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The three reached the rue de la Pompe and on entering the house, Tchernoff began to take leave of his companions in order to climb the service stairs; but Desnoyers wished to prolong the conversation. He dreaded being alone with his friend, still chagrined over the evening's events. The conversation with the Russian interested him, so they all went up in the elevator together.
"German science," continued Tchernoff, "has given much to humanity, I admit that; but the science of other nations has done as much. Only a nation puffed up with conceit could imagine that it has done everything for civilization, and the others nothing. . . . Apart from their learned specialists, what genius has been produced in our day by this Germany which believes itself so transcendent?
"When our revolution comes," he cried, clasping the hand of the master, "whatever else may perish, this must be saved at any cost!" Tchernoff roused himself from his reveries to look around him and say with sadness: "THEY have passed through here!" Every time that he walked through the Arch, the same vision would spring up in his mind.
Argensola accompanied him, and they returned in a few minutes with the volume, leaving the doors open behind them, so as to make a stronger current of air among the hollows of the facades and the interior patio. Tchernoff placed his precious book under the light. It was a volume printed in 1511, with Latin text and engravings. Desnoyers read the title, "The Apocalypse Illustrated."
She did not win, but continues playing the game because she holds many cards, and she will prolong it for a long time to come. . . . But what she could not do at first, she will never be able to do." For Tchernoff, the final defeat did not mean the destruction of Germany nor the annihilation of the German people. "Excessive patriotism irritates me," he pursued.
Tchernoff bemoaned the great suffering produced by the catastrophe, the thousands and thousands of domestic tragedies that were unrolling at that moment. Apparently nothing had changed. In the centre of the city and around the stations, there was unusual agitation, but the rest of the immense city did not appear affected by the great overthrow of its existence.
The gentleness of Tchernoff, his original ideas, his incoherencies of thought, bounding from reflection to word without any preparation, finally won Don Marcelo so completely over that he formed the habit of consulting him about all his doubts. His admiration made him, too, overlook the source of certain bottles with which Argensola sometimes treated his neighbor.
The only person who knew them at first hand was Tchernoff, and to Argensola's astonishment, he listened to his words without showing any enthusiasm. The Cossacks were for him simply one body of the Russian army good enough soldiers, but incapable of working the miracles that everybody was expecting from them. "That Tchernoff!" exclaimed Argensola.
All I know is that he returned home and drank a whole bottle of champagne to himself, in full satisfaction not that he cared for the wine, for his peasant taste favoured the fiery vodka. On entering Peterhof we were met by the valet Tchernoff, who greeted Rasputin very warmly with some meaning words, and said: "His Majesty is in his private cabinet expecting you. Come."
A Swiss living in his wooden chalet and considering himself the equal of the other men of his country, is more civilized than the Herr Professor who gives precedence to a lieutenant, or to a Hamburg millionaire who, in turn, bends his neck like a lackey before those whose names are prefixed by a von." Here the Spaniard assented as though he could guess what Tchernoff was going to say.