“And where is Magda Nikolaevna?” I asked.
“She is with Čečedek.”
“One burden less, what, Nikolai Vasilievich?”
Nikolai Vasilievich sighed.
“You would hardly say so,” said Fanny Ivanovna, “for Nikolai Vasilievich still has to keep his wife.”
“But what of Čečedek?”
“I am very sorry for him,” said Fanny Ivanovna.
And I learnt that at the outbreak of hostilities the Russian authorities had found it necessary to confiscate the whole of Čečedek’s property. They were then going to intern him, but he succeeded in proving to them that he was now a Czech; and so they set him free. But the property which they had taken from him as an Austrian they did not return to him as a Czech. He had been in correspondence with the authorities on this subject ever since July, 1914, and on his ultimate success in getting some of it refunded his marriage with Magda Nikolaevna must henceforth depend. Whether the revolution would assist him in his ambitious expectations, or would delay them further, it was hard to prophesy. Nikolai Vasilievich helped him as much as he was able in his present circumstances. In the meantime Magda Nikolaevna had suspended her application for a divorce and was still on Nikolai Vasilievich’s books for payment. But Čečedek’s attitude had not changed. He now rather liked to emphasize the Slavic side to their union, had in the last three years developed a Czech intonation in his Russian speech, professed an undue regard for his “Brother-Slavs,” pronounced his own name “Chechedek,” and in signing put those funny little accents on the C’s.
I left them very early next morning; in the excitement of the day there had been much work left overnight unaccomplished. It was about six o’clock when I crossed the Field of Mars. Soldiers in odd groups strolled along in the snow, now and then firing off a rifle in the air, just for the fun of the thing; and the capital wore that appearance of a banqueting-hall in the shrewd light of the morning after a particularly heavy feast. Fretful clouds moved swiftly across the winter sky. The morning promised a fine day.
III
THE REVOLUTION DRAGGED ON THROUGH THE winter and “deepened” as the months advanced. The forerunners of confusion became visible: food and commodities were being procured in an irregular manner. All were waiting.…
Pictures of them recur continually to my mind, as I write. I can see Fanny Ivanovna, and particularly I can see the three sisters, always sitting in the same positions, perched on sundry chairs and sofas, Fanny Ivanovna engaged in silent contemplation over needlework, and Kniaz sitting in his usual chair, reading, or more often sitting idly, thinking into space. The seasons would be changing rapidly from one to the other — but their position never! Rain would drum against the window-pane, snow would be falling on the street below; then the ice on the Neva would begin to break and slowly move toward the Bay; and again one would feel the onset of spring, the unfolding of white nights.…
“How tiring this is, Andrei Andreiech,” Fanny Ivanovna complained. “To be always waiting to begin to live. When is that upward movement in happiness, that splendid life that we are always waiting for, to begin at last? Somehow you wait for the spring. But spring has come … alone, and only emphasizes our misery, by the contrast.… Spring makes me mad. I begin to want impossible things.…”
“You are an active woman, Fanny Ivanovna,” said I. “You ought not to sit still. It’s bad for you. You ought to run about.”
“But … I’ve got to wait.”
“I suppose waiting is sitting still. It is, in a sense.…”
“It isn’t that. But what am I going to run about for? I go out shopping. But that doesn’t advance things, you understand. Besides, I simply dread asking Nikolai Vasilievich for money.”
“He hasn’t got any?”
“He has. He’s always borrowing—crescendo, forte, fortissimo! But where will it end? When? Borrowing money is all right if you can do it. But it’s not, as it were, an income; it’s not — how shall I put it? — an end in itself, is it? There’s got to be something, somewhere, sometime. Those gold-mines have got to justify themselves. Our plans, our movements, everything depends on them. That’s why it’s so annoying. They’ve got to pay, and I am confident that they will pay. But when?…”
She rose abruptly, as was her wont, her black silk skirt rustling as she swept out.
It was “Papa this” and “Mamma that” and “Fanny Ivanovna the other thing.”
“Won’t you stop sighing?” I suggested.
“It’s all very well for you,” protested the three sisters simultaneously. “But do you think it’s very nice for us?”
“What do you want, anyhow?”
They did not answer; they looked at the window, brooding.
I said in a jovial tone of voice:
“Well, I tried to help you. But you won’t be helped.”
“Helped us indeed!” they cried out simultaneously. The three sisters had a way of speaking simultaneously and almost word for word in matters of domestic politics. They were a party in themselves, stubbornly opposed to all the other camps of Nikolai Vasilievich’s family.
The night before, I had taken them to Kusivitski’s concert. People had been staring enviously at me, as if to ask: “Who are those three pretty kittens?” I felt absurdly like a proud papa. The music was excruciating. During the piano solo I clung to my chair: I could scarcely sit still. “Scriabin,” I burst out as the music stopped, “is a persistent knocking at the door — but the door doesn’t open. Still, as we might know in any case that there is nothing behind the door, that doesn’t greatly matter, does it? It’s the knocking that is a human necessity. And what a desperate knocking it is!”
Nina looked at me with that trick she had of assuming innocence and said: “Which door?”
And it flashed across my mind that, whereas Sonia played the piano with an agreeable touch of feeling, Nina’s hammering was shrill and disagreeable, while, musically, Vera was still an unknown quantity.
But the pianist had resumed.
“What is this?” Nina asked.
“A fox-trot,” I replied, very superior.
I sat on the small seat facing the three sisters, as Professor Metchnikoff trotted homeward through the sombre streets. The night was warm and humid. By the street lamps I could see their faces. When she was silent Nina looked so wise. Perhaps she seemed wiser than she actually was. All this — the war, the revolution — she had overlooked: and it did not exist. Scriabin — she had overlooked him. And he did not exist. But she was there, watchful.…
The day after was like the day before. They sat there listless — Fanny Ivanovna, Kniaz and the three sisters. The three sisters always sat in some extraordinary positions, on the backs of sofas and easy chairs, and Fanny Ivanovna and Kniaz sat in very ordinary positions. Nikolai Vasilievich alone was always absent; and I think there was a sort of feeling running through us all that he at least was busy, doing something. But in more sceptical moods I know I was inclined to question dubiously whether he too was getting anywhere for all the semblance of activity that his mysterious absence involved. I remember the silhouette of Nina’s profile at the window. I can feel the tension of the silence that hung over the room, the suspense of waiting — of indefinite waiting for indefinite things. In the hush that had crept upon us I could fancy I could sense acutely the disturbing presence of the things my eye could not behold: the gilded domes radiant in the fading sunlight, the many bridges thrown across the widespread stream; and in the stillness I was made to feel as if by instinct the throbbing pulse of Petrograd. The leaden waves splashed gently against the granite banks; and the air was full of that yearning melancholy call of life that yet reminds one — God knows why — of the imminence of death; and in the sky there was the promise of a white night.