Under Western Eyes Page 6

  It must be understood that at that time I didn't know anything of Mr.Razumov's confession to the assembled revolutionists. Natalia Haldinmight have guessed what was the "one thing more" which remained for himto do; but this my western eyes had failed to see.

  Tekla, the ex-lady companion of Madame de S--, haunted his bedside atthe hospital. We met once or twice at the door of that establishment,but on these occasions she was not communicative. She gave me news ofMr. Razumov as concisely as possible. He was making a slow recovery, butwould remain a hopeless cripple all his life. Personally, I never wentnear him: I never saw him again, after the awful evening when I stoodby, a watchful but ignored spectator of his scene with Miss Haldin. Hewas in due course discharged from the hospital, and his "relative"--so Iwas told--had carried him off somewhere.

  My information was completed nearly two years later. The opportunity,certainly, was not of my seeking; it was quite accidentally that I met amuch-trusted woman revolutionist at the house of a distinguished Russiangentleman of liberal convictions, who came to live in Geneva for a time.

  He was a quite different sort of celebrity from Peter Ivanovitch--adark-haired man with kind eyes, high-shouldered, courteous, and withsomething hushed and circumspect in his manner. He approachedme, choosing the moment when there was no one near, followed by agrey-haired, alert lady in a crimson blouse.

  "Our Sophia Antonovna wishes to be made known to you," he addressed me,in his guarded voice. "And so I leave you two to have a talk together."

  "I would never have intruded myself upon your notice," the grey-hairedlady began at once, "if I had not been charged with a message for you."

  It was a message of a few friendly words from Natalia Haldin. SophiaAntonovna had just returned from a secret excursion into Russia, andhad seen Miss Haldin. She lived in a town "in the centre," sharing hercompassionate labours between the horrors of overcrowded jails, and theheartrending misery of bereaved homes. She did not spare herself in goodservice, Sophia Antonovna assured me.

  "She has a faithful soul, an undaunted spirit and an indefatigablebody," the woman revolutionist summed it all up, with a touch ofenthusiasm.

  A conversation thus engaged was not likely to drop from want of intereston my side. We went to sit apart in a corner where no one interruptedus. In the course of our talk about Miss Haldin, Sophia Antonovnaremarked suddenly--

  "I suppose you remember seeing me before? That evening when Natalia cameto ask Peter Ivanovitch for the address of a certain Razumov, that youngman who..."

  "I remember perfectly," I said. When Sophia Antonovna learned that I hadin my possession that young man's journal given me by Miss Haldin shebecame intensely interested. She did not conceal her curiosity to seethe document.

  I offered to show it to her, and she at once volunteered to call on menext day for that purpose.

  She turned over the pages greedily for an hour or more, and then handedme the book with a faint sigh. While moving about Russia, she had seenRazumov too. He lived, not "in the centre," but "in the south." Shedescribed to me a little two-roomed wooden house, in the suburb of somevery small town, hiding within the high plank-fence of a yard overgrownwith nettles. He was crippled, ill, getting weaker every day, and Teklathe Samaritan tended him unweariedly with the pure joy of unselfishdevotion. There was nothing in that task to become disillusioned about.

  I did not hide from Sophia Antonovna my surprise that she should havevisited Mr. Razumov. I did not even understand the motive. But sheinformed me that she was not the only one.

  "Some of _us_ always go to see him when passing through. He isintelligent. We has ideas.... He talks well, too."

  Presently I heard for the first time of Razumov's public confession inLaspara's house. Sophia Antonovna gave me a detailed relation of whathad occurred there. Razumov himself had told her all about it, mostminutely.

  Then, looking hard at me with her brilliant black eyes--

  "There are evil moments in every life. A false suggestion enters one'sbrain, and then fear is born--fear of oneself, fear for oneself. Or elsea false courage--who knows? Well, call it what you like; but tell me,how many of them would deliver themselves up deliberately to perdition(as he himself says in that book) rather than go on living, secretlydebased in their own eyes? How many?... And please mark this--hewas safe when he did it. It was just when he believed himself safeand more--infinitely more--when the possibility of being loved bythat admirable girl first dawned upon him, that he discovered that hisbitterest railings, the worst wickedness, the devil work of his hate andpride, could never cover up the ignominy of the existence before him.There's character in such a discovery."

  I accepted her conclusion in silence. Who would care to question thegrounds of forgiveness or compassion? However, it appeared later on,that there was some compunction, too, in the charity extended by therevolutionary world to Razumov the betrayer. Sophia Antonovna continueduneasily--

  "And then, you know, he was the victim of an outrage. It was notauthorized. Nothing was decided as to what was to be done with him. Hehad confessed voluntarily. And that Nikita who burst the drums of hisears purposely, out on the landing, you know, as if carried away byindignation--well, he has turned out to be a scoundrel of the worstkind--a traitor himself, a betrayer--a spy! Razumov told me he hadcharged him with it by a sort of inspiration...."

  "I had a glimpse of that brute," I said. "How any of you could have beendeceived for half a day passes my comprehension!"

  She interrupted me.

  "There! There! Don't talk of it. The first time I saw him, I, too, wasappalled. They cried me down. We were always telling each other, 'Oh!you mustn't mind his appearance.' And then he was always ready to kill.There was no doubt of it. He killed--yes! in both camps. The fiend...."

  Then Sophia Antonovna, after mastering the angry trembling of her lips,told me a very queer tale. It went that Councillor Mikulin, travellingin Germany (shortly after Razumov's disappearance from Geneva), happenedto meet Peter Ivanovitch in a railway carriage. Being alone in thecompartment, these two talked together half the night, and it was thenthat Mikulin the Police Chief gave a hint to the Arch-Revolutionistas to the true character of the arch-slayer of gendarmes. It looks asthough Mikulin had wanted to get rid of that particular agent of hisown! He might have grown tired of him, or frightened of him. It mustalso be said that Mikulin had inherited the sinister Nikita from hispredecessor in office.

  And this story, too, I received without comment in my character of amute witness of things Russian, unrolling their Eastern logic under myWestern eyes. But I permitted myself a question--

  "Tell me, please, Sophia Antonovna, did Madame de S-- leave all herfortune to Peter Ivanovitch?"

  "Not a bit of it." The woman revolutionist shrugged her shoulders indisgust. "She died without making a will. A lot of nephews and niecescame down from St. Petersburg, like a flock of vultures, and foughtfor her money amongst themselves. All beastly Kammerherrs and Maids ofHonour--abominable court flunkeys. Tfui!"

  "One does not hear much of Peter Ivanovitch now," I remarked, after apause.

  "Peter Ivanovitch," said Sophia Antonovna gravely, "has united himselfto a peasant girl."

  I was truly astonished.

  "What! On the Riviera?"

  "What nonsense! Of course not."

  Sophia Antonovna's tone was slightly tart.

  "Is he, then, living actually in Russia? It's a tremendous risk--isn'tit?" I cried. "And all for the sake of a peasant girl. Don't you thinkit's very wrong of him?"

  Sophia Antonovna preserved a mysterious silence for a while, then made astatement. "He just simply adores her."

  "Does he? Well, then, I hope that she won't hesitate to beat him."

  Sophia Antonovna got up and wished me good-bye, as though she had notheard a word of my impious hope; but, in the very doorway, where Iattended her, she turned round for an instant, and declared in a firmvoice--

  "Peter Ivanovitch is an inspired man."

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