IV
PETROGRAD LOOKED THOROUGHLY NASTY ON that cold November morning. There was the drizzling snow, and it was still dark as I walked home with Uncle Kostia. We had been at the Finland Station to see off two of Uncle Kostia’s nieces who were going abroad. It was the morning of the Bolshevik Revolution, and Uncle Kostia looked pessimistic. “Do you remember all those student-revolutionaries, the heroes of our young intelligentsia, who had been persecuted by the old regime? Well,”—he pointed from the bridge that we were traversing to the Bolshevik craft that had arrived from Kronstadt overnight—“this is more than they bargained for. More than they bargained for.”
We walked on.
“They are malcontents again — but on the other side! Truth is fond of playing practical jokes of this sort. My God! how elusive it is. It is wonderful how beneath our hastily made-up truths, the truths of usage and convenience, there runs independently, often contrariwise, a wider, bigger truth. Can’t you feel it? The pseudo-reason of unreason. The lack of reasonable evidence in reason. Issues, motives being muddled up. This ethical confusion, and the blind habitual resort to bloodshed as a means of straightening it out. More confusion. Honour is involved. Bloodshed as a solution. More honour involved in the solution. More bloodshed. That idiotic plea that each generation should sacrifice itself for the so-called benefit of the next! It never seems to end.… Oh, how the pendulum swings! Wider and wider, and we are shedding blood generation after generation. For what? For whom?… For future generations! My God, what fools we are! Fools shedding blood for the sake of future fools, who will do as much!”
“But what are you to do? What?” I persisted.
Uncle Kostia was evasive. “You see,” he said at last, “subtleties of the mind, if pursued to their logical conclusions, become crudities. Let us cease our conversation at this point.”
Barricades appeared in the streets. Bridges were being suspended. Lorries of joy-riding proletarians became familiarly conspicuous, as I walked on towards the Bursanovs.
I found the household in a state of wild excitement. However, the event had no connexion with the Revolution. In fact, with continual domestic revolutions in their own home, the much ado about the political revolution appeared, particularly to the three sisters, a foolish affectation.
I learnt that Nikolai Vasilievich had just discovered that his book-keeper Stanitski, at the instigation of his house-agent, had these last five years been falsifying the books and robbing him wholesale. When the discovery was made the house-agent had vanished into the darkness whence he had emerged. But as I entered I was very nearly knocked down by Nikolai Vasilievich dashing after Stanitski, the book-keeper, as he was flying down the stairs. He caught him by the tail of his overcoat and dragged him back into his study. He had him standing, stiff and awkward and ashamed, before his desk, while he himself reclined in his arm-chair.
Nikolai Vasilievich did not shout, as Stanitski, who knew his master intimately, had, no doubt, expected him to do. He spoke quietly and even sadly; and it was the sadness of his speech that penetrated Stanitski’s Slavic nature to the heart. “How could you have cheated me like that, Ivan Sergeiech — me who have trusted you?”
And Stanitski became emotional. “Nikolai Vasilievich!” he exclaimed with his hands joined together and the whites of his eyes turned heavenward. “Nikolai Vasilievich! God in Heaven knows I have not been helping myself to your money, as you seem to think, recklessly. But since I took a little — and I have a wife, children, dependents — I had to do what the house-agent told me. I was in his hands, at the mercy of a blackguard and a robber. Nikolai Vasilievich: I often felt I wanted to warn you of this rascal. But I was in his hands … since I took myself. But I took in measure, Nikolai Vasilievich, conscientiously, with my eyes on God.…”
The old man sobbed bitter tears. He felt that fate had dealt him a cruel blow, unjustifiably cruel, in return for his moderation.
What could be done to him? Baron Wunderhausen, who now, as Soma’s husband, lived with the family, suggested handing the man over to the Bolshevik militia. But Nikolai Vasilievich only waved his hand. I think it was the family aspect of the old man’s position that penetrated Nikolai Vasilievich to the heart. He sat there at his desk, brooding darkly, while Stanitski, gently, like a cat, felt his way out of the flat.
Fanny Ivanovna sighed conspicuously.
“An optimistic gentleman — Stanitski,” I remarked. “What a belief in the kindliness of things! What a claim on the favour of Providence!”
“And, as it happens, he is not far wrong in his calculations,” said the Baron with a bitterness which showed that he, as son-in-law, was dissatisfied with the management of the family’s finances. “I call this state of things disgraceful.”
“God have mercy upon us!” whispered Fanny Ivanovna, almost ironically.
“An optimist,” I digressed aloud, “is a fool, since he can’t see what awaits him — disillusionment. But he is wise without knowing it, since, however bad the present, he remains an optimist as to the future, and so his present seems never quite so bad to him as it really is.”
“Say it again,” breathed Nina.
“A fool,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “is an optimist. He is optimistic about himself, optimistic about his folly. I’m an optimist!”
He stood up, his hands in his trouser pockets, and gazed at the window. Twilight was falling swiftly. Nina, perched up on the sofa, sat silent, her head bent.
“What’s the good of being miserable?” I said to her.
“As though I deliberately chose to be miserable!” To console herself, she took an apple.
“Optimists that we are!” sighed Fanny Ivanovna.
“Warranting considerable pessimism,” supplied the Baron.
“It is easier to hope,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “and be disappointed, it is easier to hope knowing that one will be disappointed, than not hope at all.”
“Why don’t the writers — the novelists — why don’t they write about this, this real life,” said Fanny Ivanovna, “this real drama of life, rather than their neat, reasoned, reasonable and — oh! so unconvincing novels?”
“This philosophizing won’t help us,” jeered Nikolai Vasilievich mildly. “We ought to do things. I want to do things. This moment I am teeming over with energy. I could do and settle things to-day, square up our affairs, and start life afresh.… But …”
The Baron looked at him. “Well?”
“But—” A gesture at the window indicated the obstacle. “What can I do with this? What can anybody do? All is tumbling, going to ruin. In a month or so all business will stop, works will close down. The rouble will be valueless. There will be nothing.…” “Now don’t lose courage, Nikolai,” said Fanny Ivanovna hopefully. “We shall pull through; somehow we shall; and then on the other side of the grave we shall be safe.”
“Her most optimistic moment in life!” jeered Nikolai Vasilievich.
“It’s a surprising thing what the human soul will stand, Andrei Andreiech,” she said. “I can venture only this explanation; it is habit. You see, the cup is ever filled to the brim, but — lo! the miracle! the cup expands. No trouble. None!.. And here we are.”