Part 18

Her day was thickly peopled. It needed the flexibility of an experienced practitioner to test and grant the many-sided demands upon her. Monsieur Chinard, her impresario, served admirably in this capacity. Only Susan Rappard treated the man morosely. She called him a Figaro _pris à la retraite_.

In addition, the dancer employed a courier and a secretary.

Several of her adorers had been following her from city to city for months. They were Prince Wiguniewski, a middle-aged American, named Bradshaw, the Marquis Vicente Tavera, of the Spanish legation at Petrograd, Herr Distelberg, a Jewish manufacturer of Vienna, and Botho von Thüngen, a very young Hanoverian, a student in his second year.

These, as well as others who drifted with the group from time to time, neglected their callings, friends, and families. They needed the air that Eva breathed in order to breathe themselves. They had the patience of petitioners and the optimism of children. They were envious of one another’s advantage, knowledge, and witticisms. Each noted with malicious delight if another blundered. They vied zealously for the friendship of Susan, and made her costly presents, in order that she might tell them what her mistress had said and done, how she had slept, in what mood she had awakened, and when she would receive.

Since Count Maidanoff had joined Eva’s circle they had all been profoundly depressed. They knew, everybody knew, who was concealed behind this pseudonym. Against him--mighty and greatly feared--no one hoped to prevail.

Eva consoled them with a smile. They counted for nothing in her eyes. “How are my chamberlains?” she asked Susan, “how do my time-killers kill their time?”

But she was not quite as light and serene of soul as she had once been.

V

She had made the acquaintance of Count Maidanoff in Trouville. She had been presented to him on the promenade, and a far-flung circle of fashionables had looked on. Careful murmurs had blended with the thunder of the sea.

She came home and grasped Susan by the shoulders. “Don’t let me go out again,” she said, pale and breathing heavily. “I don’t want to look into those eyes again. I must not meet that man any more.”

Susan exhausted herself promising this. She did not know who had awakened such horror in her mistress. “Elle est un peu folle,” she said to M. Labourdemont, the secretary, “mais ce grain de folie est le meilleur de l’art.”

The next day Count Maidanoff announced his formal call, and had to be received.

The conventional act of homage, to which he was entitled by his birth, he repaid with a personal and sincere one.

His speech was heavy and slow. He seemed to despise the words, the use of which caused him such exertion. Sometimes he stopped in the middle of a sentence and frowned in annoyance. Between his eyebrows there were two straight, deep lines that made his face permanently sombre. His smile began with an upward curl of the lips, and quivered down into his thin, colourless beard, like the effect of a muscular paralysis.

He went straight and without circumlocution toward his purpose. It was commonly the office of his creatures to clear the road toward his amatory adventures. By doing the wooing himself in this instance he desired to single out its object by an act of especial graciousness.

The cool timidity of the dancer had pleased him at first. Fear was to him the most appealing quality in men. But Eva’s repressed chill in the face of his courteous proposals confused him. His eyes became empty, he looked bored, and asked for permission to light a cigarette.

He talked of Paris, of a singer at the Grand Opera there. Then he became silent, and sat there like some one who has all eternity ahead of him. When he arose and took his leave, he looked as though he were really asleep.

With arms crossed Eva walked about the room till evening. During the night she picked up books which she did not read, thought of things that were indifferent to her, called Susan only to torment her, wrote a letter to Ivan Becker and tore it up again. Finally, in spite of the driving rain, she wrapped herself in a cloak and went out on the terrace.

Maidanoff repeated his visit. At the inevitable point Eva conveyed to him with great delicacy that his expectations were doomed to disappointment. He looked at her with slothful, oblique glances, and condescended to smile. What nonsense, his morose frown seemed thereupon to say.

Suddenly he opened his eyes very wide. The effect was uncanny. Eva bent her head forward in expectation, and spread out her fingers.

He said: “You have the most beautiful hands I have ever seen. To have seen them is to desire to know their touch.”

Three hours later she left Trouville, accompanied by Susan and by M. Labourdemont, and travelled to Brussels, where Ivan Becker was staying.

VI

Becker lived in the suburbs, in a lonely house that stood in a neglected garden. He received her in a tumbled room that was as big as a public hall. Two candles burned on the table.

He looked emaciated, and moved about restlessly, even after he had bidden Eva welcome.

She told him with some haste of her engagement in Russia, which she was about to fulfil, and asked whether he had any commissions to give her. He said that he had not.

“The Grand Duke was attentive to me,” she said, and looked at him expectantly.

He nodded. After a little he sat down and said: “I must tell you a dream I had; or, rather, a hallucination, for I lay with my eyes wide open. Listen!

“About a richly laid board there sat five or six young women. They were in evening dress, with very deep décolletage, and laughed wildly and drank champagne. With frivolous plays on words and seductive gestures, they turned to one who sat at the head of the table. But that one had no form: he was like a lump of dough or clay. The footmen trembled when they approached him, and the women grew pale under their rouge when he addressed them. In the middle of the gleaming cloth there lay, unnoticed by any one, a corpse. It was covered with fruits, and from its breast, between the peaches and the grapes, projected the handle of a dagger. Blood trickled through the joints of the table and tapped in dull drops on the carpet.

“The meal came to an end. All were in a wildly exuberant mood. Then that formless one arose, grasped one of the women, drew her close to him, and demanded music. And while the thunderous music resounded, that lump expanded and grew, and a skull appeared on it, and eyes within that skull, and these eyes blazed in a measureless avidity. The woman that he held became paler and paler, and sought to free herself from his embrace. But long, thin arms grew out of his trunk. And with these he pressed her so silently and so cruelly that she began to moan and turn blue. And her body snapped in two in the middle. Lifeless she lay in his arms, and nothing seemed left of her but her dress. Then the corpse, that lay with pierced breast amid the fruit and sweets, raised its head, and said with closed eyes: ‘Give her back to me.’

“Suddenly many people streamed into that room--peasants and factory workers, soldiers and ragged women, Jews and Jewesses. An old man with a white beard said to the formless one: ‘Give me back my daughter.’ Others who stood behind screamed frantically: ‘Give us our daughters, our brides, our sisters.’ Then peasants pressed forward, and bent to the earth their melancholy faces, and said: ‘Give us our lands and our forests.’ Over all rose the piercing voices of mothers: ‘Give us our sons, our sons.’ The formless one receded step by step into empty space. But even as he receded he assumed a more clearly defined shape. The face, the hands, and the garments were brown as though encrusted with rust or dried slime. The features of the face gave not the least notion of that being’s character, and precisely this circumstance heightened the despair of all beyond endurance. They cried without ceasing: ‘Our brothers! Our sons! Our sisters! Our lands! Our forests, O thou accursed unto all eternity!’”

Eva said no word.

Ivan Becker rested his head upon his hand. “One thing is certain. He has caused so many tears to be shed, that were they gathered into one lake, that lake were deeper than the Kremlin is tall; the blood that he has caused to flow would be a sea in which all Moscow could be drowned.”

He walked to and fro a few times. Then he sat down again and continued: “He is the creator and instigator of an incomparable reign of terror. Our living souls are his victims. Wherever there is a living soul among us, it becomes his prey. Six thousand intellectuals were deported during the past year. Where he sets his foot, there is death. Ruins and fields full of murdered men mark his path. These expressions are not to be taken metaphorically but quite, quite literally. It was he who created the organization of the united nobility, which holds the country in subjection, and is a modern instrument of torture on the hugest scale. The pogroms, the murderous Finnish expedition, the torturing of the imprisoned, the atrocities of the Black Hundreds--all these are his work. He wastes untold millions from the public treasury; he pardons the guilty and condemns the innocent. He throttles the spirit of man and extinguishes all light. He is all-powerful. He is God’s living adversary. I bow before him.”

Eva looked up in astonishment. But Becker did not observe her.

“There is no one who knows him. No one is able to see through him. I believe he is satiated. Nothing affects him any longer except some stimulus of the epidermis. The story is told that sometimes he has two beautiful naked women fight in his presence. They have daggers and must lacerate each other. One must bow down before that.”

“I do not understand,” Eva whispered wide-eyed. “Why bow?”

Becker shook his head warningly, and his monotonous voice filled the room once more. “He has found everything between heaven and earth to be for sale--friendship, love, the patience of a people, justice, the Church, peace and war. First he commands or uses force; that goes without saying. What these cannot conquer he buys. It seems, to be sure, that pressure and force can accomplish things that would defy and wreck ordinary mortals. While hunting bears in the Caucasus his greatest favourite, Prince Szilaghin, fell ill. His fever was high and he was carried into the hut of some Circassians. Szilaghin, by the way, is a creature of incredible corruption--only twenty years old and of astonishing though effeminate beauty. To win a bet he once disguised himself as a cocotte, and spent a night in the streets and amusement resorts of Petrograd. In the morning he brought back a handful of jewels, including a magnificent bracelet of emeralds, that had been given him as tributes to his mere beauty. It was he who fell ill in the mountains. A mounted messenger was sent to the nearest village, and dragged back with him an old, ignorant country doctor. The Grand Duke pointed to his favourite writhing in delirium, and said to the old man: ‘If he dies, you die too.’ Every hour the physician administered a draught to the sick man. In the intervals he kneeled trembling by the bed and prayed. As fate would have it, Szilaghin recovered consciousness toward morning, and gradually became well. The Grand Duke was convinced that the inexorable alternative which he had offered the old physician had released mysterious forces in him and worked something like a miracle. Thus he does not feel nature as a barrier to his power.”

A swift vividness came into Eva’s features. She got up and walked to the window and opened it. A storm was shaking the trees. The ragged clouds in the sky, feebly illuminated by moonlight and arching the darkness, were like a picture of Ruysdael. Without turning she said: “You say no one can penetrate him. There is nothing to penetrate. There is an abyss, dark and open.”

“It may be that you are right and that he is like an abyss,” Ivan Becker answered softly, “but who will have the courage to descend into it?”

Another silence fell upon them. “Speak, Ivan, speak out at last the thought in your mind!” Eva cried out into the night. And every fibre of her, from the tips of her hair to the hem of her gown, was tense with listening.

But Becker did not answer. Only a terrible pallor came over his face.

Eva turned around. “Shall I throw myself into his arms in order to create a new condition in the world?” she asked proudly and calmly. “Shall I increase his opinion of the things that can be bought among men by the measure of my worth? Or do you think that I could persuade him to exchange the scaffold for the confessional and the hangman’s axe for a flute?”

“I have not spoken of such a thing; I shall not speak of it,” said Ivan Michailovitch with solemnly raised hand.

“A woman can do many things,” Eva continued. “She can give herself away, she can throw herself away, she can sell herself, she can conceal indifference and deny her hatred. But against horror she is powerless; that tears the heart in two. Show me a way; make me insensitive to the horror of it; and I shall chain your tiger.”

“I know of no way,” answered Ivan Michailovitch. “I know none, for horror is upon me too. May God, the Eternal, enlighten you.”

The loneliness of the room, of the house, of the storm-ploughed garden, became as the thunder of falling boulders.

VII

Her friends awaited developments in suspense. None expected her to offer Maidanoff any serious resistance. When she seemed to hold out, her subtlety was admired. Paris predicted a radiant future for her. Much public curiosity centred upon her, and many newspaper columns were devoted to her.

When she arrived in Russia it was clear that the authorities and officials had received special instructions. No queen could have been treated with more subtle courtesy. Palatial rooms in a hotel were in readiness and adorned. A slavish humility surrounded her.

When the Grand Duke called, she begged him to rescind the orders that made her his debtor. He devoured her words with a frosty and lurking expression, but remained inactive. She was indignant at this slothfulness of a rigid will, this deaf ear that listened so greedily.

His contempt of mankind had something devastating in it. His slow eyes seemed to say: Man, thou slimy worm, grovel and die!

In his presence Eva felt her thoughts to be so loud at times that she feared he would perceive them.

She ventured to oppose and judge him. A young girl, Vera Cheskov, had shot the governor of Petrograd. Eva had the courage to praise that deed. The Grand Duke’s answer was smooth, and he left quite unruffled. She challenged him more vigorously. Her infinitely expressive body vibrated in rhythms of bitterness and outrage. She melted in grief, rage, and sympathy.

He watched her as one would watch a noble beast at its graceful antics and said: “You are extraordinary, Madame. I cannot tell what wish of yours I would leave ungranted for the reward of winning your love.” He said that in a deep voice, which was hoarse. He had also a higher voice, which had a grinding sound like that of rusty hinges.

Eva’s shoulders quivered. His iron self-sufficiency reflected no image of her or her influence. Against it all forces were shattered.

Twice she saw him change countenance and give a start. The first time was when she told him of her German descent. An inbred hatred against all Germans and everything German filled him. An evil mockery glared in his face. He determined not to believe her and dropped the subject.

And the second time was when she spoke of Ivan Michailovitch Becker. She could not help it; she had to bring that name to the light. It was her symbol and talisman.

A glance like a whip’s lash leaped out of those slothful eyes. The two deep grooves between the eyebrows stretched like the antennæ of an insect. A diagonal groove appeared and formed with the others a menacing cross. The face became ashen.

Susan was impatient. She urged her on and lured her on. “Why do you hesitate?” she said to her mistress one evening. “So near the peak one cannot go back. Remember our dreams in Toledo! We thought they were insolent then. Reality puts us to shame. Take what is given you. Never will your sweet, little dancing feet win a greater prize.”

Eva walked in a circle about the rug. “Be quiet,” she said thoughtfully and threateningly, “You don’t know what you are advising me to do.”

Crouching near the fire-place, Susan’s lightless, plum-like eyes followed her mistress. “Are you afraid?” she asked with a frown.

“I believe I am afraid,” Eva replied.

“Do you remember the sculptor whom we visited in Meudon last winter? He showed us his work, and you two talked art. He said: ‘I mustn’t be afraid of the marble; the marble must be afraid of me.’ You almost kissed him in gratitude for those words. Don’t be afraid now. You are the stronger.”

Eva stood still, and sighed: “Cette maladie, qu’on appelle la sagesse!”

Then Susan went to the piano-forte, and with her fluttering angularity of movement began to play a Polonaise of Chopin. Eva listened for a while. Then she went up to Susan from behind, tapped her shoulder, and said, as the playing ceased, with a dark, strange cooing in her voice:

“If it must be, I shall first live one summer of love, the like of which has not been seen on earth. Do not speak, Susan. Play on, and do not speak.”

Susan looked up, and shook her puzzled head.

VIII

On the day of Eva’s last appearance in Petrograd, a well laid high explosive mine blew up the central building of the Agricultural Exposition.

The plot had been aimed at the person of the Grand Duke. His visit had been expected, the order in which he would inspect the buildings had been carefully mapped out. A slight maladjustment in the machinery of his car delayed him and his train a few minutes beyond the precisely fixed hour.

At the very moment when he put his foot on the first step of the building, a terrific crash resounded. The sky disappeared behind fume and fragments. Several manufacturers and bureaucrats, who had officiously hurried ahead, as well as ten or twelve workingmen, were killed. The air pressure smashed the window panes in all the houses within a mile of the spot.

For a while the Grand Duke stood quite still. Without curiosity or fear, but with an indescribably sombre look, he surveyed the devastation. When he turned to go, the great crowds who had streamed thither melted back silently at his approach. They left him a broad path through which his abnormally long legs, accompanied by the clinking of his sword, strode with the steps of a sower.

For her final performance Eva had selected the rôle of the fettered and then liberated Echo, in the pantomime called The Awakening of Pan. It had always created enthusiasm; but this time she celebrated an unparalleled triumph.

She danced a dance of freedom and redemption, that affected with complete immediacy the nerves of the thronging audiences, and released the tensions of the day of their lives. There was a present and significant eloquence in the barbaric defiance, the fiery terror of the pursued. Then came her sudden rallying, her heroic determination, her grief over a first defeat, her toying with the torch of vengeance, her jubilant welcome of a rising dawn.

The curtain dropped, and the twenty-five hundred people sat as though turned to stone. Innumerable glances sought the box of the Grand Duke and found those slothful, unseeing eyes of his. They saw the slightness and disproportionate length of his body, the sinewy, bird-like neck above the round collar of his uniform, the thin beard, the bumpy forehead, and felt the atmosphere that rolled silently out from him and dwelled in his track--the atmosphere of a million-atomed death. And in the midst of these were those slothful eyes.

Then the applause broke out. Distinguished ladies contorted their bodies, toothless old men yelled like boys, sophisticated experts of the theatre climbed on their seats and waved. When Eva appeared the noise died down. For ten seconds nothing was heard but the sound of breathing and the rustle of garments.

She looked into that gleaming sea of faces. The folds of her white Greek garment were still as marble. Then the storm of applause burst out anew. Over the balustrade of the gallery a girl bent and stretched out her arms, and cried with a sob in her voice, that rose above all the plaudits: “You have understood us, little soul!”

Eva did not understand the Russian words. But it was not necessary. She looked up, and their sense was clear to her.

IX

At midnight she appeared, as she had consented to do, in the palace of Prince Fyodor Szilaghin.

So soon as she was seen, a respectful murmur and then a silence surrounded her. Bearers of the most ancient names were assembled, the most beautiful women of society and of the court, and the representatives of foreign powers. Several gentlemen had already formed a group about her, when Fyodor Szilaghin approached, kissed her hand reverently, and drew her skilfully from the group.

She passed through several rooms at his side. He did his best to fascinate her and succeeded in holding her attention.

There was not a touch of banality about him. His gestures and words were calculated to produce a desired effect with the utmost coolness and subtlety. When he spoke he lowered his eyes a little. The ease and fullness of speech that is characteristic of all Russians had something iridescent in his case. An arrogant and almost cynical consciousness of the fact that he was handsome, witty, aloof, mysterious, and much desired never left him. His eyebrows had been touched with kohl, his lips with rouge. The dull blackness of his hair threw into striking relief the transparent pallor of his beardless face.

“I find it most remarkable, Madame,” he said in a voice of unfathomable falseness, “that your art has not to us Slavs the oversophistication that is characteristic of most Western artists. It is identical with nature. It would be instructive to know the paths by which, from so different a direction, you reached the very laws and forms on which our national dances as well as our modern orchestral innovations are based. Undoubtedly you are acquainted with both.”

“I am,” Eva answered, “and what I have seen is most uncommon. It has power and character and enthusiasm.”

“Enthusiasm and perhaps something more--wild ecstasy,” said the prince, with a significant smile. “Without that there is no great creation in the world. Do you not believe that Christ shared such ecstasy? As for me, I cannot be satisfied with the commonly accepted figure of a gentle and gently harmonious Christ.”

“It is a new point of view. It is worth thinking about,” Eva said with kindly tolerance.