The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars (24 page)

“You are right. With Madam Mouravieff around, one can’t take too many precautions.”

Five minutes later, the three Russians and I went out of the signal station on to the jetty. The lights from the yacht were in sight. Hope relaxed our strained nerves like a hot bath. Lobatchof, with his trained sailor’s ear, was the first to detect the noise of the motor across the quiet waters.

“The launch is coming.… They bear no light, probably out of caution.… But look out there, that streak of foam in the moonlight.… That’s it.”

Soon the little white boat turned at the entry to the basin and ran along the jetty. There were two people on board; two black silhouettes, that of the pilot and, doubtless, that of the captain of the yacht. I did the honors at the iron ladder.

“Ivanof, you go first. Now, Commandant, it’s your turn.… And now you, Chapinski.”

They all three jumped into the boat. I slid in, in my turn, ready to thank the captain of the
Northern Star
. But two arms were stretched out to greet me. A voice, trembling with anguish, murmured:

“Gerard!”

I recognized Griselda. So intense was my emotion that I allowed myself literally to throw myself at her. My heart was
bursting with joy. My eyes were filled with tears. The thrill of this resurrection to life and to love ran through my entire body. I clung to Griselda the way a shipwrecked sailor clings to the rescuer who has just snatched him from the arms of death. I hugged her so tightly that I almost took her breath away, inhaling that dear rediscovered perfume, delighting in the unforgotten fragrance of her soft hair. Then I felt her lips press close against mine. She kissed my mouth passionately, filthy as I was, in spite of my eight days’ growth of beard, in spite of my bushy head of hair.… And her kiss gave me back my lost confidence in myself.

While I crushed her little hands in mine, she ordered the pilot to return to the yacht. My three comrades were seated forward in the boat. They were too discreet to speak. The prow of the launch cut through the milky water and cast up phosphorescent drops on either side.

“Gentlemen,” I finally said, “we will make the introductions on board the
Northern Star
, when we have reached that floating asylum, where the laws of western civilization hold full sway.”

It was a short trip. We were soon on the deck where Mr. and Mrs. Maughan gave me an enthusiastic welcome. The captain took my three companions to their respective cabins, and, acting on their advice, made straight for Constantinople. They were in as much of a hurry as I was to get outside the limits of the territorial waters and to escape the eventual persecutions of a patroller of the Red fleet.

Griselda’s bathroom was a little terrestrial paradise for me. While I shaved with Maughan’s Gillette, Griselda, sitting near the mirror, listened to a brief account of my adventure. At last, she said:

“Gerard, I have never undergone such a nervous strain in
all my life! The first wireless worried me enough. I really believed you were seriously ill in Nikolaïa. And the thought of you, alone, without proper care, abandoned in that Caucasian village, upset me so that I counted the hours between Trébizonde and Nikolaïa. We came in sight of the port at eleven o’clock in the morning. I sent our friend Maughan ashore with the launch. Imagine my surprise when I saw him coming back twenty minutes later with a filthy-looking Russian who had begged an audience with the Princess Séliman. That man, who had all the appearance of an escaped convict, then gave me such a vivid description of your adventures and your condition that I was completely overcome. When I learned that you were incarcerated, exposed to the vindictiveness of a Russian revolutionary and in danger of being shot that very evening, I almost fainted. But you know that I always face danger rather well. Ivanof’s information was too precise to leave any doubt as to its verity. I accepted him as a faithful ally and relied entirely upon his advice. He explained to me that your only chance lay in buying Chapinski’s conscience with fifty thousand dollars. I told him that I would gladly give ten times that to save you. He went off in the launch and came back the same evening about six o’clock with Chapinski. While the latter waited on the deck, Ivanof came to my
salon
and summed up the situation in two minutes:

“ ‘I have succeeded in tempting the local Tchekist delegate.… I told him that if he could bring about the Prince’s escape you would give him fifty thousand dollars. He accepts your proposition on the one condition that you facilitate his escape to some foreign country!’

“Naturally, I promised to do it. He added:

“ ‘Where are the dollars?’

“ ‘I have them all counted out in this napkin,’ I replied, ‘only
one thing bothers me. If I hand them over to Chapinski now, what guarantee have we that we will ever see him again?’

“Ivanof explained unhesitatingly:

“ ‘We must use an old Siberian ruse. We will cut the bills in two. You will give one half to Chapinski, the other half you will keep for yourself. When he has handed over Prince Séliman safe and sound, you will hand him the complement of the bills. Thus, you will have an absolute hold on the Tchekist!’

“Ivanof’s idea seemed excellent. He brought Chapinski to me and we rapidly reached an agreement. I gave him his share of the mutilated money and I let him go, convinced that he would keep his promise. But toward ten o’clock, when the captain was about to send the launch ashore, the wireless operator told us that Nikolaïa was calling. More dead than alive, I went into his office with the captain. He gave me the message signed Ivanof which instructed us to proceed to Batoum. Such a radical change of program perplexed us completely. Why should we go to Batoum when it was so simple to take you on at Nikolaïa? The captain smelled a rat. Mr. and Mrs. Maughan did not know what to say. I was betwixt and between. We argued for half an hour. Finally, I told the captain to take up the anchor. After all, it would have been too tragic to have missed you at Batoum just because we had misinterpreted the telegram. The yacht was already under way when a second message arrived to this effect:
Disregard previous message. Plans changed. Come immediately pick up sick man on dock. Urgent. Ivanof
.

“The captain countermanded his orders and prepared the launch. You know the rest.”

While I dressed myself in a blue flannel suit which Maughan was kind enough to lend me, I gave Griselda the key to the mystery by telling her about Madam Mouravieff’s unexpected intervention. She shivered at the thought that the little
Russian had failed by a hair’s-breadth to turn me over to the executioner. But I appeased this new fit of hysterics by taking Griselda in my arms and kissing her.

All the yacht’s passengers assembled at a buffet supper served in the dining-saloon. I kept the promise I had made to my comrades and presented them successively to Griselda:

“Mr. Ivanof—a pianist virtuoso, who has spent much time in Russian jails. Commandant Lobatchof, of the Imperial Navy, degraded by the Soviets to the more modest post of wireless operator. Comrade Chapinski, ex-delegate of the Tcheka at Nikolaïa—Communist yesterday, capitalist today.”

My friends smiled—Chapinski first of all. Ivanof bowed graciously before the Princess. Lobatchof had already saluted her, his hand to his forehead. Chapinski approached, put his heels together, kissed the Princess’s wrist the way an abbé of the eighteenth century might have done, and said:

“Comrade Princess, I present to you this evening, for the first and last time, my scarlet, Socialist homage, for tomorrow I shall adore once more what I burned up nearly four years ago!”

No one could have admitted his conversion more frankly. We were just taking our places at the table when the captain came down from the bridge. He announced gravely:

“We have passed the limit of the territorial waters.”

And, turning to the three Russians, he added, “You are now, gentlemen, under the protection of the American flag and no commander of a Soviet vessel has the right to arrest you.”

Ivanof, Chapinski, and Lobatchof rose and, facing the Princess, emptied their glasses in honor of the Stars and Stripes. We got up from the table at two o’clock in the morning. In the
passageway, I stopped in the doorway of Griselda’s suite and asked her:

“Dear, would you mind showing me my cabin?”

She naïvely pointed to her own and answered with her ever charming smile, “Darling, can you put up with this little cell after your experience in the prison at Nikolaïa?”

I enfolded Griselda in my arms and we bolted the door behind us. The turbine engines vibrated fiercely. But the yacht scarcely rocked on the calm sea.

She asked, “What are you thinking about, Gerard?”

And I replied, “I am thinking of the very good, the very gentle, and the saintly Madam Mouravieff who made Death an intimate friend of mine and who gave back to me the only woman I have ever loved.”

MONACO. THE
NORTHERN STAR
LAY AT ANCHOR in the harbor alongside of the Prince’s yacht. We had taken lunch on board beneath the blue and orange awning. On the left, the Casino stood like a great cake, garnished angelically with palm trees, far too green. The mountains rose in grayish splendor beneath the heavy sky, spotted with passing clouds. Below, the pink cubes, which form the houses of Turbie, seemed to melt in the sun, like so many raspberry ices on a radiator.

Griselda and Ruth Maughan had gone ashore to do some shopping. I knew that they would soon return laden with rouge, powder, lipsticks, hairpins, expensive perfumes and American lotions in hexagonal bottles, adorned with the profiles of Greek goddesses.

Mr. Maughan had gone to his cabin to get some cigars. I was lounging in my deck-chair. The joy of living again. Perfect quietude. Life is beautiful when one has touched Death’s clammy fingers. I was thinking about our flight across the Black Sea; my farewell to Lobatchof and Chapinski in front of the Golden Horn. For, the latter, swathed in banknotes, wanted to begin all over again in Constantinople. Communist by accident, businessman by vocation, he will one day be a
banker in Pera, a café proprietor in Berlin or an importer of caviar in London. Lobatchof, a student, had also left us. But, like Candide, he regretted his little signal station, where in the shade of the maritime flag, he had cultivated Pouchkine, Emerson, and Schopenhauer. He was going to retire in a tiny house in Disdarié, covered with red roses and surrounded by stalwart trees. Facing the Bosphorus, which invariably incites meditation, he would dream of the days before the Revolution when no one presumed to spit in the corridors of the
Palais d’Hiver
, when the dirty hands of Red guards never stained the Gobelins of the beautiful Kchessinkaïa, and when the virginal chambers of the Smolny Institute were not infested by lousy sailors or by dictators with low foreheads.

My friend Ivanof, my real liberator, had remained on board at Griselda’s insistence. She had promised to finance a concert for him at Carnegie Hall in New York. Seated at the piano, he had charmed away the hours of our crossing and had put my second honeymoon with Griselda to music.

A steward interrupted the train of my thoughts:

“A telegram for you, sir—Jenkins has just come from the local office.”

Doubtless it was from Lady Diana to whom I had cabled from Constantinople. I opened the blue paper:

Surprised beyond words at your unbelievable adventure. Varichkine also. Both congratulate you on your fortunate escape. Our marriage will take place June 26
^th
unless something unforeseen occurs. Ask the Princess Séliman to do me the honor to attend. But, if possible, on receipt of this telegram, come to my castle at Glensloy, Loch Lomond. Want awfully to see you. Have noticed something which disturbs me. Affectionately. Diana
.

Maughan appeared just as I was folding up the dispatch. He joked, “News from the beautiful Irina?”

“No, my dear chap. Lady Diana Wynham invites Griselda and me to her marriage to Varichkine on June twenty-sixth, or in ten days to be exact.”

“She is marrying a Russian? What a singular idea!”

“Worthy only of the ‘Madonna of the Sleeping Cars.’ And besides, you forget that this Russian proletarian of today is worth more than a Grand Duke of another generation since, thanks to him, the Telav concession is going to fill their wedding cup with oil. It’s another one of those savory bits of irony which Destiny, ever an astute trickster, loves to reserve for us. This Communist, in being unfaithful to the Marxian code and in betraying his comrades for the sake of occidental capitalists, is going, through the medium of his future wife, to gather in a portion of the fortune of nationalized Russia. I call it a nice coup. By effecting the Red, he gets the White, and thereby wins the game.”

“How can Lady Diana Wynham, who is always upheld as one of the leaders of British Society, how can a woman who is so notoriously beautiful—”

“But don’t forget that she is almost ruined financially.”

“Nevertheless, how can she, who is considered in New York as one of the Three Graces of Hyde Park, consent to marry a supporter of the Soviets?”

“You don’t understand the situation, my dear friend. It’s a rare thing to find an income of a million dollars in the hands of some old ‘beau.’ The titled heads of the United Kingdom have been hard hit by the war and the consequent taxes. Lady Diana Wynham, who could never be happy without a great deal of money, would have a difficult time choosing a suitable husband among the bachelors, widowers, and divorcés of her own caste. So, she had practically decided to marry, or at least to give her left hand to some
nouveau riche
or to some bloated
manufacturer. Suddenly she discovered a Communist, a sincere destroyer of modern society, a man who tears down with hammer and chisel—granted a fortune, she prefers him. You know Lady Diana’s taste for everything that is strange, new, original, unexpected. A great lady, who having descended from the ancient Scottish kings, marries a Communist to make him the vice-president of an oil company. You can’t beat that! Isn’t that about enough to keep the English newspapermen busy, and to make the transatlantic cables hum? You can imagine what a time your American reporters will have. I can see the headlines now:
‘Sudden conversion of an amorous Communist.’ ‘Lady Diana Wynham marries the Red Hydra!’ ‘From Moscow to Piccadilly!’ ‘Cupid dips his arrows in oil.’
And a hundred more like that!”