VI.

THE QUEEN OF THE STEPPES

“In the autumn I was in Vienna. One day as I returned from a walk the maid in the _pension_ told me that two ladies were waiting for me in my room. Who but Mrs. Kerr and Eva! My first thought was: Does the mother know? But from her ebullient flow I soon perceived that all was well.

“A long tale. She had come back with the ruby ring and for some time at all events they lived quite comfortably on the proceeds. When they had spent their last, ‘I went,’ she said, ‘and threw myself on the charity of the police authorities, who were very kind and sent the three of us, John, Eva, and myself, by goods train to Vienna. An English lady had taken Zita back to England with her as a companion. Arrived in Vienna, I went straight to the policeman on the platform and said: “Here we are--destitute, without means. What do you propose to do with us?” It’s always better to be downright: no good doing things by half. Once destitute, throw all responsibility on the police. He looked very worried and said: “Follow me,” and took us to the gendarme, who told us to wait in the waiting-room. We waited three or four hours. Meanwhile the first policeman came back, with a confused look and something clenched in his fist. “I am not a rich man,” he said, opening his fist, “but please accept that.” I was touched. 30.000 Kronen--almost two shillings. The gendarme came to invite us into his chief’s office. A nice grey-haired old gentleman. He had tears in his eyes as he looked at the children, and was all milk and honey when I related to him of our Schloss in Meran, now in the hands of the Italians, and said softly: “_Sic transit gloria mundi!_”

“‘Anyhow, they took John off my hands. They put him in an orphanage. You won’t believe how nice it is for him there. Never been so happy before! Warm and cosy and plenty of boys of his own age to play with. And, do you know, he heckles them all and fights them. We visited him the next day, Eva and I. He was at his midday meal. Very good food. But he said, “Mummy, what is the matter with this meat? It chews and chews and doesn’t eat up.” Made them all laugh.

“‘“Me-Too” and I were conveyed to the workhouse. And, fancy, crossing the Landstrasse-Hauptstrasse, we saw two of the Bulgarian students--the thin one and one of the small ones. Eva shouted to them across the street, but they couldn’t hear. The workhouse--not too bad, only no privacy. A huge barrack-like room and lots of low, fallen women who use dreadful language. I don’t like it on Eva’s account. Yesterday, when “Me-Too” came in and left the door open, there was such a volley of abuse from an old hag that I shut my ears so as not to hear. But Eva said never a word, only looked at her like that. You could see the race in her.

“‘We found out your address through police records--they are really so well organised in this town--and, well, we’ve come to see you and to ask if you won’t take us out to some dance or other to-night. We are so tired of the regulation workhouse meals. I still have my smart yellow satin gown in which Khan Balalykin admired me so much and thought I looked like a Queen of the Steppes. And “Me-Too” still has her orange crepe-de-Chine gown. She hid it in her purse--it folds ever so small--when the bailiffs came into our Schloss in Meran and took everything away from us.’

“I expressed my willingness, my pleasure. I asked her tactfully if I could not lend her a little money. She took the note with charming simplicity, ‘on condition,’ she said, ‘that you will let me pay it back later--when things mend up in Russia.’

“At the cabaret, the ‘Nachtlokal,’ which she had selected as being the most elegant according to her husband when in the affluent old days he used to take her to Vienna for the season, she nevertheless complained of the general inferiority and paucity of Vienna night life as compared with that of Petrograd or Moscow, and that brought her back again to Russia. ‘Ach, Russia!... We upper classes in Russia have been thrown in the dirt and trampled on with the muddy feet of the coarse proletariat.’ It would have been heartless for me to remind her of the complete independence of her personal misfortunes of the fate of Russia, heartless and uncalled for, ‘But we will go back and find, I truly expect and believe, our reward in riches and pleasures as yet undreamt of, and then when you come and visit us there, Fyodor Ferdinandovich, we shall have such a binge together as will outshine anything previously known in that line.’

“‘Of course we will,’ I said tenderly, laying my hand on her own.

“‘_I believe in it!_’ she cried, ‘hotly and passionately! In the face of all the calamities and disasters falling upon me, it shall not be said that I have lost faith!’ She looked passionately at the orchestra.

“I filled her champagne glass. The band played doleful music. She touched my arm. ‘But I do not regret these experiences. The kind hearts, the interesting people one comes to meet. That policeman. The grey-haired Colonel’s tears.’ Her eyes filled; and, indeed, she looked at that moment like ‘the Madonna kissing the finger-tips of her Child.’ ‘And, you know, even the workhouse women. That old hag who shouted so at “Me-Too”--well, I’ve chummed up with her. Not a bad woman at heart. She has had a hard life. A great beauty. An early seduction....’

“She sighed. ‘We have no luck. Imagine, my mother has managed to get out of Russia at last and even smuggle through some jewelry, so Eva and I both wrote to her to be quick and send us some money till the authorities can find us situations. But she is in Monte Carlo, gambling heavily, it seems, and writes back: “I can’t. I am bust.’”

“Eva, while her mother talked to me, flirted with me over her mother’s head. ‘Come and talk to me,’ her look seemed to say.

“It was cruel after the dance-supper to take them back in a taxi to the workhouse. But what could I do? I was, after paying for the supper, stony broke myself. I could not have arranged to keep them at an hotel indefinitely, and the authorities who were charged with finding work for them would have discontinued their efforts on their leaving the workhouse.

“A week later, she came in to me, jubilant. They had both got positions, Eva as nurse to small children, Mrs. Kerr as housekeeper to a solitary Austrian colonel. ‘An intellectual, original man. We read Dostoevski together and I am keeping a journal which eventually I hope to develop into a novel. We are both of us so happy, Ferdinand Fyodorovich--’

“‘Fomitch,’ I corrected. ‘My father was called Tom--Foma, in Russian.’

“‘ ...Ferdinand Fomitch, that we want you to take us out this evening, make a night of it. The other night “Me-Too” and I went out to a night club together, to celebrate our release from the workhouse and our good fortune in getting situations so soon, and we struck up an acquaintance with two Russian gentlemen: Ivan Andrèiech Zshikov, and the other: Fyodor Yàkovlevich Suhomlinski. Suhomlinski fell in love at first sight with “Me-Too”; and Zshikov with me. Zshikov has long almond eyes and looks like that into mine all the time. Jokes, little flirtations. Very delightful and charming. From there we went together to another cabaret. In the street some other unknown men fell into step with us, and we all went along together to an underground tavern--like the one in Innsbruck, only larger and gayer. And all the men in love--either with Eva or me. All Russians in exile, huddled together, helping one another to bear up. Very charming and touching. The Hussar Kòlenka Shavèlenkov; Olèg Aleksèiech Pevtsòff, disappointed in love and seeking a meaning in life; and Captain of Lancers, Rotmister von Bologovski. Yes, calls himself “von”--“von Bologovski.” All intellectual, original people. We revel till three in the morning, and, do you know, when Eva had to go back to her charges the mistress made quite a scene, in spite of “Me-Too” explaining to her that she had been out with her mother; and nearly dismissed her. It was her first day there, you see. But I slipped in noiselessly with my latch key; my old Diogenes of a colonel was still snoring, and there are no servants. He leaves early and does not come back till six. So I give little parties when he is away. I try to make a kind of Russian intellectual centre, to attract interesting, original people, a sort of nucleus of the Russian Colony in Vienna. A large dining room. I give them tea with lemon. They feel very pleased. All interesting, well-read people of unconventional views. Zshikov came, and Suhomlinski (to see Eva, who slips in with her elder charges when she can), and also Kòlenka Shavèlenkov, and Olèg Aleksèiech Pevtsòff, the disappointed, and the Lancer Rotmister von Bologovski; all came, drank tea and smoked and argued, very sincerely and passionately, about politics and art. I was very pleased on Eva’s account. Very beneficial and instructive for her. I was sorry Zita wasn’t there. But she writes this morning that she has left the English lady and has taken a post as professional dancing partner at a dancing place in Hammersmith. She is very pleased, for the lady she was companion to she says was a stuffy old thing.’”