The Crimson Tide: A Novel

“I wondered,” came her wistful voice, “whether, perhaps, you would dine here alone with me this evening.”

“Why do you ask me?”

“Because–I–our last quarrel was so bitter–and I feel the hurt of it yet. It hurts even physically, Jim.”

“I did not mean to do such a thing to you.”

“No, I know you didn’t. But that numb sort of pain is always there. I can’t seem to get rid of it, no matter what I do.”

“Are you very busy still?”

“Yes… I saw–Marya–to-day.”

“Is that unusual?” he asked indifferently.

“Yes. I haven’t seen her since–since she and Vanya separated.”

“Oh! Have they separated?” he asked with such unfeigned surprise that the girl’s heart leaped wildly.

“Didn’t you know it? Didn’t Marya tell you?” she asked shivering with happiness.

“I haven’t seen her since I saw you,” he replied.

Palla’s right hand flew to her breast and rested there while she strove to control her voice. Then:

“Please, Jim, let us forgive and break bread again together. I–” she drew a deep, unsteady breath–“I can’t tell you how our separation has made me feel. I don’t quite know what it’s done to me, either. Perhaps I can understand if I see you–if I could only see you again–”

There ensued a silence so protracted that a shaft of fear struck through her. Then his voice, pleasantly collected:

“I’ll be around in a few minutes.”

She was scared speechless when the bell rang–when she heard his unhurried step on the stair.

Before he was announced by the maid, however, she had understood one problem in the scheme of things–realised it as she rose from the lounge and held out her slender hand.

He took it and kept it. The maid retired.

“Well, Palla,” he said.

“Well,” she said, rather breathlessly, “–I know now.”

His voice and face seemed amiable and lifeless; his eyes, too, remained dull and incurious; but he said: “I don’t think I understand. What is it you know?”

“Shall I tell you?”

“If you wish.”

His pleasant, listless manner chilled her; she hesitated, then turned away, withdrawing her hand.

When she had seated herself on the sofa he dropped down beside her in his old place. She lighted a cigarette for him.

“Tell me about poor old Jack,” he said in a low voice.

Their dinner was a pleasant but subdued affair. Afterward she played for him–interrupted once by a telephone call from Ilse, who said that John’s temperature had risen a degree and the only thing to do was to watch him every second. But she refused Palla’s offer to join her at the hospital, saying that she and the night nurse were sufficient; and the girl went slowly back to the piano.

But, somehow, even that seemed too far away from her lover–or the man who once had been her avowed lover. And after idling-with the keys for a few minutes she came back to the lounge where he was seated.

He looked up from his revery: “This is most comfortable, Palla,” he said with a slight smile.

“Do you like it?”

“Of course.”

“You need not go away at all–if it pleases you.” Her voice was so indistinct that for a moment he did not comprehend what she had said. Then he turned and looked at her. Both were pale enough now.

“That is what–what I was going to tell you,” she said. “Is it too late?”

“Too late!”

“To say that I am–in love with you.”

He flushed heavily and looked at her in a dazed way.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“I mean–if you want me–I am–am not afraid any more–”

They had both risen instinctively, as though to face something vital. She said:

“Don’t ask me to submit to any degrading ceremony… I love you enough.”

He said slowly: “Do you realise what you say? You are crazy! You and your socialist friends pretend to be fighting anarchy. You preach against Bolshevism! You warn the world that the Crimson Tide is rising. And every word you utter swells it! You are the anarchists yourselves! You are the Bolsheviki of the world! You come bringing disorder where there is order; you substitute unproven theory for proven practice!

“Like the hun, you come to impose your will on a world already content with its own God and its own belief! And that is autocracy; and autocracy is what you say you oppose!

“I tell you and your friends that it was not wolves that were pupped in the sand of the shaggy Prussian forests when the first Hohenzollern was dropped. It was swine! Swine were farrowed;–not even sanglier, but decadent domestic swine;–when Wilhelm and his degenerate litter came out to root up Europe! And they were the first real Bolsheviki!”

He turned and began to stride to and fro; his pale, sunken face deeply shadowed, his hands clenching and unclenching.

“What in God’s name,” he said fiercely, “are women like you doing to us! What do you suppose happens to such a man as I when the girl he loves tells him she cares only to be his mistress! What hope is there left in him?–what sense, what understanding, what faith?

“You don’t have to tell me that the Crimson Tide is rising. I saw it in the Argonne. I wish to God I were back there and the hun was still resisting. I wish I had never lived to come back here and see what demoralisation is threatening my own country from that cursed germ of wilful degeneracy born in the Prussian twilight, fed in Russian desolation, infecting the whole world–”

His voice died in his throat; he walked swiftly past her, turned at the threshold:

“I’ve known three of you,” he said, “–you and Ilse and Marya. I’ve seen a lot of your associates and acquaintances who profess your views. And I’ve seen enough.”

He hesitated; then when he could control his voice again: