Byzantium Endures (35 page)

‘People mauled by lions are said to feel nothing but the most beautiful euphoria,’ said Lolly.

‘But what’s this stuff about the Front got to do with Grigory Yefimovitch Rasputin?’ said Alexei. He was distressed and awkward.

‘Oh, quite a lot, don’t you think?’ Kolya gave his tea-cup to a servant who had come to clear away. He stood up. ‘Make sure the mangy old lion doesn’t maul you,’ he warned Lolly. ‘You know I never agree with your mother about anything. But I agree with that. The
starets
is exploiting the grief we can’t admit and won’t admit until the War reaches its end.’

None of us understood my friend. He was in a peculiarly introspective mood as we left the grand house and took the carriage back to his apartment. I left him to himself. I had been disappointed by my afternoon in High Society. Perhaps the best of the family had not been present. However, I had been erotically moved by ‘Natasha’ and what she had been saying and realised how much I had come to miss the company of unspoiled, uncynical girlhood. I decided it was time to visit Marya Varvorovna. I walked to the building overlooking the Kryukoff Canal. On the canal, barges had been replaced by sleds dragged by emaciated mules. The towpaths were patrolled by so many policemen I began to suspect an important criminal was to be arrested. The concierge, an old ‘gentlewoman’ of Polish extraction and like most Poles thoroughly bad-tempered (they never got over the shock of being conquered first by us and then by the Germans) insulted me by making the sign to ward off the evil eye: ‘No Jews!’ she cried. When I pointed out loudly that I was Ukrainian, of Cossack stock, she complained what horrible people the Ukrainians were and what the Cossacks had done to her poor country. All her estates had been confiscated. Chopin himself had been a relative. A familiar enough litany. I listened as patiently as possible before losing my temper. ‘All I wish to know, Panye, is whether Marya Varvorovna Vorotinsky is at home.’ I had already noted the girl’s card, together with another lady’s, on the door of the building.

‘Of course she isn’t. She’s studying. She won’t be home until six. Who are you?’

I bowed. ‘I am Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff. I am currently staying with my friend Count Nicholai Feodorovitch Petroff.’ I gave Kolya’s address, ‘and can be contacted there.’

She was mollified. She apologised. Or rather she offered some unlikely rationalisation for her bad manners. She said she would give Marya Vorotinsky my message, if I wished to call again I should almost certainly find her at home. I could not be there that evening, since I had arranged to have dinner with Mademoiselle Cornelius and some of her friends. I said I would hope to call the next evening.

I dined at a place called
Agnia’s,
run by a hard-faced widow incapable of smiling at anything. It was the sort of café which had American-cloth on the tables and a general atmosphere the bourgeoisie like to think is working-class. It was, of course, occupied entirely by bourgeois revolutionaries plotting, without any evidence of irony, the downfall of their own kind. I was unhappy about going to the place, which was in the Petersburgskaya and not that far from my lodgings. There was a chance the place might be raided by the police. I found the food uneatable. The company (Lunarcharsky and his friends) was boring and rude and Mrs Cornelius was desperate for conversation which, much as I tried, I was unable to supply. My only interest was in Science. I had no casual conversation. Amongst Kolya’s friends I would be asked for information, for a scientific opinion, which I could always offer cheerfully, keeping silent when there was nothing to say. Mrs Cornelius was beautiful, of course, and I enjoyed her ambience, but my anger at the nonsense being spouted by her companions was countered only by natural tact. I left early. I hoped to see her again. She understood my situation, I think, and felt a little guilty. As I left she kissed me on the cheek, wafting roses, and said softly, ‘Ta, ta, Ivan. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

In some trepidation I walked back through the wretched streets of our besieged capital. I paused on the Sampsoneffskaya Bridge to watch men breaking holes in the ice, which was still too thin here to use as a thoroughfare. They were like tramps. The only thing which identified them as anything else was their uniform. Why they were smashing at the ice, with pieces of wood and old railings, I still do not know. Perhaps they were hoping to fish.

At school the next day I was singled out for attack by Professor Merkuloff. He had a horrible cold and his nose was bright red. His eyes glared from beneath a ridiculous woollen hat which reached to the top of his glasses. The lecture was on something simple, the construction of a dynamo. He sarcastically asked me if I knew what a dynamo was. I replied quietly that I did know.

He asked me to define an ordinary dynamo and the principles by which it worked. I gave him the usual definition. He seemed disappointed. He asked if I knew anything else. I described the various sorts of dynamo then in general use, who the manufacturers were. I then talked about current experiments with new types, the kind of power it could be possible to generate, what machines could be run off such and such a source, and so on. He became flamboyantly angry. He screamed at me, ‘That will do, Kryscheff!’

‘There is more, your honour.’

‘I asked a simple question. I need simple answers.’

‘You asked me to elaborate.’

‘Sit down, Kryscheff!’

‘Perhaps you would like me to prepare some kind of paper on the development of the dynamo?’ I said.

‘I would like you to sit down. You are either insolent or you are a bore, Kryscheff. You might simply be a literal-minded idiot. You are certainly a fool!’

This was exactly what my envious schoolmates wanted to hear. His sarcasm drew an easy laugh from them. I had it in mind to face Merkuloff down; to demonstrate his lack of intelligence and imagination. He was a time-server. He only had his job because of the War. But it would mean my dismissal from the Institute and I could not afford it. I would be spitting in Uncle Semya’s eye. I would kill my mother. So I sat down.

This was when I finally resolved to display the profundity and complexity of my knowledge. I would eventually show the whole school that I knew more than teachers and pupils together. I would wait for the best chance. When I did this I wished to show Merkuloff up for the opinionated cretin he was. Our examinations, as I have explained, were chiefly oral. There would be a main end-of-term exam before the whole teaching board of the Institute. That was when I would take my revenge.

I was oblivious of the snifflings and jeerings of the other students as I boarded the horse-tram for the slow, freezing journey home. I read an article on Freycinet’s work on reinforced concrete (he had built the famous airship hangars at Orly). I also found a reference to Einstein which I could not at that time completely comprehend. Now I know we were both working towards a very similar end. He was formulating his General Theory of Relativity while I was planning to astonish my professors with my own ontological ideas. Such coincidences are common in science.

Later that evening, wearing my suit, I returned to the house overlooking the Kryukoff Canal. I was greeted this time by a simpering concierge who said Mademoiselle Vorotinsky was looking forward to entertaining me. If I went through the courtyard and took the staircase up to the first floor I would be welcomed by the young lady herself. She regretted, in a voice like poisoned honey, her duties made her stay at the front of the building or she would have been honoured to show me the way. I crossed a courtyard heaped on all sides with filthy snow. A skinny, tethered dalmatian barked at me. This was an older type of building and rather pleasant. I immediately felt safe here. I wished my own lodgings had the same air of security.

I found the appropriate landing and the door on which Marya Vorotinsky and her friend Elena Andreyovna Vlasenkova had placed their neatly hand-lettered name-plates. I turned the key which rang a bell on the other side of the door. I waited. Then a small girl, very pretty, with huge blue eyes and brown wavy hair, wearing a simple brown velvet dress we used to call ‘convent best’, offered me one of the widest, most open smiles I had ever received and bowed me into the apartment. ‘You must be M’sieu Kryscheff? I am Lena Vlasenkova and very pleased to meet you.’

I kissed her hand, ‘I am enchanted, mademoiselle.’ I spoke French.

She said in delight, ‘You are not Russian!’

‘I am Russian through and through.’

‘Your French is perfect.’

‘I have a talent for languages.’ I removed my hat and coat and gave them to her. We entered a light, airy room heated by a beautiful Dutch stove, each tile individually painted and fired, showing scenes of Netherlands country life. There were peasant fabrics everywhere. The pictures on the wall were fine, conventional prints of Russian rural subjects. The place was a wonderful haven. I immediately conceived a desire to stay there forever. Then from the next room emerged, in a dark green dress trimmed with French lace, my oval-eyed acquaintance from the Kiev-Petrograd Express. ‘My dear friend! Why take so long to call on us?’

She stepped forward and shook me warmly by the hand. She did this, I suspected, to impress Lena Andreyovna, whose face still wore the same broad, merry grin.

‘I have had reasons for not making myself too conspicuous. It has been impossible ...’

‘Of course. We understand absolutely.’

Both she and Lena Andreyovna seemed to know more about my ‘secret life’ than I did. I wondered if I had said anything on the train which I had now forgotten. I became fairly cautious.

‘The day is not far off now,’ Lena Andreyovna murmured as she seated herself on the couch, smoothing her skirt under her.

‘No, indeed,’ I said.

‘You will have some tea, M’sieu Kryscheff?’ asked Marya Vorotinsky. ‘I am sorry we have nothing else to drink.’

‘Tea would be most welcome.’

‘It’s ready,’ said Lena Andreyovna. ‘I’ll fetch the glasses.’ She sprang up and returned rapidly with a tray on which were three glasses in wicker holders. The big copper samovar steamed on the stove.

‘You look tired, tovaritch,’ said Marya. ‘You’ve been working hard?’ She used a term which was in general use at the time, but was particularly popular with revolutionaries of the Social-Democrat and Social Revolutionary parties. However, it had no particular significance. As I sat upon the couch and sipped the excellent tea, I nodded. ‘I have had a great deal to do.’

‘You know you can count on us for any help,’ said Marya intensely. ‘We’re entirely at your service.’

I was impressed by the generosity of her statement, the passion with which she made it. ‘I’m much obliged to you.’ I wondered if they shared a bedroom. It was likely. I found them both attractive not so much for their physical looks as for the quality of youthful enthusiasm and innocence I had been missing. They were already offering to help me when they had absolutely no idea what my work could be.

‘You must not be afraid to tell us to be quiet,’ Lena was earnest, ‘if we say the wrong thing. We respect what you are doing.’

‘I am obliged to you for your discretion.’

‘Have you been travelling abroad?’ asked Marya. She sat on the rug at my feet, her tea-glass beside her. ‘Or have you been in Russia all this time?’

‘Russia,’ I said, ‘chiefly.’

‘You can stay here if you need to,’ Lena said. ‘We have discussed it. We think we should let you know that. It could be of use.’

‘Again, I am much obliged.’ It did not really matter to me what they thought my work was. They were offering me everything I had hoped to find. I could not believe my good fortune. I guessed that they thought me some sort of special courier for the military, some engineer working on a mysterious secret weapon, or that I was an envoy for the Tsar himself. It did not matter. If I wished I could come here, spend whole days here. Possibly, in time, I should be able to spend nights here. I wondered to which girl I should show most attention. One should always be seen to be courting the girl one does not actually want. Both had their merits. I decided it would only be polite to pay most attention to my original acquaintance. It would be far safer for me then if Lena succumbed. She knew even less about me than her friend. I luxuriated in their attention for two or three hours. Then, remembering I had agreed to meet Kolya at
The Harlequinade’s Retreat
, I made reluctant excuses. I left their innocence, their security, their admiration, behind me. I walked on air as I headed for the cabaret. That night, I decided, I would take the best girl in the house and enjoy myself so thoroughly she would not be able to move a muscle by the morning. I felt like the Tsar as I descended the steps to be greeted by the usual friends.