Knight Without Armour by James Hilton Read Free Book Online Page B

about eleven, when the building was
already thronged and in almost total darkness. Under the dome stood a
catafalque on which lay an open coffin containing a painted representation of
the dead Christ. Thousands of unlighted candles marked the form of the vast
interior, and Stanfield explained that they were all linked with threads of
gun-cotton. There was no light anywhere save from a few tall candles round
the bier.
    Soon the members of the diplomatic corps arrived, gorgeously uniformed and
decorated, and took up their allotted positions, while black-robed priests
began the mournful singing of the Office for the Dead. Then followed an
elaborate ritual in which the priests pretended to search in vain for the
Body. Despite its touch of theatricalism the miming was deeply impressive.
Then sharply, on the first stroke of midnight, the marvellous climax arrived;
the chief priest cried loudly—’Christ is risen!’ while the
gun-cotton, being fired, touched into gradual flame the thousands of candles.
Simultaneously cannon crashed out from the neighbouring fortress, and the
choir, led by the clergy (no longer in black but in their richest cloth of
gold), broke out into the triumphant cadences of the Easter Hymn. The sudden
transference from gloom to dazzling brilliance and from silence to deafening
jubilation stirred emotions that were almost breath-taking.
    Afterwards, amidst the chorus of Easter salutations the two men sauntered
by the banks of the river. A.J. said how glad he was to have seen such a
spectacle, and Stanfield answered: “Yes, it’s one of the things I
never miss if I happen to be here. I’ve seen it now at least a dozen
times, yet it’s always fresh, and never fails to give me a
thrill.”
    Something then impelled A.J. to say: “I’m particularly glad to
have seen it, because I don’t suppose I’ll ever have the chance
again.”
    “Oh, indeed? You’re only on a visit? You spoke Russian so well
I imagined you lived here.”
    “I do—or rather I have done for some time—but I’m
going away—very soon, I’m afraid—for good.”
    “Really?”
    A.J. was not a person to confide easily, but the difficulty of his
problem, combined with Stanfield’s sympathetic attitude and the
emotional mood in which the Cathedral ceremony had left them both, made it
easy for him to hint that the circumstances of his leaving Petersburg were
not of the happiest. Stanfield was immediately interested, and within half an
hour (it was by that time nearly two in the morning) most of A.J.’s
position had been explained and explored. Once the process began it was
difficult to stop, and in the end A.J. found himself confessing even the
ridiculous suffragette episode which had been the immediate cause of his
departure from England four years before. Stanfield was amused at that.
“So I gather,” he summarised at last, “that you’re in
the rather awkward position of having to leave this country and of having no
other country that you particularly want to go to?”
    “That’s it.”
    “You definitely don’t want to return to England?”
    “I’d rather go anywhere else.”
    “But you must have friends there—a few, at any rate. Four
years isn’t such a tremendous interval.”
    “I know. That’s why I’d rather go anywhere
else.”
    “Don’t you think you’re taking the suffragette affair
rather too seriously? After all, most people will have forgotten it by now,
and in any case it wasn’t anything particularly disgraceful.”
    “Yes, but—there are other reasons—much more important
ones. I—I don’t want to go back to England.” He gave
Stanfield a glance which decided the latter against any further questioning
in that direction. “Besides, even if I were to go back there,
what could I do?”
    “I don’t know, do I? What are your
accomplishments?”
    A.J. smiled. “Very few, and all of them extremely unmarketable. I
can speak Russian, that’s about