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The Germ Of Death
by
“A promising adventure,” commented Kennedy, as we bumped along over New York’s uneven asphalt. “Have you ever met Saratovsky?”
“No,” I replied dubiously. “Will you guarantee that he will not blow us up with a bomb?”
“Grandmother!” replied Craig. “Why, Walter, he is the most gentle, engaging old philosopher – “
“That ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship?” I interrupted.
“On the contrary,” insisted Kennedy, somewhat nettled, “he is a patriarch, respected by every faction of the revolutionists, from the fighting organisation to the believers in non-resistance and Tolstoy. I tell you, Walter, the nation that can produce a man such as Saratovsky deserves and some day will win political freedom. I have heard of this Dr. Kharkoff before, too. His life would be a short one if he were in Russia. A remarkable man, who fled after those unfortunate uprisings in 1905. Ah, we are on Fifth Avenue. I suspect that he is taking us to a club on the lower part of the avenue, where a number of the Russian reformers live, patiently waiting and planning for the great ‘awakening’ in their native land.”
Kharkoff’s cab had stopped. Our quest had indeed brought us almost to Washington Square. Here we entered an old house of the past generation. As we passed through the wide hall, I noted the high ceilings, the old-fashioned marble mantels stained by time, the long, narrow rooms and dirty-white woodwork, and the threadbare furniture of black walnut and horsehair.
Upstairs in a small back room we found the venerable Saratovsky, tossing, half-delirious with the fever, on a disordered bed. His was a striking figure in this sordid setting, with a high intellectual forehead and deep-set, glowing coals of eyes which gave a hint at the things which had made his life one of the strangest among all the revolutionists of Russia and the works he had done among the most daring. The brown dye was scarcely yet out of his flowing white beard – a relic of his last trip back to his fatherland, where he had eluded the secret police in the disguise of a German gymnasium professor.
Saratovsky extended a thin, hot, emaciated hand to us, and we remained standing. Kennedy said nothing for the moment. The sick man motioned feebly to us to come closer.
“Professor Kennedy,” he whispered, “there is some deviltry afoot. The Russian autocracy would stop at nothing. Kharkoff has probably told you of it. I am so weak – “
He groaned and sank back, overcome by a chill that seemed to rack his poor gaunt form.
“Kazanovitch can tell Professor Kennedy something, Doctor. I am too weak to talk, even at this critical time. Take him to see Boris and Ekaterina.”
Almost reverently we withdrew, and Kharkoff led us down the hall to another room. The door was ajar, and a light disclosed a man in a Russian peasant’s blouse, bending laboriously over a writing-desk. So absorbed was he that not until Kharkoff spoke did he look up. His figure was somewhat slight and his face pointed and of an ascetic mould.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “You have recalled me from a dream. I fancied I was on the old mir with Ivan, one of my characters. Welcome, comrades.”
It flashed over me at once that this was the famous Russian novelist, Boris Kazanovitch. I had not at first connected the name with that of the author of those gloomy tales of peasant life. Kazanovitch stood with his hands tucked under his blouse.
“Night is my favourite time for writing,” he explained. “It is then that the imagination works at its best.”
I gazed curiously about the room. There seemed to be a marked touch of a woman’s hand here and there; it was unmistakable. At last my eye rested on a careless heap of dainty wearing apparel on a chair in the corner.