HE sat in the small, hot room, in a state of pleased expectancy. He awaited the entrance of something exotic and highly interesting, probably with a beard. The catalogue of the Institute of Foreign Languages had promised him a “native teacher,” and what could a native Russian be but a bearded and mysterious creature?
He looked again through the pages of the unintelligible little red book—all in Russian—and thought with delight of the time to come, when it should be plain as day to him, when he should be able to say, with a casual air, that he could read and speak Russian.
He was anxious, poor young fellow, for some claim to distinction. He was only too well aware of his own ordinariness—a pleasant, friendly sort of mediocrity which distressed him profoundly. He was slight, sandy-haired, wiry, not unattractive, but certainly not fascinating. People liked him but didn’t remember him.
He was not an idiot. He knew well enough that he had no brilliant or remarkable qualities, and therefore, sure that he could not be anything extraordinary, he had decided to do something extraordinary. He had decided, in short, to go to Russia, live there for a long time, and write amazing books about it all.
Why not? He was a journalist; he could and did write articles about everything; he wrote with facility and a certain skill. He had, moreover, a naïve and innocent journalistic point of view. He saw the “human interest” in things. He felt that he would very easily discern the “human interest” in this Russian situation and present it to America in moving terms. His paper was willing to buy the special articles he intended to write, and on the pay for them he would live, Bolshevist fashion, while he collected his material.
He took out his watch. He had paid for an hour, and fifteen minutes of it had already passed. He frowned. After all, you know, he was somebody. He was a newspaper man, and a graduate of Columbia University, and he had paid cash for his twenty lessons, and people had no business to keep him waiting.
He got up, opened the door, and walked about, hoping that his restlessness might be observed from the corridor, and assuaged; but no one passed. All the other doors along the corridor were closed, and he heard a diligent hum, with now and then a French or German word familiar to him, from other teachers and other pupils, properly employed. He had decided to return to the office and “make a row,” and had got himself into the proper mood for one, when he saw a figure hastening along the corridor, and he went back and sat down.
She came in, breathless, sat down beside him, closed her eyes, and placed both hands above her heart. He waited for her to speak with some alarm, she gasped so. She was a plump little woman of indefinite age—forty-five, he imagined—dressed in clothes such as he hadn’t seen for fifteen years. All that she wore was dainty and fresh, with a pitiful sort of elegance—little ruffles of fine lace about her wrists, a bit of black velvet about her high collar. Her very shape was old-fashioned—a succession of curves, a round, tight look, a sort of dowdy neatness.
Nothing more foreign could be imagined. She didn’t stir, and he ventured a look at her face. With her eyes thus closed, her[Pg 15] soft, plump visage had a look of profound sadness and immense wisdom. It impressed him, it almost hypnotized him.
Suddenly she opened her eyes—pale gray eyes, clear and blank.