That brief adventure with “Saint Michel”—she
remembered calling him “Saint Michel”—stood
out as one of the clearest memories of her childhood.
That, and the memory of her mother, kneeling on the
big bearskin rug and saying in a hard, dry voice:
“Never give your heart to any man. Take
everything. But do not give—anything—in
return.”
OUT OF THE FOG
A sudden warning shout, the transient glare of fog-blurred
headlights, then a crash and a staggering blow on
the car’s near side which sent it reeling like
a drunken thing, bonnet foremost, straight into a
motor-omnibus.
Magda felt herself pitched violently forward off the
seat, striking her head as she fell, and while the
car yet rocked with the force of its collision with
the motor-bus another vehicle drove blindly into it
from the rear. It lurched sickeningly and jammed
at a precarious angle, canted up on two wheels.
Shouts and cries, the frenzied hooting of horns, the
grinding of brakes and clash of splintered glass combined
into a pandemonium of terrifying hubbub.
Magda, half-dazed with shock, crouched on the floor
of the car where she had been flung. She could
see the lights appearing and disappearing in the fog
like baleful eyes opening and shutting spasmodically.
A tumult of hoarse cries, cursing and bellowing instructions,
crossed by the thin scream of women’s cries,
battered against her ears.
Then out of the medley of raucous noise came a cool,
assured voice:
“Don’t be frightened. I’ll
get you out.”
Magda was conscious of a sudden reaction from the
numbed sense of bewildered terror which had overwhelmed
her. The sound of that unknown voice—quiet,
commanding, and infinitely reassuring—was
like a hand laid on her heart and stilling its terrified
throbbing.
She heard someone tugging at the handle of the door.
There came a moment’s pause while the strained
woodwork resisted the pull, then with a scrape of
jarring fittings the door jerked open and a man’s
figure loomed in the aperture.
“Where are you?” he asked, peering through
the dense gloom. “Ah!” She felt his
outstretched hands close on her shoulders as she knelt
huddled on the floor. “Can you get up?
Or are you hurt?”
Magda tested her limbs cautiously, to discover that
no bones were broken, though her head ached horribly,
so that she felt sick and giddy with the pain.
“No, I’m not hurt,” she answered.
“Then come along. The car’s heeled
up a bit, but I’ll lift you out if you can get
to the door.”
She stumbled forward obediently, groping her way towards
the vague panel of lighter grey revealed by the open
door.
Once more, out of the swathing fog, hands touched
her.
“There you are! That’s right.
Now lean forward.”
She found herself clasped by arms like steel—so
strong, so sure, that she felt as safe and secure
as when Vladimir Ravinski, the amazingly clever young
Russian who partnered her in several of her dances,
sometimes lifted her, lightly and easily as a feather,
and bore her triumphantly off the stage aloft on his
shoulder.
