosha, “and I say there is more chance for Consterdine, who is the head of a firm which has had historic relations with Russia”—this was news to Consterdine—“and who will be recommended by General Z. and have personal letters to the Viceroy and to the Commander-in-Chief—there is more chance of his getting to the front than any one else getting there. Besides which, he is pro-Russian—his firm has naturally always been pro-Russian ever since the days of Catherine the Great—and he is giving proof of his sentiments by wishing to go for your paper instead of for the Times, or for any of the English papers.”

“Well, there’s something to that,” said Blomberg.

“My aunt, Princess Kouragine,” said Alyosha, “is giving him letters to several of the Generals—the British Chargé d’Affaires.”

“Well,” said Blomberg, “as to the terms.”

And then another battle began, which was conducted entirely between Mr. Blomberg and Alyosha. Miles looked on gaping. An arrangement was arrived at, to which Alyosha reluctantly consented. To Miles it seemed beyond the dreams of avarice. As far as he could make out in English money, it amounted to £100 a month and £200 a month for expenses, for a monthly illustrated article—that is to say, for the illustrations.

When the bargain was struck, Mr. Paul Haslam was announced. The coincidence had been arranged by Alyosha. He came, saw, and agreed. Mr. Blomberg gave Miles a written certificate that he was the accredited photographer to Skreibners’; and after arranging to meet Haslam at the hotel—they were all to start that night if they could get matters arranged—Miles and Alyosha took their leave of Mr. Blomberg.

“Do you really know all about photography?” Miles asked as they were driving to the British Embassy.

“Only from what you told me during the journey out, and from once having a Kodak.”

“It seems a lot of money to get for a few photographs.”

“You will have to give all the pay to Haslam,” said Alyosha. “I arranged that with him; but you need not feel the loss unless you like, as he will let you share his food and lodging, and charge it up in his expenses; and as you have the expenses, you will be able to make both ends meet.”

“Oh! I don’t mind the expense,” said Miles, thinking, not without a twinge, of Aunt Fanny. “Now what have I got to do at the Embassy?”

“You have got to see the Chargé d’Affaires—his name is Geoffrey Walter. Give him this letter from my Aunt Kitty. It is telling him who you are, and that her family knows relations of yours, and asking him to help you to take advantage of a great opportunity. I explained everything to her, and that Uncle Pierre knew your father, and that you were a great artist being wasted in the City office, and had this great opportunity of seeing the world and of doing creative work; and just now, when all the world was anti-Russian, what a good thing it would be for you to take pictures and write articles in a pro-Russian American magazine like Skreibners’, which has a vast circulation. When you have given him the letter, you must tell him you are going out for Skreibners’, as an artist, and ask him for two letters of introduction—one to General Z., at the War Office here, and an unsealed letter of introduction that you can show to any authorities out there. It had better be addressed to the Viceroy, and perhaps you had better get another addressed to the Commander-in-Chief.”

“But will he do all that?”

“Try,” said Alyosha. “While you are here I have got a commission to do. I will call for you in twenty minutes. If you are ready first, wait. If I am ready first, I will wait for you down here in the cab. Au revoir.”

“I shall never be able to ask for all that,” said Miles.

“Then I had better come with you,” said Alyosha. He asked the hall-porter whether he could see Mr. Walter, the Chargé d’Affaires, and sent up their cards. They were shown into a waiting-room, and presently one of the younger secretaries came to them and asked them in the high, refined, languid idiom of Oxford what it was they wanted. Alyosha said that they must see the Chargé d’Affaires in person, and no one else. They came from Princess Kouragine, and Miles had a letter that he had been asked to deliver in person. The matter was urgent.

The secretary left them, and presently took Miles and Alyosha into the Chargé d’Affaires’ room.

Geoffrey Walter was getting on for forty. He was a great friend of Princess Kouragine, one of her few intimate friends; and although they quarrelled over politics, they agreed about literature, of which they were both genuinely fond.

Miles presented his letter. Walter greeted them affably. He had no idea who Miles was, and the Kouragines were legion. He had never seen Alyosha and had no idea who he was. So he asked them to sit down, and put on his spectacles—or rather the gold-edged pince-nez, which hung on a broad black ribbon—and read the letter. The letter was written in French, for Princess Kouragine, although she could speak English fluently, found it impossible to spell.

“Mon cher Geoffrey” (it ran),—“Je vous présente un nouvel ami, un grand ami de Pierre Dashkov, le mari de la sœur de ma belle-sœur Lizzy, et de sa famille, que vous connaissez. Il parait que c’est un garçon tout-à-fait remarquable, qui a découvert de nouveaux procédés de photographie en couleur. Jusqu’à présent il a été forcé par sa tante de travailler dans un stupide bureau à Londres ce qui n’est pas du tout nécessaire, le garçon ayant hérité d’une immense fortune, et du reste sa maison d’affaires, une vieille maison respectable, comme dans Dickens, est dirigée par un associé, un vrai business man qui fait tout, donc il n’a rien à faire sauf de signer des lettres et dire bonjour aux clients. Maintenant un ‘magazine’ Américain lui a offert l’occasion de prendre des vues photographiques au front en Mantchourie. Ce sera une occasion magnifique pour le développement de son caractère aussi bien que pour son art. Je vous prie donc de lui donner une lettre pour le General Z., au Ministère de la Guerre, pour lui recommander mon protégé, et de faire tout ce que vous pouvez pour l’aider. Il est nécessaire qu’il soit recommandé par son Ambassade.

“Venez prendre une tasse de thé après-demain soir si vous êtes libre.

“P.S.—Quel horrible article dans le dernier Times!”

Walter read the letter and smiled. He was used to Princess Kouragine’s sudden enthusiasms, but he was surprised that she wished to send an Englishman to Manchuria.

“What magazine are you going for?” he asked.

“I am Princess Kouragine’s nephew,” broke in Alyosha, “and she has asked me to come and be Mr. Consterdine’s spokesman, knowing that he was shy, as all Englishmen. She thought que je saurais plaider sa cause, and she said that you would be able to arrange everything. Mr. Consterdine is, of course, the senior partner in the historic firm of Consterdine, of London and Madeira.”

Walter did not know the firm, but made up his mind that he would get some port wine.

“A firm,” Alyosha went on, “that has always had relations with Russia, and whose name is known among the connoisseurs of great wines. Mr. Consterdine is taking a holiday. He wants to see the world, the East. He has a talent for photography, and has won prizes at International Concours, and has made some discoveries in colour photography. Skreibners’, the American magazine, has made him an offer to go out for them. Skreibners’ is for our poor country at this moment, so it would be an advantage for the good relations between England and Russia that a man like Mr. Consterdine should give the English and American public impartial comptes-rendus.”

“Ah, that accounts for it,” thought Walter.

Skreibners’, he knew, was a whole-heartedly pro-Russian and violently anti-Japanese organ.

“Of course,” said Alyosha, “our Government will give you alone the credit for this. They know all you have done to try and settle that foolish brouille with the Times.”

“I wish he could go for the Times,” said Walter. “It is really too silly that there should be no correspondent for the Times there at such a moment.”

“Ah,” said Alyosha, “it is indeed a pity, but the fault, I am afraid, is on our side.”

“The newspapers are always very tiresome,” said Walter wearily; “but what is it you want?—a letter to General Z.? I don’t know the General very well, but I have met him.”

“It is necessary,” said Alyosha, “that Mr. Consterdine should be recommended by his Embassy.”

“Of course, your Government,” said Walter to Alyosha, “is not over-anxious to have correspondents—what Government is?—and I doubt if they will let you send anything off; but after all, pictures in a magazine, and in Skreibners’ ... I will do what I can.”

He began to write a letter.

“It would be still more valuable,” said Alyosha, “if you could also give Mr. Consterdine a letter, an unsealed letter, that he could show to the authorities out there when necessary.”

“What authorities?”

“Well, the Viceroy at Mukden and the Commander-in-Chief,” Alyosha said airily.

Walter thought a little. He knew neither of these important people, but he hated admitting that anything was impossible to a man of tact and savoir-faire. Also he genuinely liked arranging and settling things for people, especially officially; he liked to show people there was no red tape in his work and that diplomats were not necessarily unbusinesslike. He took pride in it.

“They should be from a Russian,” he said. “I am going round to the Foreign Office this morning, in half an hour’s time. I will see what I can do. If you could call back just before luncheon, you shall have the letters then if I can get them.”

“My Uncle Dashkov is a great friend of Olenev’s,” said Alyosha, naming one of the higher officials at the Foreign Office.

Walter wrote the letter to General Z. He wrote it in French very quickly, in a clear, bold handwriting, copying Miles’ name from the visiting card.

“There,” he said to Miles, “is the letter.”

“You were at Mourieux’, weren’t you?” Miles said. “Madame Mourieux used to talk of you so often.”

Walter’s manner changed. He beamed.

“Yes, indeed! how are they? How is the old man and Madame? I am devoted to them both. They always write to me on New Year’s Day. Fancy your having been there!—to learn French?”

“Yes, to learn French.”

“You will now see that Mr. Walter will arrange everything as by magic,” said Alyosha as he took Miles away after saying good-bye. They went straight to the War Office, where Alyosha seemed to be quite at home. After several confabulations with orderlies and other underlings, Walter’s letter was sent in to the General, and presently Miles himself was shown into the General’s room, alone this time.

The General addressed him in broken French, begged him to be impartial, and gave him a printed form to fill up in ink, which he signed then and there, and which allowed him to proceed to Kharbin and to the seat of war. The General then shook hands with him, wished him luck, and begged him to have his articles forwarded to him.

The interview only lasted a few moments, and it seemed to Miles that it was as simple as ABC to go to Manchuria; so no doubt it was when the problem was tackled in the right way. Alyosha then drove Miles to several shops, and they purchased what to Miles seemed strange equipment—a number of grey sarcenet shirts, some loose high Russian boots, some flannel tunics, and two Caucasian cloaks called Burkas.

“Shan’t we want saddles?” asked Miles.

“No,” he said. “Haslam will have all that. We will travel light; other people will travel heavy for us. There are several correspondents going out who have never been to a war before. They will take the unnecessaries.”

Before luncheon they called back at the Embassy and once more they saw Walter. He presented Miles triumphantly with two typewritten letters: one addressed to the Viceroy and one to the Commander-in-Chief, stating that Mr. Miles Consterdine, the senior partner of the firm, which had had age-long relations with Russia, and was a celebrated artist, was proceeding to Manchuria, to take special views of the front for the extremely important and Russophile American magazine, Skreibners’. It was to be hoped that all possible facilities would be given to Mr. Miles Consterdine, who was a man of culture and of importance in the City, as well as in the world of art in London. The letters were signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself.

“That being so, we will start to-night,” said Alyosha. “It is useless for us to waste another day here.” They then drove back home. Princess Kouragine was awaiting them upstairs.

The Princess shook hands with Miles, Alyosha kissed her hand; they went into luncheon immediately. The Princess made no allusion to what had occurred the night before. She asked about their plans, and was delighted to hear that everything had gone well.

“I knew Walter would do what I asked him,” she said. “One must let him think he is a Providence, mondain, a mixture of Talleyrand and the Good Samaritan, and he will do anything. I like him all the same, very much. He is agreeable, and has good taste in literature, and speaks Russian better than I do. You must learn Russian, Mr. Miles, especially as you are so musical.”

“I—musical? I have heard hardly any music,” said Miles, bewildered.

“But you appreciate it very much, especially gipsy music, I think. Alyosha told me that you went to the Bohémiens last night,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye. Miles blushed. “I am delighted you did,” she went on. “I used to be fond of them too, when I was young. It is a pity you are not staying; you could go again to-night. It grows upon one. When I was first married we used to go night after night, and we used to feel so comfortably sad and melancholy, like the lovers and clowns in Shakespeare; later on one is melancholy in a different way—it is no longer ‘idle tears’ but ‘tears of recognition.’ That is the poet Patmore. Do you know the poet Patmore? No? He is a great poet, one of the best modern English poets. Don’t you know your English poets, Mr. Miles?”

“Very little, I am afraid.”

“You have not had time. You will have time at the War to read. I will give you one poet. One poet is enough at the war, and you will not have room for two. I will give you my favourite English poet. I will not tell you who he is. You will guess. I delight in your English poets. After Pushkin, I like them best of all; better than the Germans and Italians and French. I am putting aside Shakespeare, Dante and Goethe of course. They are apart. But your English poets. There are so many—Milton and Byron, and Wordsworth and Longfellow, and Browning and Lord Lytton. And Patmore and Tennyson, and Keats and Mrs. Hemans. Walter reads to me sometimes. He will read me Swinburne, c’est joli, mais vide, ‘poustoi.’ But I have discovered a new poet for him, or rather a poetess. I found her book by Watkins. She writes such beautiful things. Her name is Ella Wheeler Wilcox. You don’t know her?”

“I am afraid not,” said Miles.

“Ah, Aunt Kitty, she is like the words of the gipsies’ songs,” said Alyosha.

“C’est possible; but I am old and sentimental, and I like simple poems:

‘Laugh and the world laughs with you,

Weep, and you weep alone.’

What could you have better than that? I like simple things I can understand. And also difficult things sometimes that give one to think, quand ils sont très beaux, like Browning. He is the lovers’ poet. Have you ever been in love, Mr. Miles? No, not yet,” she answered for him, seeing his blush. “Not really, only small adventures—cela viendra. Then you must learn Russian to read Pushkin. He says certain things like no one else. More simply than any one else, as I imagine the Greeks did. Oh, how I wish I knew Greek! Translations are impossible. There is no war news to-day, Alyosha, so I feel there must be bad news. Oh, ces Japonais! Walter knows them. He lived in Japan. He liked their poetry, but he says it is all gone. They are materialised. Tant pis pour nous et pour vous. They and the Chinese will conquer us some day. I shall be dead, thank Heaven! So you are going to-night? You will have a glimpse of Moscow. You must take him to Testov, Alyosha, and give him rastigai and kalachi to eat. He must see the Kremlin and the Tretiakov Gallery.”

“We shan’t have time,” said Alyosha.

“Nonsense; you will have the whole day.”

The Princess’s monologue, punctuated by questions, went on thus throughout luncheon. Sometimes the aunt and the nephew had a short argument. After luncheon they smoked in the little room. At three o’clock the Princess’s carriage was announced.

“I will take Mr. Miles for a drive,” she said. “I know you have things to do, Alyosha. You will have an early dinner here, and then go to the station.” Alyosha left them, and the Princess took Miles for a drive, during the course of which she drew from him the whole story of his short and uneventful life. It made her thoughtful.

As they were nearing home she said to him: “I am satisfied, Mr. Miles; you may go with Alyosha. It is not every one who would allow you to go to Manchuria with Alyosha. It is not every one I should allow him to take. He has been, you know, what is called ‘unlucky,’ and he has made a mess of his life; but has had des malheurs, as I know he has hinted to you. But he is not bad au fond, malgré tous ses défauts, and he will do you no harm. I can let you go safely, and you may not see much of him. After all, one has to face life some time or other. You will do him good.”

They had a hurried meal later without the Princess, who was dining out, but she came to say good-bye to them. She gave Alyosha and Miles each a little holy medal, and to Miles a parcel as well.

She followed them out on to the landing. There she stopped, and Alyosha bade her a last good-bye. He kissed her hand. She kissed his forehead, and gave him her blessing. Miles felt impelled to kiss her hand too, and she blessed him too.

“Take care of yourself, Alyosha, and surtout you are to take care of Mr. Miles. Good-bye, Alyosha. You will never see me again.”