General Bologoevski, on my left, was holding forth on the situation.
“Looks pretty hopeless,” I remarked.
“Not a bit of it,” rejoined the General.
“But they are retreating everywhere.”
“On purpose,” said the General.
“But whatever for?”
“Well, there was a conference of generals … I presume … who have decided it. I think it a good thing myself.”
“Why?”
“Well … we’ll entrap them.”
“I am most pessimistic.”
“I am perfectly optimistic — quite certain of victory.”
“Why, General?”
“Denikin.”
“He is advancing very slowly.”
“Ah, but he is about to enter Great Russian territory.”
“Well, what’s there in that?”
“Why,” he explained, “the Great Russians are the only real decent Russians. I am a Great Russian myself.”
I nodded with significance, as if to indicate that this made all the difference in the situation.
Then, once again, Fanny Ivanovna sat silent. Perhaps she thought of her position, insecure and unconventional, disused, no longer wanted; and of her instincts so discordant with her life, her instincts that had always been on the side of respectability, the purity of home life, the sanctity of marriage, and the very things, in fact, that had always been denied her: so much so that in her unstable, questionable position she had yet been stringently insistent on this aspect of their life, and always in her heart was reminded that she had no title to enforce that law, no claim, beyond a doleful craving for the decencies of usage and convention. Perhaps the presence of Nikolai Vasilievich’s two other wives had served to remind her of the painful irony of her life; perhaps the wine affected her with melancholy as it had affected me. Perhaps she pondered on her broken life, her sacrifices that had gone unnoticed; or pictured to herself her eventual return to Germany, the cruel astonishment of those for whom she too had sacrificed her life. And it may have occurred to her, as a belated afterthought in life, that possibly she had been “sat upon” too often and too much.
But no; it was not quite that. There was something fatalistic, and yet almost defiant, in her look. A blend of optimistic resignation. What was it? What was she discovering? Why that smile? It was as though in desperation she had given him full rein and found, to her amazement, that he did not seem to pull as hard as when she held him tight.
I perceived that my dinner-party promised well. I caught Fanny Ivanovna’s eye and raised my glass; and instantly I had her glass refilled. My head began to swim. I discovered an agreeable warmth in my body, and the expression that had come on my face seemed to be getting out of my control. “Fanny Ivanovna,” I cried, “never mind my expression: I know it is stupid. It has come on of its own accord, and I cannot quite remove it, though I feel that a smile may develop of itself at any moment.”
“Look,” Nina said to Sonia, “how awfully funnily his face changes from smile to seriousness. Look!”
I smiled a drunken smile.
“Look: there again!”
I should have explained here that I had a passion for that white and pasty substance that Russians eat at Easter — paskha, and when I was in Russia I made it my habit to eat it in and out of season. I had a pyramid of considerable dimensions locked up in the safe.… And now, at the close of dinner, the secret was betrayed. A dash was made for it. The guests armed themselves with knives, forks, and spoons and dug into the substance and cleared it away in less than twenty minutes. They then lay moaning and suffering not a little from its effect on their abounding stomachs.
We were jolly, exuberant, self-centred and sentimental. I felt distinctly pleased with myself. I knew not why; that is the secret of good wine. Some people laughed, others after the manner of the Slav were fain to weep; and outside there raged the snowstorm of a Siberian winter night.
Fanny Ivanovna, Magda Nikolaevna, Čečedek, Eisenstein, Nikolai Vasilievich, reclined on sofas and arm-chairs, smoked and sipped liqueurs; and Sonia, Nina, Vera, Zina and her sisters and Baron Wunderhausen made a noise in the adjoining rooms and did wild things with the furniture.
Uncle Kostia stood on the hearth-rug, dazed and very red in the face, and held forth at great length: his Russian soul a reservoir of overflowing feeling. “I feel positively strange,” he said. “I swear I never felt like this before. I nodded, do you know, to some point in an argument with which at the time I happened to agree, and to my great embarrassment I somehow kept on nodding quite in spite of myself, and keep on nodding — do you see me, Fanny Ivanovna? — though the portion of the argument with which I had expressed agreement long died in oblivion. I know it is the wine. It is good wine, and — to make a long story short — I am drunk. But I don’t care. This is an exceptional night. It is a memorable night. Fanny Ivanovna and Nikolai Vasilievich and Magda Nikolaevna, Moesei Moeseiech, Zina, Sonia, Nina, Vera, Kniaz: I swear I never felt so near to you as I do feel to-night. I feel beastly sentimental. I feel that I could howl aloud. I feel that presently I will go round and kiss each one of you in turn. Look into your own hearts. What is the use of pretending? We are all one family and Nikolai Vasilievich, our dearly beloved, much-respected Nikolai Vasilievich, is our parent and guardian. He stood by us well in our hour of need. His task has been an uphill task; but has he complained of us? Not once. He has borne the burden of many families without a sigh of protest. Speaking for myself, we men of letters have to lean for our support on stalwart men like Nikolai Vasilievich, and it is indeed largely on their generous help that art and literature must depend. As you know, we men of letters are no business men, but if as a writer and a student of life and human nature I may presume to give advice: don’t lose courage, Nikolai Vasilievich. Remember, we are all behind you; we shall follow you, if need be, to the end of the earth. Courage, Nikolai Vasilievich! Keep hard at it! Keep hard at it!”
We became agitated. We all spoke at once, perhaps for no other reason than that we had been deprived of speaking for so long. And then, suddenly, we subsided, for on the floor above us, occupied by a Russian family, some one was playing the piano. It was Chopin. We listened to the music and grew still, and our souls were all music as though he had touched their strings. And the house seemed charmed, and the gruff Siberian night looked in through the window and listened in silence.… For his is the grace and sweet melancholy of romance, and his the laughter of silver trumpets, and tears as bright as the dew at dawn. His sorrows are no graver than the sorrow of the gold-red sunset, and his sobs are the sobs of the sea, the echo of the waves weeping on the rocks. And it has all been to him a dream in music, and when we hear it we dream with him.…
“And Fanny Ivanovna,” said Nikolai Vasilievich, “is now a widow!”
A thought flashed across my brain. “Fanny Ivanovna,” I cried, “I had meant to ask you what was that funeral procession you all followed yesterday?”