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I was bewildered and dazzled by the noise and the light. I turned desperately, pushing with my hands as one does in a dream. Then I saw Markovitch and Semyonov. I had no doubt at all that the moment had at last arrived. It was as though I had seen it all somewhere before. Semyonov was standing a little apart leaning against a tree, watching with his sarcastic smile the movements of the crowd.
Ivan Markovitch was weeping and muttering something which it was impossible to catch through the door. The Colonel got up and paced from corner to corner. The long conversation began over again. But then the clock in the drawing-room struck two. The family council was over.
He mumbled something; then, with a sudden gesture, he gripped my arm, and his heavy body quivering with the urgency of his words he said: "It's Vera Markovitch.... I'd give my body and soul and spirit for her happiness and safety.... God forgive me, I'd give my country and my honour.... I ache and long for her, so that I'm afraid for my sanity.
I felt the strange inertia of the spectator in the nightmare, who sees the house tumbling about his head and cannot move. Besides, what action could I take? I couldn't stand over Markovitch, forbid him to stir from the flat, or imprison Semyonov in his room, or warn the police... besides, there were now no police. Moreover, Vera and Bohun and the others were surely capable of watching Markovitch.
He stopped and looked round, then, very slowly, as though he were compelled, gazed with his nervous blinking eyes up at the portrait of the old gentleman with the bushy eyebrows. The two regarded one another for a while, then Markovitch, still moving with the greatest caution, slipped the revolver back into his pocket, got a chair, climbed on to it and lifted the picture down from its nail.
I never discovered that Markovitch was much consulted in these affairs. Vera Michailovna "ran" the flat financially, industrially, and spiritually. Markovitch meanwhile was busy with his inventions. I have, as yet, said nothing about Nicolai Leontievitch's inventions. I hesitate, indeed, to speak of them, although they are so essential, and indeed important a part of my story.
"I saw that the point of Markovitch was that he must have some ideal to live up to. If he couldn't have Vera he'd have Russia, and if he couldn't have Russia he'd have his inventions. When we first came along a month or two ago he'd lost Russia, he was losing Vera, and he wasn't very sure about his inventions. A bad time for the old boy, and you were quite right to tell me to look after him.
She was wearing a white silk dress with blue bows, and all her hair was piled on the top of her head in imitation of Vera but this only had the effect of making her seem incredibly young and naïve, as though she had put her hair up just for the evening because there was to be a party. It was explained that Markovitch was working but would be present at supper.
He had the face, Markovitch told me many weeks afterwards, "of a triumphant man." They had obviously met outside, because Vera said, as though continuing a conversation: "And it's only just happened?" "I've come straight from there," Lawrence answered. Then he went up to her.
"I made the most awful fool of myself," he said. "No, you didn't," I answered. "The trouble of it is," he said slowly, "that neither you nor I see the humorous side of it all strongly enough. We take it too seriously. It's got a funny side all right." "Maybe you're right," I said. "But you must remember that the Markovitch situation isn't exactly funny just now and we're both in the middle of it.
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