“My husband’s,” she said, and I was struck unpleasantly by her tone of mirth and triumph.
“Eberheim?”
“Yes,” smiled Nikolai Vasilievich; “she is a widow now. A merry widow!” And Fanny Ivanovna laughed in a loud and jarring manner. It seemed odd why I had not guessed so obvious a candidate when I had seen the funeral procession pass by my window, and had supposed that the corpse had been some victim of the Gaida outbreak. We all felt that it was the best thing for the man, and nothing more was said on the subject. Eisenstein, in an impossible condition, sang sentimental gipsy songs to his own accompaniment on the piano, and his voice was such that the cat hid itself in the house and could not be found for three days afterwards; and Nikolai Vasilievich was assisting him in a rather timid staccato baritone. Sonia, Nina, Vera, Zina and her sisters, Baron Wunderhausen and I were jazzing in the adjoining room. Fanny Ivanovna and Magda Nikolaevna, seated side by side on the sofa, were discussing, somewhat timidly it seemed, Magda Nikolaevna’s proposal that they should start a millinery establishment together, procuring fashionable “Parisian” hats from Peking and Shanghai and selling them at great profit in Vladivostok; and Zina’s father was sleeping, mouth wide open, in his chair.
IX
SHE WAS GOING ALONG QUICKLY, WRAPPED IN the familiar fur; and it was snowing merrily. “Nina!”
She turned round and stopped, smiling. And the bright white winter day seemed to be smiling with her. It was the day of the Social Revolutionary coup d’état. Early in the morning troops of revolutionary partisans had occupied the city peacefully and taken possession of the public buildings, to wild cheering from the local crowds. The Russian national flag had been hauled down and a red one hoisted in its stead. Processions had appeared with revolutionary banners, and the town was decorated in red. “Have you heard the news?” she said. “Pàvel Pàvlovich, the Baron, has fled to Japan overnight, without telling us a word.”
“Of course, he was in danger of being arrested by the Reds,” I said. “But I suppose he’ll come back some day.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“What does Sonia think?”
“She’s glad.”
“Glad?”
“Yes. She was going to leave him herself … to marry Holdcroft. But now …”
“Now what?”
“But now he’s left her.”
“Well, all the better, then. Saves trouble.”
“It’s … humiliating.”
We went on together and, nearing home, we cut through masses of new snow. It was one o’clock. The sun shone yellow. She put her hand into my coat pocket. Tender flecks, falling from the sky, would linger on her brows and lashes. We fumbled and wrangled in the snow; and, with that birdlike look of hers, she said, “To-day … I like you.”
At the American Headquarters dance last night she had been strangely, inexplicably hostile; and Fanny Ivanovna had made it worse by exhorting her to dance with me against her will. And, of course, there were Ward and White and Holdcroft. I remember sitting there that night with a sense of injury. What was the matter? Had I usurped too many of her dances? I felt as a man might feel who in a moment of particular goodwill towards mankind discovers that his watch has been pickpocketed. I said nothing, but strove to put it all into my look. She came up to me, rapturous, delicious. There was about her that night a disquieting, elusive charm. “I told you that I love you. What else do you want?” She said it with just that torturing proportion of smile and earnestness that you could not tell how it was meant: and very likely that was just how it was meant. I remember I ransacked my soul for something stinging. “You can’t love,” I said. “You’re not a woman; you’re a fish.” It is unfair to analyse love-reasoning unless in a similar emotional temperature. The dance over, our coats on, we sat and waited for the car, Nina looking rather sulky.… And to-day what a change the sunshine has wrought!
We reached their house. “Come in,” she said.
“No.”
She went in, took off her coat, and while I lingered, came back and stood on the steps.
“You’ll catch cold like that.”
She shook her head.
“I wish,” said I, “that women would propose to men.… I should love to say, ‘Oh, why can’t we remain just friends?’ ”
She looked at me. “You would say it to me?”
“Jokingly, of course.”
“I shan’t propose then.”
“And if I said it seriously, would you propose then?”
“Yes,” she laughed.
“Aren’t we supposed to be engaged, though?”
“Are we?”
“I think so.”
“We’ll marry but divorce at once,” she said, “and live separately, and meet only once a year.”
And then the door opened and Nikolai Vasilievich said somewhat angrily to me: “Either come inside, or go. She’ll catch cold standing here with nothing on.” And as he vanished he rather slammed the door.
“Go in, Nina, or he’ll be angry.”
“Take no notice of him. None of us take any notice of him. That’s why he is angry.”
“Then I’ll go in,” I said. And we both went in, and heard Fanny Ivanovna saying: “Believe me, Sonia, it’s all for the best. If you like, send him a post-card with ‘Good riddance’ on it. That’s all you need say.” And as I listened, it transpired further — for misfortunes never come alone — that Baron Wunderhausen was not a baron, and not even Wunderhausen.
Sonia was downcast. “What the devil does it matter, anyhow,” argued Nikolai Vasilievich, “above all now that he is gone, whether he is a baron or no baron, Wunderhausen or no Wunderhausen?” But Sonia would not hear of it. That he should have left without telling her a word! That he should have lied to her all these years! Also she had always scoffed at him for his title, thought it ridiculous, almost a deliberate affectation. But now that the truth had been revealed to her and she knew that he had never had a title, she felt that she had been insulted rudely, married under false pretences. Well, she would insist on a divorce; she would take good care that she was the first in the field to insist on it. Holdcroft was extraordinarily attractive. He seemed rather keen on Vera, though. But how beautifully he danced.
And just that moment the gramophone, which Vera was fiddling with, broke loose into an intoxicating one-step. Nina, standing by it, echoed at the end of each refrain” My-y-y cell-ar!” as the music galloped into syncopation.
Whose is the gramophone?”
It was Olya Olenin’s, the timid “football” little niece of Uncle Kostia.
“There they are!” cried Sonia. Three U.S. naval uniforms appeared in the window.
“If only we had more room here,” sighed Fanny Ivanovna. But how scrupulously clean she kept the little that there was of it.
“I’m for ever blow-ing bub-bles,” hissed the gramophone.…
“Fu—fu fu fu fu—fu fu—” whistled Nikolai Vasil ievich. And, forgetful of her prodigal baronial spouse, Sonia dodged the chairs and sofa in the embrace of Holdcroft, while Kniaz sat in his corner seat, a little in the way, and read his paper and sucked sweets.
“You want to go?” Fanny Ivanovna looked at Nikolai Vasilievich with a solicitude that suggested a desire to anticipate his wishes. “All right. We’ll have our tea now. Sonia! Nina! Vera! Tea.”
“There’s no hurry,” he calmed her.
During tea he was hilarious. He had been out in the streets and mixed with the crowds. What hilarious, happy crowds! The change had come about at last. Something would happen now. He said he thought it would be a few days only till the thing was finally settled. He meant to go and see some of the new ministers. A quite decent Government, it seemed; and what good order, all things considering. The Social-Revolutionaries had a double platform; they appealed to those who had no use for international militarism on revolutionary grounds, and to those who had no use for revolution on national grounds. And Nikolai Vasilievich thought that such broad-minded, reasonable people could not fail to see his point as regards the gold-mines. I sat listening to him and in my influx of sudden happiness eating more than I really wanted to; for I felt she was à moi once more.