Free Futility by William Gerhardie Page B

heard every now and then, mostly fired in the air, while the law courts had gone up in flames. The revolution, it was felt, had been established.
    Curiously enough I had not seen the Bursanovs on my return to Petrograd until that night. They were just the same. Kniaz sat in the corner of the little drawing-room in his usual chair, and it seemed that the revolution had impressed him. But how it had impressed him no one could have divined. Need I say that the three sisters sat in much the same positions, waiting—waiting for developments? Nikolai Vasilievich was very bitter. He had regarded the war almost as a deliberate attempt of providence to complicate his already very complicated domestic situation, and considering that providence had had the satisfaction of achieving its pernicious end, it seemed he could not understand the necessity of a revolution. “Malignity! Malignity!” he muttered, lowering the blinds, as if to show that he, at any rate, would have nothing to do with it.
    “Nothing noble about it at all!” he answered me.
    And Fanny Ivanovna, who had been sitting silently for some time, looked as if she were entirely of his opinion on that point.
    And then a horrible groan was heard from the adjoining room. I cast a swift interrogative glance at Nikolai Vasilievich. I had an idea that they had hidden some wretched half-mutilated policeman, the victim of a revolutionary mob. But Nikolai Vasilievich and Fanny Ivanovna looked awkward and ashamed. There was, I noticed, a kind of appeal for sympathy in their eyes.
    “That is Fanny Ivanovna’s husband,” said Nikolai Vasilievich apologetically.
    I looked incredulous, and he explained. As Fanny Ivanovna was not married to him, she was a German subject, and when war broke out she was to go back to Germany or be interned in Vologda. She refused to go to Germany till Nikolai Vasilievich had provided for her for life, but as the war had further crippled his finances he was not in a position to give her the money; so they married her to Eberheim, an elderly gentleman of German extraction but a Russian subject. As his nominal wife Fanny Ivanovna was a Russian subject and could live in Russia until such time as the improvement in the working of the gold-mines made it possible for Nikolai Vasilievich to provide for her for life. Then if he could get a divorce from his wife he would marry Zina.
    “Is he wounded?” I asked, scenting revolutionary blood in the air.
    “No—cancer,” said Nikolai Vasilievich. And contrasted with this word painted red, the revolution out of doors seemed pale and trifling.
    “He is going to have an operation in a day or so.”
    “Has he suffered long?” I inquired.
    “Oh, we took him out of hospital,” explained Fanny Ivanovna. “You may think it odd, but he consented to the marriage on condition that we took him home and looked after him. He said that he would not live long in any case and that money was no earthly use to him in his condition: what he wanted was care and comfort. And now the doctors and operations are costing Nikolai Vasilievich a good bit of money, I can tell you. Really, we are most unfortunate people.… And Sonia, too, marrying Baron Wunderhausen, who, as I suspected, is a drag on Nikolai Vasilievich’s resources. Really, he cannot afford it, Andrei Andreiech. The mines—” She waved her hand. Nikolai Vasilievich, with his hands deep in his trouser pockets, stood looking at the window, though the blinds were lowered and there was nothing he could see.
    “The wedding ceremony,” she went on, “was painful. I barely stood it myself. The priest at first refused to marry us. Nikolai Vasilievich had to lead him aside and bribe him. Eberheim’s condition was so bad … critical. It was wicked.… Yet he has a way of lasting. He has lasted now for over two years. One wants to be human to him, but really, Andrei Andreiech, look at us, look at us … us.… And now the revolution. Who
wants
the revolution?”