l tell you another
thing, Nicolai Leontievitch, I loved your wife myself--loved her
madly--and she was so good to me and so far above me, that I saw that it
was like loving one of the angels. That's what we all feel, Nicolai
Leontievitch, so that you needn't have any fear--she's too far above all
of us. And I only want to be your friend and hers, and to help you in
any way I can."

(I can see Bohun saying this, very sincere, his cheeks flushed, eager.)

Markovitch held out both his hands.

"You're right," he cried. "She's above us all. It's true that she's an
angel, and we are all her servants. You have helped me by saying what
you have, and I won't forget it. You are right; I am wasting my time
with ridiculous suspicions when I ought to be working. Concentration,
that's what I want, and perhaps you will give it me."

He suddenly came forward and kissed Bohun on both cheeks. He smelt,
Bohun thought, of vodka. Bohun didn't like the embrace, of course, but
he accepted it gracefully.

"Now we'll go away," said Markovitch.

"We ought to put things straight," said Bohun.

"No; I shall leave things as they are," said Markovitch, "so that he
shall see exactly what I've done. I'll write a note."

He scribbled a note to me in pencil. I have it still. It ran:

Dear Ivan Andreievitch--I looked for a letter from my wife to you. In
doing so I was I suppose contemptible. But no matter. At least you see
me as I am. I clasp your hand, N. Markovitch.

They went away together.

II

I was greatly surprised to receive, a few days later, an invitation from
Baron Wilderling; he asked me to go with him on one of the first
evenings in March to a performance of Lermontov's "Masquerade" at the
Alexandra Theatre. I say Lermontov, but heaven knows that that great
Russian poet was not supposed to be going to have much to say in the
affair. This performance had been in preparation for at least ten years,
and when such delights as Gordon Craig's setting of "Hamlet," or Benois'
dresses for "La Locandiera" were discussed, the Wise Ones said:

"Ah,--all very well--just wait until you see 'Masquerade.'"

These manifestations of the artistic spirit had not been very numerous
of late in Petrograd. At the beginning of the war there had been many
cabarets--"The Cow," "The Calf," "The Dog," "The Striped Cat"--and these
had been underground cellars, lighted by Chinese lanterns, and the halls
decorated with Futurist paintings by Yakkolyeff