The Secret City | Page 9

Michailovna, a girl still, it
seemed, in childhood, pretty, with brown hair, laughing eyes, and a
trembling mouth that seemed ever on the edge of laughter. Her body
was soft and plump; she had lovely hands, of which she was obviously
very proud. Vera dressed sternly, often in black, with a soft white collar,
almost like a nurse or nun. Nina was always in gay colours; she wore
clothes, as it seemed to me, in very bad taste, colours clashing, strange
bows and ribbons and lace that had nothing to do with the dress to
which they were attached. She was always eating sweets, laughed a
great deal, had a shrill piercing voice, and was never still. Ivan
Petrovitch, the uncle, was very different from my Semyonov. He was
short, fat, and dressed with great neatness and taste. He had a short
black moustache, a head nearly bald, and a round chubby face with
small smiling eyes. He was a Chinovnik, and held his position in some
Government office with great pride and solemnity. It was his chief aim,
I found, to be considered cosmopolitan, and when he discovered the
feeble quality of my French he insisted in speaking always to me in his
strange confused English, a language quite of his own, with sudden
startling phrases which he had "snatched" as he expressed it from
Shakespeare and the Bible. He was the kindest soul alive, and all he
asked was that he should be left alone and that no one should quarrel
with him. He confided to me that he hated quarrels, and that it was an
eternal sorrow to him that the Russian people should enjoy so greatly
that pastime. I discovered that he was terrified of his brother, Alexei,
and at that I was not surprised. His weakness was that he was
inpenetrably stupid, and it was quite impossible to make him
understand anything that was not immediately in line with his own
experiences--unusual obtuseness in a Russian. He was vain about his
clothes, especially about his shoes, which he had always made in
London; he was sentimental and very easily hurt.
Very different again was the young man Boris Nicolaievitch Grogoff.

No relation of the family, he seemed to spend most of his time in the
Markovitch flat. A handsome young man, strongly built, with a head of
untidy curly yellow hair, blue eyes, high cheek bones, long hands with
which he was for ever gesticulating. Grogoff was an internationalist
Socialist and expressed his opinions at the top of his voice whenever he
could find an occasion. He would sit for hours staring moodily at the
floor, or glaring fiercely upon the company. Then suddenly he would
burst out, walking about, flinging up his arms, shouting. I saw at once
that Markovitch did not like him and that he despised Markovitch. He
did not seem to me a very wise young man, but I liked his energy, his
kindness, sudden generosities, and honesty. I could not see his reason
for being so much in this company.
During the autumn of 1916 I spent more and more time with the
Markovitches. I cannot tell you what was exactly the reason. Vera
Michailovna perhaps, although let no one imagine that I fell in love
with her or ever thought of doing so. No, my time for that was over.
But I felt from the first that she was a fine, understanding creature, that
she sympathised with me without pitying me, that she would be a good
and loyal friend, and that I, on my side could give her comprehension
and fidelity. They made me feel at home with them; there had been as
yet no house in Petrograd whither I could go easily and without
ceremony, which I could leave at any moment that I wished. Soon they
did not notice whether I were there or no; they continued their ordinary
lives and Nina, to whom I was old, plain, and feeble, treated me with a
friendly indifference that did not hurt as it might have done in England.
Boris Grogoff patronised and laughed at me, but would give me
anything in the way of help, property, or opinions, did I need it. I was
in fact by Christmas time a member of the family. They nicknamed me
"Durdles," after many jokes about my surname and reminiscences of
"Edwin Drood" (my Russian name was Ivan Andreievitch). We had
merry times in spite of the troubles and distresses now crowding upon
Russia.
And now I come to the first of the links in my story. It was with this
family that Henry Bohun was to lodge.

VII
Some three years before, when Ivan Petrovitch had gone to live with
the Markovitches, it had occurred to them that they had two empty