“I'm Ivan Varensky's wife.”
“You say it proudly, as though I ought to know who Ivan Varensky was.”
She turned her head slowly, wondering at him. “There's only one Ivan Varensky: the man who wanted to be like Christ.”
Hindwood jerked himself into wakefulness. “I'm afraid I need enlightenment. I don't——”
“You do,” she contradicted patiently, “or rather, you will when I've helped you to recall him. How hurt he would be, poor Ivan, that a man of your standing should so soon have forgotten him! He hoped to make such a noise in the world. After Czardom had fallen, he aimed to be a savior, healing men with words. But he wanted to be crucified at once. He cared more for Calvary than for the road that led up to it. He was an emotionalist, impatient of Gethsemane; it was the crown of thorns that he coveted. Having only words with which to save humanity, he dashed all over Russia in special trains, speechifying at every halting-place, foretelling his approaching end. He had no time to waste; he believed his days were numbered. His message was always the same, whether he was addressing the Duma, armies marching into action, or a handful of peasants: he was about to die for Russia. Then suddenly Trotzky and Lenine came. They were men who did things; they overthrew his government. Worse, still, they refused to fulfill his prophecies; instead of executing him, they bundled him into exile. To be forced to live, when he had pledged himself to die, was a more cruel crucifixion than any he had anticipated. He found himself nailed to the cross of ridicule with no one to applaud his sacrifice. He was left with nothing to talk about, for the thing he had talked about had not happened. He was an idealist, an inspirer, a prophet, but because death had avoided him, there was no gospel to write. Having climbed the long road to Calvary, he had the tragedy to survive. Don't think I'm belittling him. I loved him. It was a proud, but not an easy task to be the wife of a man who wanted to be like Christ.”
She collapsed into silence, sitting lost in thought, her arms hanging limply by her sides. He wondered what pictures she was seeing in the fire—armed men marching, revolution, palaces going up in dame.
Of course he remembered the Varensky she had described—the Varensky who, in the darkest hour of the war, had hurled himself like a knight-errant to the rescue of the Allies. It was he who was to have consolidated Russia, leading its millions in an endless tide to the defeat of the enemies of righteousness. It was freedom he had promised; freedom to everybody. He had preached that every man was good in himself, that the things that made men bad were laws. Therefore he had swept all laws aside. He had done away with compulsion, repealed death penalties, thrown prisons wide. For a day and night he had held the stage, a shining figure, adored by despairing eyes. Then the slaves whom he had released from restraints had surged over him. He had vanished, trampled beneath ungrateful feet, and Russia had become a mob.
So this was Varensky's wife! He felt awed. The romantic heroism of her husband's failure clothed her with a wistful sacredness. Three years ago he could not have approached her. He would scarcely have dared to have regarded her as a woman. The hysteria of the moment had canonized her. Streets through which she drove in Petrograd had been lined with kneeling throngs. There had been something medieval in the spontaneity of her worship. It had been rumored that she was a bride immaculate; that her purity was the secret of her husband's strength. Her face made the story credible. It had the virgin innocence of a saint's. And here he was allowed to sit beside her, with three years gone, sharing her hearth in this obscure place of hiding!
“You were a Russian Joan of Arc,” he declared enthusiastically. “How well I remember all the legends one read about you. And Varensky—— It doesn't matter that he failed; his was the most gallant figure of the entire war. When every nation was embittered, he set us an example of how not to hate. He refused to kill, when all of us were slaying. He had the courage of meekness; in that at least he followed Christ. What became of him? There was a report——”
“There have been many reports,” she interrupted sadly. “Lest the latest be true, I wear mourning. I wear mourning for him always. Before his fall I was his perpetual bride; since his fall I am his perpetual widow. He wishes to be dead, so to please him——-”