Mr. Harrington looked from one to the other.
‘O my!’ he said. ‘O my!’ It seemed inadequate. ‘Are you going to tell me that that Russian minister was just making a fool of me?’
Ashenden shrugged his shoulders.
‘How can one tell what he was thinking of? He may have a keen sense of humour and perhaps he thought it funny to sign a fifty-million-dollar contract yesterday when there was every chance of his being stood against the wall and shot to-day. Anastasia Alexandrovna’s right, Mr. Harrington, you’d better take the first train that’ll get you to Sweden.’
‘And what about you?’
‘There’s nothing for me to do here any more. I’m cabling for instructions and I shall go as soon as I get leave. The Bolsheviks have got in ahead of us and the people I was working with will have their work cut out to save their lives.’
‘Boris Petrovich was shot this morning,’ said Anastasia Alexandrovna with a frown.
They both looked at Mr. Harrington and he stared at the floor. His pride in this achievement of his was shattered and he sagged like a pricked balloon. But in a minute he looked up. He gave Anastasia Alexandrovna a little smile and for the first time Ashenden noticed how attractive and kindly his smile was. There was something peculiarly disarming about it.
‘If the Bolsheviks are after you, Delilah, don’t you think you’d better come with me? I’ll take care of you and if you like to come to America I’m sure Mrs. Harrington would be glad to do anything she could for you.’
‘I can see Mrs. Harrington’s face if you arrived in Philadelphia with a Russian refugee,’ laughed Anastasia Alexandrovna. ‘I’m afraid it would need more explaining than you could ever manage. No, I shall stay here.’
‘But if you’re in danger?’
‘I’m a Russian. My place is here. I will not leave my country when most my country needs me.’
‘That is the bunk, Delilah,’ said Mr. Harrington very quietly.
Anastasia Alexandrovna had spoken with deep emotion, but now with a little start she shot a sudden quizzical look at him.
‘I know it is, Samson,’ she answered. ‘To tell you the truth I think we’re all going to have a hell of a time, God knows what’s going to happen, but I want to see; I wouldn’t miss a minute of it for the world.’
Mr. Harrington shook his head.
‘Curiosity is the bane of your sex, Delilah,’ he said.
‘Go along and do your packing, Mr. Harrington,’ said Ashenden, smiling, ‘and then we’ll take you to the station. The train will be besieged.’
‘Very well, I’ll go. And I shan’t be sorry either. I haven’t had a decent meal since I came here and I’ve done a thing I never thought I should have to do in my life, I’ve drunk my coffee without sugar and when I’ve been lucky enough to get a little piece of black bread I’ve had to eat it without butter. Mrs. Harrington will never believe me when I tell her what I’ve gone through. What this country wants is organisation.’
When he left them Ashenden and Anastasia Alexandrovna talked over the situation. Ashenden was depressed because all his careful schemes had come to nothing, but Anastasia Alexandrovna was excited and she hazarded every sort of guess about the outcome of this new revolution. She pretended to be very serious, but in her heart she looked upon it all very much as a thrilling play. She wanted more and more things to happen. Then there was another knock at the door and before Ashenden could answer Mr. Harrington burst in.
‘Really the service at this hotel is a scandal,’ he cried heatedly. ‘I’ve been ringing my bell for fifteen minutes and I can’t get anyone to pay the smallest attention to me.’
‘Service?’ exclaimed Anastasia Alexandrovna. ‘There is not a servant left in the hotel.’
‘But I want my washing. They promised to let me have it back last night.’
‘I’m afraid you haven’t got much chance of getting it now,’ said Ashenden.
‘I’m not going to leave without my washing. Four shirts, two union suits, a pair of pyjamas, and four collars. I wash my handkerchiefs and socks in my room. I want my washing and I’m not going to leave this hotel without it.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ cried Ashenden. ‘What you’ve got to do is to get out of here while the going’s good. If there are no servants to get it you’ll just have to leave your washing behind you.’
‘Pardon me, sir, I shall do nothing of the kind. I’ll go and fetch it myself. I’ve suffered enough at the hands of this country and I’m not going to leave four perfectly good shirts to be worn by a lot of dirty Bolsheviks. No, sir. I do not leave Russia till I have my washing.’
Anastasia Alexandrovna stared at the floor for a moment; then with a little smile looked up. It seemed to Ashenden that there was something in her that responded to Mr. Harrington’s futile obstinacy. In her Russian way she understood that Mr. Harrington could not leave Petrograd without his washing. His insistence had given it the value of a symbol.
‘I’ll go downstairs and see if I can find anybody about who knows where the laundry is and if I can, I’ll go with you and you can bring your washing away with you.’
Mr. Harrington unbent. He answered with that sweet and disarming smile of his.
‘That’s terribly kind of you, Delilah. I don’t mind if it’s ready or not, I’ll take it just as it is.’
Anastasia Alexandrovna left them.
‘Well, what do you think of Russia and the Russians now?’ Mr. Harrington asked Ashenden.
‘I’m fed up with them. I’m fed up with Tolstoi, I’m fed up with Turgenev and Dostoievsky, I’m fed up with Chekov. I’m fed up with the Intelligentsia. I hanker after people who know their mind from one minute to another, who mean what they say an hour after they’ve said it, whose word you can rely on; I’m sick of fine phrases, and oratory and attitudinising.’
Ashenden, bitten by the prevailing ill, was about to make a speech when he was interrupted by a rattle as of peas on a drum. In the city, so strangely silent, it sounded abrupt and odd.
‘What’s that?’ asked Mr. Harrington.
‘Rifle firing. On the other side of the river, I should think.’
Mr. Harrington gave a funny little look. He laughed, but his face was a trifle pale; he did not like it, and Ashenden did not blame him.
‘I think it’s high time I got out. I shouldn’t so much mind for myself, but I’ve got a wife and children to think of. I haven’t had a letter from Mrs. Harrington for so long I’m a bit worried.’ He paused an instant ‘I’d like you to know Mrs. Harrington, she’s a very wonderful woman. She’s the best wife a man ever had. Until I came here I’d not been separated from her for more than three days since we were married.’
Anastasia Alexandrovna came back and told them that she had found the address.
‘It’s about forty minutes’ walk from here and if you’ll come now I’ll go with you,’ she said.
‘I’m ready.’
‘You’d better look out,’ said Ashenden. ‘I don’t believe the streets are very healthy to-day.’
Anastasia Alexandrovna looked at Mr. Harrington.
‘I must have my washing, Delilah,’ he said. ‘I should never rest in peace if I left it behind me and Mrs. Harrington would never let me hear the last of it.’
‘Come on then.’
They set out and Ashenden went on with the dreary business of translating into a very complicated code the shattering news he had to give. It was a long message, and then he had to ask for instructions upon his own movements. It was a mechanical job and yet it was one in which you could not allow your attention to wander. The mistake of a single figure might make a whole sentence incomprehensible.
Suddenly his door was burst open and Anastasia Alexandrovna flung into the room. She had lost her hat and was dishevelled. She was panting. Her eyes were starting out of her head and she was obviously in a state of great excitement.
‘Where’s Mr. Harrington?’ she cried. ‘Isn’t he here?’
‘No.?
??
‘Is he in his bedroom?’
‘I don’t know. Why, what’s the matter? We’ll go and look if you like. Why didn’t you bring him along with you?’
They walked down the passage and knocked at Mr. Harrington’s door; there was no answer; they tried the handle; the door was locked.
‘He’s not there.’
They went back to Ashenden’s room. Anastasia Alexandrovna sank into a chair.
‘Give me a glass of water, will you? I’m out of breath. I’ve been running.’
She drank the water Ashenden poured out for her. She gave a sudden sob.
‘I hope he’s all right. I should never forgive myself if he was hurt. I was hoping he would have got here before me. He got his washing all right. We found the place. There was only an old woman there and they didn’t want to let us take it, but we insisted. Mr. Harrington was furious because it hadn’t been touched. It was exactly as he had sent it. They’d promised it last night and it was still in the bundle that Mr. Harrington had made himself. I said that was Russia and Mr. Harrington said he preferred coloured people. I’d led him by side streets because I thought it was better, and we started to come back again. We passed at the top of a street and at the bottom of it I saw a little crowd. There was a man addressing them.
‘“Let’s go and hear what he’s saying,” I said.
‘I could see they were arguing. It looked exciting. I wanted to know what was happening.
‘“Come along, Delilah,” he said. “Let us mind our own business.”
‘“You go back to the hotel and do your packing. I’m going to see the fun,” I said.
‘I ran down the street and he followed me. There were about two or three hundred people there and a student was addressing them. There were some working men and they were shouting at him. I love a row and I edged my way into the crowd. Suddenly we heard the sound of shots and before you could realise what was happening two armoured cars came dashing down the street. There were soldiers in them and they were firing as they went. I don’t know why. For fun, I suppose, or because they were drunk. We all scattered like a lot of rabbits. We just ran for our lives. I lost Mr. Harrington. I can’t make out why he isn’t here. Do you think something has happened to him?’
Ashenden was silent for a while.
‘We’d better go out and look for him,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why the devil he couldn’t leave his washing.’
‘I understand, I understand so well.’
‘That’s a comfort,’ said Ashenden irritably. ‘Let’s go.’
He put on his hat and coat, and they walked downstairs. The hotel seemed strangely empty. They went out into the street. There was hardly anyone to be seen. They walked along. The trams were not running and the silence in the great city was uncanny. The shops were closed. It was quite startling when a motor-car dashed by at breakneck speed. The people they passed looked frightened and downcast. When they had to go through a main thoroughfare they hastened their steps. A lot of people were there and they stood about irresolutely as though they did not know what to do next. Reservists in their shabby grey were walking down the middle of the roadway in little bunches. They did not speak. They looked like sheep looking for their shepherd. Then they came to the street down which Anastasia Alexandrovna had run, but they entered it from the opposite end. A number of windows had been broken by the wild shooting. It was quite empty. You could see where the people had scattered, for strewn about were articles they had dropped in their haste, books, a man’s hat, a lady’s bag and a basket. Anastasia Alexandrovna touched Ashenden’s arm to draw his attention: sitting on the pavement, her head bent right down to her lap, was a woman and she was dead. A little way on two men had fallen together. They were dead too. The wounded, one supposed, had managed to drag themselves away or their friends had carried them. Then they found Mr. Harrington. His derby had rolled in the gutter. He lay on his face, in a pool of blood, his bald head, with its prominent bones, very white, his neat black coat smeared and muddy. But his hand was clenched tight on the parcel that contained four shirts, two union suits, a pair of pyjamas and four collars. Mr. Harrington had not let his washing go.
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Copyright © the Royal Literary Fund
W. Somerset Maugham has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
First published in Great Britain by William Heinemann in 1928
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W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden
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