The Crimson Tide: A Novel

CHAPTER VIII

Young Shotwell, still too incredulous to be either hurt or angry, stood watching Palla welcoming her guests, who arrived within a few minutes of each other.

First came Estridge,–handsome, athletic, standing over six feet, and already possessed of that winning and reassuring manner which means success for a physician.

“It’s nice of you to ask me, Palla,” he said. “And is Miss Westgard really coming to-night?”

“But here she is now!” exclaimed Palla, as the maid announced her. “–Ilse! You astonishing girl! How long have you been in New York?”

And Shotwell beheld the six-foot goddess for the first time–gazed with pleasurable awe upon this young super-creature with the sea-blue eyes and golden hair and a skin of roses and cream.

“Fancy, Palla!” she said, “I came immediately back from Stockholm, but you had sailed on the Elsinore, and I was obliged to wait!–Oh!–” catching sight of Estridge as he advanced–“I am so very happy to see you again!”–giving him her big, exquisitely sculptured hand. “Except for Mr. Brisson, we are quite complete in our little company of death!” She laughed her healthy, undisturbed defiance of that human enemy as she named him, gazed rapturously at Palla, acknowledged Shotwell’s presentation in her hearty, engaging way, then turned laughingly to Estridge:

“The world whirls like a wheel in a squirrel cage which we all tread:–only to find ourselves together after travelling many, many miles at top speed!.. Are you well, John Estridge?”

“Fairly,” he laughed, “but nobody except the immortals could ever be as well as you, Ilse Westgard!”

She laughed in sheer exuberance of her own physical vigour: “Only that old and toothless nemesis of Loki can slay me, John Estridge!” And, to Palla: “I had some slight trouble in Stockholm. Fancy!–a little shrimp of a man approached me on the street one evening when there chanced to be nobody near.

“And the first I knew he was mouthing and grinning and saying to me in Russian: ‘I know you, hired mercenary of the aristocrats!–I know you!–big white battle horse that carried the bloody war-god!’

“I was too astonished, my dear; I merely gazed upon this small and agitated toad, who continued to run alongside and grimace and pull funny faces at me. He appeared to be furious, and he said some very vile things to me.

“I was disgusted and walked faster, and he had to run. And all the while he was squealing at me: ‘I know you! You keep out of America, do you hear? If you sail on that steamer, we follow you and kill you! You hear it what I say? We kill! Kill! Kill!–’”

She threw up her superb head and laughed:

“Can you see him–this insect–Palla!–so small and hairy, with crazy eyes like little sparks among the furry whiskers!–and running, running at heel, underfoot, one side and then the other, and squealing ‘Kill! Kill? Kill’–”

She had made them see the picture and they all laughed.

“But all the same,” she added, turning to Estridge, “from that evening I became conscious that people were watching me.

“It was the same in Copenhagen and in Christiania–always I felt that somebody was watching me.”

“Did you have any trouble?” asked Estridge.

“Well–there seemed to be so many unaccountable delays, obstacles in securing proper papers, trouble about luggage and steamer accommodations–petty annoyances,” she added. “And also I am sure that letters to me were opened, and others which I should have received never arrived.”

“You believe it was due to the Reds?” asked Palla. “Have they emissaries in Scandinavia?”

“My dear, their agents and spies swarm everywhere over the world!” said Ilse calmly.

“Not here,” remarked Shotwell, smiling.

“Oh,” rejoined Ilse quickly, “I ask your pardon, but America, also, is badly infested by these people. As their Black Plague spreads out over the entire world, so spread out the Bolsheviki to infect all with the red sickness that slays whole nations!”

“We have a few local Reds,” he said, unconvinced, “but I had scarcely supposed–”

The bell rang: Miss Lanois and Mr. Tchernov were announced, greeted warmly by Palla, and presented.

Both spoke the beautiful English of educated Russians; Vanya Tchernov, a wonderfully handsome youth, saluted Palla’s hand in Continental fashion, and met the men with engaging formality.

Shotwell found himself seated beside Marya Lanois, a lithe, warm, golden creature with greenish golden eyes that slanted, and the strawberry complexion that goes with reddish hair.

“You are happy,” she said, “with all your streets full of bright flags and your victorious soldiers arriving home by every troopship. Ah!–but Russia is the most unhappy of all countries to-day, Mr. Shotwell.”

“It’s terribly sad,” he said sympathetically. “We Americans don’t seem to know whether to send an army to help you, or merely to stand aside and let Russia find herself.”

“You should send troops!” she said. “Is it not so, Ilse?”

“Sane people should unite,” replied the girl, her beautiful face becoming serious. “It will arrive at that the world over–the sane against the insane.”

“And it is only the bourgeoisie that is sane,” said Vanya Tchernov, in his beautifully modulated voice. “The extremes are both abnormal–aristocrats and Bolsheviki alike.”

“We social revolutionists,” said Marya Lanois, “were called extremists yesterday and are called reactionists to-day. But we are the world’s balance. This war was fought for our ideals; your American soldiers marched for them: the hun failed because of them.”

“And there remains only one more war,” said Ilse Westgard,–“the war against those outlaws we call Capital and Labour–two names for two robbers that have disturbed the world’s peace long enough!”

“Two tyrants,” said Marya, “who trample us to war upon each other–who outrage us, crush us, cripple us with their ferocious feuds. What are the Bolsheviki? ‘Those who want more.’ Then the name belongs as well to the capitalists. They, also, are Bolsheviki–‘men who always want more!’ And these are the two quarrelling Bolsheviki giants who trample us–Lord Labour, Lord Capital–the devil of envy against the devil of greed!–war to the death! And, to the survivor, the bones!”

Shotwell, a little astonished to hear from the red lips of this warm young creature the bitter cynicisms of the proletariat, asked her to define more clearly where the Bolsheviki stood, and for what they stood.

“Why,” she said, lying back on the sofa and adjusting her lithe body to a more luxurious position among the pillows, “it amounts to this, Mr. Shotwell, that a new doctrine is promulgated in the world–the cult of the under-dog.

“And in all dog-fights, if the under-dog ever gets on top, then he, also, will try to kill the ci-devant who has now become the under-dog.” And she laughed at him out of her green eyes that slanted so enchantingly.

“You mean that there always will be an under-dog in the battle between capital and labour?”

“Surely. Their snarling, biting, and endless battle is a nuisance.” She smiled again: “We should knock them both on the head.”

“You know,” explained Ilse, “that when we speak of the two outlaws as Capital and Labour, we don’t mean legitimate capital and genuine labour.”

“They never fight,” added Tchernov, smiling, “because they are one and the same.”

“Of course,” remarked Marya, “even the united suffer occasionally from internal pains.”

“The remedy,” added Vanya, “is to consult a physician. That is–arbitration.”

Ilse said: “Force is good! But one uses it legitimately only against rabid things.” She turned affectionately to Palla and took her hands: “Your wonderful Law of Love solves all phenomena except insanity. With rabies it can not deal. Only force remains to solve that problem.”

“And yet,” said Palla, “so much insanity can be controlled by kind treatment.”

Estridge agreed, but remarked that strait-jackets and padded cells would always be necessary in the world.

“As for the Bolsheviki,” said Marya, turning her warm young face to Shotwell with a lissome movement of the shoulders, almost caressing, “in the beginning we social revolutionists agreed with them and believed in them. Why not? Kerensky was an incapable dreamer–so sensitive that if you spoke rudely to him he shrank away wounded to the soul.

“That is not a leader! And the Cadets were plotting, and the Cossacks loomed like a tempest on the horizon. And then came Korniloff! And the end.”