第17章
"Kazanovitch can tell Professor Kennedy something, Doctor.I am too weak to talk, even at this critical time.Take him to see Boris and Ekaterina."Almost reverently we withdrew, and Kharkoff led us down the hall to another room.The door was ajar, and a light disclosed a man in a Russian peasant's blouse, bending laboriously over a writing-desk.So absorbed was he that not until Kharkoff spoke did he look up.His figure was somewhat slight and his face pointed and of an ascetic mould.
"Ah!" he exclaimed."You have recalled me from a dream.I fancied I was on the old mir with Ivan, one of my characters.Welcome, comrades."It flashed over me at once that this was the famous Russian novelist, Boris Kazanovitch.I had not at first connected the name with that of the author of those gloomy tales of peasant life.Kazanovitch stood with his hands tucked under his blouse.
"Night is my favourite time for writing," he explained."It is then that the imagination works at its best."I gazed curiously about the room.There seemed to be a marked touch of a woman's hand here and there; it was unmistakable.At last my eye rested on a careless heap of dainty wearing apparel on a chair in the corner.
"Where is Nevsky?" asked Dr.Kharkoff, apparently missing the person who owned the garments.
"Ekaterina has gone to a rehearsal of the little play of Gershuni's escape from Siberia and betrayal by Rosenberg.She will stay with friends on East Broadway to-night.She has deserted me, and here I am all alone, finishing a story for one of the American magazines.""Ah, Professor Kennedy, that is unfortunate," commented Kharkoff.
"A brilliant woman is Mademoiselle Nevsky - devoted to the cause.Iknow only one who equals her, and that is my patient downstairs, the little dancer, Samarova.""Samarova is faithful - Nevsky is a genius," put in Kazanovitch.
Kharkoff said nothing for a time, though it was easy to see he regarded the actress highly.
"Samarova," he said at length to us, "was arrested for her part in the assassination of Grand Duke Sergius and thrown into solitary confinement in the fortress of St.Peter and St.Paul.They tortured her, the beasts - burned her body with their cigarettes.
It was unspeakable.But she would not confess, and finally they had to let her go.Nevsky, who was a student of biology at the University of St.Petersburg when Von Plehve was assassinated, was arrested, but her relatives had sufficient influence to secure her release.They met in Paris, and Nevsky persuaded Olga to go on the stage and come to New York.""Next to Ekaterina's devotion to the cause is her devotion to science," said Kazanovitch, opening a door to a little room.Then he added: "If she were not a woman, or if your universities were less prejudiced, she would be welcome anywhere as a professor.See, here is her laboratory.It is the best we - she can afford.Organic chemistry, as you call it in English, interests me too, but of course I am not a trained scientist - I am a novelist."The laboratory was simple, almost bare.Photographs of Koch, Ehrlich, Metchnikoff, and a number of other scientists adorned the walls.The deeply stained deal table was littered with beakers and test-tubes.
"How is Saratovsky?" asked the writer of the doctor, aside, as we gazed curiously about.
Kharkoff shook his head gravely."We have just come from his room.
He was too weak to talk, but he asked that you tell Mr.Kennedy anything that it is necessary he should know about our suspicions.""It is that we are living with the sword of Damocles constantly dangling over our heads, gentlemen," cried Kazanovitch passionately, turning toward us."You will excuse me if I get some cigarettes downstairs? Over them I will tell you what we fear."A call from Saratovsky took the doctor away also at the same moment, and we were left alone.
"A queer situation, Craig," I remarked, glancing involuntarily at the heap of feminine finery on the chair, as I sat down before Kazanovitch's desk.
"Queer for New York; not for St.Petersburg, was his laconic reply, as he looked around for another chair.Everything was littered with books and papers, and at last he leaned over and lifted the dress from the chair to place it on the bed, as the easiest way of securing a seat in the scantily furnished room.
A pocketbook and a letter fell to the floor from the folds of the dress.He stooped to pick them up, and I saw a strange look of surprise on his face.Without a moment's hesitation he shoved the letter into his pocket and replaced the other things as he had found them.
A moment later Kazanovitch returned with a large box of Russian cigarettes."Be seated, sir," he said to Kennedy, sweeping a mass of books and papers off a large divan."When Nevsky is not here the room gets sadly disarranged.I have no genius for order."Amid the clouds of fragrant light smoke we waited for Kazanovitch to break the silence.
"Perhaps you think that the iron hand of the Russian prime minister has broken the backbone of revolution in Russia," he began at length.
"But because the Duma is subservient, it does not mean that all is over.Not at all.We are not asleep.Revolution is smouldering, ready to break forth at any moment.The agents of the government know it.They are desperate.There is no means they would not use to crush us.Their long arm reaches even to New York, in this land of freedom."He rose and excitedly paced the room.Somehow or other, this man did not prepossess me.Was it that I was prejudiced by a puritanical disapproval of the things that pass current in Old World morality?
Or was it merely that I found the great writer of fiction seeking the dramatic effect always at the cost of sincerity?
"Just what is it that you suspect?" asked Craig, anxious to dispense with the rhetoric and to get down to facts." Surely, when three persons are stricken, you must suspect something.""Poison," replied Kazanovitch quickly."Poison, and of a kind that even the poison doctors of St.Petersburg have never employed.Dr.