Читать книгу Unchanging Quest - Philip Gibbs - Страница 10

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ATHERINE was the first to speak to me about Father Dolin, whose name had suddenly become famous in the world because of a tragic incident in Russian history. He had led a peaceful procession of peasants, students, and women, to present a petition of right to the “Little Father” at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. They were unarmed, and at the head of the procession this young priest carried a cross. They went singing a Russian hymn. And suddenly, at the gates of the palace, an order to fire rang out across the snow, the singing changing to cries and groans, the snow was stained red with the blood of murdered men and women.

This crime shocked the civilised world. Even Punch, no friend of revolution, had a cartoon showing the Czar—unfairly—as the figure of Death sitting on his imperial throne, smiling upon his victims. Liberals in England, in public meetings, denounced this outrage against liberty, and in Katherine’s home in the Cromwell Road poor Detloff groaned and wept and cried out, “How long, O Lord, how long?” because of this bloody act against his people.

Even young Michael was old enough to turn pale at his father’s narrative of what had happened outside the Czar’s palace, and I remember some words the boy spoke to me afterwards, when I was taking him round the Tower of London on one of those jaunts together which had made us the best of comrades.

“When I’m a man I’ll go to Russia and fight against Tyranny.”

“Dangerous work,” I said, laughing at him. “Look at the old walls round us, and think of all the men and women who had their heads chopped off.”

“P’raps they died for Liberty,” he suggested calmly. “That’s a good thing to do, isn’t it? My father thinks so.”

He was eleven years old at that time, and not priggish, but with a strange, old-fashioned gravity at times which was very startling, because as a rule he was so gay and boisterous, and high-spirited; passionate, also, and enormously self-willed, unless one appealed to his affection, when he melted easily. But his father’s habit of talking to him as though they were of equal age and knowledge, and all those queer conversations which he heard at home between men of advanced views and intellectual brilliance, had made him older in mind than most boys of his age.

I remember arguing the matter out with him that day, as we stood in the tower where Sir Walter Raleigh had been a prisoner.

“Your mother wouldn’t like it if you got shut up in the fortress of Peter and Paul.”

“No,” he answered, “that would be rotten for her, and of course I shouldn’t like it either. But it would be rather a joke carving one’s name on the prison wall, and I’d make a rope and let myself down, or dig a tunnel like Monte Cristo.”

“Much more comfortable in the Cromwell Road,” I said, and that seemed to amuse him.

“Not much adventure!” he protested. “Let’s go and see the dungeons. That place where Guy Fawkes couldn’t stand up and couldn’t lie down. It’s frightfully thrilling!”

One of the old Yeomen of the Guard turned and smiled at this tall boy, with his fair hair and grey eyes, who might have been one of the little princes of the Tower come back to life again. Some strain of his father’s blood, and Katherine’s grace, had given him unusual distinction, which marked him out from other boys of his age and class.

It was a few weeks after that when Katherine spoke to me about Father Dolin. The man who had led the procession to the Winter Palace, and had fallen with his cross among the wounded and murdered people, was actually in her house as a refugee from the Czarist police.

“Serge thinks him a saint,” she told me, smiling a little at the thought of her husband’s emotionalism.

They were sitting in the dining-room when the maid came in, rather flustered, and said: “A gentleman from Russia to see you, sir. He don’t speak no English.” Detloff asked the little maid to show him in, and it was a youngish, broad-shouldered man, with a clean-shaven face and smiling, mystical eyes. “Queer eyes,” said Katherine. He spoke in Russian after the door was shut, and said: “I’m Father Dolin.” Detloff couldn’t believe it at first. Then he kissed his hands and embraced him, and they shed tears together in each other’s arms.

“I’ve put him in the best bedroom,” said Katherine, laughing, because she had put so many strange people in that best bedroom—exiles, out-of-works, cranks, idealists.

Katherine was right about Father Dolin’s eyes. They were curiously luminous, but with a tragic, haunted look, I thought, when he was off his guard and not smiling. He was certainly afraid at first, and had a trick of looking sharply over his shoulder when he ventured to go out of doors. If a door opened suddenly he would start up as though he might be attacked and then laugh and shrug his shoulders. It was plain to see that his nerves were in a bad state, and I sympathised with him when I realised that even in London he might be in danger from Russian agents of the Czarist police, who would send him to Siberia, or worse than that, if they got him back in Russia. He had escaped by shaving off his beard and disguising himself as a peasant, to whose class he belonged.

He and Serge Detloff used to talk for hours in the study upstairs, mostly about the state of Russia, and the chance of liberty—that old dream-word. But after a time, during which he kept close to the house, he became restless, and went for long walks in London, sometimes with young Michael, who liked to talk Russian with him, and sometimes alone. In the evenings he played halma with Michael, or sat watching Katherine with his queer, luminous eyes while she played to Michael’s violin. I didn’t quite like the way he gazed at Katherine—there was something mesmeric in his fixed, smiling stare—and I know that she liked it even less.

One day she spoke to me about him again.

“That Father Dolin,” she said in a frightened way. “He’s not a good man. I’m sure he’s been drinking. Last night when he came in late he smelled horribly of whiskey, and he tried to take my hand and kiss it—not in the Russian way of courtesy, but in a slobbering way that made me shudder. I’m afraid to tell Serge. He thinks him a holy patriot.”

“I should certainly tell him,” I said. “I should say he’s a bad egg.”

“It’s for Michael’s sake I’m most afraid,” said Katherine. “He tells the boy vulgar peasant stories. Rather coarse and beastly. Michael thinks them funny, and doesn’t see the harm in them, thank God.”

Afterwards she told her husband, but he refused to believe that there was anything wrong with Father Dolin, for whom he had the deepest admiration and reverence, until one evening when something happened in that house in the Cromwell Road which verged on melodrama.

Father Dolin, as he called himself, was sitting upstairs in the study with Serge Detloff when three Russians called and were shown into the drawing-room, where Katherine was playing with Michael. She had never seen them before, but one of them, as she knew afterwards, was Prince Anton Manioukoff, who is supposed to have killed Rasputin later in history, though that is not certain. He was a tall, handsome young man, said Katherine, and bowed very low as he entered the room after the little maid, with his two companions, who were also young men.

He spoke in Russian, and gave her the title of Princess, which always seemed to her ridiculous.

“You have a man here named Father Dolin,” he said politely. “My friends and I very much want to see him. We should be deeply obliged if you would let us know in what room he is sitting. As he knows us well there is no need to announce us.”

“I will call my husband,” said Katherine, rising from her chair and moving towards the door. “I know nothing of Father Dolin.”

From the first she seems to have suspected that there was something sinister about this visit, and her husband had warned her to keep Father Dolin’s presence a secret from all but close friends.

The three Russians didn’t seem pleased with the idea that she would call her husband. They would prefer, they said, to go up unannounced. When Katherine insisted they bowed again, and the tall young man said: “As you will, Princess.”

Father Dolin and Detloff were playing chess when Katherine opened their door and told them of the visitors.

“Bring them up!” said Detloff. “I know Prince Anton by name and reputation. He is a very liberal young man, and on our side.”

Katherine noticed that Father Dolin was uneasy. The colour of his skin had a greenish look, though his lips smiled; but he did not say a word.

When Katherine brought up the visitors they saluted Detloff very courteously, and then remained silent for a moment.

“Have you brought any news?” asked Detloff. “I live in fear and trembling about what may happen. Our poor Russia——”

The tall young man answered quietly.

“We have some news about Father Dolin here. Not good news. My Prince, this fellow has been abusing your hospitality. Doubtless you think him a very saintly man, and a Russian patriot. Did he not lead the poor people to the Winter Palace? Was he not with them when they were shot down in cold blood? Yes, that is true. But he led them there so that they might be shot.”

“It’s a lie!” said Father Dolin. “It has been put about by my enemies, and the enemies of Russian liberty.”

He spoke calmly, without any show of fear, except that greenish pallor which Katherine had noticed.

“This fellow,” said the tall young man, ignoring Father Dolin as though he were a dog, “is an agent provocateur of the most infamous type. He was in the pay of the police. With your permission, we propose to take him away and deal with him as he deserves.”

Detloff was stupefied by this accusation against the man whose hands he had kissed as a saint. It was he who told me of Katherine’s courage and common sense.

“That kind of thing isn’t done in England, or this house,” she said. “This man is our guest. Whatever his character, he is staying here under our protection—and under English law. We are in the Cromwell Road, you know.”

“We are Russians, Princess,” said the tall young man. “This dirty fellow has committed one of the blackest crimes in the history of our poor country. We hate to annoy you, but, if you permit us, we will take this man away quietly, and without the slightest violence.”

Katherine said: “I do not permit you.”

Detloff himself, deadly white, spoke to his visitors.

“We have no proof of what you say. It is incredible. I utterly decline to believe it.”

“It’s a lie,” said Father Dolin, with a smile about his lips. “You know how these lies are made, Detloff!”

Prince Anton took some papers out of his pocket, and held them out to Detloff.

“Read these, my dear Prince. The proof is here, this testimony of the people he betrayed, these damning documents, written by himself, his receipts for payment.”

“Forged,” said Father Dolin. “The old trick!”

Detloff ignored the papers then, though afterwards he read them with anguish, but also with doubt. The proof was not absolute.

“My wife is right,” he said. “This man is under our protection—our guest. I beg of you to leave this house.”

The young man twisted his moustache with a gesture of vexation.

“You are over-chivalrous. This man is Judas! We must insist on taking him away.”

Katherine laughed at him.

“This isn’t Moscow, you know. There’s a policeman at the corner of Cromwell Road.”

Her laughter, her absolute refusal to give up her guest, much as she distrusted him, seemed to persuade the tall young Russian.

“This man is very lucky for the moment,” he said. “We apologise for this intrusion, Princess.”

He bowed, and smiled at her, and spoke a word to his companions.

“Some other time,” he said quietly to Father Dolin.

That night Detloff’s guest left the house in the Cromwell Road under the protection of two officers from Scotland Yard, for whom Katherine had telephoned. Two months later he was heard of at Monte Carlo, accompanied by a woman of low reputation. He was killed—or killed himself, the true facts were never known—in the gardens of the Casino.

This queer little incident in Katherine’s quiet life seems, as I have said, to have no meaning except as an accidental episode, and as a revelation of her character and courage. Yet I see now that it was a kind of forewarning, a shadow reaching out of a great darkness which was to envelop her life and link it up, through her husband, with tragic history, in which she needed greater courage.