When I Was Czar

by Arthur W. Marchmont

Chapter XXI—AT THE SQUARE OF SAN SOPHIA

FROM Czar to street smouch was a big change of parts, and had I had time to think and opportunity to choose, I would have selected a different character.

But I had little conscious thought beyond a burning impatience to get to Helga in the shortest possible time. I was jostled and pushed as I hurried on; now hustled off the side walk, now grazing the house fronts, and at times dodging through the traffic: but all the while pressing on with feverish haste through the people, followed constantly by curses and angry threats from those who shrank from my dirty presence or shouldered me roughly to one side.

There is no lack of disreputable-looking beggars in the streets of Russia’s capital at any time, and at night one drunken man more or less attracts little attention, provided he keeps quiet. I was taken for a drunkard; and my dirt-begrimed face and clothes, my coat slung over my shoulder, my half-bared arms and muddied shirt-sleeves lent colour to the part, as I scrambled and scurried along with a wary eye for the police, whom I avoided with scrupulous care.

I had not much difficulty in finding the square of San Sophia, which had once been a fashionable quarter. It was a dismal-looking cul de sac, with a winding entrance at the southern end, in shape like nothing so much as a tennis racket with a bent handle.

At the entrance stood a woman, who came toward me, half paused, stared sharply at me, and passed on. I guessed she was a spy of some kind, posted there to mark all who entered and left the square.

I lurched past her, keeping up my part of a drunken man, and reeled on into the square—a small open space, unrailed and unprotected, with two or three forlorn-looking stunted trees in a clump in the centre.

From the shelter of these I was able to make out Helga’s house—standing well back in the shadow—a wider, shorter building than the rest, with a deep porch. Not a light showed in any of the windows, a fact that gave me a momentary qualm.

Having assured myself that no one was watching me, I stole out from the trees and made for the porch, knocked gently at the door, and waited. No one came, and fearing to give any noisy summons, I was feeling and peering about for a bell—for inside the porch was very dark—when I heard footsteps in the square. By the flickering lamplight at the entrance I saw the woman who had met me returning in company with a man, and, to my dismay, they came with rapid steps toward the spot where I stood.

I lay down and squeezed myself as close to the side of the porch as possible, trusting that the gloom of the place would prevent them seeing me.